I have always been skeptical of the idea that the Russian disinformation campaign via social media in 2015-2016 won the election for Trump. The high negatives against Hillary Clinton in areas where people remembered Bill Clinton's betrayal of American workers in working with Republicans to pass the NAFTA and the WTO, plus the racist tropes which Trump's campaign had played in those areas, were, by themselves, enough to turn the vote against Clinton in those areas. Bernie Sanders won Wisconsin, Michigan, and had a lot of support from "Reagan Democrats" in Ohio and Pennsylvania as Sanders spoke to people's better selves and a New Deal type of politics, which had been immensely popular in the period of the 1930s through 1960s. That Sanders performed poorly in black and Latino communities, particularly in the early but significant State primary elections in the South, was more about Sanders not being known, and the manner in which the corporate media ensured the people in those areas did not know or trust Sanders.* And it is important to recognize two other salient facts of corporate media's narrative, which was promoting Donald Trump above everyone else, and the fact that coverage of Clinton's campaign was largely negative in tone and content. See this summary of a report on media coverage in 2015 and 2016 presidential campaigns, for starters.
Notwithstanding my skepticism, we should be more willing to accept where the Russian disinformation campaign can be said to have "worked," which was in the re-enforcement of Trump's campaign strategy, which strategy was to remind white working and upper middle class people in particular Rust Belt States of Clintonian neo-liberal betrayal of white working Americans, and appealing to their sexism and racism, and how this campaign, woven through social media, operated in much in the way corporate media has long "worked"--that is, by pushing what political scientists and literature professors would call a "narrative." We continue to see this even after the 2016 election, as I continue to be amazed at how people on my own Facebook wall promote what is truly false "news." Just in the past week, I have seen, on my FB wall, regular people promote fake quotes from Ocasio-Cortez and B-list movie stars like Ashley Judd, designed to either undermine New Deal politics (Ocasio-Cortez) or else promote anger against Hollywood "liberals" who, they wrongfully believe, are supporting Muslim fundamentalist extremists, and ultimately terrorists. Generally, the memes promoted buy into nearly every sort of anti-"liberal" conspiracy of one type or another. When I have confronted these folks on my FB wall, with Snopes.com, Politifact.com, or direct links showing why the information being promoted is false, the persons often claim this was merely a joke, when the comment from the FB posting persons showed they had believed the meme without recognizing its falsehood. Other times, such persons fall into the old Cold War parlance, saying, well, this was "objectively" true, even if it is not, um, actually true.
A former FBI agent, Clint Watts, has written a book about the Russian use of disinformation and illegal hacking in the 2015-2016 presidential campaign. Mr. Watts states the disinformation the Russians spread, and hacking into DNC emails with the help of Wikileaks and others, had an effect that has, with the election of Trump, ended up advancing Russian foreign policy goals, while sowing further dissension in our nation because of the disinformation. While the ex-FBI agent, Mr. Watts, admits, at the end of this article summarizing an interview Mr. Watts gave to Yahoo!, that it remains impossible to state the extent to which the Russian disinformation and DNC hacking campaign turned the election in those States which gave Trump his Electoral College victory,** he properly recognizes the very openness of social media platforms, where even a nobody like me may offer editorials through this blog or on Facebook to hundreds of people, on a near weekly or, in the case of FB, daily basis, also allows a foreign government to plan and implement a disinformation campaign to re-enforce divisive biases that exist within enough people in our nation, and promote that government's foreign policy goals--much in the way advertisers and propagandists have studied the human psyche to get us to buy products that may not be good for us or we do not need, and much in the same way corporate media has operated to promote pro-corporate and anti-governmental regulation thinking, particularly since the onset of the Cold War (it occurred before then, as noted through the early links in this post, but it was simply not as sophisticated and wide ranging as it is in a wired world in which we live, and where unions no longer are able to provide a counter-narrative to corporate media and well-funded pro-corporate/libertarian think tanks, for example).
That the Republican Party-led Congress is, relatively speaking, not very interested in combating this cyber "warfare" speaks volumes about their compromised position. We know Republicans, during the Cold War, led the overreaction about the Russian menace in order to defeat candidates who supported New Deal policies, which policies had been immensely popular. But the Republicans are now under-reacting because it appears they are either cowed by a potentially compromised president they helped elect or, in the case of those who have also taken money from Russian foreign nationals, are themselves compromised.
Therefore, it remains correct to be highly skeptical regarding any assertion that the Russians won the 2016 election for Donald Trump. But it is wrong to deny the manner in which the Russian disinformation and hacking efforts are promoting a narrative which is influencing American political discourse, and the disinformation appears to work hand-in-glove with right-wing elements wishing to promote racism, white supremacy, right-wing versions of libertarianism that are anti-governmental when the policy discussed is designed to help people, but pro-government when the policy discussed promotes police power, immigration enforcement officers, and the military--and a narrative, ironically for those who have long been opposed to the American Empire's horrid behaviors, that promotes the undermining of American military and diplomatic power around the world in which we all live.
Therefore, it remains correct to be highly skeptical regarding any assertion that the Russians won the 2016 election for Donald Trump. But it is wrong to deny the manner in which the Russian disinformation and hacking efforts are promoting a narrative which is influencing American political discourse, and the disinformation appears to work hand-in-glove with right-wing elements wishing to promote racism, white supremacy, right-wing versions of libertarianism that are anti-governmental when the policy discussed is designed to help people, but pro-government when the policy discussed promotes police power, immigration enforcement officers, and the military--and a narrative, ironically for those who have long been opposed to the American Empire's horrid behaviors, that promotes the undermining of American military and diplomatic power around the world in which we all live.
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*I have also never forgiven John Lewis (D-GA) for his disgusting lie about Sanders supposedly not being involved in the civil rights movement, and his double down lie that, if one reads his phrasing, made it sound as if he had met Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton during the 1960s civil rights movement, in which Lewis participated--when Hillary was in high school pushing for then-anti-civil rights politician Barry Goldwater, and Clinton was busy not inhaling marijuana and likely already beginning to seduce those humans who wore skirts.
**Cliff Watts' book admits, at page 241, that gerrymandering may have also played a role in how Republicans were able to gain power in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. However, Mr. Watts' book appears to ignore the decline of minority vote participation in the 2016 presidential election, either from lack of enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton or Voter ID laws/reduction in places where minorities may vote or even register, etc.
