back
4 comments
The actual senate inquiry's report about the initial 'Russiagate' ended up showing a mere $150,000 in Facebook ads, pointing to one piece of actual news damaging to a certain US party's interests as the proof. That was the breadth of election tampering by 'foreign entities' - $150,000 in crappy Facebook ads, in an election that $4 BILLION is spent every election season. Yet they made SO much noise about it that you'd think actual Russian agents were stealing ballot boxes and stuffing them with false votes. This tirade is still going on since then.

Smells like 2003 again.

...

Its amazing how the US funds NGOs and even directly does propaganda through govt. organs everywhere on the planet to actually meddle in their elections but mounts a stampede if someone does so much as to spend $100k in ads in US elections. Exceptionalist doublespeak.

Every country has the right to spend as much ad money as they want and do as much propaganda as they want in the US elections as long as the US keeps doing the same to every. single. country on the planet except various Pacific island republics.

> the scope and impact remain to be determined.

That’s the thing with all this.

We have abundant evidence that Russia has been running an ongoing destabilization campaign trying to create noise and amplify divisive messages and political movements.

What we don’t know and perhaps can’t know is how effective it is. Would Trump have won in 2016 without Russia? My sense is probably so because he tapped into a deep well of resentment that was already there, but we can’t do the experiment.

This kind of propaganda is most effective when it can find wounds in which to smear salt. They’re not creating our divisions, just trying to use them.

I feel like this focus on Russia is a way for a lot of people in power to avoid looking in the mirror and asking themselves why people are disappointed and angry and therefore so susceptible to this stuff.

If you haven't read the 2020 "Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election" [1] you really should.

> The report concluded that "the Russian government engaged in an aggressive, multi-faceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election".

The scope is broader than you can imagine, the timeline was much longer and the efforts were effective and persist til this day. Sadly most of the people who most need to read and understand the report won't bother. Yes, the Republican lead committee determined there was no direct collusion - which is at least plausible since Putin was ex KGB and knew how to take advantage of "useful idiots" - but still details the extensive efforts Russia made to influence the election starting years before. It's a truly frightening read.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Intelligence_Committe...

Not American, so don’t have a dog in this fight.

But, I’m always surprised that Americans seem to shudder in horror when they hear about supposed election interference…the U.S. has dipped its hands into many other countries’ politics and sometimes outrightly replaced regimes..do they expect that their opponents will just sit down and not try to influence them like the U.S. does elsewhere?