Propaganda works. Ross needs to defend his tribe, but he might take a look at a successful example of domestic propaganda in this Fox News study.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/8/16263710/fox-news-presi...
6
A farrago of deceptive omissions and selective facts. The Russian interference didn't stop with social media posting trolls. It included the following items:
(1) An effort to hack into state election voting roll software and voting machine and tabulation software. One report says 26 states were attacked. Nothing is being done by Trump to stop this in future with mid-terms on the doorstep.
(2) Russian actors setting up at least one meeting we know of with DT Jr. Kushner and others to pitch dirt on Mrs. Clinton.
(3) active collusion with Wikileaks and Assange, no friend of the USA to hack into and distribute material in a highly partisan manner.
(4) Despite a large majority of Congress passing and Trump reluctantly signing a sanctions law against Russia, DT refuses to apply it and obfuscates. DT says nothing negative ever about his BFF Putin. Ponder why, Mr. Douthat and then tell us again why Trump's policy is tough on Moscow, as you assert. Here I add as Rep. Schiff correctly noted that the Obama DHS and State Dept. records on the Russians in 2016 were less than robust (closing two consulates and expelling a few agents??).
(5) If the trolls Russian or native born conspiracy kooks, as the case may be, can get an armed young man to invade a D.C. pizzeria in search of "abused captive children", don't tell me fake postings have no power.
10
When a foreign agent interferes with a election it is a crime. Whether this crime impacted the outcome of the election we probably will never know. But what we don't need is a conservative columnist implying that this illegal behavior is somehow "fake news". If and when the special counsel produces an indictment of either the president or members of his administration - we will remember those who made excuses and supported said individuals. Remember those that condone or support crooks, liars and potentially traitors
are not victims, they are complicit.
6
Mr. Douthat:
I see your bet, and I raise:
The only way Russian meddling could possibly have had any impact on voting decisions made by individuals in the US was by virtue of the hard, diligent and never-ending, years-long barrage of Fake News which Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh and other smoke blowers and obfuscators used to impregnate the minds of the gullible dwelling in the Third World Corners of a country whose educational system was once the envy of the world.
Do you see?
11
Those 78,000 votes in the three swing states always be an unknown. However, there is a real danger in up and coming technical advances in video imagery. Pinscreen'sphoto-realistic avatar technology may soon perfect the ability to make fake videos with the ability to have, say the North Korean leader, or anyone, mouthing a script perfectly and in any kind of a setting. The technology will be so perfect that it can't be detected that it is a fake.
Advance in technology is good. However, with fake news, alternative facts, bots, trolling, who will be able to tell what's up or what's down. This can be used for evil and does not bode well. "Fake videos on the rise." L.A. Times, 2/19/18
2
Thanks for expressing in the Times what is obvious to anyone who doesn't have Trump derangement syndrome--most Americans. This should be helpful in saving the Times from disastrously calling the next election against our most preferred candidate.
1
Democratic candidates in 2016 elections were just weak, especially Hillary who was pushed forward by DNC. Trump had a perfect storm in his back.
Move on, Ross. Sensible Americans have stopped obsessing about the 2016 election, and are focusing on the present danger.
Trump is a disaster who is destroying our nation. The Russians are rubbing salt in our Trump wounds through this evil trolling, sowing discord throughout our system. The alt-Right is despicable. The alt-Right re-tweeted and amplified is criminal. That is what the Russian trolls are doing. They must be stopped.
6
The REAL Russia problem is that the Republican President is helping the Russians, a hostile power, as they seek to destabilize and weaken our nation. Don't be myopic! The President of the USA with the support of his political party is betraying the USA, our military allies, and democracy itself. The Mueller investigation is an important step democratic step in addressing this national security issue. The Republicans are trying to destroy this democratic function, along with others. The President's campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was a professional marketer for Russian-backed dictatorships. The psychosis created by Fox News and right wing media is a fever of deliberate deception, and a third of Americans appear to have no immune system to keep them from succumbing. I repeat: This is a national emergency. Rise up Americans, take action now.
2
The second biggest lie to come out Trump and his followers is that Russian meddling had no effect. The first biggest lie was that Russian meddling never took place. Now that Robert Mueller has definitely proven that denial of the Russian meddling is an outright lie, we need to seriously start evaluating the idea that it had no effect. Of course it had an effect. The cyber campaign was not meant to sway readers of the New York Times. It was meant to sway the same type of people that believed Hillary Clinton was holding children hostage in a pizza parlor. Of course a constant barrage of negative cyber propaganda would affect the perceptions of people who get their facts from Youtube or Facebook. Trump is as illegitimate a president as it is possible to be. And yes, our country was attacked and is still being attacked. Ignoring the effects of cyber warfare is surrendering to the enemy. The real Russian scandal is the people who constantly tell us to ignore the attacks and move on. Many of these voices are Russian Trolls. Its sad to hear this rhetoric from someone like Mr. Douthat.
3
On Facebook alone, according to Facebook itself, the Russians reached 126 million people. Yet "on the evidence we have, nothing they did particularly mattered." Hey Russ: Are you even paying attention?
2
I think in hindsight that these bots and trolls made me think Republicans and Bernie Bros were more misogynist than in reality. Russia is a misogynist culture in general. I wonder if all this misogynist trolling contributed to the emotional energy that welled up into #MeToo. That would be ironic if misogynist Russian trolls provoked a new wave of feminist uprising in the US.
1
Russian manipulation of news feeds is far more serious a threat than is recognized by Mr. Douthat: it is akin to the "grooming" that is done to a potential victims of sexual abuse, to gradually gain their compliance.
Russia's intent is to destroy the credibility of all of our country's institutions: media, government, academia, judiciary, and the point of that is to weaken or better yet, destroy our form of government. This has always been Putin's aim, and he is smart enough to know he can accomplish this without any need for traditional weapons of physical war.
No democracy can survive in the absence of an educated populace. If all becomes tribalism--and that is the intent of the Russian manipulations--anarchy ensues, anarchy of government and society and of reality itself. If no one trusts or believes anyone else, and people can no longer distinguish facts from lies, that heralds the beginning of another Dark Age.
This reality destruction of Putin's would seem to be a much graver threat than simple computer hacking, but given the hacking that has already occurred and continues, we should at the very least be universally returning to the use of paper ballots: who cares if it takes a bit longer to get the results? It is far more important to be assured of the accuracy of the results than to obtain them speedily.
Fighting the computer hacking will prove to be far easier than countering Putin's startlingly effective use trolls.
2
What part of "Motivating Your Base" do you not understand?
1
Ross, how have Republicans ever helped these economically desperate voters? With higher minimum wages? Stronger unions? Tax cuts focused on their income level? More spending on public education? Less opaque 401(k) plan fees? A stronger consumer protection agency? Tighter bank regulation? More subsidies of healthcare costs, including supporting and improving the ACA? No Ross, the Republicans have done absolutely nothing for low income Americans. Not one single thing. All they've done is used smoke and mirrors to make gullible, low information voters think that Republicans are on their side. But they are definitely, clearly not. And you should realize that and stock promoting their lies on the pages of the NY Times.
2
The Russian attacks continued and reinforced the longstanding propaganda of the GOP machine to sully liberalism and moderate and capable leaders like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Why else would white working class laborers vote for a party whose sole agenda is tax cuts for the rich and deregulation of environmental protections?
They listened to Fox News and Rush for years and
voted for the most vile and corrupt fraud ever since this propaganda convinced them that Hillary was crooked.
Think also of the ridiculous Email and Benghazi scandals of Republican politicians as well. All were fabricated diversions that the Russians exploited to harm America and its vulnerable citizens with lies.
1
Douthat shows his petty partisan dishonesty yet again.
I am not surprised. I am just disgusted.
1
Well well. For such a patriot as Douthat to find himself saying, aw, it didn't really matter that much; they probably didn't change that many votes; and tut-tut, liberals are such red-baiters (news flash: nothing all that "red" about Putin's Russia)--all I can say is, how embarrassing for him.
Ross is probably relieved that the trains will run on time.
Ross, you have a point...the massive white turnout for Trump was a vote of desperation. Large segments of America have been in decline for decades; however, white America--unlike much of minority America--isn't used to that and is angry as hell, and quite receptive to fear mongering and worse. The first party which can articulate a genuine way back for them, economically, will succeed. Problem is, that's a lot harder than it sounds with the entrenched money and political power interests.
1
Hmmm Im not sure about that bit about hyper-partisans. im seeing plenty of people on facebook sharing highly dubious stuff. Because these people are my friends Im biting my tongue most of the time and then avoiding them a bit.
2
I think any rational person would agree that the Russians alone didn't get Trump elected. Plenty of Americans arrived at the decision to vote for the former host of The Apprentice on their own. But what Douthat seems to be doing is making an argument against a stance that few actually hold. It isn't fake news that the Russians tried to influence the election. We just don't know how much impact, if any, their efforts had on the election.
History doesn't explore its alternatives, nor should Mr. Douthat. It's not possible to know, either way, whether the trolls moved votes in Florida. He shouldn't try to make they case that the trolls didn't help Trump.
For one thing when he argues, correctly, that the trolls were not masters of the King's English Douthat forgets that the trolling was aimed at the most ignorant sector of the electorate who were looking for red meat, not Shakespeare. The Kremlin social media stuff reportedly got hundreds of thousands of hits. It may have simply reinforced existing passions rather than motivating a single vote but we can't be sure with so much volume.
Having worked in the Cold War from just after Korea until the fall of the Berlin Wall, I do agree Americans need to be careful how we characterize the Kremlin's covert hacking of our democracy. It's not Pearl Harbor and we don't need to sink Russia's Fleet to punish the Kremlin.
Analytically, an attack is an attack and a hack is a hack so I don't understand why Douthat goes all trembly about these quite accurate descriptors. To get Putin to respect us requires that Mueller get to finish his investigation and that Congress and the Executive and undertake vigorous countermeasures to prevent hacking the 2018 elections, measures which will require federal money to bullet proof state run ballot boxes.
Anything less will give aid and comfort to a dangerous adversary.
2
Mr. Douthat, have you missed some of the investigative reporting of your own newspaper? There's a lot more to these events and the Russian interference in the 2016 election, including their success in hacking into 39 states election systems--which apparently is not that hard to do. This is act of cyber warfare is so serious that just this month six heads of U.S. intelligence agencies testified about it. But where is the response that will lead to secure elections? Trump is missing in action.
1) How Hackers Broke Into U.S. Voting Machines http://fortune.com/2017/07/31/defcon-hackers-us-voting-machines
2) "Can U.S. Elections Really Be Stolen? Yes".
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NxXKr2hKCz0
3) "The Insecurity of America's Old and Underfunded Voting Systems" www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2017/07/20/538312289/fresh-air-for-july-2...
7
our country was attacked and like it or not trump was the beneficiary. you seem to diminish that by virtue of both sides being attacked. but most attackes were directed at hillary. a much more sinister result of that is the billions that we will pay to clean up his mess that is yet to come.
3
Mr. Douthat:
I see your bet, and I raise it:
The only way Russian meddling could possibly have had any impact on voting decisions made by individuals in the US was by virtue of the hard, diligent and never-ending, years-long barrage of Fake News with which Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh and other slugs impregnated the minds of the gullible in the Third World Corners of a country whose educational system was once the envy of the world.
Do you see me?
24
I think the logic of this column is flawed. Here is what is missing:
A narrative was created, called "Crooked Hillary", which had been pounded relentlessly into the American consciousness. It started with the stained dress of Bill, hard-to-prove or hard-to-disprove allegations about the Clinton foundation, and the email issue, and ended with James Comey's reopening of the investigation in late October before the election. This either corroborated or gave credence to the impression held by, unfortunately, many in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin that we needed a break from another Clinton. Trump won Michigan by two voters per precinct, and he won the three states by 77,000 votes. He had somehow managed to land blows to the "Crooked Hillary" narrative.
With the Bill Clinton "depends on what the meaning of 'is' is", and the other shaky shenanigans that were either assumed or believed by voters, you had enough to create the mindset: "We need Trump to come in and clean up Washington. We need a chaos candidate. We need a businessman."
All it took for a tired electorate, tired of scandals and dysfunctionality, was a few shreds of evidence that Trump would be a breath of fresh air and could clean up Washington in contrast to the Clinton aura of deception.
The press gulped up the entertainer Trump's style, and his ludicrous gyrations, and you had the right ingredients for the explosion of Trump's monstrous emergence into the oval office.
14
"And the people who believed them, by and large, were probably not the nearly 78,000 Midwestern swing voters who officially determined the election’s Electoral College outcome."
The flaw in your thinking, Mr. Douthat, is that it wasn't just swing voters who swung the election. It was partisan voters ginned up to make it to the polls plus left-leaning voters discouraged from voting by Russian [and other] bashing of Mrs. Clinton. There could easily be 78,000 people in the 3 categories and the correct states influenced by Russian trolling.
10
I find it strange that you state "liberal mandarins in the West... ...face a hard choice when it comes to the populism that gave us Trump, Brexit and right-wing parties and governments in Central and Eastern Europe", when it is the GOP that has either undergone either a fundamental change (or abandonment) of their principles and ideology, or they have finally come to the realization that they have been the party of Trump for the last 38 years, but were either scared to admit it, or thought they were the only one as terrible as themselves. The liberals don't have a hard choice, they just need to liberalize the Democratic party, the votes will follow because that is what the American people truly want. The GOP faces the decision of become an openly white nationalist part, tell themselves, and others that they are really conservatives even as the leaders and part members openly act as say things that show them to be white supremacists, with the elite of the party (which are the actual elite that Republican workers should be scared of) serve the interests of only the corporations and the 0.01%, or they come to terms with this regressive side to their party and work to rid themselves of the rhetoric of hate.
3
True, all the Russians did - in poor and misspelt English - is exploit what is in abundance in American society: the polarization, blue-red divide, and all the other myriad of factors that contribute to a us v them mentality. It's not rocket science folks. May I suggest a deep look into the mirror . . .
The Russian propaganda campaign added valuable second source confirmation to many voters that the lies promulgated by candidate Trump were true. This is the issue democracies face now ... truth has been demeaned, obfuscated, and discredited. One pathological liar will eventually be exposed, but when backed by a chorus, then the lies seem more credible.
If Mr. Douthat does not believe that this is a threat, then I have some Kool Aid for him.
4
Here is a modern American election machine. Do market research to determine what the market wants to buy. Do R & D and come up with some product. Use focus groups to test the marketability of the product. Refine the product for the deepest market penetration. Ideally, find a product that is unique, or at least, uniquely identifiable. Candidate, platform, campaign, vote. Campaign management https://www.localvictory.com/organization/political-campaign-manager.html
If Hearst says, "Puff Graham" https://nyti.ms/2CaLmBs and launches a 60-year career is it wrong for a newspaper to sway public opinion? If A.G. runs Charles Blow columns that never stop calling 45 a racist and sexist, excoriates Republicans, https://www.nytimes.com/column/charles-m-blow is it wrong? If a foreigner-billionaire (Americas richest and most controversial doctor: http://fortune.com/2018/02/06/tronc-los-angeles-times-patrick-soon-shiong/ ) buys major market mass media communication and makes newspaper policy that sways public policy that is favorable to his billionaire business interests, is it wrong?
We need to be clear: HOW and WHY is the politicking and market making the Russians did wrong?
THE ANSWER CANNOT BE BECAUSE CLINTON LOST AND TRUMP WON.
What the Russians did WAS wrong, but HOW and WHY?
4
To damage our nation, the Russian operations didn't have to change the minds of lots of voters. It only had to do enough to make us doubt our democratic processes.
1
When I watched people whom I considered rational thinkers who are willing to compromise turn into pure Hillary haters, the so-called worst of two choices, I am quite sure the memes and fake accounts did work. They were duped twice. Once by the Russians and now by Trump.
4
There are adults, who think rationally.
Ross, you need to get out and spend more time with die-hard Trumpers. Many of them are low-information voters who believe even the stupidest stories that could easily be debunked by checking Snopes. They don't want to check Snopes, they want to believe the dumb story. So, when the Russians promote divisive, phony stories, these folks are perfect targets. And they vote. And in a closely divided electorate, with the peculiarities of our electoral college, small numbers of gullible people -- say, 70,000 -- can swing the election.
The Russians are probably going to microtarget the next electoral college vote with a cleverness that would put sophisticated Republican gerrymandering to shame. And Trump will encourage them.
6
It's been interesting to see the never Trumpers like Douthat and Romney go from loathing Trump, to accepting him, and soon to loving him. They seduction of power is stronger than principles for Republicans of every stripe.
2
Rarely do I agree with Douthat. This is one of those times. Hillary Clinton is the reason Hillary Clinton lost. Around half the voting population hated her guts. Millions more despised her so much that they simply refused to participate in the grotesque choice we were given.
We have to accept the fact that our fellow Americans voted for President Trump. The Russians did not elect him. We did. Stop looking at Russia and start looking in the mirror.
Our country is broken.
2
You mean the right wing and russian propaganda was very effective against Hillary.
Ross, your attitude is naïve and perhaps dangerous. We have no way of knowing exactly the impact of the Russian intrusion, but the election was close... very close. However the bigger problem is that the Russians (or other bad actors) are realizing what a great bargain this type of weaponry is. Why spend billions on armaments when you can overthrow a country with a few hundred poorly paid trolls? The Russians have to be delighted how well it worked. Now, they will continue to refine this type of warfare, and will be back, until they are stopped. Their goal was to weaken the West, perhaps reverse sanctions, and you know what?.. It worked!
5
"How was it that close to begin with?"
I know for a fact from personal experience on social media that the Russian troll factor was successful to some extent in ripping apart the American social fabric. They got some purchase for their efforts because the Fairness Doctrine was dismantled in the 1980s (by guess who) and media monopolies were deregulated so that we could fulfill Nixon's wish of having his own channel. If only he had had Fox News! History would tell a very different story than it's telling now. Don't throw out the baby with the bath water.
2
There is only one political party that is anti-science and anti-teaching critical thinking in the schools; that thinks they make up their own facts; that denies legitimate sources and investigating in favor of conspiracy theories.
That is the GOP that has created the climate into which the Russians spewed toxins. They have been promoting ignorance of both facts and how to assess claims to them. This has been done to obviate the general populace understanding the results of GOP policies in both the governmental and physical realms, such as the environment.
Demeaning knowledge and critical thinking was part of the plan. But with Trump they saw it turned against some of their own candidates; it wasn't only Democrats the Russians acted against. They may be riding the tiger now but when their economic program fails, the only way for them to go will be into full-blown corporate fascism.
3
What is Russia today? The Evil Empire? A kleptocracy run by Don Putin? A nation for reasons unexamined by most Americans standing in the way of of our plans in Syria and Iran?
I just saw a news report with two little girls pleading for help in Syria. Bomds were dropping near enough to them to shake the building they were in. Blame Russia. Put more sanctions on them. But I'm surprised progressives who were right about Vietnam and wrong about Bosnia and Rawanda don't speak out about Syria. At least although powerless to change the situation in Syria, Trump as far as I can tell is less of a war monger than the ivy leagers running our intelligence agencies.
2
Spinning up the base or providing political pornography for hyper-partisans may not move independents left or right, but it could really influence turnouts among them. Witness the spectacles of the pickups at polling places, seems almost like a flash mob !
Spin up democrats leftward to Bernie and Jill Stein. Hillary wins the primary. Spin up Bernie supporters that Hillary is not good enough and spin up Trump supporters that their guy is great. More pickups than Priuses vote.
1
Trump supporters received reinforcement from Russian ads and postings. It is not likely many Trump voters changed their voting based on these items. At the same time the Russians targeted African Americans and urged them to not vote. One study reported that Clinton received only 82 percent of the male AA vote. Russians efforts may have contributed to this result.
You make some good points but missed one very real effect of the Russian trolling of the American mind - suppression of minority voters. The Mueller indictments show that the trolls purposely impersonated black activists in an attempt to suppress their vote and that indeed appeared to have an effect on their turnout.
So while I agree that these Russian efforts probably didn't cause many people to change their vote, how many votes were suppressed through their persistent efforts to poison the well of our democracy?
2
And I heard a Black activist on MSNBC yesterday claim that the general feeling in Black Lives Matter was simply that Hillary "didn't deserve our vote." mostly because of some quote taken out of context
They as well as a lot of Bernie followers somehow had a disconnect that their withholding their votes was not a vote for Trump. No they claimed, they simply weren't voting for Hillary. The narratives that the Russian Bots were pushing was that by with holding their votes they were being self-righteous and pure. And leaders such as Cornel West and Bernie Sanders himself did not choose to point out the illogic of this position. So unfortunately they got what they deserved. The Russians play them for fools, and to this day they still don't get it.
1
This is precisely what we have come to expect from the crowd that would distract us from what is really happening. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Nothing here ladies and gentleman, just move on now. Downplaying this attack does a disservice to all of those it has harmed and the untold damage to our good faith in our fellow citizens and our democracy. It is also the height of naiveté. Russian subversion is still happening and it will be employed to wreck the chances of a fair public discussion for November 2018. For all we know, the same Russian trolls and bots are aimed at stirring up hatred against the likes of Lindsey Vonn or the highschool kids in Florida who are speaking out against gun violence. When the president ignores what he is told by the heads of all the national security agencies that this propaganda campaign poses a credible threat then we must be alarmed, especially since all the evidence thus far points to his having been the beneficiary of this propaganda, if not a willing participate in colluding with it. Russian fixation? Nonsense. This column is willful ignorance of the facts. It would actually be laughable if it weren't so delusional.
1
Once again, thanks so much for your thoughtful article.
Just today Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly all said that the Florida school students protesting lax gun laws are paid actors.
There is no appreciable difference between a Russian bot and the right-wing media. All are liars. None have any scruples or guiding philosphy other than "Dems bad; corporations good."
As an educated conservative, there's little left to do but vote Democrat. At least there's a shred of intellectual honestly on the center/left.
6
This this whole argument is baloney. To see this, simply switch the name Democratic National Committee with the Republican National Committee; and switch the Trump campaign with the Clinton campaign? Who wants to bet that Mr. Douthat would be so sanguine about Russian meddling if Hillary had won? Dear readers, the right wing from Limbaugh to Alex Jones would be roaring about being robbed, ROBBED! and demanding that heads roll. I guess it is their arrogant conviction in their own righteousness that keeps conservatives from choking on their hypocrisy.
4
What frustrates me is that you dwell on what you consider to be unsustainable positions of others. What do you believe in?
1
Our democracy is wide open to manipulation and deception - Rupert Murdoch and Fox News being I think major examples. It's everywhere.
I'm sorry that in the last election so many of my folks - liberal democrats - have been 'useful idiots', so very easily manipulated, to stay home, or to vote against our flawed, but our only, candidate.
Are we learning our lesson?
1
I am afraid to say that for American minds to be trolled in the first place, something fundamental must be missing. Like being able to discern the difference between fact and the fanciful, between what logic alone would deem ridiculous and the blind acceptance of lies. The roots of all of this are decades old. Its not partisan politics, or the closed loop of preaching to the choir, its the absence of the education that can show people how to tell the difference between what is real and and what is not. We are basically, as a country, stupid.
4
It's about the media. Has been since Regan did away with the fairness doctrine.
There has been a concerted effort by the right to control all aspects of the media.
They started with radio, as the likes of Limbaugh spread across the channels to the point of saturation.
The next big hit, was Fox news and TV. They are still working on that, as they try to consolidate even further, by allowing Sinclair to control a huge swath of the country.
We have bit players like the Mercers and Bannon who play around the edges of cyberspace but the granddaddy of them all, maybe Ajit Pai, and his turning the internet over to corporate America.
The Republicans know that they can not win on ideas, and have to use thought control, to have voters swayed their way. It is no surprise that, that parties priorities, do not lay with the country but with the powers who control the message.
2
Huh. I would find Mr. Douthat’s argument more plausible if the GOP were not protesting so much. Apparently McConnell, Ryan, and of course DJT thought the Russians helped enough that they don’t want to stop the interference. Anything for the win in conservative land, I guess.
Douthat negates his argument by admitting that disinformation campaigns actually DO work, whether they're generated by American citizens or by Russians. This much is certain: most states grant the winner of its popular vote ALL of the state's electoral votes, and therefore, though All-American disinformation campaigns did the majority of the damage, any minor damage the Russians caused COULD have made the difference.
Ross,
The Russian government just picked up the Republican's southern strategy, which has worked for decades, and took it the dark side of the online world.
Does the methods used in the Russian operations look familiar? Sure, they do!
If you are wondering why the President and Republicans in Congress are not doing anything about this attack?
Their strategy is working so well without their fingerprints!
2
Many factors may have affected Trump's election and several of those may be regrettable traits in certain Americans. However, while we may criticize people for being swayed by various forms of ignorance and bigotry, there is nothing illegal about allowing those things to sway your judgement in the voting booth. And so while we might examine prejudice and intolerance among voters, Americans are free to allow such traits to influence their judgement. However foreign citizens and governments are not free to meddle in our election process. So we obsess over that which is provable and prosecutable. Simple as that.
Mr. Douthat failed to mention the financial web that the President and his family is tangled up in with the Russians. Robert Mueller and his team are moving in that direction, slowly, but nevertheless moving.
This is a very convincing, clear-headed argument. I'm a confirmed Democrat, but I read Ross because I can count on him to make me think. He gives me some faith that people on the right and left can still communicate, that they can still engage in reasonable debate.
3
Do the DNC and the Clinton campaign have any responsibility in this - for the content of their emails? If they had been straightforward with the voters and had nothing to hide - the hacking would not have made a difference. Hacking is illegal and should be punished, but I'm sure what really affected the outcome of the election was the embarrassing CONTENT of the emails. The authenticity of the content was never questioned.
1
There was nothing important in emails, just some embarrasing information that you would find in any other person's emails.
1
I first became suspicious as a frequent commenter during the Democratic primaries. Any article which was even remotely flattering to Hillary Clinton immediately received a deluge of very negative comments smearing Hillary and praising Bernie. I would bet that the examination of comments during this time would show them running 15 - 20 to 1 against Clinton. I know now that most of these were the results of Russian Bots. What this did was to give the impression of much stronger support for Bernie than actually existed. This proved true when you look at the results of the actual primaries that Hillary won as opposed to the much less democratic and fair caucuses that Bernie won by busing in loads of students. But the Bots along with Bernie's help pushed the idea of rigged primaries. After the primaries when there were only two choices Bernie did nothing to point out to his followers when it happened.
The result was enough withheld votes to give the election to Trump.
2
"Because on the evidence we have, nothing they did particularly mattered."
Douthat has no idea what evidence "we" meaning Mueller's team has. This is standard conservative spin.
Our intelligence agencies have determined that Russian intel has attacked our democracy and there is plenty of evidence of that already, but all we are seeing is the tip of the iceberg. Mueller holds his cards close to the vest, and there's a reason for that; it's necessary to keep Republicans and their accomplices in the Kremlin from subverting American justice.
1
"Trump’s election was, indeed, a sudden shock in a long-running conflict. But it does us no good to pretend the real blow came from outside our borders, when it was clearly a uniquely hot moment in our own cold civil war."
Why can it not be both?
Mr. Douthat, I wonder, do your words have meaning? Influence?
What we say to each other in public is either meaningless, or it's not. Advertising is either pointless - or it's not. Propaganda exists for a reason
1
I agree with Ross that, although the Russia's facebook memes are troubling, they are a drop in the bucket compared to our homegrown demagogues and dupes--not to mention part of a historical continuum that included Soviet-funded influence campaigns throughout the 20th century.
However, it has certainly been interesting watching so many liberals awake--with startling speed and enthusiasm --- to the "grave threat" posed by foreign subversion. It recalls the crazed Air Force general from "Dr. Strangelove," who drinks only grain alcohol and rainwater lest the Russians impurify his bodily fluids. 60 years later, I wouldn't have expected that he would be gaining so many eager followers from the left.
1
A thoroughly disingenuous piece.
"The bottom line is that liberal mandarins in the West ..."
No. The bottom line is whether conservatives begin to develop enough of a social conscience to start acting in the best interests of their country, rather than doing anything they can, no matter how iniquitous, to obtain political advantage.
3
I'm sorry, but Twitter farms that were organized to swiftly lift stories and memes to the top of the pile were cheap, but incredibly effective. If you don't believe me, the comments wave on the NYT times has shown some signs of it in the last couple of months. Just because they picked up crude versions of weapons that already existed here, doesn't mean that we weren't attacked by this foreign power. Their organization and skill in wielding those tools meant they had an outsized impact.
1
Maybe they did change the results, maybe they didn't. There were lots of variables.
The real question that Mueller may or may not answer, but that should be number one in both the administration's and in citizen's minds is : did they learn enough to take targeted approach in 2018 and 2020 to actually make a difference, AND can we stop them if we try?
This is a question that should be dominating security discussions at the highest level, rather than the constant "no collusion" we actually hear.
6
Very, very rich Americans do a lot of propaganda as well. Not to mention paying legislators to vote to give them even more money. And telling the middle class that it's the poor, rather than the rich, who have the money and power that the middle class used to have.
So yes, Mr. Douthat, it's not all about Russians. But why it was so close? Re-read my first paragraph.
8
In fact, the election of Donald Trump was consistent with trends in American politics since 1952. The presidential election of 2016 followed the two Democratic terms of Barack Obama. Only once since 1952 has either party succeeded in winning three presidential elections in a row - the 1988 election of Republican George H.W. Bush after two terms of Republican Ronald Reagan. In other words, for whatever reason, through several generations of American voters and through periods of vastly different political issues, the American voters have tended to alternate the parties in power. Thus, in the presidential election of 2016 it was the Republican party that was supposed to win, regardless of the so-called common wisdom among both Democrats and Republicans that Hillary Clinton was the favorite. The fact that Trump lost the popular voter and squeaked through the electoral college also was not all that uncommon. John Kennedy won by a whisker in 1960 and George Bush won by a hanging chad in 2000. The truth is that political scientists and pundits have little idea why the American voter votes and why the American voter votes for particular candidates. Sorry to disappoint!
5
"to pretend that in trying to crush your fellow countrymen you’re really fighting traitors and subversives and foreign adversaries, to further otherize the domestic out-group by associating them with far-off Muscovy." Sorry they are NOT the out-group! Through gerrymandering, voter suppression and Russian meddling one party (your "out-group") controls legislative and executive branches and, by trashing our constitution, the SCOTUS. Their continued support for Trump and his enablers has led me to conclude that republicans care much more about power than allegiance to our democracy. If their tolerance of Russian interference and attacks on our country makes them look, walk, and quack like traitors, that's their problem.
8
Douthat is solidly with Trump and Republican leaders in his desire that Russian involvement in the 2016 election, other than the hacking of the DNC, should be considered of little consequence and ignored.
I can remember how this Republican columnist has in the past tried to convince us that he is a champion of rule of law and of following the rules, on subjects from immigration to Catholic canon law (where he prefers the Opus Dei position to that of the Papacy). America's laws on interference in our elections by foreign governments are based on opinions opposite to those of Douthat. Not only is any attempted foreign involvement strictly forbidden, for any US citizen to as Kushner and Don Jr. did request it or offer assistance in any way is also felonious. The attempt doesn't have to be effective, there is no need to prove intent or quid pro quo. And Mr. Douthat should read the Federalist Papers, or several works by George Washington (including hiss farewell address) to see how strongly the Founding Fathers rejected Douthat on this subject.
12
Why is the election close? Great question, because on the pure economics roughly 99% of the population would be better off under Democrat/Liberal policies. Either social issues or lies about the economic consequences of Republican policy are diverting roughly half of the electorate against their own economic interests.
For scale, at pre-Reagan inequality levels the bottom 80% of families would be getting $11,000 more per year in income. That's what Populist Democrats want to give back, by higher taxes on the rich to fund healthcare for all and college tuition or trade school, life-long educational credits, a higher minimum wage, and stronger unions.
In contrast, the Trump tax plan actually will impose costs on those earning less than $40,000 (about 40% of the country) starting in 2021 and for those earning less than $75,000 (about 70% of the country) by 2027. In other words, you get a few peanuts today or a small net cost going forward, not the $11,000.
Yet Republicans still would rather have the few dollars, thinking they come out ahead, rather than their healthcare and kids college education paid for. It's pretty amazing, that Fox News brew.
8
"Because on the evidence we have, nothing they did particularly mattered."
Throughout the election campaign, writers like yourself wrote hand-wringing articles wondering how this candidate could have gotten as far as he had. Is it possible, that the Russian propaganda saturating the media helped make him acceptable? ...as in a bandwagon effect. If that were true, would it still be true "nothing they did particularly mattered"?
5
Though the distinction between Russian hacking and Russian propagandizing is valid, Ross really overthinks the topic in the rest of the piece; I mean, Wow!
2
Last year, before the election I began to see comments appearing in the NYT comments with similar grammatical peculiarities and exactly the same far-right, anti-Hillary, pro-Trump arguments. They were usually from a person with a single Americanesque name with a location like "Somewhere in America". Sometimes there would 5 to 10 in a group of 700 comments. Some were closely reasoned, others were Limbaugh-Hysterical, but all read a bit strange. You wanted to ask them a question about baseball as they did to spies in the old movies -- a fact only a "real" American would know -- something about the Bambino or the King of Swat or someone's ERA.
On other sites, astute commenters ofter reply to the obvious trolls by addressing them as Boris or Natasha with questions about the local weather in Russia.
These trolls give the impression that there is another side to issues where actually there is not. False equivalences abound. An honest, honorable person may wonder -- maybe there is another side -- when there is not, sometimes the truth is just the truth.
I'm sure that some of the comments herein that seek to diminish the importance of these trolls are from trolls.
10
'They were usually from a person with a single Americanesque name with a location like "Somewhere in America".'
That description fits "Allen New York".
"I'm sure that some of the comments herein that seek to diminish the importance of these trolls are from trolls."
The alleged Russian strategy is to provoke divisiveness. You seem to be doing that.
4
Yes. I've seen many little clumps of such peculiar comments, seemingly often somewhere around 35 recommends, both saying essentially the same thing. Concerted efforts to make the comments, contrive a few dozen recommends, and move on certainly sounds plausible. Get the thought out there and vanish.
So my take-a-way from what you are trying to say in the most roundabout way possible is that you are quite certain, in fact incontrovertibly so, that 78000 people were not influenced at all by Russian meddling. What is your figure? 72000 with the other 6000 being too dumb to be allowed to vote?
Well my figure is 1.2 m people "were" influenced by Russian meddling and my figure, pulled completely out of my hat is just as good and valid as yours. Because neither you nor I have any evidence to back up what we think.
In reality we should probably be looking at the vote counting software. But that horse may have long left the barn.
My only other option is that a large portion of this country are misogynist, racist, bigots.
I think I'll stick with the Russian theory.
8
A pathetic attempt to counter Friedman's passionate take on the Russian trolls and Trump's pretense that there is no problem there...
2
"The real scandal involves the Russian hacking operation against the Democratic National Committee. This was a genuine crime, a meaningful theft, which led to a series of leaks"
Douthat writes that without mention that the leaks were the truth, and that they revealed lies and cheating by the candidate.
Had Trump's tax returns been leaked, to reveal lies and cheating, that would not go without mention.
7
And if cherry picked leaked emails from the Trump and the Sanders campaign had been released What do you think we would have found? Give me a break!
1
So glad to see someone at the NY Times have the good sense to define the irrelevance of that pathetic Russian attempt to influence the election via social media.
7
October 19, 2016, final presidential debate: “No puppet. No puppet,” says Trump, shaking his head.
Yes. puppet.
11
The "Trolling of the American Mind" gave us "Pizzagate", which could have been, if not for poor marksmanship, might have been one more gun tragedy.
12
The response seems to be "What? Me worry?".
1
Though I'm a considered a liberal, and at worst a left-leaning moderate, I am in agreement with the content of this article's main point: How was it [the 2018 US Presidential election] that close to begin with? I am more worried about the real polarization in our country, than the various representatives of that polarization, aka Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Newt Gingrich, etc. I am also keenly interested in the real history of conflicts like this. It seems to me that the closest thing in US history to our current situation is the Guilded Age of the 1880s, with its massive immigration, labor unrest, incredible economic inequality, and inevitable reactionary nativism.
6
I like this article for its presentation of a pressing paradox; I only wish Mr. Douthat had followed his own logic a bit further.
The article implicitly defends the polarizing populist attitude of the new (or alt-) right, on the basis that too much attention paid to more recently revealed elements of the Russian case would alienating of that attitude as un-American and, in short, too polarizing.
There is a great deal of faith in democracy here: Acknowledge the polarizing attitude, he says, bring it back into the fold of mainstream politics, and maybe it won't be so polarizing.
Maybe.
To minimize the importance of the Russian penetration of our electoral system by whatever digital means possible is merely to attempt to add plausibility to Republican and Trumpian deniability. We have been invaded by any reasonable measure and this Russian "digital" invasion cannot be written off as meaningless by anyone who is concerned about the future of our democracy.
3
Let's agree that the Russian kleptocracy had been somewhat clumsy in its initial attempts at stirring discord within the electorate, and that the American propagandists are much more experienced at such things. One thing the Mueller indictment makes quite clear is that the Russians are outside the long arm of our law - none of the people or organizations indicted will likely see the inside of an American courtroom, according to the talking heads with legal cred. The stolen emails were released at suspiciously propitious moments for the Trump campaign. And of course, there was Trump's famous plea for the Russians to do more hacking.
The Republican propagandists can teach the Russians a lot about how to stir up passion in American minds to get them to act against their self interest. As long as the two are openly colluding, this will only get worse. The Russians may have been non-partisan in the beginning, but now are clearly aligned with one party. There has been reporting that the Russians were pushing the #ReleaseTheMemo, and it got released, while the Democratic memo didn't get released. Now their bots are pushing pro-gun hysteria after the mass murder in Florida. Do you think the Russians won't get better at it?
President Trump said the Russians are laughing at us. I'm sure they are. I'm sure they are also laughing at Mr. Douthat's column today.
2
All I see is fake-news spread about by Russian authorities. People argue as to effectiveness.
It is a little bit like the flu virus. It will have an impact on the young, as they are trying to build their immune system and the old who are on the descending side of things.
As far as the impact of the Russian disinformation campaign, it works on the "weak" also. In this case it means mostly on the uncurious. Their mind is static and, as such, getting further and further away in the rear-view mirror.
Life by definition means motion, adaptation, dynamism.
We have successfully dumbed down the population. The inability of the US population to show some skepticism and investigate the value of the content they receive will just continue. Don't blame the Russians blame ourselves.
5
Russian trolls as bad as the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor ? A bit of a stretch . Russia hacked the DNC ?
Somebody hacked the DNC . What is rarely reported was the content of what was hacked . To wit : Clinton was undermining Sanders. The leaked info would help Sanders out: Russia wouldn’t benefit .
Lately, the word Russia has turned into an all purpose excuse as to why the US is failing. Everything is Russia’s fault .Soon our CIA may obliterate Moscow and Clinton will run again and lose . Case closed : everything is not Russia’s fault .
6
Trump is a huge reason why the US is failing. Russian interference to get him improbably elected is obviously Russia's fault.
If the Russian Mob’s attacks on our elections had resulted in Sec. Clinton becoming President, hair-on-fire comparisons to Pearl Harbor and 9/11 would be all the GOP was talking about. One cannot discuss single-payer healthcare or a living wage for all without being called a Communist, and that has been the GOP playbook for decades. The fact is that the GOP has no problem with the Putin Gang because they are gangsters, and gangsters are excellent capitalists.
5
"If the Russian Mob’s attacks on our elections had resulted in Sec. Clinton becoming President, hair-on-fire comparisons to Pearl Harbor and 9/11 would be all the GOP was talking about."
And they would be right? You'd agree with them on that? No. Same now.
2
Huh? I don't understand your comment. Russian Mobsters are attacking our country. If they had favored/helped Clinton the GOP would be livid, and rightly so!
Can you imagine if their had ever been a scintilla of evidence that Obama or Clinton had ever had “business“ contacts with Putin and Co.? They'd be promptly labeled as traitors. Elections aside, DJ Trump has been laundering money for the Russian mob for years. He is a traitor. And the GOP defends him.
2
"The bottom line is that liberal mandarins in the West — not just in America — face a hard choice when it comes to the populism that gave us Trump, Brexit and right-wing parties and governments in Central and Eastern Europe. Should this re-emergent nationalism be conciliated and co-opted, its economic grievances answered and some compromises made to address its cultural and moral claims? Or is it sufficiently noxious and racist and destructive that it can be only crushed, through gradual demographic weight or ruthless polarized mobilization?".
So well said! Clearly most liberals still think the latter. At least on the issue of illegal immigration, liberals are on the wrong side of history. Even if one believes that we must allow more low-income/low-skilled immigrants, one still needs to convince enough citizens so such an immigration policy can be implemented; and there should be no debate on the need for implementing out immigration laws against those here illegally (with exception made to those who have been here for long when we were not serious about enforcing our laws). By now owning anti-illegal-immigration policies, liberals have lost all credibility on that issue at at least.
2
I am sure that the GOP and their supporters in the press would like the Russians to continue to support them without any serious backlash from our federal government. Conveniently the GOP and Trump have no plans to do anything against the Russians. So, the Russians can continue with their methods of interference. By not taking hard measures to confront the Russian intrusion the GOP and Trump are intentionally accepting help from the Russians. Ross is here to support that with his minimization of their efforts as clumsy and ineffectual.
2
Your last three paragraphs seem correct but incomplete. As you say, it won’t do if the next step in our broken politics is to associate our political foes with foreign bots and trolls. They simply imitated what we ourselves had already wrought. So it’s hard to see how anything good can come from continuing on our present divisive course but upping the level of divisiveness with mutual charges of foreign influence.
Because the bots and trolls imitate and amplify our homegrown divisive ways I can see only one way out. We have to be honest and careful when we speak or write and discerning when we listen or read.
The most pernicious thing I was taught in school was an instruction in my 11th grade English composition book: write as if you know what you’re writing about without regard to whether you actually do. No, no, a thousand times no.
2
Unless I missed it, I did not read an explanation as to just WHY the Russians intervened on Trump's behalf...
1
You're assuming that people who get their news from social media have an intelligent mindful thought process.
2
To summarize: No blood, no foul. Play ball.
Companies spend millions on advertising their products; does it work?
Ask any executive whether or not ads work...no, better, ask the check-out clerks at your local supermarket which products sell the fastest...C'mon Russ, if the Ruskies didn't think it would work do you think they would spend millions on it?
This was not their first rodeo.
1
Sorry. Ross, your assertations are not convincing. My sister-in-law posted on her Facebook page that Hillary was going assassinate Comey like her murder of Vince Foster. She had so many likes. The ignorance is terrifying.
3
The Trolling of the American Mind - if you get your politics from Facebook, you have no mind.
3
That’s just not true. The hacked emails had a definite sway on the election.i recall a friend in PA comment that she was troubled by Hillary’s emails. She ended up not voting. She doesn’t follow politics at all, no websites, etc, but the news reports carried a smog of doubt that inevitably led to Trumps victory.
FDR said it best, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. But the Russians created and then amplified that fear.
1
So you're saying that the GOP surpressing the vote, Fox fake news, Alan Jones, not to mention Russian Trolls and bots didn't sway the election? Really????
4
Ross Douthat is a voice of sanity.
Regarding professed outrage of the US media (especially anti-Trump ones) about Russian interference in American politics, Captain Renault's comment in the movie Casablanca comes to my mind " I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! " I am sure United States and the west have never resorted to such interference in the election of other countries.
3
But a lot of people actually BELIEVE that "Hillary is a Satan," as you so colorfully put it.
The more they see Hillary portrayed that way online by a troll, the more they are convinced that Hillary really is the personification of evil. And the more they vote against Satanic Hillary, too.
In close elections, every vote matters. Sp how can you ever say that a troll posting, however nutty, has zero effect on the outcome of an election?
2
Did the hackers persuade even a single person to vote for Trump who might not otherwise? Maybe not. But if they persuaded people that might have voted for Clinton not to, to stay home or vote for a third party, they might still have cost her the election? If they helped make enough Americans so sick of the campaign they opted out, or dampened the enthusiasm of Clinton voters to the point that they contributed less in money and time than they might have, they still could have cost her the election.
Remember how close this election was! Hell, Trump would not have won if the office went to the candidate with the most votes, as in every other elected office in the United States, all 50,000 of them.
Yes, Trump might have been elected even if the Russians has done nothing. Many of us doubt that. But we will never know, and that is the worst of it.
4
The populist roots of Trump's victory are self-evident, as is the fact that one party cravenly exploited it to further widen the inequality that fuels that very populist despair and rage. An overabundance of liberal alarm right now over election tampering serves the common good considerably more than does the unprecedented magnitude, frequency, and shamelessness of public lying and deceit on this matter emanating from the Whitehouse and the current Republican party.
1
As a liberal (and a Democrat due to having no other alternative) I have never had much interest in trying to prove that the Russians actually changed votes in the 2016 elections.
I have always accepted that Donald Trump won the presidency fairly under the rules of our electoral system. It is useless to obsess over trying to prove otherwise.
What is far more troubling is the influence that the Russians have had on right wing ideology in the US, making it far more enamored of Russian-style autocracy, and open to 0)anti-liberal, and anti-democratic influences than it used to be.
Russian-influenced and connected people like Manafort were all over the Trump campaign and are all through the Trump Administration; Republican efforts to obscure and ignore this completely obvious fact have been truly epic.
We should be less concerned about Russian-induced twitter storms, fake news, etc., than about the Russian-influenced right wing elite and propaganda machine dominating US politics undermining our political system, while the Democratic Party still struggles to make a compelling case for liberal democratic values and solutions to the issues and problems that plague and divide us today.
I looked at this picture for a long time. You know what? I don't blame the Russians, I blame us!
1
The apologia from Douthat persists, with only hints at "Oops, my bad!" There is actually emerging evidence that the fakers did have an impact on the outcome of the election, as this carefully designed study shows: https://theconversation.com/trump-may-owe-his-2016-victory-to-fake-news-... .
"political pornography for hyperpartisans"
Doesn't Douthat routinely rail against online pornography? How is this different?
Talk about whistling past the graveyard!
You are sure that the Russian social media campaign to exacerbate existing conflicts was unsuccessful.
Well, that settles it then, for me. Your faith is enough to move mountains and even enough to make me forget the fact that TRUMP GOT ELECTED.
How in heavens name can you even put such a silly argument on paper? Granted the Russian effort was one factor among others, but on exactly what basis do you deny this factor any weight?
Put a copy of this column under your pillow and go back to it in 48 hours; I dare you.
If you read it cold and are not embarrassed you are not as aware as we all thought, however puerile some of your stands are.
1
I am 77 years old and, Ross, you sound like an old man out of touch with modern technology. The power of the internet, both for good and evil has yet to be fully understood.
Until the modern mind fully grasps its potential I suggest you stick to counting angels on heads of pins.
9
An absurd analysis based upon dubious assumptions and faulty logic. It appears that you are having an Alexander Haig moment, Mr. Douthat. By my count we know of some of the soldiers involved in this attack by a hostile foreign government on American sovereignty:
Aras Agalarov and his son Emin, Rinat Akhmetshin, Oleg Deripaska, Sergey Kislyak, Olga Polonskaya, Dmitry Rybolovlev, Alexander Torshin, Natalia Veselnitskaya, Dmytro Firtash, Viktor Yanukovych, Konstantin Kilimnik, Sergei Millian, Fedor Emelianenko, Viktor Podobnyy, Dmitry Peskov, Igor Sechin , Alexander Shnaider, Tevfik Arif, Felix Henry Sater, Ekim Alptekin, Robert Arakelian, Andrey Artemenko, Petr Aven, Maria Butina, Konstantin Kozlovsky, Dmitry Dokuchaev, Igor Diveykin, Boris Epshteyn, Mikhail Fridman, Oleg Govorun, Aleksej Gubarev, Sergei Ivanov, Sergey Karaganov, Mikhail Kalugin, Denis Katsyv, Ike Kaveladze, Sergey Kiriyenko, Konstantin Kosachev, Sergey Lavrov, Dmitry Medvedev, Anatoli Samochornov, Oleg Solodukhin, Ivan Timofeev, Yuri Ushakov, Anton Vaino, Sergei Yatsenko…
And that’s just some of the Russians. We’re only now learning the names of the Americans who facilitated this attack on the ground. Humm…where to look, where to look?
Republicans won in 2016 because their campaigns were an Inside Job. Mr. Douthat, you don’t have to twist yourself into a pretzel to see what happened; just look what’s happening now in the GOP controlled legislature. Obstruction of Justice? Nawh….impossible!
2
Rather than screaming bloody murder and comparing the Russian invasion of our politics to "Pearl Harbor," I have noticed an alarming LACK of response that can only be attributed to complicity or defeatism. My fear is that after years and years of Republican recessions, deficits, refusal to lift a finger to stop mass gun violence, "public-be-damned" attitudes, and the engineered election of Donald Trump, the American public is suffering from learned helplessness. It's really not necessary, Ross, to pour cold water on the fires of rebellion. There is no rebellion. Vladimir Putin is our master.
1
What in the world does anyone think Radio Free Europe was doing all those years? But despite its efforts, did it succeed in toppling communist tyranny? Nations, very much including our own, have been engaging in these sorts of activities in different ways and using different technologies since the dawn of nation-states, and it is bound to continue. Does anyone truly believe it was only Russia trying to sow discord?
All this hand-wringing is utterly ridiculous, as are Mueller's indictments. If anything is to be done, do something akin to what the Soviets did during the Cold War -- jam radio signals and distribute counter-propaganda. I certainly can't recall any Soviet indictments of Americans over this type of commonplace activity, and for good reason. It's pointless.
5
"Because on the evidence we have, nothing they did particularly mattered."
"And the scale of the effort, set against the scale of campaign spending and online activity and political frenzy from domestic partisans, meant that any real influence was necessarily negligible, swamped by the all-too-American sources of our national derangement."
This is wishful thinking on Douthat's part. All of the intelligence community and all serious analysts (more serious than an open/ed. columnist with a sinecure to write a column without any investigative work behind it--just repackaged self opinions) have insisted that we really have no way of knowing if Russian malfeasance made the difference in the 2016 debacle.
1
Let's please not abandon all reason and overlook the elephant in the room when it comes to paranoia and hysteria: the deep state, the pro-Clinton FBI, the fake news mainstream media, the Clinton pizza parlor child sex ring, etc. Just yesterday we learned that the Florida shooting of high school students was a Democratic party false flag operation, or haven't you heard?
The populism that gave us Mr. Trump had little to do with economics. Mr. Edsall's articles in this paper have made that very clear. Trump's primary voters were well off. They were and remain motivated by racial resentment. Just yesterday the president gave his base yet another racist attack on President Obama. Isn't that noxious enough for you?
As for whether or not it made a difference, the jury is still out. For one thing, Mr. Mueller has only just begun. Isn't it just a little bit hysterical, Ross, on your part, to call those who are unhappy with the Russian online activity "anti-communist J. Edgar Hoovers?"
The issue of whether or not the Russians introduced new material is only part of the equation. Though we now know for a fact that they did, e.g., the "lock her up" chant and the imprisoned Clinton impersonators at the rallies.
We have not yet received an honest and transparent accounting from Facebook, YouTube and everybody else. See, for instance, the extraordinary dishonest statements of a day or day ago by a Facebook executive.
2
You make a completely rational objective statement here!
However - The only thing that matters now is to drive a stake through the heart of trumpism - put it in a lead coffin and drop it somewhere over Siberia.
EVERY day they rule we decline spiritually -culturally - politically - environmentally - healthfully - AND morally:
Russia practiced information warfare on the US just like they do with the Ukraine, now the morning after the 3letter agencies are embarrassed that the trolls got away with so much. Facebook was greedy for revenue, even offering incentives to the Russians to buy more ads. Corporations don't want any tracking of political spending , and the result is manipulation of the US election by foreign nations. The US always has the best government money can buy...
Are you saying that the state of our society today makes people very susceptible to the Russian efforts but also, and probably more importantly, extremely vulnerable to a demagogue like Trump?
1
How about an indictment for rigging the Democratic nomination as suggested by Donna Brazile the former chair of the DNC. Apparently Clinton financed the DNC and the DNC rigged the nomination to her and stopping Bernie. How about an indictment against Obama for approving and supporting the coup in Ukraine which many say US engineered. How about an indictment for that phony claim that Saddam had WMDs.
3
Sorry Ross, I usually agree with you, but you need to look at one number: 77,000. The margin of votes in the 3 states that gave Trump victory. Don't tell me that Russian efforts could not have potentially swayed that many of the Facebook zombies.
3
The right wing -Kremlin propaganda complex is a real thing, Ross.
And Trump actually drags his feet to make sure it continues to work until his re-election. Whatever-it-takes is his only principle and his propaganda will fill-in blank spaces with fake patriotism, fake religion and fake populism. And at least 40% of Americans will buy it wholesale. Maybe another 5% will think the $70 more in a paycheck for 2-3 years is a big deal and another 5% will get confused or disgusted at the process and will stay home. Mission accomplished.
That how it works when the population is ill-informed, confused and emotional in their convictions. They blame politicians for their ills, yet keep electing them. Time to get down from the high horse, people and look in the mirror. Democracy dies when people allow it to die or, in other words, we have the government we deserve.
4
Mr. Douthat asserts, "the proper question should still be: How was it that close to begin with?"
It wasn't that close to begin with, remember? It was 3 million votes, in Clinton's favor.
3
I don't want to downplay the Russian interference but I was for Bernie from the beginning and I don't think was due to Russia. I thought Hillary made a big mistake when she voted for the war resolution and though she later recanted, I did not trust her judgement. She chose not to campaign in the critical areas where the 80,000 votes went for Trump, where Democratic turnout was much less than when Obama was elected. In the end I voted for her or rather I voted against Trump.
4
The relative success of the Russian efforts will always be debatable. What matters is the actual bombshell in this latest news: Russia, a country that is America's enemy, wanted Donald Trump to be elected, because they wanted to hurt America. In any other time this would be an extraordinary development. If it had come out that a powerful foreign enemy had tried to tilt the election to favor George W. Bush or Barack Obama there would have been a justified outcry, and all Americans would have had to come to terms with the fact of a sitting president whose presence fulfilled the wishes of a hostile foreign power. That's exactly the situation we find ourselves in today. Why aren't more people commenting on it?
3
For most Americans, foreign influence (and maybe influence period) means lobbying and lobbying-like activities, on behalf of foreign governments and entities, by which I mean perfectly legal activities, but which many might feel should be more tightly regulated. As far as media, especially the Internet, is concerned, we’re obviously not going to follow China’s example of shutting down communication from overseas, nor deal in questions of what are politically divisive or culturally subversive ideas, but we could certainly do more to intellectually isolate Americans from foreigners. Additionally, visas clearly should be issued with far more caution, to say nothing of the dangers of an alien population in our midst.
If this is a moment of new seriousness for elites, then it is a populist moment as well. You cannot be an American and a globalist.
As happens puzzlingly often, Mr. Douthat here wastes his evident intelligence attacking a straw man.
I am not aware of a single person who is certain that the only reason Trump won is the Russians, and who therefore thinks there is no healing whatsoever to be done in the US.
What people actually think is that, in a difficult and fractured time in the US, a foreign adversary reached in and made it worse. Not surprisingly, then, we also think that we should take steps to keep it from happening in the future - especially considering that whoever is doing it might get better at it, and surprise us in new ways unless we stop them now.
What is controversial about this? It sounds like common sense, to me. And we can do this while simultaneously trying to bridge our divides here at home. It's not either/or, and it's not that complicated!
2
Russian influence was not negligible, though hard to say if it was decisive, but I think many commentators miss an important point. An adversary, a country that wants to weaken the US is supporting a candidate. Why? Because he is bad for the US. It's all we need to know. Trump supporters should perhaps answer the question why are the enemies siding with them and think whether they are doing what's good for the country and themselves. As to populism and nativism, I think nativism should be crushed, while economic concerns addressed. So far both US in Europe are doing opposite and are likely to face consequences.
2
Douthat ridicules those who mention treason, but neglects to note the reason for the use of that word: Trump refuses to take action to rebuff another attack from Russia. Why silence on this, the single most salient point about the entire subject? Answer: notwithstanding Douthat's professed dislike of Trump, his subject (as always) is the failure of "liberal mandarins in the West". Had Douthat been alive at the time of Pearl Harbor, he would have blamed it on the New Deal.
Apologia
noun:
1. an apology, as in defense or justification of a belief, idea, etc.
2. Literature: a work written as an explanation or justification of motives, convictions, or acts.
Does this definition strike a note?
1
Excellent article and perspective, offering a potential for many important political discussions to follow.
Yes, I agree - the Russians were merely taking advantage of our own internal arguments and our own weaknesses. They never provided new arguments, they simply fanned the flames of our hidden "civil war". The American "civil war" is played out in our politics precisely because of the malfunctioning of our beloved Constitution, an ancient document that hasn't been updated properly. Too few amendments over time...
Now, that doesn't mean that crimes were not committed. Trump n family along with those Russian hackers and trolls definitely committed crimes. But their crimes are no different then J.Edgar Hoover's or the crimes of McCarthyism during the Cold War. They all take an idea under false premise(a lie) and they give it artificial/unearned wings of flight over the sea of American populism.
Our freedom of speech empowers the lies of modernity. Truth does not float to the top, as we have been led to believe. Lies should never be given "wings" to begin with, but "we can't handle the truth" of that discussion.
Don't blame "Trump, Brexit and right-wing parties and governments in Central and Eastern Europe" alone. Instead, blame our own GOP and the propaganda that they have spread to create those problems both at home and around the world. Today, the Right-Wing nut cases exist because of our own lies and our inability to allow the truth to rise instead.
3
Perhaps to Mr. Douthat's erudite eyes "The pro-Trump ads the trolls sponsored during the campaign were just clumsy variations on ubiquitous right-wing themes," but to impressionable voters who pay little attention to details, are prone to conspiracy mongering, and who now consume most of their news through Facebook, their power should not be discounted. The average voter in the Rust Belt is not Mr. Douthat.
2
Mr. Douthat alludes to the problem: We do not know for certain how or even if it affected the election.
We can count the votes cast, but we can't count how many minds were or were not persuaded by Russian Bots. We can't know how many votes in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania were not cast because the voter perceived he/she was choosing the lesser of two evils. We can't know how many votes weren't cast because the voter thought the results were inevitable. We can't know how many votes weren't cast because Hillary was a poor candidate running a mediocre campaign. We can't know how many votes were cast for Donald because of pure have for Obama. Trying to get an answer for these unanswerable questions will lead us into a new realm of voter polling and interviews that helped get us in this disgusting mess. We can discuss, research, and poll, but we will never know with certainty. That is the peril and elegance of democracy.
In a data driven society where Google has given us the false perception that everything has an easily obtainable single final correct i-phone answer we are shaken to the core and cannot believe our disbelief. Acceptance and a search for the truth is the only way forward. And having better candidates. Better candidates in the next election would help.
A long-winded, however unwitting, endorsement of electoral college abolishment.
1
Ross, this column is stunningly below you. Perhaps you ought to get off the computer and learn just how unaware the American citizenry is about what's going on . . . about anything. They just want to get through the day, to pick up the few dollars your plutocracy has sprinkled about and that Trump has trumpeted. When you've been down so long, it all looks up. Add to that Trump and company's screaming blame game (aided by the abject pomposity of the 'liberal' side) and they're ready to believe anything that could look like relief. And so the Internet Research Agency can further the split. Are you too naive to understand that or as blind to it as most members of Congress, such as it is.
2
Your premise assumes that liberals are as uninformed as conservatives. I don't believe you're right in your assumption. For example every study I've seen is that Fox news viewers are the least informed and most biased of most viewers of news. And I would propose that most conservatives are dedicated Fox viewers.
Yes Ross, for once you are right.Let's focus on the real issue which is the state of the State, not on some bogus external threat.
It is the GOP who spread the fake news as part of their strategy : the Russians just hopped on board. And this is indeed only the latest act in the Civil War that will eventually destroy the US. We are two Nations still divided after more than 200 years, more bitterly apart than ever.
2
Has anyone asked why exactly Putin specifically aided and abetted Trump's campaign in the primary and general elections, and no other (Republican) candidate? Putin's malfeasance was driven by his understanding of Trump's unique potential as a key Russian asset: a person with no moral compunction about anything not of personal benefit. What better manipulable asset could one acquire? And what better acquisition mechanism than doing so under the radar and at low cost?
No Ross, the harm done here was not (just) tampering that may have altered the election outcome. Prodigious harm has occurred to the security of United States' citizens. And it has been permitted to continue by republican congressional agents' treasonous indifference.
"The Russia fixation, at its worst, is a way to make the second choice without admitting..."
Wake up, Ross! The United States' democratic republic itself is arguably facing its greatest threat since the dawn of the nuclear era. 'Fixation' on what Russia has done must continue until Trump and the rest of Putin's US assets are ejected.
5
Another smug take, not worth finishing, on a vitally important inquiry whose scope and revelations are only beginning to be seen and comprehended. So many blithe assumptions, so many confident dismissals of real consequences.
Another day, another Douthat, meh.
Maybe he doesn't care that cynical foreign agents had their way manipulating the gullible among us, but I sure do, and I take offense at his attempts to downplay its ominous impact.
We all know that many millions among us, people with votes to cast one way or the other, read next to nothing substantive, let alone pause to re-read and contemplate, on current affairs, history, or public policy. They are bombarded and inundated by torrents of information, much of it deviously manipulative of honest human emotions, much of it purposefully false. We are not all well-educated, conscientious citizens.
It is precisely the ill-informed, the distracted, the indifferent, who were targeted by FOREIGN AGENTS to throw our national election in favor of the regime of a murderous dictator.
Douthat argues that this is a nothing-burger. He's wrong, dead wrong.
Given the prominence of his pulpit, I do wish he would wait with the rest of us for Mueller's conclusions before trying to talk down to us about what is important and what is not.
6
There's a five alarm fire burning at the White House, and the very fabric and possible existence of our way of life is at stake. And you, clearly blind in one eye, are worried about liberal overreaction to what in context of everything else may or may not be the smaller issue. I am old enough to remember Watergate and three years of cries from Nixon proxies that it was nothing but a two bit break in. Be a mensch, Mr. Douthat, and tell us if you think Thomas Friedman is overreacting when he looks inside the White House and issues a code Red? Stop with the semantic tap dance and tell us how serious you think this is, remembering that the eye of history is upon you.
5
The Russian trolls continue on Fox News comment threads.
4
I am growing very weary with everyone in the media following Trump’s lead in saying that the Russian hack had no influence on the election outcome. I call BS. The hacked and then leaked emails from the DNC and Podesta were THE primary campaign issue. No other issue even came close. NYT go back and count how many times your campaign coverage either lead or included mention of Hillary’s “emails”. Seemed like every day to me and that obsessive media coverage not only shaped but greatly influenced the election OUTCOME. To pretend otherwise is just childlike fantasy. I know the media doesn’t want to admit that they were played...but they were and should admit it; because it will happen again.
2
I have historically prided myself on being reasonable and rational, but I'm sorry, this is, hands down, one of the stupidest op-ed pieces I have ever read in the NYT. Full stop. The only one that might have been stupider was the one last week by John R. Lott arguing that we need more need more civilians carrying concealed handguns.
4
The GOP gladly embraced the Russian troll-bots. And stranded in the Midwest as I’ve been for 30 years, I can assure you that the Rubes are all too ready to imbibe the illogical, even delusional assertions that spread like wildfire through the Fox Propaganda Network.
Trump is the point of a spear aimed directly at our Republic. And Putin is the spear-thrower.
We must overthrow the GOP Gridlock and Constipation of our Political System.
2
Never seen so many vacuous stares in one place.
1
“I’m quite sure the memes and fake accounts did not.” Really, are you “quite sure”? What a ludicrous, self satisfied statement when you are making the argument that those that insist the Russian interference was the tipping point are wrong. There is no way to empirically and definitively prove either side of the argument, yet, you are “quite sure...” Your writings are consistently hampered by your own hubris and inability to see your own hypocrisy while eagerly pointing out the perceived hypocrisy of others.
1
What "Mind"?
Good Lord! Douthat (nearly) making sense. What is the world coming to? Let's be clear though. The NYTimes is beating the drums for Russia just like it did for Iraq 15+ years ago.
What is also disturbing though is that the term "Russian interference in American" election has become something that is not doubted. Where is the evidence that the "hack" on the DNC was from Russia? And what about the St. Petersburg robber turned hot-dog vendor, turned caterer, turned logistics magnate (THE American dream if he were American and not Russia's Kellog,Brown&Root) who started a hacker funhouse to Troll the US is a criminal Mueller can indict? What is George Soros? And none of these guys compare to Kissinger. The irony is it is like Lenin's maxim "Tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth."
1
I fail to understand how such tortured to defend idiocy blather can be a paid for column in the New York Times.
Douthat has now officially joined the Blame America First club.
2
Mr Douthat is partly correct - without the intense polarization that exists within the country , Vladimir Putin
would not have been able to bring his Circus of Cyberwar
to town . But make no mistake about it, this is Putin's circus, in which he is the Ringmaster, and Donald Trump is his perfect performing monkey. The Republicans are the clowns who sweep up the excrement that the monkey distributes throughout the ring . And the audience , however horrified they may be , cannot stop watching .
Eventually this circus will leave town as all of them do , but we will still be left with our 'Cold Civil War' .
1
I agree, somewhat, with the premise that the russian social media and similar initiatives ran alongside existing ones driven by real Americans. However, both were selling a "product" and advertisers know that to sell product, 2 public views are better than 1.
Simpler premises are easier and most often true.
What I've seen change over my long life, that affects the American mindset these days, is education, or actually the lack of it. Many American's seem to see education as a negative now, not a positive. They do not like to see their children being taught to think for themselves. Add to this the influence of right-wing Christianity - which is really against thinking for oneself - and its continuing drumbeat that "you are going to hell if you don't do what I say," and Americans are becoming more and more terrified of thinking than they were in the 1960s and 70s. A lack of education breeds fear, and fear breeds manipulation. Americans are far more vulnerable to manipulation that ever, and our antipathy to education is one big reason for it.
The bottom line is that Democrats need to articulate our economic problem in one sentence, and a solution in another, then repeat those 2 sentences every time they're in earshot of a microphone. If they'd started doing that in 2016, or 2000, or 1994, they would have won every election since. Here's my draft:
"America is not poor, we're richer than ever: our economy has doubled in just a few decades, but 80% didn't get a penny while 10,000 families got the bulk of it. To correct that, we should lift the cap on the payroll tax and apply it to ALL income, earned and unearned, then lower the rate by 1/3, then boost the benefits to extend Medicare, job training and a secure retirement to all: Lift the Cap, Lower the Rate, Boost the Benefits."
Even Bernie didn't make it that clear. If he had, he'd be president. Any Midwestern Democrat who simply repeated those 2 sentences could win any office. AZ, NV, NC and VA could be swept. Maybe TX and GA.
Ross argues "all things being equal." I wonder what would have happened if Joe McCarthy had access to social media? Still it's an interesting piece and a worthy read. It just doesn't factor in how easy it is to digitally light emotions on fire these days.
Look at the question RD asks near the end "Should this re-emergent nationalism be conciliated and co-opted, its economic grievances answered and some compromises made to address its cultural and moral claims? Or is it sufficiently noxious and racist and destructive that it can be only crushed, through gradual demographic weight or ruthless polarized mobilization". It is clear on it's face that this question is a rhetorical ploy. Assuming that Mr. Douthat holds for the prior interpretation what then is he advocating. 1) It is beyond question that "Re-emergent nationalism" is an ethno-nationalism. To be frank it is the US as a white english speaking state. Since this is radically inconsistent with the interpretation of the Constitution that goes back to the end of WW2 just how Ross wants to conciliate white nationalism. 2) The average Trump voter had an income above 70K I am really not sure what grievances they have. I am not talking about the grievances that brought some truly disadvantaged whites to Trump. To assist them without running after the chimera of protectionism I suggest you read the Democratic Platform 2016 3) Ah and now we get to the one that RD loves best, of course he can only mean guns and abortion. Not sure how much more you can give to the NRA. If we could just give up women's reproductive rights then we could heal the divisions in this country. A few hundred women in jail for illegal abortions is a small price to pay to serve you values, isn't it?
It appears that in aggregate from the "real crimes" to the meddling could well have been sufficient to swing the election. The election largely was a turn out election - down for democrats and up for independents and republicans. So, it not just the swing voters. (Add republicans love of voter suppression and you have a winning combination. And don't forget the Benghazi,) It is not hard to imagine that the added influence of Russian trolling and the email hack, could have been sufficient to swing it.
The problem is that Trump and the Republicans are behaving like they have a mandate. They lost the popular election and were the beneficiaries of a fundamentally undemocratic though constitutionally sanction electoral system and likely benefited from the Russian efforts to help them. If anyone has a right to be upset it is Democrats. The Republicans great accomplishment they crow about is the seating Gorsuch, which is an open wound, an insult to the democratic processes and traditions, accomplished with a tainted election to boot.
2
If you're clever and skilled, you can do a lot with a little on social media. As an old advertising man I have a good eye for professional graphical depictions, even when they're designed to look amateurish.
Almost every day I receive and email from Facebook telling me a family member has added a photo, etc. I also receive frequent notices about posts that were "liked" by an iconoclastic old friend. These post purport to come from groups with odd names like: Overpasses for America, SourceNews, The Voice of the People, Trump Conservative, and so on. They invariably contain pro-Trump stories and virulent attacks and jokes aimed at Hillary, Obama, liberals, black politicians and celebrities, etc, etc.
The material is simple and looks like grassroot productions. But they're not. They're minimalist in the way a good advertiser eliminates all that is superfluous to create maximum impression. What's more, they do not seem to have been created by a person who grew up in America, or who's first language is English. But they are professional.
For very short money this material can be churned out endlessly - as my inbox attests. And when it is "liked" or shared, it increases the chance it will be further shared and view at an exponential rate.
As boldly outrageous as these posts are, they have a cumulative effect on a person or community. As Edward Bernays would have said, this is the essence of opinion-formation and the backbone of propaganda.
1
What struck me about the wording of the recent Mueller indictment was the word "unwitting." The Russian operatives were able to penetrate the American psyche by exploiting our egotistical and narcissistic tendencies, and as a result the people "unwittingly" went along. Their success is a chilling indication of our society's vulnerability . The question every American must now ask is, "Will I be the unwitting tool of someone else's manipulation or will I think for myself, in the context of my own conscience?"
Trouble is, this requires critical thinking skills that apparently many do not possess, even at the highest levels of government. It also requires a moral compass, the basic ability to tell right from wrong. That, too, has gone.
I truly believe that the self-inflicted wounds so apparent these days in practically all levels of discourse will continue to fester until Americans decide that living in a fractured, corrupt, dysfunctional society is no fun.
Sadly, that day has not yet dawned.
The Russian affair is a scarecrow that the liberal media has been waving for so long that the crows are not scared anymore and are starting to feast on the crop. In order to assess the seriousness of the indictment, one has to examine the figures available:
The indictment states that the Russians spent "thousands of dollars" every month on social media ads. In total, Clinton and Trump's campaigns spent $2.4 billion.
Facebook stated that the Russian operation bought about 3,000 ads, spending about $56,000 on Facebook and Instagram combined before the election whereas Clinton spent $81 million on both platforms for the same period, i.e. the Russians spent 0.07 % of what Clinton spent.
Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr gave a breakdown of the money spent in key states: Wisconsin $1,979; Michigan $823 and Pennsylvania $300.
Facebook stated that around 150 million people may have been "served content" from a page associated with the Russians during the two-year period before and after the election. Facebook executive Colin Stretch said in prepared testimony before the Senate last November that "This equals about four-thousandths of one percent (0.004%) of content in News Feed or approximately 1 out of 23,000 pieces of content."
As time goes by, there is not much air left in the Russian meddling balloon.
2
There might not have been much air in the Russian meddling balloon... but it was Trump who blew enough air into it for it to become a blimp. He could have rid himself of this mess in half a year... if he not obstructed the inquiry. Oh, the ego!
1
This is how wars can be fought in the 21st Century. Our political system and the social media have been invaded by the Russians. The evidence is overwhelming and no amount of hand waving can cover it over.
The 2016 election was a fraud perpetrated by the GOP with Russian aid. Trump will deny any collusion with the Russians - he is incapable of speaking the truth under any circumstances. However, only the dimmest of wits cannot see the direct connection between Russia and Trump. The Russians bailed Trump out for years with laundered money and they own him. It is no accident that Trump has been surrounded by Russian operatives. Mueller must continue to investigate Trump's financial ties to the money laundering Bank of Cyprus, Deutsche Bank, and Russian investors in his property. There are strong links between Russia and Trump's cabinet members and associates including George Papadopoulos, Wilbur Ross, Felix Sater, Roy Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, Mike Flynn, Carter Page, Paul Manafort (a paid Russian op running Trump's campaign!), Roger Stone etc., etc.. The strong Russian network surrounding Trump is not by chance.
The Republicans will to continue deny Trump's traitorous collusion with the Russians because they wanted the same outcome and are complicit in Trump's sellout to the Russians. They must all be thrown out of office if we have any hope of restoring democracy to our nation.
1
Mostly agree with Douthat, but would add that the third vein is the Trump administration's likely attempts at cover-up - as noted by Friedman's recent column - highly suspicious and at the minimum, unpatriotic. I too have thought in terms of the 78,000 voters who swung the electoral college and wondered what they indeed all Trump voters were thinking when he was so obviously unqualified, and the GOP's policies so obviously fantasyland for the real problems facing the US in the 21st century. Much of the Trumpian incompetence can be attributed to somebody who's never held elective office before (which should have disqualified Trump from the get-go). I'm astonished at the educated voters who were duped by Trump/GOP into thinking they were competent choices to lead the nation; my corporate executive father was a lifelong GOP supporter until he saw the light in 2000 that they were incompetent - why hasn't everybody else? The GOP's track record of governance is a sort of anti-resume for having power: voodoo economics and huge deficits that resulted; Iraq War - likely the worst foreign policy decision in US history; constitutionally-shady actions like not allowing a SCOTUS nomination to proceed for nearly a year, on and on. As Chua noted, there are elite in both parties that many people distrust/hate, but for some reason many non-elite hate the progressive elites more than the conserative elites right now. Why? Enemy politics plays well?
There I was, nodding along, thinking to myself, "OK, this is a reasonable take on the subject," until I got to that next-to-last paragraph. I do not see where we "coastal elites" are using Russia as a club to whack our political opposition. I think that's a big stretch.
1
Douthat is assuming that those 78,000 swing voters in the Midwest were too sophisticated and nuanced to be swayed by the Russian trollings. There is no evidence presented here by him to justify such an assumption. Thus the invalidity of his argument here. We see this time and again from GOP apologists, the logical fallacy that the majority of Republican voters and congressmen are really decent people-- they are not, nor should they be considered as such, most especially in the current incarnation of the Trump criminalized GOP.
1
While millions of independent and liberal voters greeted Donald Trump's rise with a mixture of disbelief, dismay and disgust, those who voted for him or didn't vote for either candidate, were largely fueled by hate or at the very least deep dislike and distrust of Hillary Clinton. The GOP had been fanning the flames for years, most recently with their overwrought, long-running attack on her handling of the Benghazi incident. Hillary did her part by not coming clean immediately about her emails, her slippery relationship with the Clinton Foundation and her standoff on the Wall St. speeches. Trump and his mob made "Lock her up!" their call to arms. Cpmey lit a grenade at the 11th hour. And the Russians? We can't know how decisive their spreading of poison was in the outcome. But for sure, it aided and abetted the hate-Hillary crusade, stoking the bonfire that was already there.
1
A few thoughts on why Mr. Douthat's column is so off the mark.
First, to say that Russian interference was not THE deciding factor does not mean it was not A factor. Mr Douhat argues that, because the Russians were merely exploiting pre-existing divisions & mimicking right-wing rhetoric, the assertion that the Russian activity on social media influenced the election is "fake news". But in a race that close, anything that influenced a handful of votes, potentially determined the race. It's hardly illogical to think that reaching 126 million people influenced a handful of votes.
Second, why write a column about left-wing hysteria when clearly the larger problem is right-wing denial? Trump and his cronies have labeled the investigation a hoax, blocked the investigation, attacked the intelligence agencies, and stalled on retaliatory action. A hostile foreign power interfered in our election, quite possibly successfully, and the Trump GOP has done little beyond trying to obscure that fact. That is more worthy of your attention than a few hysterics on the left who label this another Pearl Harbor.
Finally, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. The hard choice you mention, between focusing on the failures that gave us Trump vs, paying attention to the Russian interference is a false one. Like everyone around me, I'm concerned about and working to address both. So don't pretend like our concern with Russia is blinding us to the reality of our problems at home.
4
I think Douthat's "cold civil war" remark is spot on. My deepest fear in 2016 was not that Trump would win, it was that Clinton would win by a very narrow margin, Trump would cry foul, national tensions would build greatly, and eventually a violent domestic insurgency would break out.
I spent quite a while in 2016 reading about modern civil wars, and my perception is that we were much closer than mainstream commenters would imagine to such a conflict. It's the most heavily-armed country on Earth, with the arms mostly possessed by a group of people who were once very powerful but now perceive themselves as marginal. This is historically a very dangerous situation. It would not be the first time that a disputed election with ethnic implications has set off a conflagration in a country that was already a tinderbox.
My hope is that Trump's disastrous presidency will help to reduce support for right-wing populism, by showing everyone the farce that happens when the far right actually gets its way. I am nowhere near certain that this is what will really happen, and the Democrats will have to do their part to de-escalate the culture war as well.
2
The hacking of the DNC and Podesta emails unearthed authentic information used for political purposes just like it happened with the Pentagon papers. Mr. Douhat, a never-trumper, realized that the Russian trolling had minimal effect on the election as Ms. Gessen writes in the New Yorker so he is looking for new avenues for attack.
If you look at Limbaugh, Fox News, Breitbart and Infowars, it is abundantly clear that it is legal for American citizens to lie and essentially subvert our Democracy, as the Russians (and soon the Chinese, or the Iranians or any other meddling nation) seek to do.
The only way the subversion will disappear is by creating an informed electorate, unwilling to simply believe what they read, unwilling to live within the ideological bubbles so many create for themselves, and willing to listen to differing opinions with an open mind.
I don't know how to do that, honestly, but we've got to figure it out, or our race to the bottom will continue.
1
How much Russian fakery did Twitter, FB and especially FOX promote and amplify? It was certainly not negligible. "Unwitting"? I'd call it propaganda to the "witless" - not all-American - crowds at trumpfests.
"Lock her up" is a Russian tactic? - The Russians and Manafort effectively locked up former Ukrainian Prime Minister Tymoshenko - a woman - who lost to Yanukovych by 3.5% for the presidency. Like Yanukovych, Trump won. Yet he still wants Hillary locked up - why?
Did Americans "unwittingly" elect trump? Or are they simply witless to trump-Russian manipulation? This manipulation, I'd argue, are worse than Pearl Harbor and 9/11 combined. Those horrors happened in a single day. The harm trump and his ilk are inflicting is in slow motion - damaging our country, its institutions, the environment, global relations and order - resulting in an incalculable damage to all - all without trump going nuclear!
At the very least the Russians aided the Republican assault, character assassination and tearing down of a mediocre but competent candidate that was sufficient to give an abominable, incompetent crooked man just enough to get a second place win in the electoral college. Without a mandate, trump, Republicans and Russia are doing what they have always wanted to do - destroy the People's government and institutions - they're succeeding.
Wake up America. Our adversary is sitting in the Oval Office! The Russian thumb on our democratic scale is being safeguarded by the trumplicans.
5
Some good points here: (i) the Russian meddling should not distract us from considering the substance of the populist claims, and (ii) Facebook ads are not Pearl Harbor. On point (i), I think many individuals running for elective office take the substance of the populist claims seriously. At least that is what I see. Perhaps this is not being done as well as it could be done, but I think that it is being done. On point (ii), the big concern, of course, is that 2016 is precursor for something that would be really disturbing and that is vote tampering. Of course, rather than shaking our fist at Russia, we should first shore up our voting protocols. We had hanging chads before a meddling Putin.
South at may be right that the Rusian trolling did not swing the election, but he is certainly brimming with overconfidence sure to please Trump and his I’ll given that he may also be wrong. Regardless he doesn’t know how persuasion works and the way consistent messages from what seem to be a large number of people is an effective persuader of others. He has no appreciation for ways that driving wedges between groups nationally like efforts to devife people by race to depress black turnout can have local effects. He thinks that because messages are too extreme to be believed they will have no motivational effect, but many people cannot help but believe that if they see a lot of smoke there must be some fire. So even those who dismiss messages as unlikely may still have their views affected by them. And when Trump and others are retweeting messages what makes Douthat thinks voters will nonetheless find them incredible. We don’t know enough to say the Russian messages changed the election results - they were certainly upstaged by the hugely irresponsible Comey letter - yes that bastion of liberalism we call the FBI - but the idea that any concern about these activities or thinking they may have been consequential is fake news tells us Notre about how Douthat thinks than about what happened. Each is unfortunate.
3
Got to clear the air here first. Stop tying Russian support for Trump to Bernie Sanders. The two things are not equivalent. There were 17 Republican primary candidates and the Russians chose to elevate Trump. How many Democratic candidates were there? Three and one dropped out before the ink was dry on his form. Who else were the Russians supposed to promote? We all know they didn't want Clinton. There weren't a whole lot of options once you cross her name off the list. That's part of the reason the typical voter was so upset with Democrats in the first place.
Now that we have that issue out of the way, cyber warfare is still warfare. We don't need to become hyperbolic about the threat but the antagonism and physical harm are both real. The process isn't as traumatic and mortifying as watching planes fly into buildings. I have experience here. However, cyber warfare is almost worse in a sense. The influence is pernicious and subversive. A foreign state entity is elevating the worst parts of our own nature in order pull us apart from within. That's not a phenomenon to be taken lightly.
Imagine for a moment Russia was independently responsible for Trump's election. Now imagine Republicans were successful in repealing Obamacare. Now imagine the lost insurance coverage resulted in 1 million premature deaths over the course of thirty years. Is Russia not responsible for 1 million American deaths? Just because we pulled the trigger doesn't mean they didn't hand us the gun.
2
In his blithe dismissiveness here of Russian effectiveness, Douthat's motives are exposed by his characterizations of disaffected traditionalist conservatives: "Liberal mandarins in the West... [are] pretend[ing] that in trying to crush your fellow countrymen (and their "cultural and moral claims") you’re really fighting traitors and subversives and foreign adversaries, to further otherize the domestic out-group by associating them with far-off Muscovy."
Wow. "Otherize," even. (And "far-off Muscovy." Indeed...)
Ross would have us believe that persons of traditional faiths and "values" (values which seem to include - and in the past have greatly included - repressive imposition of their traditions, standards and rules on others and in effect made the law of the land) are being "crushed" by "ruthless polarized mobilization." More wow. And speaking of "paranoia and hysteria"...
It appears Douthat has joined the ranks of wailing conservative and religious victimhood. I agree that our political processes should address grievances and entertain compromise (spare me even more irony there - let's start right now!), but, Ross, who here is "forever wringing its hands?"
2
I beg to differ with our esteemed commentator. This 2016 election was so close in the major purple states that the extra blabber by the Russian trolls and their millions of dollar spent had to have had at least a 1% effect on our voters in these states. That 1% was enough to swing the electoral college to Trump and here we are. Yes, Trump's populism was very effective, but he still lost the popular vote and benefited by the extra Russian push.
3
"...the proper question should still be: How was it that close to begin with?"
This is a most important statement in the article. I'm not taking anything away from the seriousness of the Russian meddling. It's just that the attention it's getting is more a function of the closeness of the election than anything else. Had either candidate won big, I doubt that the investigation, while important, would be a front page issue.
The arguments here are reminiscent of the arguments about the existence of God in philosophical discourse. The case can't be proven one way or the other, but a good agnostic hedges his bet. One thing we know for sure: the Russian trolls TRIED to influence the election, and that alone should be enough to justify action against them. Did they succeed? That's a good question, but a secondary issue.
There were indeed plenty of home-grown conspiracy theories, ill-justified charges and just plain fake news and opinion spread around during the campaign. Did they have influence on some voters? You bet your bippy they did. Trump's "Crooked Hillary" braying energized his base. The Russian efforts amplified that noise, and they will try again this year.
2
Russ, I'm waiting for your article on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. Why are they so intent in tearing down this country? Why doesn't Murdoch get asked why he sides with the Russians against us.
Inquiring minds want to know.
4
Douthat's position is motivated by a misunderstanding. It is not nearly all Americans who fell for Russian baloney. It was overwhelmingly targeted at the Trump base, and overwhelmingly swallowed by them. As was reported in this paper, American troll factories soon discovered that there was little click money to be had in fabricating ludicrous stories about right wing figures. Those stories just didn't fly far with left-leaning voters. It is on the right that we find followers of figures like Alex Jones, the Pied Piper of conspiracy and superstition. That's how many voters of dubious discernment were convinced that a politician who was being flacked with a bunch of maybe's was a worse bet than an known thief and liar who campaigned on the slogan, "Go ahead and beat them, I'll pay the medical expenses." Maybe a conservative columnist can laugh this off, but I'd much rather he laugh in the privacy of his own home than spread nonsense hear.
3
"How was it that close to begin with?"
Ross, You can do the math. Of the swing states that swung, what was the number of voters that constituted the margin of victory?
2
Russian trolling was also designed to persuade African American voters to stay home. In targeting specific demographics and adding their efforts to other, home-grown voter suppression, this vote that skews heavily Democratic went down for the first time in a long time.
The decrease in minority voting is one of the factors that led to Trump. It doesn't take a lot to have an impact especially when we're talking about efforts targeted at specific marginal voters.
1
Despite shrill denials from the Right, and equally shrill cries of "yea" from the Left we don't actually know what, if any, influence Russian efforts had on the outcome of the election. What we do know is young people, especially people of color, stayed home at the same time an enormous effort was made to convince them to do so. We do know that the "green" (maybe red?) Party was offered up as a "protest vote" for democrats who found Hillary distasteful. We do know that right-wing conspiracies were fueled from the troll farms. We do know that our country and its institutions were attacked by an old adversary whose goal was most decidedly not to "make America great again". That should be enough to warrant investigation and action, no matter whether Trump benefitted greatly or not. Republicans like Douthat can try to divert our attention, but that's the core issue. We are under attack and ought to act like it.
1
I have a confession to make. When I see a NY Times comment with a lot of likes, I have a tendency to like it myself. Why does anyone care about the best seller list or top 40? When we see something is popular, it is human nature for most people to want to be part of the popular crowd. So when you claim that Russian bots re-tweeting thousands of tweets and likes did not influence the election, you are neglecting to take into account human nature.
Furthermore, in many states, the electoral vote was very close. If you could change the vote by even a small percentage, you could change the result of the election.
Yes Mr. Douthat, the Russians did succeed in influencing our election! While it may not not a "crime" in the classic sense, we all need to be aware of that as we encounter tweets, Facebook pages, and other sources of politically charged "information".
78
Some research findings are even becoming available. FYI, as I commented here: There is actually emerging evidence that the fakers did have an impact on the outcome of the election, as this carefully designed study shows: https://theconversation.com/trump-may-owe-his-2016-victory-to-fake-news-... .
1
"When I see a NY Times comment with a lot of likes, I have a tendency to like it myself. "
As long as you judge comments by the numbers of likes you will be nothing but a willing victim for a mechanized troll army.
Decisive factors for the number of recs and likes are seldom quality but control over bots, support by organizations, a bunch of buddies, friendly algorhythms, sometimes a little help of publishers and other things like this. The rule of a true "Online (comment section) opinion warfare" are not quality or chivalry but supply of material and mass impact.
There is only one effective cure: To get aware and to give up such automatisms. It´s a matter of compelling media literacy.
When you have realized that it is nothing but a matter of mass impact according to well known rules of attrition warfare it´s plain to see:
Some homemade St. Petersbug style "amateur" posts in FB filtergroups for 3 million bucks can never outclass professional ads or astroturfing by advertising experts in trusted nationwide tv or internet news portals for more than 1 billion Dollars.
So it´s the first time I fully agree to a thesis of Mr. Douthat :
"And the scale of the effort, set against the scale of campaign spending and online activity and political frenzy from domestic partisans, meant that any real influence was necessarily negligible,..."
as almost everyone across all political camps does here.
PS: There´s no comment section without a Russian troll...
What bothers me about the Russian Trolling is how its cynical portrayal of government just fits in so well with the Republican small-government mantra. Putin wants a weak United States, he wants Americans to distrust their own government, and he wanted Donald Trump to be elected President. As Trump himself put it last weekend " They (the Russians) have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams."
3
The "Russians" a overgeneralized description, have attempted to disrupt and disturb our country, elections and democracy. But -- listen to this -- the Democratic political party does the same. It attacks businesses, commerce and profits relentlessly, much like Marx and Lenin. Think! It attacks the election process, complaining that Republicans try to keep minorities from voting. And it bypasses the Congress as proved by President Obama who famously said he had his pen to "make" the necessary laws if Congress wouldn't. That undermines democracy.
So NYT is the pot calling the kettle black. Think!
We can't just blame the Russians, much as I would like to. American citizens have only themselves for their gullibility and lack of critical thinking. I'm still amazed that some get their news from FB.
2
The DNC chose the wrong candidate in 2016; 8,000,000 Democrat voters chose to stay home in 2016 versus 2012. Trump is in the White House. The Russian meddling gets an assist but it was basically a self-inflicted wound. Lesson learned? Let's hope so.
The lesson is: go vote, even if you preferred a different candidate in the primary.
Neither John Oliver nor James Corden are U.S. citizens, and yet they appear nightly on T.V. broadcasts offering their own particular anti-Trump commentary. No one objects.
Since when has it become a crime in the U.S. for non-citizens to participate in American political discourse and dialogue? Deal with it, everybody, and with the trolls, too. I don't like some of the NTY Picks as the top posts on a particular Comment matter. The grammar is horrible, the spelling poor, and the logic and cohesiveness of their points of view makes no sense whatsoever, and yet there's The Times calling this one of the most important and insightful posts on the subject. Very poor choice as far as I'm concerned, but nevertheless I learn to deal with it and move on. The internet is unfair because one guy can be made to seem like a thousand, and institutions such as The Times don't make it any easier with their lousy picks. Deal with it.
1
The main point , why was the election even close , is the question of the ages . The fact that an obviously incompetent and ignorant candidate won an election against an obviously competent and highly intelligent candidate should be a wake up call to this society . I doubt it will be however . To skew things even more the citizens who voted for Trump still see him as an avatar of knowledge , sincerity , purity and sobriety . My thoughts and prayers are with them ! Sad .
1
Americans might not like to admit it, but we elected Donald Trump. All of us.
That includes the last two generations of Democratic party leaders who have reduced the party to such a feeble vehicle for economically progressive policies that there is no reason for those of us focused on a more egalitarian distribution of wealth to vote Democratic.
It also includes all those Hillary Clinton primary voters who gave us an uninspired corporate tool as the Dems 2016 candidate.
Trump is a revolting idiot, and progressives are free to keep reminding ourselves of that if it makes us feel better. But the real job is to elect good politicians to enact progressive policies.
We need a real progressive political party in this country. Could be a reformed Democratic party, could be a replacement. If Donald Trump's election moves us in that direction it will have done some good.
1
When and how did the meaning of the word 'populism' get lost; and how has the term become so debased?
Donald Trump is not a populist. Trumpism is not populism. FDR and the New Deal were populism. LBJ and the Great Society were populism.
Donald Trump and Trumpism are fascism in its nascent form. They are the motive force of the lynch mob. With the rise of Donald Trump, we have inched dangerously close to unleashing the dark side of humanity that roiled Germany, Italy and Japan in the 30s and 40s.
This is not populism or anything remotely like it.
2
Mr. Douthat does not address the reason that I too decline to blame the election of Trump on the Russian campaign. As Trump heads towards his inevitable self-destruction, as the damage he is inflicting upon the nation grows, it will be the Americans who voted for him that will be looking for excuses for their error in judgment. Those Americans must not be let off the hook as proof of Russian interference is revealed. You are correct Mr. Douthat, the Americans who voted for Trump bear the responsibility for the disgrace in the White House.
92
I understand your point but i don't think the people who elected Trump will, under any circumstances, admit they were wrong. if he's impeached, Fox will drive the wedge deeper and they'll go right along.
Spot on Ross re the Russian bots. We don't want foreign entities that do not have our best interests in mind messing with our democratic system. However, given the extremes of most of their ads and all the info about the two candidates -- their own ads, news coverage, debates as well as both having been in the public eye as long as most voters can remember -- it is doubtful that Russia's social media activity swayed many -- if any -- voters. That doesn't mean we shouldn't take some actions but our elections will always suffer from half truths, innuendos and outright lies from one side about the other. Voters need to be able to sift through a mountain of information and misinformation in order to come to a decision on who to vote for. And for many their vote is pre-ordained based on their political party. The real issue is which side can get out the vote.
As far hacking the DNC, yes it was a crime. However, I'm less than convinced by what I've read and by what I know about how computers work (I learned assembly language programming back in the day of punch cards) I find it difficult to say with certainty who actually hacked the DNC and why they did it. In other words, it could have been Russians -- but hackers don't have to leave signatures -- but even if it was Russian hackers the evidence seems weak that Vlad gave the order.
And Ross -- no evidence of collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia.
1
Mr. Douthat did finally touch on a salient point in this article when he recognized the larger pattern of nationalism emerging in Western democracies of recent. Remember, it was in this very newspaper the former British PM Tony Blair offered a cogent and compelling perspective regarding the then passing of Brexit, particularly the following excerpt:
"The political center has lost its power to persuade and its essential means of connection to the people it seeks to represent. Instead, we are seeing a convergence of the far left and far right. The right attacks immigrants while the left rails at bankers, but the spirit of insurgency, the venting of anger at those in power and the addiction to simple, demagogic answers to complex problems are the same for both extremes. Underlying it all is a shared hostility to globalization."
It is not a "fixation" to regard the Russian efforts to fan these flames as dangerous. It also is not constructive to single out "liberal mandarins" when the issue clearly is coming from both sides of the political spectrum. The environment that offers refuge for demogogery should be a concern for all, Mr. Douthat, and the current administration's deafness to those outside forces speaks loudly to its real desire for promoting demogogery.
1
"Because on the evidence we have, nothing they did particularly mattered. "
Did you ever look at the election's results in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania? It was a very close election in those states. When considered with Comey's action in the last days of the campaign, you cannot say that Russia played no role in the elections outcome.
2
That's what he means when he talks about 78,000 votes. His point is that all they were doing was aping (often poorly) the pre-existing vitriol that Americans were already slinging at each other, and likely didn't even swing over the 0.8% of voters in those three states that would be needed to flip the election. It appears that it amounted to just a drop in the bucket.
The Comey thing almost certainly did swing the election; national polls tightened substantially in the immediate aftermath of his announcement and had not returned to baseline by Election Day. The DNC hacking probably did as well, and that is why Douthat says he considers that to actually be serious Russian interference. The trolls were trivial, but the DNC hacking was not.
You know this how, Ross?
I agree that our internal fractiousness, and disgustingly poor processes of bringing forth quality leaders, in both parties, are bigger, and more central, factors in our political malaise and dysfunction in the US. And I agree that one should be skeptical of the effect that Russian mis/disinformation campaigns had on the election results.
But in my skepticism I don't leap like Douthat does here to the ironic stance of being near-paranoid and hysterical about paranoia and hysteria, and a rash supposition that Russian efforts were inconsequential and that therefore it is all a "fake news" story. That is far too cursorily dismissive. Disdainfully dismissive. Douthat uses whole cloth to bolster his arguments against whole cloth. More irony.
It could indeed be true that Russian efforts were inconsequential, but when only two votes per precinct in Michigan decided that state's electoral votes, there are a lot of factors to choose from as tipping points. And who knows if what Douthat dismisses as only the choir possibly hearing the Russian trolls preach bled over into influencing enough undecideds? Mass psychology and mass hysteria - the phenomena of "essentially imitative" energy Douthat blithely consigns to the presumably-ineffective waste bin - have fascinatingly sweeping effects.
Momentum, Ross. Any political operative will tell you momentum is a powerful effect in voter psychology.
74
I assume most people who read the NY Times share my belief that the election of Donald Trump is the worst self inflicted wound of American history. The previous, in my opinion, was letting Jeb steal Florida in 2000 for his lame brother, but that pales in comparison. Mr. Douthat wants to attribute Trump's victory to populism and re-emergent nationalism, and those were certainly important forces. What he dismisses as side issues, however, are likely to have been the deciding factors in an election as close as it was. I have several candidates: The FBI's keeping Hillary's legal and secure email server in the news and reopening the "investigation" days before the election, while failing to mention its investigation into Russian interference on Trump's behalf may have flipped the outcome. Russian hacking and the release of stolen emails at just the right moments suggests collusion and certainly had an effect. Russia surely affected the thinking of some voters. President Obama's principled silence about the investigation helped. Finally, much credit goes to the NY Times for its consistent attacks on Hillary going back to 1992. It took decades to make many voters thinks that the straightest arrow in America's political quiver was a crook. Mr. Douthat suffers from ideological myopia, always looking for intellectual explanations, when the truth is often simpler and dirtier.
4
If you think Hillary Clinton is "the straightest arrow" your quiver is decidedly bent. (Fyi, I almost always vote D. Mostly by despairing default though. You see, I hail from the moribund democratic wing of the party (and not the Sanders wing, either), not the "centrist," Rockefeller Republican wing we've had to resort to in the past half-century.)
I don't believe 1/2 of what I read online and when a FB friend posts stuff that I think may be utter nonsense se I go to Snopes.com and of I see that it has been debunked I post a comment to the person who posted the original nonsense.
Therefore it accomplished its intended effect. Because of something you saw, you spent brain power debating with yourself, doubting, and ultimately debating with someone else. I keep thinking about this..of course these crazies on FB don't change my opionion...but does the process of doubting what I read, being angry about lies/propaganda etc. does that in some way change me psychologically in a way I'm not even aware of??
That's what's so creepy about all this.
And the second question is: does all this back and forth in my head have a cumulative effect?? I honestly can't explain it scientifically. But I do know this, I am exhausted, I am weary, and I'm pessimistic in a way that I have never been in my entire life.
The GOP has made party over country a form of treason, and by supporting Trump they are supporting a country that does not share our values, run by an authoritarian who Trump apparently admires. They will, of course, claim otherwise, but there are now at least two well-documented decades of Republicans focusing on party and ignoring governance and country. Trump supporters think they're getting their country back, but in reality they are helping another country undermine it with the aid of the liar-in-chief. In the coming elections the rest of us are going to rescue our country from them...and him.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
2
One is compelled to wonder how many voters were pushed into the Clinton camp by the sheer ugliness of the Trump campaign.
I agree with your general premise that the power and influence attributed to the Russian troll effort is exaggerated. They exploited the fissures already existing in the American electorate; these fissures are regularly exploited by domestic forces and have done much to shape opinion. Mueller's indictment of the IRA and 13 associated Russians is an appropriate response.
However, two points need to be addressed:
1) Is their evidence of any direct intervention in the conduct of the election: tabulation of votes, registration, etc.?
This indeed would be a 'Pearl Harbor' and has NOT been specifically addressed. We need a Congressional Inquiry to examine this question to ensure the integrity of our elections going forward.
2) The enormous volume of lies and propaganda that has been a long standing project on the right will drive the left to reciprocate. Organizations such as FOX, OANN and other members of the 'echo chamber' need to be reigned in.
There is an open and democratic way to accomplish this: the re-instatement of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine. This rule was eliminated in 1987 and is the major reason we have such distorted political discussions.
The serious questions that are driving the degradation of political discourse and confidence in our electoral process cannot be addressed by SP Mueller. This is the responsibility of Congress. This should be a major plank in the Democratic Party platform in upcoming mid term election.
5
"Mr. DoubtThat" obviously disagrees with that master propagandist Joseph Goebbels' wise observation that "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." The Republican Party today are the masters of the big lies, and they worked hand in glove with our dangerous and clever adversary, Russia, to disseminate widely a plethora of them.
2
Just to add a bit about immigration.... What would the world look like if a special dispensation were not made to grant Rupert Murdoch U.S. citizenship i.e he jumped the line waving a fistful of cash, in order to allow him to purchase U.S print and broadcast media. (FOX for example) I don't know if it would have made difference in the long run. But a classic cash buys influence case.
2
On the Russian bot attacks, Ross writes: "Because on the evidence we have, nothing they did particularly mattered." On the other hand, based on the evidence we have, we can't know that it did not matter either. That 78,000 vote difference was split between three States. Which makes that only a hairsbreadth of a difference in votes. The bot attacks without a doubt drove outraged Trumpkins to the polls. To say "nothing they did particularly mattered" is a false statement.
3
Despite Mr. Douthat’s belief to the contrary, we are, by and large, a pretty gullible bunch. To let Russian media intrusions fester without response or rebuttal will ruin this country.
2
As another opinion writer for the times has noted, the Trump populism really isn't populism unless you think it includes propaganda disguised as populism and politicians like Trump and the Republicans that are really comfortable with lying.
1
All well & good Ross but what if there was contact between Republican operatives and the Russians, helping the Russians to more effectively target voters? What would you call that? I'd call it treason and I'd want to see those who did severely punished. How about it, Ross?
2
The Russian attacks of fake news work because so many Americans, of all political persuasions, are ready, willing recipients of it. The attacks may be Russian, but the failure belongs to us.
I jumped off the Bernie train to oblivion when my fellow supporters started parroting the same tired lies about Hillary that the bengazhi right has been shrieking since they decided to begin to chip away at her future presidential bid while she was still secretary of state. I did not know about Putins illegal incursion into our electoral system, of course. I was just disgusted at how easily Bernies decent but naive supporters were coopted by the worst elements in our society. A whole lot of them stayed home or tossed their votes on possibly the worst two third party candidates in history. I guess that they missed the Ralph Nader memo.
For you to so blithely assert your confidence that the Russian electronic invasion could not have swayed the upper electoral tier without any real evidence is intellectual dishonesty at its best. You have no actual idea. The fringy stuff bled over into the main stream media and helped to breed the false dishonesty equivalency between Hillary and the sociopath in chief. And that was a mainstream, not a right wing problem.
2
Mr. Douthat, your essential argument in this piece is that we shouldn't focus on an enemy state's attempt to destroy our democracy and free elections because they (the Russians) were unsuccessful, and that instead we should be focusing on internal US problems that made the election so close. I will leave it to the other persuasive comments below to rebut both arguments. However, I only have one question for you, and hope you will honestly respond in another column. Would have ever written a column like this if Hillary Clinton was the President of the United States? Can you imagine how the republican party, yourself included, would have reacted to discovering that the Russian government provided active assistance to her campaign, and that senior members of her campaign staff were clearly involved. Would you have written this column If she had fired the Director of the FBI, if she had attempted to fire the special prosecutor, if she were engaging in a campaign to undermine the integrity of the FBI and the other intelligence services. It is this political hypocrisy that demands we focus on the Russian investigation, because the Republican party and President have done almost everything in their power to derail it.
4
Ross Douthat thinks that political advertising is ineffective and does not influence the outcome of elections...I wonder why he thinks so many tens of millions of dollars on spent on it? Virtually every candidate and political party in the country are being duped by the media (including the social media) to spend more and more money. And thanks to Citizens United, are spending in anonymously even though it has no impact. He may have something there but I doubt it has much truth to it.
1
Nor does do us any good to pretend that Russian interference on social media didn't play a role in the election. The president's (and then candidate's) primary means of communicating with the public is through Twitter. We have a online troll for a president. Douthat minimizes the role of Russian trolls and bots, while ignoring the fact that we elected a troll-in-chief. Many of the president's Twitter posts are nothing but troll comments.
Was this mentality present in American society prior to 2014? Of course. Did the Russians introduce something new into an American election? No. But those questions are irrelevant. What Russian online cyberwarfare did was amplify divisions in an effort to sway the election and undermine our democracy. While no one can state with certainty that Russian meddling efforts made the difference in the election outcome, Mr. Douthat and others don't know that they didn't make the difference. It's plausible that it did make a difference.
I'm amused that Douthat minimizes the role of "some provocateur's Hillary-for-prison meme", since Trump himself was the one who started that meme. Others, including Russian trolls and bots, amplified that meme.
1
I personally saw many of the ads and memes on Facebook that are now coming to light as having been purchased by Russians and read a lot of the comments attached to them. I believe I was targeted since I'm a middle-aged white woman in a state that turned out to make a difference. If anyone really looked at my Facebook feed, they would know I am a liberal and my mind was made up. I looked at this stuff to try and understand where some of the people I know are coming from and where they get their information. I personally know 4 women who were swayed enough against Hillary by the constant demonizing of her, her husband, their foundation, and belief in the DNC's campaign against Sanders that they voted for a third party candidate. That's just 4 women, who I know for certain refused to vote for Hillary because they bought into a lot of the lies that have been spread about her for over 25 years. Lies that were amplified and made to seem more real in their minds by the Russian influence campaign. Two of these women are college educated and two are not. None of them believe a Snopes posting that says something is fake news and none of them believe factcheck.org or any stats from a NY Times article, Vox, Slate, or Politico piece. They write them off immediately as 'left wing' and biased. Yet, they believe Fox News and their beliefs were reinforced by the Russian influence campaign. That's just 4 people I know for sure.
4
The biggest problem is the corruption of language. Both sides of the debate are conservative. One branch holding fast to the conservatism of the the 18th and 19th century mercantilism that the USA was formed to fight against. The other side are the main stream Democrats attempting to return to the 20th century conservatism of FDR and the New Deal.
Neither side seems to possess a calendar and neither side is capable of understanding there is no compromise when their Ministeries of Truth refuse to use the same dictionary.
There is Red America and Blue America but the colours cannot blend regardless of the prayers and the innumerable Heavenly blessings.
There is no purple America nor will there ever be.
1
It is a sad comment on the state of democracy as an institution that voters can be persuaded to cast their vote on the basis of what they read on Facebook...
Whether Russia or Russians were involved in 2016 and or will be again in 2018 (as the not wholly objective intelligence community asserts), is actually beside the point. What we see, and have been seeing for many years now, in the US and elsewhere, is that the people are ever more unwilling to do the strict minimum democracy asks of them, i.e. to vote after a modicum of assessment and reflection. They furthermore prove unwilling to accept the outcome of their vote, which renders the whole thing even more painfully absurd.
In that context, the continued coverage of this affair begins to resemble plucking at a scab while the house floods. In a scant few months you, the American People, will have the opportunity to vote again and to change the composition of your legislative assembly radically. If you do this, you can emasculate the Trump Presidency and expose it for the vile, self-serving and hollow farce it is. However, this means that you should focus your energies on creating and fostering a credible alternative. Any time spent following tenuous threads of evidence of Russian (or other) influencing attempts, is time NOT spent on what should be the main objective.
As things stand now, I fear the forces of reason will not take back the House, and you may even set yourselves up for four more years of the Donald.
1
Underlying everything, both within America's borders and beyond is a belief in racial superiority born in insecurity and fear. We must sit with, talk with and break bread with the"other" if we are ever to learn to share this truth: we humans are fundamentally the same,we share one home only, the Earth and we must find new and better ways to accomplish this. It is a shame more is not written on this and more ideas are not in general discussion. Why are we so afraid of change?
Who needs the Russians to sew discord among the American electorate?
Forget about the Russians. We have Trump Inc., FOX News, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the freedom of speech loving right wing 'for profit' media to divide and weaken America. We have the "non-fake news." and a GOP who gladly embraces their divisive points of view. Driving a wedge between Americans everyday. Not for the purpose of governing. But to stay in power.
Why so many guns? Because you need one. To defend you and your family against the daily threats you face. Terrorists, MS-13, minorities, illegals, those who would outlaw Christmas. Generally your fellow citizens.
Divide is their business model. Bringing people together is for politicians. Not business men. And profits are soaring.
1
Murdoch and his ilk do more damage to our democracy in one week than the Russians do in a whole election cycle.
1
It's bad enough that Americans made up false stores about Hillary Clinton and then broadcast them through Facebook.But you don't think it's so bad that the Russians did the same thing?They threw verbal gasoline on an already burning house and you would like us to ignore this and focus on the emails.Those emails once again!Surely you realize that the effect the Russian interference had on our elections can never be proved but there is such a thing as common sense.Luckily we have a truly moral man in Robert Mueller to show you the way Ross.A man who,I'm sure,would be uncomfortable with your interpretation of what is serious and what is not.Finally....there is one important thing the Russians did with their phony postings.They showed that they feared Hillary Clinton in the White House much more than the yammering clown we have now.Maybe you should think about that Ross.
1
Unfortunately I must disagree, I believe all those awful memes had a sinister affect on many American minds. I know I came across them myself and still continue too, and I wish I had known back then they were made by Russians. We all have to ask ourselves now when we see a hyper-partisan and divisive meme, "who made this, and why?"
2
Please provide citations for your claims about the efficacy of Russian influence operations in America that go beyond "because liberals are overreacting." You consume column inches in one of the West's great newspapers and should take this responsibility more seriously.
1
Once again Douhat preens for the Trump Media Cartel that Trump really did flip voters when in reality Republican gerrymandering gave him an Electoral victory but three million shy of the Popular vote. If the Russian collusion by the Trump apparatchiks aren't enough evidence for Mr. Douhat to delegitimize the election I suggest that he wait for Mueller to finish his investigation.
I'm not sure why Mr. Douthat is so certain that the Russian interference did not swing the election to Trump.
The intelligence community didn't investigate this question for one simple reason. It is unknowable.
We cannot get inside people's heads and figure out how the fake news bots affected their decision to vote for Trump or possibly to not vote at all. The debate as to whether it affected the outcome or not is pointless but we can certainly say anyone who claims to know whether it affected the outcome or not hasn't thought it through.
2
You are proposing a non-existent separation between the DNC hacking and the Russian trolling.
You will never know the extent to which those events overlap until Mueller finishes his investigation, which means looking into every single contact between the Trump organization and Russia.
The outcome may be that we come to a national realization that no president can ever function freely and independently of political pressure -- unless he/she releases the details of all prior financial and legal transactions.
Is it not actually appalling that the Russians were spending $1.25 million a month to disrupt America and its elections? It is criminal activity because foreigners were engaged in buying political ads. Hence the Mueller indictments.
Mr. Douthat downplays all this because it is impossible with valid statistics to prove exactly how many votes were pushed over the fence by the Russian trolls. So since we can't count bullet holes and trace the bullets to specific Russian misinformation, Ross would propose that we decide that it is unimportant.
I don't think so. Russians attacked our election process and it is unacceptable.
3
I agree with Ross that, fundamentally, we need to look in the mirror to see the real cause of polarization in the US. And I appreciate the notion that the hysteria surrounding Russian activity might be overblown. But if you don't think Comey's mishandling of the investigation into Hillary's disgraceful private server + the reopening of the investigation based on content from Weiner's computer + leaks of the Podesta emails + Russian trolling doesn't equate to 78,000 votes, or enough votes to turn a few swing states to the dems...well, then I think you're sorely mistaken.
Truth has no power over pride, faith and shame. Most people do not believe that they are followers. They like to believe that they "think for themselves". That paradigm has been turned on it's head with very effective, sophisticated cons and not much effort overall. Not that the folks who buy into the garbage they are fed will even begin to consider that they have been trolled and rolled. Admitting, even to themselves, that they have been manipulated is too painful. Even when the truth is laid bare, the need to protect their ego and faith wins in the end. It can't be any more self evident with a POTUS who still has 40% of the people behind him after all that he has done to erode any deserved trust and respect. VOTE.
1
Good insights. Keep in mind that the successful voter suppression campaigns were much more influential and maybe swung the election. Check out Mother Jones on this topic...
What the Russians did, and are doing, was and is like putting up incorrect street signs, traffic lights, and incorrectly programming GPS devices ? Vehicles would go in the wrong directions. Accidents would occur. There would be lots of confusion.
1
Ross Douthat, another conservative apologist for Russia - "nothing to see here, please move on." A lot of Americans look at what's happening with all these conservatives trying to tell genuinely patriotic Americans to look away from the Russia/Trump alliance and ask themselves what do conservatives represent today other than tax cuts, defense spending, and racism? There's not much. Free trade and immigration? Nope, not with Trump. Social security and Medicare? Nope, they're trying to eliminate the social safety net so the rich can get more tax cuts. Do you like Putin as much as Trump does Ross? It's pretty sickening.
1
Interference in our elections , foreign or domestic, is bad enough but what makes it even worse is how susceptible voters are to mis information ,no matter where it comes from. American voters are presumably proud of the sacred right they fought for to elect their leaders, yet so many of them don’t bother to to think that privilege through.
Their search for simple answers to complex issues and for leaders who’d reaffirm their already held prejudices , have brought us to the sad state of affairs we are in. Unless voters get more informed, the outcome of our elections will continue to be influenced by opportunistic manipulators.
As a former member decades ago of the DOD who carried a Top Secret clearance, I am well aware of propaganda wars. We have been utilizing them against our enemies as they have been against US for eons. Nothing new there. What's different now is because of the extremely evolved high-tech world we now inhabit, the level of sophistication makes detecting propaganda that much harder, even for the professional.
Thus, I take everything I read online with a grain of salt. I stick with the tried and true, like this paper here (I still read the hard copy) and others like The Wash Post, the broadcast news networks, including the BBC. All others should be suspect. How anybody can site Facebook, and other so-called "news" sites on their computer as reliable simply astounds me. Just because a site can be made to look as professional does not mean it is so. That was the concept of the Colbert Report. It mocked the bombast of FOX "news", particularly the pathetic O'Reilly Factor. A rule of thumb: the greater bells and whistles, the more the buyer should beware. Yes, that also includes the other cable outlets, CNN and MSNBC. They have agendas that appeal to their own highly selective audience. They're preaching to the choir. So stick with the tried and true. In the end you won't feel so stupid for buying the rubbish that Trump was going to make America great. It's nonsense.
DD
Manhattan
Mr. Douthat cannot make the claim that Russian trolls had no impact on the election without extensive examination of the phenomenon, which had and is still having echo effects of which his article is one example. A "scan through this newspaper" is not such an investigation. Making this claim is an example of careless journalism. I do not ascribe worse motives to him, however.
2
The blow did not come from Russian trolls.
The blow came from 25 years of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
I have neighbors who still believe the Clintons had Vince Foster murdered.
4
Douthat missed the third element of Russian operations: the attempt to compromise the States’ voter rolls and perhaps the vote itself. THAT is what justifies the talk of a continuing Russian assault on our Republic that needs an urgent response.
11
It's time to revisit and own in the public space the notion of false equivalency. This idea that "both sides" do this or that (and leaving it there without accompanying facts), as it pertains to our political realm allows the non factual, opinion driven content to rule, and the open door for propaganda. It also furthers the idea of there's nothing we can do about it as "both sides" are doing it, and this lack of agency is the goal that drives the Russians to get involved in the first place. If their political society felt the agency of the people there would be an argument about a change in Russian leadership, something they are working to avoid at home and in the world.
2
And if Hillary had won? Hard to believe, Ross, you would be making the same argument. Even Trump complained that the election was rigged prior to his surprise victory. Maybe you can explain that.
1
Whatever, Ross. What possible legitimate objection is there to Congress and the President funding and requiring a thorough security check of the 50 states’ voter registration systems and voting machine software, and requiring backup paper ballots for recounts? No time to lose before the 2018 elections. Let’s stop arguing about the past. Some combination of things including Russian activities, Obama’s judgment to say little about them before the election, Comey’s 11th hour comments, and an unfortunate comment about “deplorables” gave DJT Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
2
It wasn't pearl-clutching liberal snowflakes who characterized the Russians' activities as "information warfare." It was the Russian criminals themselves. It's not hyperbole to take them at their word.
12
Frankly, this is a load of the stuff that is usually found outside barns.
One question, Mr. Douthat. Say that your child was being bullied at school. And then the bullying also started from online. Would you just laugh and say, "Ignore the online stuff! She's not saying anything new to you!" Or would you call it out for what it is, and then try to get it shut down?
And prevent it from being repeated, ever again?
7
Ross is making an "Oh, there was no harm argument" to the Russian meddling allegation. It's true, we possibly can't measure the harm in terms of swayed opinions but he misses the point: the Russians are actively interfering with our democracy. If it were only the fake news stories, then his point might have some merit - but it wasn't and isn't the only point. Russia hacked into voter roles, state databases (in addition to the DNC's), and who knows what else. If hackers can hack into companies who specialize in anti-hacking software, then there is no doubt that Russia could cast votes from Moscow. Neither Trump nor Ross really care because Trump and Ross (and people like Ross) benefited. Ross knows that Trump is his best chance at ramming through the ultra-right-wing agenda Ross quite candidly promotes but he fears Trump's losing ground and he'll miss (and his fascist counterparts) his one chance at creating the autocracy/theocracy he's been praying for. Let's pray the god Ross prays to is the same one that fails to answer every other prayer cast his way.
Relentless repitition of "Hillary is a corrupt liar," with no details except lies could most certainly have turned the election. On a national TV focus group, a woman showed she actually believed the Planet Ping Pong libel. To be 'sure' Russian trolling did not turn the election is to be in deep denial of the effectiveness of propaganda, underpinned by decades of right-wing hate radio, TV, and websites.
3
Finally the reasoned thoughts that while the Russians meddled and should be punished, their activities on social media were ineffective and would be a minuscule blip of activity when you consider it would be a part of fake junk posted by millions of fake accounts from the US and everywhere else. Read today’s front page where their is a reporting on the number of bots and fake accounts that go unaddressed by the social media companies.
So, let me understand this. You are saying that a foreign government, adversarial to us, openly hostile enough to invade neighboring Crimea, spends millions on cyber-warfare to secretly attempt to influence our electoral process or at least to sow chaos, and because they did not in your opinion succeed we should... what?... ignore it? not get worked up over it?...Trump would've won anyway so no biggie?...as if there won't be a next time when they might be more effective? Thanks. I feel so much safer now. Otherwise I'd be like some sleepless Liberal who can't sleep at night thinking that the sky is falling.
7
No, the real Russian scandal isn't hacking of any kind, neither of the DNC nor of social media platforms. The real Russian scandal is that Donald Trump and Paul Manafort were beholden to Russians, financially and otherwise, and their debts and obligations resulted in Russian influence over and involvement in our Presidential election. The argument that the social media part of it had no influence is just like this argument: I should not be charged with robbery of a grocery store because the robbery had no effect on the chain of grocery stores as a whole. Ordinarily, when people are thinking clearly, they would never allow robbers to walk by this kind of logic. But in this case, they are prepared to ignore the treasonous intent that is behind these crimes on the grounds that the crimes themselves weren't all that effective. That's ridiculous. From what we know of Paul Manafort's decades of dealing in the former Soviet Union; and of Donald Trump's extensive dealings there as well; there is every reason to expect that they are dangerously compromised and that the voluminous smoke in this case is concealing an honest-to-god fire. Let the FBI do their dogggone job and stop trying to derail their investigation with lame diversions.
3
Talking about whether the Russian interference affected the election is irrelevant and counterproductive. Such talk is a diversion from the real problem. Russia tried to interfere with our election, and our government must do what it can to reduce foreign interference in the future. How can the President ignore the problem?
1
Finally, an intelligent column from The Times that addresses the macro issues and indeed asks the real question “why was it(the election)so close”. The answer is obvious to anyone not bogged down by partisan politics, anyone willing to hop in a car and take a drive coast to coast, we are a nation of wealthy coastal communities with a withering majority. We are a deeply divide nation and the fault lies with ourselves not some Russian or Chinese boogeyman. We have intentionally, with for-thought and malice, gone about the systemic dismantling of a system that benefited the many to allow the exploitation by the few. We did it to ourselves, the Chinese didn’t do it to our manufacturing, the Mexicans didn’t do it to our entry level jobs, we did it to ourselves. Faux “liberal” manufacturers, initially in clothing, just as well as the wealthy who wanted cheap gardeners, maids or day laborers paid lip service to protecting American jobs as they set about destroying American jobs. The argument made by some commenters that we “were attacked” is so childish and naive as to be laughable. We do much worse to influence elections, for instance assasinations or invasion if we don’t like the results. The real damage we did from within and the greater damage yet is the drumming up of another bogus enemy to justify a bloated defense budget or aid the agenda of the neo cons both here and in the Middle East by engaging in and funding endless wars until our “allies” are the last man standing.
1
Douthat should be believed when he says that our political situation has stemmed from our own internal civil strife rather that Russian bots. He’s made a career of stoking those flames. That he is not crass about how he goes about his business doesn’t change his religious zeal in promoting an atavistic cosmology that is arrayed against the very same Americans who loathe Trump.
1
To think the trolls had no effect on the election is absurd. Strange the Trump campaign occasionally would mimic phrases as in , "Lock her Up", that trolls used. He and his children would, "like", posts by trolls, his tweets forwarded were/are from questionable sources. His persistent denial, even asking Putin if he interfered in the election believing his no over agencies in this country renders him unfit for office. People can not work at Fort Meade without a security clearances so why is the White House getting away with a double standard when they have access to the entire spectrum of highly classified information. Nepotism, profiting from office, nastiness, juvenile behavior, getting advice from friends at Mar a Largo, golf course this entire administration is like an Amtrak train.
2
I question the assumption there is an "American mind'. We all have minds and unless we are considered brainwashed there is no American mind. There is a mindset among certain segments of our society that appears to be without consideration of this fact and unfortunately they are in control of our government.
It isn't an American mind that brings trouble rather the mind controlled by fear which uses greed and sanctimony to deny the inevitable. Many if not most of our leaders in both church and state appear more insecure than healthy
Hmm, is espionage by foreign agents really a "crime"? Are there similarly CIA agents committing espionage against other states? Yes, Americans knowingly abetting - or covering it, up as it were - foreign espionage is a crime.
Liberal hysteria. Liberal hand-wringing. Liberal mandarins.
Apparently it's neeedful to point out that for all the Jill Stein types, for all the Berniacs, for all the gullibility on the Left, the main people warped by Russian trolling--are in the picture at the top of this editorial.
Same old Ross Douthat, same old Right. Scrape off the verbiage and the spray of cheap cultural references, and it's a Trump speech.
1
I'd like to remind Ross of the old adage "The pen is mightier than the sword". The damage inflicted by "fake news" domestic or foreign can be serious and severe and have a long lasting effect on our government and society. I would probably also tend to believe that James Comey and his last minute reopening of the Hillary Clinton email nonsense was far more damaging than anything the Russian trolls did. That said we need to develop a system for dealing with fake news and the damage that it causes by holding those responsible and liable.
1
"And the people who believed them, by and large, were probably not the nearly 78,000 Midwestern swing voters who officially determined the election’s Electoral College outcome ....."
How did you assume this? Do you have a proof? Russians were trying to influence the opinion of millions of Americans by Facebook and other means. The whole election is a game of publicity, advertisement of candidates and messaging. That is what both Democrats and Republican spend billions of dollars on. This is how elections are won and lost. So how come you are sure that Russians were unsuccessful (but Republicans and Democrats were !).
Bogus argument.
2
To say that nothing the Russians did "mattered" is patently absurd. We are now riven with violently divisive notions are based on fear, paranoia and ill-will to our fellow citizens, and this was fueled by foreign actions within our borders. The Russian-borne attacks of democratic values have gotten inside the heads of many Americans who sense conspiracy on every level, questioning the very nature of reality. It matters. This cannot easily be pulled apart and separated from what we have become and are becoming.
2
America was attacked, its democracy, and state election systems were breached as well as two power plants. This is a form of devastation on a cyber security level, and the hackers are still within FB and Twitter and the entire U.S. intelligence community plus the 37 page indictment from the Mueller investigation warns they will be interfering in November in our U.S. elections concerning all the seats in the House and 33 or 37 in the Senate.
But, none of this strikes to the heart of a Douthat, evidently. Do you lack the imagination of what chaos America will be in come November if we don't go to paper ballots and secure our vote? Do you not realize that what Putin did shows we need money spent to beef up our cyber defenses? Do you not think that getting a Putin choice for 'American' president actually placed into our WH is not an act of sabotage plus cyber warfare?
As Thomas Friedman of the NYT says, we are at Code Red in America as far as being attacked by a foreign power and Trump and the GOP not defending America. We, the people, and the individual states will have to defend ourselves from further attack on our votes in November.
1
Not so fast. Our entire media has been hacked — yes, entire.
It’s not just the hacking of one media sphere — social media — that is the actual effect. When we begin to distrust the printed word, or cannot substantiate sources of information, then chaos ensues among the people. Citizens feel paranoid in their own land. Those in power become more powerful.
Reading about Russian trolls and bots is one thing. Coming across them is quite another experience. I caught two, one on each side of our polarized fence, in one comment thread on Facebook just this week. They were swarming on Rep. Adam Schiff’s page — a likely target. It was so easy to identify them. They are so obvious, even if they are also clever. They know us quite well. But the really creepy part is that Facebook didn’t catch them. If I and several other commenters could easily pick them out, why couldn’t FB?
We don’t need a wall on our southern border, we need one in our media — asap! But we have a troll in the Oval Office who knows how to profit from the creeping creepiness. His intention is to stoke the flames.
No, Mr. Douthat, we are beholding a real national threat. Hold the media accountable. Hold our elected officials accountable. ASAP!
1
At best Mr. Douthat is going with his gut reaction here. A very uninformed opinion. He is guilty of jumping to conclusions, an act he normally likes to pin on liberals. Surely it's not just the Russians, and yes there is a sickness that pervades our on-line society right now, but don't you think the Russians are getting the result they seek, in spades? Please, just wait for the results of a careful investigation, if we're ever able to get it.
This article is a naive and backward looking perspective. It shows no understanding of what is really at stake. Our election system was affected by a systematic assault on the information we, as a society of free citizens, view as news in forming our opinions. The election is but one example of the danger. The assault is on truth. The assault is on science. The assault is on our ability to perceive the objective reality that is the actual basis of our shared understanding.
With technology, our world has become too complex for anyone to know everything that affects their lives. We are all specialists. Complexity is increasing at an every increasing, exponential rate. In fact, it is happening so fast that there is a significant difference between life in rural and urban areas that feeds into the conservative/liberal tribal separation that has taken hold of our country. It's only going to get worse.
In order to navigate the cultural challenges we are experiencing, we have to rely on others for true information. Information technology has given immense power to those with a vested interest in deceiving. It started with the newspapers of yore, accelerated with cable TV, accelerated again with right wing radio, again with the Internet-supported conspiracy websites and now it is off the charts with social media.
Unless someone develops a financial incentive for objective truth, Capitalism will destroy our Democracy.
1
Isn’t there at least some question about the degree to which the Russian trolling amplified the the negative memes that were floating around? And isn’t there at least some notion that this amplification, to whatever degree, mattered?
3
I don't want to crush anyone. I just want to give them a better life than they have ever dreamed was possible..
The author suggests that tswing voters who determined the election’s outcome were NOT swayed by the Russian constant attacks on Clinton?
I totally disagree. How could anyone ignore their photos of Hilliary in prison garb and the incessantt "Lock her up!" chants!
The Russian's constant portrayal of Hilliary as a criminal had a tremendous effect on me and I had planned to vote for her from the beginning. By election day, I actually did not know who I would vote for. Jill Stein looked like a decent alternative which meant I would essentially be voting for Trump. I ended up voting for Hillary but with great reservation.
If the american voters had known then what the whole world knows now, we would not have this psychopathic moron who is under investigation for Conspiracy against the United States
pretending to be our President.
God help us all.
1
First of all, Russian intelligence operations in our country are serious as a matter of principle. You may find them ridiculous, but the US has similar capabilities and has used them to acknowledged effect for decades.
Second, no matter how ridiculous you find them, THEY WORKED ON YOU. You are part of the dog that the Russian SIGINT tail has been wagging for years now. You believe patently ridiculous things that were either fostered or fabricated by Russian intelligence for dissemination throughout the increasingly incurious and gullible right wing of this country, of which you are a fixture. Your continuing adherence to an ideology and party that has been made such an obvious and facile tool of a hostile foreign power should give you pause, but instead you scoff at the idea. Which is pretty typical.
Third, the irony in YOU asking "how was it that close to begin with" is blinding. It was that close to begin with because people like YOU have given intellectual and social cover to the very ridiculousness that you now scorn. It was that close to begin with because of your, and your fellow travellers', war on reality, on civic virtue, on our press and on our social discourse. It was that close to begin with because you'll never write a column "Trickle Down Was a Farce and Republicans Have Been Wrong About Everything Since Nixon." It's you Ross. You're the troll.
2
So...free speech by foreigners is now illegal?
The Russian bots that Ross insists are unimportant just started an attack on the high schoolers demanding gun laws. Now there are far too many Americans who believe the lie that those teens are actors.
The ignorant Americans who believe this have their demented views reinforced by the belief that there are millions of real people who agree when those are bots.
2
The Democrats are once again falling back on the assumption that voters are idiots. It worked wonders for their last nominee!
I met a woman at the protests of the Democratic Convention wearing a Clinton mask and dressed as "Lady MacDeath". She was inimitable, articulate and knowledgeable of foreign policy to a degree which few can match. She did what she did because she had convictions and she could defend them.
And what Democrats still can't understand is that they lost because they had none. And their only defense now, as then, is "the Russkies!!"
If your voters abandoned you because of a badly-photoshopped picture of Hillary as an actual demon, you did a pretty lousy job of persuading them. Maybe look at your own failings before you start flailing with unsubstantiated accusations.
They might have tried, but the Russians' propaganda had NOTHING to do with the outcome of the election. The effort itself has significance, but there's a pervasive tendency among the anti-Trump crowd to draw conclusions where none are possible. And you are just further alienating those you need most by implying that the Sanders campaign was elevated by anything other than the grassroots movement which has outlived it.
1
Putting a word in ALL CAPS is neither and argument or a piece of evidence. There is every reason to believe that the flood of negative press that came from the DNC hack and Podesta hack were decisive. Without them, Hillary Clinton would be president. You may not want to accept this horrifying fact, but stamping your foot on your keyboard is not a refutation.
1
But there was no falsity in any of those emails, they were entirely true. And they showed what lowlifes the Democrats were (even within their own domain, ask Bernie). If they indeed carried the election, then Putin did us (and the rest of the world, especially the Mideast) a massive favor.
Excuse me...
"...meatspace..."?
2
Yeah, I noticed that too.
Without question there was fertile ground here in the U.S. — actual ignorance, tribalism, delusional belief in Trump as the white daddy who will make you feel safe again — but the Russians DID attack, they literally subverted our democratic process. NO equivocating on this; the soil was fertile, but if they had not planted the seeds, there would be nothing growing.
1
The right wing disinformation machine, via Fox News, Right wing talk radio etc. has been doing an adequate job of appealing to those ripe for propaganda and lies for decades. The gullible, undereducated, over religious, fearful and hateful hordes of Republicans voters surely didn’t need further assistance from Russian Bots. They had already been forever contaminated from accepting truth, facts or reasoned thought. We just need to outnumber them at the ballot box.
It may be that the Fox afficionados were lost causes. But as the election and re-election of President Obama proves, they are not alone enough to determine a Presidential election. The Russian actions had their effect where they could: on the middle who might vote either way.
The one thing that you miss, Mr. Douthat, is what effect the Russian social media effort helped tamp the Black voter turnout. Yes, some white voters switched from Dem to Repub, but a meaningful number of black voters may have been convinced to sit this one out by Russian propaganda.
1
You're confused. I was born in one of the Obama-to-Trump counties of western Pennsylvania, and even "clumsy" agitprop is quite effective there, as we saw. Nor are you on safe ground when you make sweeping comparisons to Brexit and strongman countries like Hungary; I hope the American way of life and culture still has a few immune responses in our DNA that they don't have. The fact is that the Trump campaign shrewdly played for an Electoral College victory, and they squeaked one out. The fact that thousands of voters in Pittsburgh and the surrounding countryside believed sincerely that Obama was a foreign-born agent of socialism played a role, a conviction that was built and reinforced by years of chain emails and social-media generated crackpottery. Trying to minimize the effects of this effort now borders on quislingism.
2
Russia and Trump crossed the line at the same time.
Mr. Douthat tries to make a nuanced argument that the Russian hacking operation of Democratic National Committee emails remains a scandal worthy of attention, but the Russian Facebook and Twitter campaigns were 'ludicrous' and close to "fake news". His evidence is not convincing.
On election day and before, we can think of the electorate as a complex adaptive system (CAS) made up of eligible voters as agents. Imagine a flock of starlings, which can experience rapid non-linear movements. The changing narratives (e.g., emotional outrages) surrounding various candidates and political parties may have acted as attractors to drive rapid non-linear change in the voters' election day strategies (i.e., to stay home, or to vote for one candidate or another). The entire system was likely close to chaos, because of the high energy and stakes of the moment. Looking back upon the dynamic environment that was present on election day and before, it is not possible to say which attractor narrative was successful in swinging the election toward DJT. Each could have played a role, as many voters were susceptible to the swirling conspiracies of the day in social media posts. While the trolling of the American mind is not new (the Fox Propaganda Channel started in 1996), it has been weaponized over time as the technology for doing so has improved -- with Russians (and Republicans) on the forefront. This is not fake news, but does signal America is under attack.
My father taught me to write. When I brought him my essays, the first thing he would tell me was "Sit down and, in one sentence, state your premise." It seems here that Mr. Douthat's premise is that the attack by the Russians on our society and body politic didn't really matter. I find this to be a very shallow and two-dimensional representation of what happened. It's a strange insight to read in his column! A flabby idea in his beautiful writing is a let down for this reader.
1
agreed
The premise that the Russian posts and tweets didn't create something that wasn't already there has some merit but it ignores the very analogy of mass communication that it is based on. The use of the term "going viral" refers to how viruses with their simplicity, minute size and relatively small numbers can overwhelm and possibly kill a complex, large, and populous organism like a human. The virus didn't create the substances in the cell it steals but uses them to infect the body by reuse and repetition of its destructive process. In this way, Mr.Douthat's opinion that the actions of a small number of Russian trolls couldn't have affected large numbers of voter turnout is specious and blames the individual for getting sick instead of the germ.
2
While it is true the Russians only did to us what we were already doing to ourselves, who is to say the effect was minimal? Things are not necessarily so linear, with clear slicing of relative causes, with "X" a major cause and "Y" minor. It may be that their combined effects, the piling on, the feeling that things were even worse than they actually were led to cumulative effects such as general disgust and apathy, and decreased desire for the hard work of restoring democracy. The Russian actions also unflatteringly showed how easily we were played, yet another shot in our weakened condition. Finally, it shows we have a President who is simply unwilling to defend us, even if Ross is right and the "trolling" wasn't a heavy-armored attack. If there's a bright side, I'm hoping these latter two realizations get a significant number of Trump supporters to come closer to the "I've had enough" line, and get all of us re-energized to re-build our democracy. I remember an episode of the old "Star Trek," when in the midst of a fight that threatened to escalate between the Federation and Klingons, they realized they had been played by a third party. I believe there was a funny line by the Klingon Commander that "We don't need outside agitators to hate the Federation. We can do it by ourselves." Anyway, having realized their common enemy and that they had all been manipulated, they made peace.
Mr. Douhat nicely sums up all the Russian interference in 2016, with a we'll-never-know shrug, but conveniently fails to mention all the things American anti-democratic actors did to upset the 2016 election. Like:
-- Gerrymandering
-- the Electoral College
-- Voter Suppression (Trump won by 80,000 in Wi., but WI stripped 200,000 people -- in many cases incorrectly -- of their votes leading up to the election.)
-- The end of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act thanks to a Republican-led court.
-- The unlimited amounts of untraceable anonymous money poured into candidates and groups like the NRA thanks to Citizens United, another Republican-led Supreme Court Decision.
-- An Archaic Primary System
-- Weaponized Lies spread by the Fox/Breitbard/Infowars Axis of Stupid
Douhat has the gall to suggest the proper question for Hillary Clinton is "How was it that close to begin with?" Well, she was playing on a tilted field made by, and for, Republicans. Even if she weren't the wrost possible candidate -- which she was, and even as that was still superior to Mr. Trump in every aspect -- she was playing a rigged game, and a game rigged so she'd lose.
We don't need the Russians to destroy American Democracy. Republicans have been doing it for decades already.
I don’t get it. Why are there so many calls (this one is just the latest) to “compromise “ with a dangerous and deluded minority of Americans? The majority of Americans did not vote for Trump or his twisted agenda, and the majority lost. Rather than compromise, maybe it’s time to rethink the usefulness of a democracy in which fringe elements are the tail that wag the dog.
Deflect, deny, denigrate and destroy. Repeat.
Pause to solemnly place white hands on blackened hearts to recite the pledge.
Deflect, deny, denigrate and destroy. Repeat.
1
If the Russians had fabricated incriminating Hillary emails, that would have been one thing. But in fact they made real emails available to the public, and you can't argue that they weren't relevant. They wouldn't have been so newsworthy if they weren't. So discounting their motives, what the Russians did was contribute relevant information to the electorate, thus enabling it to make a better-informed decision. Obviously Hillary was doing everything in her power to dig up dirt on Trump. So far as I can tell, it's all politics as usual.
This is either disingenuous or just shallow. If the Watergate burglars had not been caught, and the bugging had caught people saying things in a private setting that could be used for to generate national coverage—even if only disparaging remarks of the kind every private individual makes—it would hardly be the right reaction to say "Well, it was true". The right wing is aflame with the fiction that the FBI spied on some lower members of the Trump campaign for political purposes. If they had done that and used recorded private conversations to drive the national news media, would you shrug and say "It's all politics as usual"?
I would, because it is. The Russians have been "meddling" in America for decades – back in the 60s, for example, they funded domestic terrorist groups such as the Weather Underground. We've been meddling in Russian affairs too. Does anyone believe that if Putin's power began to weaken, we would not do covertly everything we thought we could get away with to hasten the process? And rightly so. To clarify, I think we should hit back at Russia with everything we have. Even so, those emails were real, they were relevant, and if some people relied on them to decide how to vote, they were not wrong to do so.
With all respect, I think this argument downplaying the destructiveness of the Russian troll campaign is way too facile and, in fact, ignores the new ways in which technology is being used to give atomistic individuals the impression that fringe ideas are more commonly held than they are.
Very cannily, the Russians have realized that moderate views can be easily overwhelmed if not completely drowned out, by extreme ones; that fake news, like gossip, tends to grow exponentially; and that the low-hanging fruit-- people who previously would have harbored their resentments alone-- can be given the false impression that there are many others out there who share a rather distorted view of the world: those who deny Sandy Hook, that Obama was born in the US, that the Russian campaign itself is a hoax.
Unfortunately, technological advance has given us twin towers of information-- one on the extreme right and one on a more moderate but increasingly extreme left. Technology has outpaced the willingness of Americans to think critically and to do the hard philosophical work of exploring grey areas. The Russians understand this-- as do Fox News and all other purveyors of bizarre "truths". To downplay the importance of this intrusion is the height of complacency.
3
I'm sure sharper minds than mine will do an empirical analysis of the impact of the now undeniable Russian interference in the election, but it seems to me that weaponization of social media by the troll army and its (perhaps) unwitting enablers was a real life application of what Blogger Queen Digby calls Cokie's Law, after Cokie Roberts' distressing comment about Clinton from another era of Clinton hunting: "At this point,it doesn't much matter whether she said it or not because it's become part of the culture. I was at the beauty parlor yesterday and this was all anyone was talking about." By amplifying the right wing's Clinton catechism--she's a liar, she's ambitious, she's ruthless, she's a killer--that became "part of the culture", which the mainstream press felt compelled to talk about because, well, everyone on Facebook was. And so the election became about, God help us, emails, and the Clinton foundation, while the actual policy positions of the most qualified candidate in my lifetime, running on the most progressive platform in my lifetime of a major candidate, disappeared into the background noise amplified by the Russians. It was, after all, all anyone was talking about...
1
Before this is all over, it's pretty obvious that we're going to learn that actual vote tallies were altered by Russian hackers. Given that Trump's margin of victory in the three states that handed him the electoral college was a mere 80,000 votes, I'd say that paranoia about Russia is thoroughly warranted.
1
It's laughable that a country with Citizens United, superPacs & super delegates thinks Facebook ads from Russia have ruined its democracy. Russia as a threat is a huge cash cow for the military industrial congressional complex & surveillance state. It justifies the censorship of voices that don't conform to the self-serving narratives of the U.S. corporate state & NATO. To believe anything otherwise is insincere naiveté.
Yeah Sean, you nailed it. Why should Trump bother condemning Russia for such trivial matters when he has such important matters, like bump stocks, to deal with.
1
Given low expectations during the election for a Trump win, saying he would have likely won under different circumstances seems like a big stretch. Do you even look at election maps, bro???
Let's remember that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, despite the influence of the Russian hackers and bots. Without the election distortion of the Electoral College, Hillary Clinton would be president. Until the impact of radical gerrymandering and the electoral college are eliminated, the American elections will continue to misrepresent the majority of American voters.
2
I already commented earlier on Ross's article. But I am taking time to suggest to NYT readers that they read the list of articles written not by familiar names, at least to me, names like Tomasky, Wheeler, Krastev, Dorfman, Chua and Rosenthal. They are op-ed writers, each with a different message and a different slant and approach to world topics today.
I read Ross first and then proceeded to read the articles by the six listed above and was impressed by their passion and clarity related to their subject matter. The ones by Dorfman on Chile and Neruda and Spain and the one by Rosenthal in her letter to Senator Rubio were moving and informative.
Thank you for this! I have long been trying to tell my liberal-minded friends that the trolls on fb, whether Americans or Russian bred mattered little. The election was won in this country and trump is a product, Home-grown on US soil. Let’s take responsibility, not have a Cold War or any war against “enemies” outside our borders. The borderless fake news can’t be stopped. Americans saw on our news, in newspapers, on television, and social media what kind of person Trump was and still he was elected.
It's odd that if donald trump wasn't so insecure, he could have diffused the whole thing by just backing the investigation in a super patriotic way. Why didn't he?
Democrat supporters would be better served at this moment by sober reflection, rather than agitation over Russian manipulation during the 2016 election. They should recognize that Hillary was but a Republican masquerading as a Democrat in both 2008 and 2016; they should further acknowledge that the Clinton administration of the 90s was to the right of Nixon's administrations during the early 70s. The 2016 election witnessed two populist responses to the Neo Liberal status-quo represented by Hillary Clinton. The first was genuine, signified by Bernie Sanders, which was deemed anathema and insurrection by the DNC. Through infanticide of this real populism, said political entity enabled the triumph of Trump's faux populism.
For the sake of the American republic, it behooves Democrat supporters to ascertain this fact.
I live in a Midwest swing state that Trump won by 10,000 votes. Jill Stein won roughly 67,000 MI votes. The statement I heard the most during the campaign season was that both candidates were awful people and the vote was just trying to determine the lesser of two evils.
I work in a professional environment in a mostly blue collar state. My co-workers all have college degrees and most have secondary ones. These are decent folks, yet they allowed their dislike of Hillary to pull them to the fake articles on Facebook, etc. which they would regurgitate at work the next day. No, they didn't actually believe Hillary was the ringleader of a child sex slavery ring run out of a pizza shop, but not every theory was so ridiculous. With so many "scandals" and accusations, Hillary looked guilty by accumulation.
In reality, the election was not between two awful candidates, but one awful one and one good one that you may not adore or completely agree with. To brush off the industrialized propaganda attack by the Russians as a minor thing is to be incredibly naïve.
1
Arguing that the Russian social media attack didn't change votes misses the point. It very likely could and did cause Democrats not to vote. Especially blacks. And yes, there are enough Democratic and black votes in those midwestern states to have made up the tiny difference by which Trump "won". I have some liberal friends who were reposting the fake news put out by Russia and believing every word. They refused to vote for her and spent a lot of time encouraging their liberal friends not to either. It had an effect. I personally believe that it alone could have swayed enough voters to not vote (or vote for Stein) that the election would have gone the other way even without the DNC email hack or Comey's deplorable conduct.
I pretty much disagree with Ross's entire skein of thought here. I am outraged by Russian Trolling and botting, regardless of any effect, and entirely apart from whether there was any collusion with Americans. I see it as an attack on American sovereignty in the same league with Peral Harbor and 9-11. Where is our national sense of outrage? I was retaliation in kind.
Mr. Douthat's argument that Russia's attempt to interfere with U.S. elections through social media had no material impact is one that reasonable people can debate as there is no conclusive evidence either way. Nonetheless, his casual dismissal of the opposing view is unwarranted. What is certain is that the Russian government probably has the greatest expertise in the world on implementing and evaluating effective disinformation campaigns and that government put substantial time and resources into such an effort in the U.S. Thus, it is quite reasonable to conclude that the Russian government believed its extensive U.S. disinformation campaign was well worth the time and effort expended and the related risk of further alienating the U.S. That fact alone strongly supports the conclusion that the Russian disinformation efforts had a material impact and, therefore, undercuts Mr. Douthat's argument to the contrary.
6
Yes, very well said.
The 2016 election was determined by about 100,000 votes in three states that were heavily target by Russian cyber efforts, out of 127 million votes cast. That is less than 0.08%, or 8 in 10,000. How do you know, Mr. Douthat, that the Russian interference had no effect?
7
While I don't know if I'd go so far as to allude to the latest revelations stemming from the indictments as "fake news", I totally agree with Ross Douthat when he says the proper question is how the election was so close to begin with. I don't think he's far off when he describes "our own cold civil war". We are only vulnerable to Russian meddling because our own internal divisiveness is so easy to exploit. We could choose to ease these divisions by doing the hard work of finding common ground and embracing the civil and democratic arts of compromise, tolerance and mutual respect. Indeed, reclaiming such democratic values may represent our best defense against foreign meddling going forward.
lauerwit, the goals of the wealthy backers of the GOP-- the koch bros, the mercers, etc.-- are more easily met in the climate of intolerance, lack of respect and zero compromise under which we currently live. No effort will be made to heal our national fissure until all their goals are met. UNLESS-- we the people demand fair and better elections, and actually run for office and vote in heretofore not seen numbers.
I am curious as to when the shabby likes of Sean Hannity will atop screeching for five minutes and extend an open hand, or at least an ear.
Ross puts his finger on one point, although I don't think it's the one he meant to emphasize.
GOP smearing of Clinton, exercised intensely and systematically for several years through official channels like the Benghazi committee and subsidized by the likes of Fox News, was effective in turning one of the most accomplished and qualified candidates we've ever had into a pariah. That should concern everyone at least as much as Russian interference.
But the fact remains that taken together, the email hacks and strategic releases plus the propaganda efforts very likely were enough to tilt a very close election. And however close it shouldn't have been in the first place, that outcome has had dire consequences for our country and its leadership position in the world.
3
Ross, can you document one vote that was changed due to Russian agitprop - or from that emanating from either the Democrats or Republicans? If anything, these attempts at manipulation seem merely to reinforce decisions already made and, once made, are very, very difficult to change.
The 2016 was determined by about 100,000 votes in three states that were heavily target by Russian cyber efforts, out of 127 million votes cast. That is less than 0.08%, or 8 in 10,000. How do you know, Mr. Douthat, that the Russian interference had no effect?
14
Should nationalism and populism be conciliated and co-opted? Isn't that what the Republican party tried to do for decades until the sheer toxicity of it overwhelmed them? You can't make comprimises when the most extreme of the right belief they can have everything, because Republican leaders dare not give any pushback or moral leadership.
2
Once again, the real issue about the Russians’ attempt to sway the 2016 election has been ignored? What is it about Donald Trump that made the Russians want him in the White House? The disinformation that they planted on social media wasn’t designed solely to cause confusion and conflict between the left and right in our country, it was designed to put a particular man in the office of the Presidency. Why?
7
Ross is right! It wasn't the Russians who created the fissure in our politics. But, it was the GOP. Two decades ago, working with right wing media, Republicans began to favor an alternative media environment that emphasizes belief and resists fact-based criticism.
Republicans did it to provide unfiltered information to their voters, who over time weaned themselves from more traditional news sources. Unfortunately, the Russians, recognizing a good old fashioned propaganda machine, couldn't resist.
The GOP did it for political advantage. They didn't realize the risk, or didn't care. Until Americans understand how propaganda works, the country's two sides will be pulled farther apart.
3
For once this unabashed liberal finds myself substantially agreeing with Ross (perhaps since for once he is not inveighing about, as a defrocked Catholic priest once put it: "matters pelvic"). It is and always will be unclear whether and how much the Russian meddling affected the 2016 election outcome. There is a theory now that they wanted to be discovered though this is probably giving them undeserved credit, undeserved exactly because neither they nor we can tell how much effect their shenanigans had. Putin's effort was at first to get revenge for what he believes was Hillary's interference with his own election, which gave rise to protests in the streets of Moscow. Trump's campaign magnified the prospects for revenge and offered the added bonus that a malignantly narcissistic bozo would exacerbate our partisan divide. So far Putin's wildest dreams seem to be coming true. But what Putin could not foresee is the gargantuan backlash now growing here and will not be deterred at the ballot box in the Fall, despite any further meddling on his part. Discord will still exist here, but it's effects on our everyday lives will be blunted. (Gee, I sure hope I'm right.)
If banning something -- like guns, for example -- is too futile because it'll still be abundant regardless, why does President Trump constantly endeavor to prohibit the truth? Russia knew this would happen. Therefore, if voting for the lesser of two evils, like light in the double-slit experiment, equitably demonstrates wave-particle duality unless discreetly controlled, Mr Douthat can't convince me that Russia's deliberate diffraction hadn't intentionally entangled our democracy as a Schrodinger cat BOTH dead AND alive!
There is no evidence the DNC was hacked by Russians. Even Wikileaks hideout man Julian Assange said he got the emails from non Russian sources. Perhaps someone from inside the DNC?
Why did the DNC refuse to let the FBI investigate their servers to see who hacked them? Something to hide?
Wrong Wrong Wrong. Fake news is unsubstantiated news that distorts or lies. Where is Douthat's evidence that the trolling did not produce enough momentum to change 80,000 votes across a handful of key states while contributing to maintaining GoP Congressional majorities? Douthat looks at the blogs and decides they would not persuade him and probably not the 80,000 middle class voters that swung the presidential election to Trump. He offers no proof and says nothing about the non-middle class GoP voters who very well could have been influenced to vote for Trump in those states and nationwide. He discounts 'tipping point' explanations of voting patterns. And discounting trolling in 2016 he tacitly supports Trump/GoP ignoring the risk in 2018 and beyond, doing America a singular disservice.
Recall that Hillary had a comfortable lead before Comey's false news email bomb weeks before the vote. Even telling Americans that there was no cause for concern, no new information could not undo the damage. Now imagine thousands of Russian trolls blogging and organizing anti-Hillary campaigns preparing the ground ...and an ambivalent slice of the electorate inclined to entertain charges of Hillary wrong-doing thanks to the GoP's remorseless attacks abetted by trolls and pundits.
Douthat's Republican slip is showing. He totally misses the point and contributes to false news of the more dangerous kind...
4
So even Ross cannot tell the difference between Russian bots and trolls and Republican bots and trolls. I am certain I can't. The Russians amplified what the GOP does as a matter of policy: lie, distort, and separate the country into warring factions for political gain. What's new about that?
10
Oh, I don't know. Maybe these agents of hostile adversary joining in and skillfully amplifying the misinform-and-divide tactics of the GOP?
What's the definition of "collusion" again?
At first, you discount the influence of the Russian trolling saying their efforts were clumsy and easy to detect and that, "...nothing they did particularly mattered".
Next, you go on to say that the people who believed the trolls were fellow citizens were NOT the relative handful of Midwestern swing voters who actually gave us this train wreck of an administration.
I beg to differ. Yes, this type of toxic polarizing behavior on line is red meat for those who are already hyper-partisan, but it drove enough people away from Clinton or away from the polls completely to tip the balance.
By both sowing greater discord and getting Trump elected, Russian interference has had a devastating on our country and its influence across the globe.
Don't be like Trump and pretend that it didn't make a difference.
13
I do not agree with much of what you said, but I do think that Americans need to get smarter about their use of social media. First, they must understand that what appears on social media is not vetted, researched, or checked in the same way as a reputable journalistic news source. Second, they need to vet the postings they share themselves, so that they are not pushing the false news memes created by Russians and others of bad faith. Third, they need to go to original documents or hearing transcripts, etc. when available to make up their own minds about what happened. Fourth, they need to read for background about history, government, policy, and economics. It takes smarts and diligence to be a good citizen. How are students today taught to be good citizens? There are only a certain number of hours in a day, and so much of that time is just wasted on entertainment, there is no time left to actually learn what they need to know. It is uplifting to see the young people in Parkland step up to the citizenship plate and hit the ball. I hope they hit a home run.
Yes, why was it that close? Clinton's economic plan, whatever it was, legend has it, was buried somewhere in her reams of whitepapers online. Blame those poor lazy voters who didn't have the time or fortitude to look for it. Even now, over a year and a half since the election and the Democrats have still not presented a concise, coherent vision. Large Democratic donors, the ones who still helm the party, banked on Clinton to kick the can of inequality down the road for a few more years by depending on identity politics to drive turnout and have learned nothing since; their expectations for 2018 rely on the exact same demographics. After all, immigration and LGBT rights don't cost wealthy people a dime in extra taxes or wages so they get to feel all warm about themselves - on the cheap but just start talking about decent minimum wage, and its "Whoa there!".
Rather than finally addressing economic anxieties, Democratic mandarins are betting that disgust with Trump will produce an avalanche of outrage at the polls, but is there any reason to suppose that people would be loyal to the Democratic Party solely as a bulwark against Trump without ever receiving anything in return? The Party is supposed to produce for the people, not the other way around, as in totalitarian states. Bernie showed the Democratic leadership for the empty frauds they were and had to be kneecapped as a result. If he was somehow bolstered by the Russians, then so much the better.
1
America, the world's greatest intervenor into the affairs of other nations, is scared to death that a bunch of low-wage flunkies in a Russian troll farm will take over our country with facebook memes and lies on twitter. Please china dolls, chill out. After 200+ years of free speech, one would think that mere words would not be so scary.
1
I would like to know if the Russian troll farms are responsible for the Facebook posts this week, supposedly from teachers, denigrating parents and the way this generation of children has been raised. As the high schoolers in Florida has shown, they have far more empathy, compassion, commonsense, and courage than our politicians and slightly older generations. I do not see selfishness and disrespect, beyond what is normal in any broad cohort of individuals. They give me hope. So, why the sudden flood of these negative posts, unless it is a part of a “blame the victim and leave guns alone” effort. Even when guns are not part of the message specifically, these posts work to distract from the commendable activism we are seeing this week. The timing, to me, is suspicious. Oh - and how credible is a supposed teacher wearing a maxi dress with low cut neckline, standing by a stack of books that just happen to all be dictionaries?
Ross -- you are ignoring the Russian propaganda efforts to alienate and divide Democratic constituencies -- the "woke black" efforts to suppress the black vote, and the false-flag "Bernie-Bro-ism"
These tactics were not "just clumsy variations on right-wing themes," and they arguably had substantive effect.
It's also a gross and misleading claim to focus only on "78,000 Midwestern swing voters" -- who "decided" the election only because Clinton lost elsewhere by narrow margins.
Black turnout for HRC was poor -- that it wasn't as enthusiastic as for Obama is entirely understandable, but it was worse than expected even by seasoned black politicians.
Turnout from young voters was dreadful. How much did the Russian propaganda contribute to the angry Bernie-ism that stayed home, or even voted for Trump?
And then the really ugly reality for Democrats: the majority of white women voted for Trump. Indeed some exit polling appears to show that the majority of college-educated white women voted for Trump, though that conclusion is much less sure.
How and why did all those women conclude that voting for Trump was better than voting for Clinton? The current backlash against Republicans we see in special elections all across the country is largely driven by women -- in effect these votes are an enormous "we made a bad mistake" -- though few will admit to it.
2
All valid points--hopefully we are not so stupid that 80 Russian trolls posting on Facebook can determine the outcome of the election--but still deserving of a couple of rejoinders.
First, the main goal of Putin's trolls was to discredit Hillary, who had annoyed Putin with her stance on Ukraine. Supporting Trump and Sanders was part of that game; Putin has no special love for either of them.
Second, the Clinton campaign was, it has been shown, equally guilty of seeking dirt on Trump, from foreign sources including the Russians. I don't think this justifies either campaign, but dirties both.
Third, without the Russian hacking, we wouldn't have know the truth about the Democratic Party and its suppression of the Sanders campaign, in favor of the pre-anointed Hillary. This was, in my mind, a greater crime (against those of us like me who trusted the party) than the Russian trolling. Since the Dems wouldn't come clean with us, I'm grateful for the hacking that revealed their shenanigans.
2
Although Russians at some level were involved probably in the hacking of the Podesta emails and the DNC server, we would probably have a much clearer picture if the DNC had allowed the FBI cyber crime forensic team and DHS to inspect their hacked server for clues. Why they wouldn't want to have the world's best computer experts in cyber crime investigate this is just weird. Second, regardless of how the information was obtained, it did reveal real corruption in the Hillary campaign and the DNC. I sure this information affected those Democrats who had not realized that they were being duped, and this may have turned them off.
1
"...swamped by the all-too-American sources of our national derangement."
As Exhibit A of this manifestation, I offer up the comments section of this piece.
It would be interesting (and perhaps useful) to know if there was a foreign role in the Obama birther meme. Recall Mr Trump's frequent references to 'his people' who were supposedly gathering all the evidence.
Analyses of the media's role in determining elections should consider the 'stickiness' of the accusations. Mud-slinging is not new to American politics - it's simply delivered better from the mass marketing perspective.
Obama may have not have been significantly affected by the birther meme because it wasn't sufficiently believable and/or because his persona and message to voters outweighed the negative rumors. Did Ms Clinton's apparent vulnerability reflect a greater plausibility of the accusations based on her and her husband's track record, or a campaign message that failed to convince voters of a net positive by electing her president?
Ross, completely out of touch. Again.
1
Who needs the Russians when you've got Fox news.
So, let Russia keep doing what they are doing, because in the end their actions really do not effect the outcome of our elections??? Really.
Trump was the beneficiary of "being in the right place, at the right time", with a little (a lot) help from his friends, the Russians. The small cohort of Republicans I have come into contact with, hate the name Clinton. The Republicans in Congress hate the name and the numerous hearings and investigations against the name Clinton, bear that out. There silence about Trump's malfeasance is stunning.
Unfortunately. a lot of people do not read anything outside of their comfort zone and most of that is via Facebook and Twitter, whom have been implicated in the Russian interference scheme. It made a difference in the election. It is serious and needs to be stopped.
Trump, as well as Russia and other autocratic governments, works under the ABCD philosophy, Accuse, Blame, Criticize, Deny. Confuse and control. Russian interference in our election amped that up, especially the Blame game part. People buy into that. Its easy and feels good to blame other people for the fact that maybe your life sucks. I wish I never heard the phrase "fake news". For that Trump should be impeached. Russia needs to feel the pain.
Yes, every commenter who is opportunistically treating this, without any sense of scale, as an act of war demanding an aggressive response (e.g. Thomas Friedman or Mark, the top NYT Picks comment here) only make me more grateful that Trump in president and more committed to maintaining the Republicans in power against these neo-McCarthyite shills, who, seemingly entirely lacking in self-awareness, have shown themselves the real authoritarian menace on the American scene.
It is Ross Douthat who lives in "meatspace". To deny the power of social media is too demonstrate massive stupidity or bias. I vote both, can I say meathead?
Ross, if the Russians had interfered on HRC's behalf, Hannity and the F&F crew would be running around squawking like Henny Penny, with undergarments in a bunch and their hair on fire.
It seems that you, too, have succumbed to Moynihan's "soft bigotry of low expectations" when it comes to the motivation and behavior of your fellow conservatives. However, this piece makes clear that you expect liberals to behave like adults. You regularly lecture us on our responsibility as the grown-ups in the room.
It must gall you that a bulk of the electoral mass that keeps your Reformation world view viable also believes that Obama did a lousy job in the wake of Katrina.
I can't decide whether you are trapped in an ivory tower or whistling through a graveyard. Love your writing, question your premises.
1
Actually, it is "noxious and racist" enough to require crushing. I'm sick of the "economic grievance" bull. I had a guy in an expensive, jacked-up pickup truck tell his dog to stop barking at me because "he's white". This happened in the lily-white Trump country of Harmonsburg PA. That dog had never seen a non-white person.
What is a “liberal mandarin” to do when the millions of Americans who support Donald Trump no matter what would rather make common cause with a hostile foreign power (Putin’s Russia) than with fellow Americans who look and believe differently from them? If you troll the right wing message boards, as I do from to time, this is pretty much the only conclusion you can draw. And what about the millions of other Americans who, while not hard core for Trump, applaud the willful destruction of our democratic norms and traditions, just so long as they get decreased regulations, increased tax cuts, etc.?
While economic grievance is a major factor influencing the rise of the right worldwide, I believe that much more of the energy comes from good old fashioned racism and xenophobia. Whatever their faults, the Democrats at least tried to address economic equality in the last election. We know how that worked out. What’s the way forward? Damned if I know.
2
No one I know, is holding up your straw man, Ross. I don't know what makes you so assured their meddling didn't swing the election, though. I guess you believe your crystal ball is better than other's opinions.
The bottom line is, you should be outraged and angered that a fascistic oligarchy like Putin's even tried, and continues to try, to influence our Democracy. Instead you've got your right wing fingers in your ears, humming La La La, hoping it will go away. It won't.
1
The Russians didn't beat Hillary with their trolling.
She beat herself with a big assist from Comey.
Ross your certitude is laughable..... and incredibly obtuse, even treasonous.
What do you suggest? That we turn the other cheek?
Sanction them until they can't breathe......... It was an act of war in an ongoing war, and your nonsense is tantamount to capitulation.
What do you gain here for your blindness? At least stumpy got something for his pretense...
2
The Russian advertised. You say advertising is a waste of money. What a ludicrous assertion.
I'm pretty tired of the Russia-nothingburger arguments. If you take the email hack seriously enough to appreciate everything it shares in common with the Watergate break-in (which was simply the prior, analog-version DNC attack), then you understand Watergate turned out to just be the tip of the iceberg: the initial clue to the whole spider's nest of other "dirty tricks."
We had the same thing this time around, with constant "alternative facts" and bald-faced lies and Tweet rants and fake news and professional cranks like Alex Jones pumping out conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and the fake Facebook pages with fake rallies and the trolls and the bots and on and on... The output of disinformation in 2016 was like the broadcast of a heavy-metal supergroup straight from Hell, as if Lucifer had invited Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot over for a jam session.
1
I don't believe the Mueller investigation is out to prove that Russian intervention swung the election to Trump. In the end that will be absolutely unprovable without having an election do-over. The Russia investigation which Trump unwittingly brought on himself is about exposing the criminal acts perpetrated by members of the administration. Liberals though flustered and inflamed by fake news were not swayed by Russian trolls. All we had to do was watch a Trump speech and the truth of what an ignorant racist buffoon he is was in full display. Conversely by watching Clinton we knew she was more than qualified to be president and would never believe she ran a child sex ring out of a pizza parlor. If you get your news and world views from Alex Jones, Hannity, Limbaugh or you believe the tweets coming out of the White House you're one of the idiots who feasts on fake news and you're keeping a few hundred Russians employed in St. Petersburg.
2
Fox News did as much, if not more, to sway the election as did Russian trolls, and continues to sway the minds of the credulous.
1
Ross, you say the Russian trolling "just reproduced...the arguments and images and rhetorical tropes that we already hurl at one another every day." But really, it **amplified** these elements. When you reproduce--repeatedly--the hyperventilation, idiocy, and B-minus grammar that our Great Nation is already foisting upon itself, that's amplification. You describe the tool, not the result. And it's no trivial matter. Russia's got enough apologists (and apolo-bots) out there already--no need for one in these pages.
1
Douthat comes across in this article as sounding like a traitor all too ready to act as an apologist for Russia. Looks like GOP traitors are spreading beyond Congress into the offices of the NYT.
Ross, there are few reasons I have for admiring Roger Ailes but I take my hat off to him for this statement.
'If you have two candidates. One of them has a plan for peace for the middle east and the other falls into an orchestra pit, which one will you see on TV?'
In his Nov. 8 2017 NYT article 'What Reality TV Teaches Us About Russia's Influence Campaign', Farhad Manjoo likens the approach taken by the Russian interference to that of producing a reality TV show. Its product was conflict. Manjoo cites a number of TV producers who openly acknowledged that conflict was the key to attracting and keeping audiences and the more conflict the better the ratings.
And whilst people were watching / talking about the conflict they didn't talk about policy.
The Russian troll and bot factory targeted purple states and promoted conflict. Fake news would appear from nowhere to be taken up by right wing websites that would suddenly become popular and then it would be repeated by Fox. But it wasn't just Fox as the chairman of CBS put it when talking about the Trump campaign "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS.
So what do you think Ross. Did Russia have an impact that was greater than just stealing DNC emails?
2
To read another view of this argument I would suggest you read, “Putin’s Useful idiots”, Washington Post, today, Dana Milbanhs
2
“and a few events in meatspace,”
“Meatspace” , really? Is this how people spell their virtual meeting place?
"goblins, kobolds and boggarts"
Douthat is confused. The term "troll" comes from the fishing practice of trolling, not from the mythical beast.
1
If I throw a bomb into a crowd and it doesn't go off because I didn't really make it very well, then I guess I'm OK. Thanks, Russ!
1
How many of the Obama voters who went for Trump were influenced by the robot slanders against Clinton? You don't know, do you, Ross?
1
Thanks to Ross Douthat and The National Review for conservasplaining how Russia's years-long, $1.5 million-per-month effort to sway the weak-minded had no effect on the election.
2
Somehow Ross is arguing that the people pouring gasoline on an existing fire are not really so responsible for the conflagration that we should do much about it. This is an overwhelming underreaction.
1
The Russian trolls exploited the Fox Breitbart Wall Street Journal American mind that delivered 58% of the white vote- 62% of white men and 54% of white women- to Donald Trump. And some of these Russians trolls physically came to America and planned, plotted and carried out their malign schemes in accents thicker than Melania Trump.
Thanks to Russian government media we now know that the heads of Russian civilian domestic intelligence the FSB, Russian military intelligence the GRU and Russian foreign intelligence the SVR were all welcomed to America to meet and mingle with their American counterparts despite being personally banned. Why were they here?
2
I agree wholeheartedly. As much as I would love to believe that the Russkies put our cartoon president in office, it's likely not true.
Trump's ascent was really forged in the mind of the perpetually aggrieved Steve Bannon who read the national mood perfectly and merged his ideas with a wealthy family, clueless about politics but aware that a high office could enrich them beyond their wildest dreams.
It was a confluence of money in the hands of the booboisee and the seething anger of a guy who reads that put Trump where he is. However without Bannon as a goal-oriented anchor, all that's left are the boobs. And unfortunately, all Trump's money came from Russia so he had an allegiance from which he en familia were powerless to extricate themselves.
For Americans, what we get out of all this is a country that's headed for a cliff.
Some believe that Trump is the only thing that kept us from going over the Obama/HRC cliff full bore. And exactly how do you know that 'all Trump's money came from Russia'? I admit, he does have a taste for Slavic women, at least in wives (2 out of 3) but so what? BTW 'en familia' means 'in family' as in a home-cooked and consumed meal vs. going out to dine; it doesn't mean 'with family', that would likely be 'con familia'. But then again, I don't spreche Russian.
Ah, yes, this is the same Ross Douthat, the dime-store sophist, who wrote about the Newtown massacre without once mentioning the word “gun” and described it as if it had been a natural disaster, like a hurricane. So he now engages in a slick reasoning-away of the Russian dezinformatsiya campaign.
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As any gay man who enters a gay dating site will tell you,you cannot believe everything you read on line! When will Americans start to realize this about the news they read on line?
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Wow...that was a mouthful! How about just saying both matter a whole lot. Domestic schisms and Russian interferference in our public discourse that may very well have pushed the vote count from a close call to an outright victory for a human wrecking ball that is doing untold damage to our nation. In scale it is an unprecedented violation of our sovereignty and demands outrage. Where is yours?
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Outrage is all the left seems to traffic in; it gets tiresome. BTW, speaking of unprecedented violations of sovereignty, what do you think of Obama's (unsuccessful) meddling in Israel's PM election against Bibi? Or because we give Israel so much dough, which makes them our client (and subordinate) state, so it's OK? My, my, there are so very many contradictions to being a leftist, one can hardly comprehend them all.
I take issue with both your major premise and your concluding assertions.
I largely agree with those below who write that you are too soon to dismiss the troll farming and its effect on the average American voter. Too many people I know, both family and acquaintances, accepted as true much of the most outrageous and disgusting claims of the twitter bots, etc. They still believe them. I hear it almost daily. No amount of rational discussion changes their minds or makes them question anything they read that confirms what they already believe.
The irony of your concluding plea is truly comical. You suggest the left is trying to use Russian trolling "to crush" our fellow countrymen through guilt by association. For the last eight decades, Republicans and conservatives have used the rhetoric of patriotism and accusations of guilt by association in an attempt "to crush" Democrats and liberals as traitors and subversives, to claim that Republicans were the "in group" of true Americans. I could catalog instance after instance, but space allows me only one example. In 1984 Reagan said the Republican Party would be "America's Party," the platform was built around that claim, and other speeches cast the opposition as the enemy of America.
The reality you dismiss in the beginning of your column is what you end fearing--but only if the left can use the tactics of the right against the right. At worst, the right is being hoisted with its own petard.
I think we under-estimate the Russian threat at our peril. Douthat is wrong to advise us to brush it off as a fixation. The Russians are skilled enough to produce propaganda that conservatives eagerly embrace. It doesn’t matter if it the only source of the vast misinformation machine or just an important part. It needs to be stopped.
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O golly, don't change the subject. The subject is this existing President's abdication of his oath of office. Russia is at war with the United States, and he is standing in the way of the republic's defense. Now. What else is on your mind?
Why so many Americans are so insular, unworldly, and so mindlessly un-self-educated as to be gullible enough to swallow gallons of snake-oil by anyone, let alone by arch-enemy Russians, should be the question. Let's not forget, many of these parodying patriotic Americans voted to discard their own healthcare and see the rich get richer. Why? Pure vindictiveness against a previous black president. Then, with equal brilliance, once discovering they were fooled by Russians, they don't care. Patriotism? Really? The America I remember, and the America these fools seem to long for, and voted to return to, would have been demanding accountability and repercussions! How utterly weak most insular Americans are. Saved only by the small fraction who deem it their duty and honor to serve; to protect a constitution that their president, himself, steadfastly refuses to protect.
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"Trolling of the American Moron" would be a more appropriate title.
The narcissistic and shallow Facebook losers who spend their entire life staring at a smartphone - who actually read ads on social media - deserve what they get.
These people are incapable of holding a normal conversation, requiring online messaging service in order to interact with the world, and unable to hold a conversation across a table to their companion - preferring text messaging.
We used to teach high school civics classes in this country, and we used to read newspapers as well.
No trolls in the newspapers. No mysterious and subtle real time editing of a newspaper. Or a book.
If print is dead, it's because the propaganda people in media and government have correctly assessed the shallowness of our up-and-coming voters.
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"No mysterious and subtle real time editing of a newspaper."
The Times regularly updates online articles without notice. There is even a web site that tracks the changes: newsdiffs.org.
And there is a term for such changes: "stealth edit". Google it.
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It's simpler than that, a lot simpler than that, Stupid. True majority elections would have defeated all of the malfeasance - no matter who was the source/foreign or domestic.
If we had put in office, as flawed as she was, the less toxic candidate would have shown the Russians that their technological machinations were not as powerful as simple majority rule. It is gerrymandering and the latest, more effect form that opened our country to a potential downfall. It's the voting system, Stupid.
Sometimes it's a whole lot simpler than the smartest of us know.
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Wow...that was a Harvard mouthful! Most erudite indeed. How about just saying both matter a whole lot. Domestic schisms and Russian interferference in our public discourse that may very well have pushed the vote count from a close call to an outright victory for a human wrecking ball that is doing untold damage to our nation. In scale it is an unprecedented violation of our sovereignty and demands outrage. Where is yours? Now maybe you should reflect on that before contriving false dichotomies just to get at liberals somehow.
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Not to worry! Everything's fine. More; "Russian's actions had no effect on the election" trolling while reality slips away.
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The leavening in each of Ross's columns is that Ross is a Republican. His hope is to force his Christian ideology down everyone's throat through the mechanism of government. I'm sure Republicans everywhere take great comfort in your ten-penny words.
What has what Ross wrote to do with Christian ideology (wouldn't that be theology)?
The writer worries about "polarized mobilization" against a false enemy. The real experts at that are our own right wing fake new sources: Fox News, Infowars, and beyond. And Trump, of course.
You take some care to convince us that the election was close to begin with, they you illogically say that Russian propaganda couldn't have tipped the balance. Please rewrite this and resubmit tomorrow if you want a passing grade.
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In Lanny Davis' new book re the 2016 election, he posits that 'scientific' polls show that it was James Comey's fits and starts for and agin HRC that definitively sculpted the election. Without agreeing with this apologia for Herself's lack of success, I ask, if true: is not James Comey a Russkie agent? Why is no one screaming about this, it seems so obvious. And is not the Comey firing a dodge, sleight of hand, a headfake, designed to cause the most devious dodge of all, the coverup and whitewash (gosh, I almost said 'whitewater', how Freudian) of Trump and all this electoral connivance by the appointment of a special counsel. Brilliant, da?
...the call came from inside the house, you say...
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You seriously don't think fake news does harm to us?!
You don't think that, say, putting on a degrading show of Hillary in a cage, to be seen by people who'd be happy to think badly of her, has ANY effect?
You seriously don't think the "Hillary was responsible for the deaths in Benghazi" or "Obamacare has death panels" or "Obama is from Kenya" did us any harm?
Lies matter.
Deliberate lies, spread to people who'd like them to be true, are pure poison in a country that is already poorly informed, polarized, and prone to anger.
You no doubt have nice secure health insurance. You aren't one of the millions of us who have to worry about losing it or not being covered for what we need, all because of lies.
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Exactly; we shouldn't be blaming the Russians for drumming up hatred and fantasies of the persecution of white people.
It would be the mainstream Republican party, its proponents in major media and talk radio, and America billionaires who are responsible for that.
How else do you get a Donald Trump elected? So troll on....
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It's hard to believe, Mr. Douthat, that you believe that Russia's interference in our media is no more harmful than what they stirred up in their initial crime. Their initial crime wasn't just theft of e-mails - it also included handing those e-mails (tainted or not) to wiki-leaks, which is what many Americans are yammering about. Your intellectualism is repulsive.
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It is somewhat painful to know that a significant group of friends and acquaintances pulled the lever for Trump based on much of the drivel they were exposed to on Facebook, the only app they use.
In the end, I agree with Ross - our problems emanate from within, and the Russian trolls serve only as a convenient target of blame.
False premise, built on guesses, suggesting non-sense. Do you even know what you are talking about, Ross? I know you are one of the conservative voices at the NYT, but that doesn't mean you have to stretch out your arguments paper thin just to support the side that still ostensibly supports your world view.
Does it really matter if much of the hateful vitriol was coming from the dvisions in the country anyway? Does it matter that the race was closer than many thought? Is their really a McCarthy-esque witch hunt going on? Or is it that people are fed up with the real attacks on our democracy by Russians no matter how effective in actuality? Fed up as well at the social media non-sense that, yes, comes from both sides, but served at least in part to elect a poor excuse for a president?
My advice to you Ross is to give up trying to find ways to support the grotesqueness that is the current right-wing. Live up to your own stated morality and fight back with the rest of us.
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About the title... and a little "what-about-ism"...
What about right wing media saying the kids in Florida are left wing actors?
What about trolls and bots pushing this Fake News?
When is the GOP Congress going to do anything?
The Russian troll farms are hardly harmless. As we speak, distraught survivors of a mass shooting are being accused by Russian trolls and their American dupes of being "crisis actors." This is a second assault against these children, and it reveals a special level of stupidity and evil among many on the American Right who embrace it. This battle is no longer between the ideologies of genuine conservatism and liberalism; it is between inhumane evil and basic decency.
"...to pretend that in trying to crush your fellow countrymen you’re really fighting traitors and subversives and foreign adversaries..." Douthat outdoes himself. When Trump goes low, Ross goes lower. "Straw men are us" might be his motto. We know who the traitors are: their puppets are in the White House and on Capitol Hill. Insistence on white supremacy is at the heart of America's problem, no matter how that ugliness is dressed up in flowery language uttered in faithful religious tones. Dig into the history of the Koch family, do the same for Coors and Trump, and you find bigotry in the root and branch of those families. Dissect the faux arguments for keeping the federal government out of education in the South, and you find a will towards re-segregation as their foundation stones.
Some good and uncomfortable points are made in this article. yes, the Russians messed with our election, however, arrogance and presumptions allowed Trump to slither into the White House. I was stunned by the election of Donald Trump. My knee-jerk reaction was to call his voters idiots. Then I looked into their issues. I grew up in Saginaw, Michigan, a city devastated by the economic collapse of 2008. Saginaw hasn't recovered much since that time, and Michigan went to Trump. I read, "Hillbilly Elegy" and "Dispatches from Pluto", two books dealing with Americans who don't see life as I do. I walked away realizing these are not nutcases, but people with real issues and problems. Problems that were and are being taken for granted. Problems for Americans desperate enough to vote for a carpetbagger because the Democrats took them for granted, and their own candidate, called these voters a "basketful of deplorables" without blinking an eye. The Russian interference is troubling (of course, ignoring the fact that for years, the CIA did this to dozens of foreign governments). However, Democrats need to have their own come-to-Jesus moment and reach out to these voters and ask what they can do to help them. If not, it won't take Russians to throw the election in 2018. Unless Democrats offer solid ideas, they'll toss the dice again and go with Trump and his deplorable ilk, and yes, the Russians will be laughing their heads off.
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All these rationalizations we read since The Clintons were thrown under the bus, range from there defeat being a FBI problem, then there was Obama didn't help HRC enough , then of course there is the Russians,on and on it goes ending in a Book What Happened. As for the Russians if one bothers to read some history have always led in espionage, always ahead of the Brits, even the Nazi's. and our coming late to that party. Now a KGB agent rules the country with major Russian support. Does anyone think he wouldn't use his skills as a tool to put back together r the prior Soviet Union? I grew up hiding under my desk during school drills all about Russia.Now the tool is avoiding facebook, not sure the ill informed will drop social media.
"Should this re-emergent nationalism be conciliated and co-opted, its economic grievances answered and some compromises made to address its cultural and moral claims? Or is it sufficiently noxious and racist and destructive that it can be only crushed, through gradual demographic weight or ruthless polarized mobilization?" - A bit of both.
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Spot on. This is a civil war -- that we would like to pin on some outside influence. It may be a sign that internal compromise has indeed become impossible. They are no longer citizens with whom we disagree. They are a foreign enemy.
Douthat: "... millions of dollars spent [by the Russians] ..."
Douthat should cite a source for that figure. Anyway, it is minuscule when compared with the BILLION dollars or so that was spent by each of the Trump and Clinton campaigns.
Source: Wash. Post: "Election 2016 Money raised as of Dec. 31".
Fox News has told gullible Americans lies about climate science for years and done harm that should be a crime. They spent a week on a "Seth Rich murder" story suggesting that Hillary Clinton and the DNC had him killed. No real news organization does that. Trolling, Mr Douthat? Russians? Take your blinders off, take an honesty pill and start telling the truth about the sicko right that is now the GOP.
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Trump isn't a traitor, he is a Russian mole.
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Bush the Younger's Great Iraq War Hoax is now followed by the Terrifying Russian Troll Monster. What the world has learned about the US in the years since Bush the Younger went crazy is that the country is ever on the edge of hysteria, and it doesn't take much to prod it into full-fledged rabid, disorienting hysteria. Osama bin Laden knew this, and the Russians saw the value and the effects of bin Laden's canniness about American battiness — and also the stupendous ROI afforded in a reading of this. Put a dime into the American hysteria machine, and watch it wobble around erratically and strangely for years.
I don't blame Russians for Americans stupidity, I blame stupid Americans for their stupidity. Russians may present a military problem for America in Eastern Europe, in the Middle East, and the Far East, but at home the problem is that Trump may be beholden to the Russian oligarchs, for it appears that the Russian oligarchs have kept the Trump enterprise afloat by funding the Trump enterprise's operations, which makes Trump susceptible to blackmail. We already know Trump is a liar and a cheat, and more than likely is beholden to the Russians.
It's not "re-emergent nationalism" for racist mobs with guns and torches to terrorize and kill in the streets. Who blindly support spineless Party politicians who lick the boots of a wannabe cult like bigoted despot who lies constantly while looting the Treasury for his crony plutocrats, trashing our institutions to sweep away constraints on the Party's power. They must be crushed the voting booth before it is too late. By those who remember and value what the nation once stood for, which in our history hundreds of thousands have given their lives to preserve.
What shocks me, Mr. Douthat, is that so many Americans believe so many lies, regardless of their origins, whether from the Russkies or your friends on the lunatic right wing. So a guy drives all the way from North Carolina to liberate children held captive in a Washington, DC pizza place that hosts a child sex slavery scheme run by Hillary Clinton? For good measure, he brings his AR-15 (of course!) and fires three shots and only afterward complains that “The intel on this wasn’t 100 percent.” The Russians just took good measure of the conservative American mind and fed their insanity. You know, Bruce Bartlett, a former Republican, has been waging a lonely campaign to reintroduce rationalism to the conservative mind that he left over a decade ago. Maybe, instead of focusing on all of us poor liberals "forever wringing [our] hands" about Russian influence, you should attend to your own people. How in the world do they become so stupid?
In a sense you are right; the real crime was stealing from the DNC. This act of identity theft was an attempt to destroy a party’s life instead of financial theft. The other act, putting millions into false information is a drop in the bucket owned by Adelson and the Kochs’. The Russians were small players in that smear. But the idea that an average American would notice bad spelling or grammatical errors is a joke. Those ‘mistakes’ would make the posts more believable. Outside the beltway, Americans are often functionally illiterate in their writing and knowledge of the world outside their personal circle. I can see their red faces, smiling as they found out Crooky Hillary solt childrens in the basement of a pitza restround.
I don´t know what to do about Trump voters Russ. They are determinedly dumb, undereducated and fixated on their idea of white superiority when they are inferior by most definitions. If you with your Catholic conservatism can give me a way to talk to these people I will be most grateful.
The "hard reality" is that pretending the Russian social media campaign doesn't matter makes one a "useful idiot" - Google that phrase, Ross.
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If anything, perhaps Trump's presidency will teach us all not to care what some known or unknown, loudmouthed Bozo on the internet has to say.
It's ridiculous to claim that the Russian efforts could have made up the minds of 40,000 undecided voters in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio and thus determined the outcome of the election. The next thing the left will claim is that those bots could have convinced someone to grab a rifle and head to a D.C. pizza parlor to break up a child sex ring led by Hillary Clinton.
The one certainty is that taken in their totality these assaults whether trolling or hacking , whether home grown or foreign, destroy the essential trust necessary for our country to be a viable democracy.
It seems your eyes are closed Ross. A real president would be alarmed and would be at the ready to combat this issue. We have a president who, at a minimum, is indifferent about the attempts to disrupt democracy. In fact, it often appears that he is in sync with them, in his attempts to divide and polarize the US.
No Trump supporter here, but...I have to admit I was surprised about just how weak a candidate Hillary was considered by her own campaign staff, which I feel was so damaging to her election chances. None of this would likely have ever come out if not for the hacking and her losing. Her own staff for goodness sake did not think she could beat anyone in the Republican field except Trump. This is what we learned from the Russian hacking. The Russian hacking exposed that Hillary's own inner circle doubted her ability to win, and they (her staff) thought she was a horrible candidate, and of all the things the Russians did this was the most damaging. I voted for Hillary and I believe that her staff shoulders a fair amount of the blame for her defeat. Yes, she was a terrible candidate, and the Russians are horrible, but her own staff played a big part in killing her candidacy as well.
How long will Republican pundits make excuses for all of the inexcusable conduct of this man?
It's like parents, who after their child does something unconscionable, tell us after the fact, that there were no warning signs.
No, Mr Douthat we are not minimizing the discord among political parties in our country but it is reasonable to assume that the 12million dollars the Russian bot farm spent to magnify the harshest of discourse was destructive.This was our election for better or for worse and it was illegal for foreign entities to steal American identities and pretend to participate.Keep in mind that there is discord in Russia and Mr.Putins'foes end up in jail or worse.
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Ross is right in part. The polarization of Americans is severe all by itself; we can’t blame the Russians for that. But adding gasoline to the fire isn’t helping matters. And although the most extreme propaganda is consumed by the most extreme partisans, wacko conspiracy theories have a way of becoming disseminated into broader channels. From Facebook they make it to Breitbart, with a few of the rough edges sanded down. From there, to FOX news- again, with a little of the crazy toned down. Next thing you know, the New York Times is picking it up, saying “FOXNews is reporting the conspiracy theory that…“ Even debunked theories can embed themselves in the mind. So there is no way to really know the extent and influence of Russian propaganda.
Come on!
Everybody knows that the main problem in the '16 election was Trump himself. Why are you wasting my time with this argument?
But... (since he refuses to show us tax returns), We the People (along with the FBI), are looking at any way possible to save the country from this lout!
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More dissembling and hypocrisy from Douthat....
"Because on the evidence we have, nothing they did particularly mattered. But the rest of the Russian effort did not introduce anything to the American system that isn’t already present; it just reproduced, often in lousy or ludicrous counterfeits, the arguments and images and rhetorical tropes that we already hurl at one another every day."
Wrong on two points:
1) It amplified the arguments, which is part of Russia's long-term goal (beyond that election) of tearing apart our democracy. It's working.
2) "We" haven't been "hurling [divisive and hate-filled] at one another every day"; most of it has come from Fox News, Rightwing media, and Hannity/Limbaugh et al over the past 10 years. Your false equivalence is a lie.
"The proper question should still be: How was it that close to begin with? It was clearly a uniquely hot moment in our own cold civil war."
Proper answer: Who started the Culture War? Who started the"politics of personal destruction?" Who started Birtherism? The conservatives, not the liberals.
"The bottom line is that liberal mandarins face a hard choice when it comes to the populism that gave us Trump. Should some compromises be made to address its cultural and moral claims? "
As usual, Douthat shifts the onus onto us liberal "mandarins." (Silly gratuitous jab!) The truth: Conservatives have the responsibility to purge their own party of the cancer that they allowed to fester within themself.
This belittling of the tangible power of propaganda insinuated into our political discourse grossly underestimates what happened. A significant body of evidence says that the biggest impact was suppression of voting by typically Democratic voters. The demonizing of Hillary Clinton would have been called a massive success by any advertising campaign analysis. What we really need is an accurate assessment of the Russian impact, not mealy mouthed denials from the likes of Douthat.
http://seniorjunior.blogspot.com/2018/02/deliver-coup-de-grace.html
Let's be clear. It is essentially certain that the DNC and Podesta hacks alone were decisive, in the proper sense of that term: had they not occurred, Hillary Clinton would now be President of the United States, with all of the other differences in appointments and policies that that would entail. There were other decisive elements as well, but that is neither here nor there. Vladimir Putin, in the end, effectively determined who is President of the United States. If Douthat thinks that comparisons to Pearl Harbor and 9/11 are inappropriate, he is right only in the sense that as an act of warfare against our polity, the Russians were more effective. Probably more effective than they ever hoped to be.
What about the past and ongoing Russian operations designed to promote divisiveness and hatred in the US? They are also much more effective and widespread than Douthat acknowledges. I know by direct demonstration that on the Fox News web site certain virulently nasty threads were populated by essentially 100% Russian trolls. They were not just chiming in on a nasty American debate: they were creating one out of whole cloth. Until this is recognized and appreciated we cannot begin to respond. And until we stop the decorous fiction that Trump would have been elected without the Russian assist we will not face the depth and seriousness of what has happened.
Russians influencing American elections (Trump), fake news in America, etc.?
None of this alarms me so much as the current American situation, the one that has actually existed for years, the myth that by and large Americans are people who readily speak and embrace truth. The general rule in politics is that the people are treated exactly as a herd of cattle: You do not drive a herd beyond its capacity, you do not tax it mentally and physically, and you above all do not panic it or otherwise throw it into consternation. In short you do not drive people toward truth but manage them, feed them religion, national pride, socialistic hopes and the like.
If anyone really believes Americans are made for truth, ask yourself what you think would occur if a Socrates appeared, not to mention a Copernicus or Galileo or a new Darwin--in other words a massive jolt of truth such as was delivered by these men. I seriously doubt in our age of vast population, WMD, such a thing could be allowed. Which is why I believe if evidence of actual extraterrestrial intelligence exists, it would without question be hidden.
In other words, we live in quite ironic age, complaining about fake news, propaganda, this or that manipulation/machination of truth, but in actuality the entire political/economic order operates by narratives not in the least conducive to the jolts of truth such as delivered by great geniuses of the past. Think of the reception of a Copernicus or Darwin today.
Years ago, I recall pundits saying how TV would denigrate and lower our society. Then, it was all about the sitcoms, the cop and robber shows, comedy shows...
They were right about TV, just wrong about that future, now present.
We are tribalized less because of our geography, but totally because of our CABLE NEWS.
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"But it does us no good to pretend the real blow [Trump's election] came from outside our borders, when it was clearly a uniquely hot moment in our own cold civil war."
Mr. Douthat seemingly downplays a key point, namely that Russian intervention in our election was (is) mostly an updated rendition of propaganda. And propaganda works as Goebbels famously noted long ago, and which is daily demonstrated by our own advertising industry. The reason it works is that in every nation there's almost alwlans an indigenous part of the population, including ours, that is susceptible and even willing to buy into whatever it is that's being peddled (see Fox; recall McCarthyism). Currently in the political realm of the US, the most susceptible are chiefly -- but by no means exclusively -- associated with Trump and Republican friends.
The problem with Mr Douthat’s column is that it is directly contradicted by his own life experience.
If nothing they did mattered. Then why did they bother?
Further, why do both major parties bother with social media as well as many Americans on both the right and left. If it doesn’t matter what people read online, why is Ross and his paper increasingly reliant on it for their profits and livelihoods?
Oh it might have just riled up a few people and made them more likely voters. It probably didn’t change minds but it did muddy the waters, and make it harder to change those minds.
To say it had no effect is a lie. It is a lie Republicans tell themselves to make the problem less important. To make collusion with a foreign power a lesser offense instead of the treasonous activity it is.
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Ross and his ilk are beginning their staged retreat. Bit by bit they will grudgingly acknowledge irrefutable evidence as it is released by Mueller, but they will continue to deny everything that has not yet been released. Then, when it's all over, and their guilt is clear for the world to see, they will cry that it is all in the past and the only way to heal is to "move forward."
1
I just have one question. If the Russians didn't believe that what they were doing was effective, why did they staff a company and spend an estimated million and a half dollars a month to place their fake ads on Facebook and Twitter?
Are you just so desperate for a minimization excuse that you totally ignore the 3 million vote difference between HC and DT? The Electoral College has in the past put people into the Presidency without the presence of Russians, let alone Russian trolling and hacking!
The Electoral College, aided and abetted by a huge number of gerrymandered districts that favored Republican voters provided just enough of a difference in the states to allow for an incompetent who is beholden to the Russians for plenty of money to become President. DT doesn’t need the clumsy front of collusion to be a Russian softy. They had the money goods on him long before HE (!) THOUGHT of running for office. He’s so naive and narcissistic he doesn’t even realize how they play him! Putin is playing chess on a world stage that is still doing checkers, and even our Congressional deceivers are oblivious to the long background of the Trumpster if they believe that something as simple collusion is behind Russian interference.
The Russians have won big time simply by giving a teeny boost to an incompetent, narcissistic, impulsive man who undermines everyday everything the US has stood for since its founding. But make no mistake, Ross, you can’t blame the Russians for the long term destruction done by a party that doesn’t believe in government and has denigrated it for three decades.
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Ross nailed it, finally. The Russian effort was a knock-off of Roger Ailes and the Fox News methodology. It is easier to create doubt and fear than to sell a worthwhile idea or philosophy. And its much cheaper--the only quality Mr. Douthat mistakenly downplays.
You must also ask yourself, Mr. Douthat, would the Russians spend several years and millions of dollars on such an elaborate, comprehensive and sophisticated effort just so, in the end, it would have absolutely no effect? I didn’t think so.
"-face a hard choice when it comes to the populism that gave us Trump, Brexit and right-wing parties and governments in Central and Eastern Europe."
You see the relationship among the "populism" efforts, but you don't associate them with Russia. All of that, and more, are pushed by Putin and his minions. They have not been successful everywhere they try, but they have had success including Brexit and Donnie.
Douthat bemoans the toxic nature of our current politics, yet asks that we give a pass to those who are tossing in poison. It is not the only issue, but, it requires addressing.
The clear implication of your remarks is that of course the Republicans have no choice ro make. They will appeal to the worst as they have for a long time:
The bottom line is that liberal mandarins in the West — not just in America — face a hard choice when it comes to the populism that gave us Trump, Brexit and right-wing parties and governments in Central and Eastern Europe. Should this re-emergent nationalism be conciliated and co-opted, its economic grievances answered and some compromises made to address its cultural and moral claims? Or is it sufficiently noxious and racist and destructive that it can be only crushed, through gradual demographic weight or ruthless polarized mobilization?
The President is a Russian Asset
If we don’t get angry now, about this crime, when do we get angry? I don’t know if he was first compromised when he begged for loans from Russian oligarchs. Maybe the first time he came under their influence was when he make 60million flipping a condo. I don’t know if they have Kompromat on him from his partying during the Moscow beauty pageant. I don’t know if they have tapes of him personally coordinating the release of stolen information to benefit his campaign. I know he asked for Russian help, because he did that in public. I know he received Russian help, and I know that in detail because of the indictment.
I know enough. There is a mountain of evidence already out in public that he is compromised. We should be angry. We should be furious.
Good article Mr. Douthat. I wonder, are all those who are in a panic about the Russian influence on our election also equally upset about our president (Obama) and secretary of state (Hillary) meddling in the Russian and Israeli elections? If not, then what justifies this hypocrisy? When millions of Americans are already hyper-partisan, a hand full of Russians isn't going to make much difference.
Why is Douthat diminishing a multi-year, multimillion dollar, subversive Russian social media effort, involving hundreds of foreign participants, to interfere with and affect our democratic electoral processes, particularly when we have been soberly forewarned by our national security leaders that this effort continues with its objective to skew upcoming elections? Outrageously, he describes this deep foreign influence program as "fake news", which reckless endorsement, by a columnist of an internationally respected publication, will undoubtedly be cited(or already has been) by the Kremlin, and its collaborators, as proof of an American "witch hunt".
Douthat has "jumped the shark" with this column. There should be consequences. This is not a partisan issue but an existential matter of national priority, demanding a vigorous response on all governmental levels. Again, why did the writer so blithely attempt to explain away this strategic, Russian cyber warfare program?
Taken out of context the Russian's efforts to distort and polarize were relatively minor and not worthy of hyperventilation.
We have our own, very effective, conspiracy theory spreading, divisive, outlets of propaganda, but they are OUR conspiracy theory spewing, divisive, outlets of propaganda. And that matters. Fox News may want to change minds but they are not going to manipulate vote counts.
The Russian's wanted to get caught trying to influence voters. They want us to know they are there and they want us to know they can hack into our systems. Ultimately they want us to question the legitimacy of elections by making us question the correctness of electronic voting. They don't have to be able to do it, they just need to make us think they will try.
Imagine that Trump loses in 2020 with a handful of close battleground states. He has already accused the Democrats of colluding with Russians in 2016 and made claims of illegal voting. Do you believe that Trump would not accuse the Russians of hacking into voting machines to help the opposition? How many of his supporters would believe him? If Trump won another close electoral college victory how many on the conspiracy minded left would accept the vote count?
If steps aren't taken to convince Americans that electronic voting is safe from Russian hacking, 2020 will be the first Presidential election where large numbers of Americans question the legitimacy of the actual vote count. And Trump does nothing.
1
Douthat's columns never speak to me, they just appear off the wall. I am left leaning, but seriously doubt that the Russian shenanigans tipped the election. I think that the racist tinge of the new populism is extremely dangerous and do not believe that the left is tempted to co-opt it. What we need are potent counter-arguments and some patience that the majority of voters will recognize Trump and the completely co-opted GOP for the charlatans that they are.
Mr. Douthat smugly dismisses the success of the Russian social media campaign from 2014-2016: "And the people who believed them, by and large, were probably not the nearly 78,000 Midwestern swing voters who officially determined the election’s Electoral College outcome..." HOGWASH! There is no evidence to assert this bogus claim. Of course, two years of targeted social media demonization of Hillary Clinton influenced swing voters in those Midwestern states.
please, please, someone smart trace where the NRA got the $52MM they spent on their chosen politicians in the last election cycle. if it turns out some of it came from russia then what? is mueller's team looking into this? it seems that mueller's team may be the only group able to track this money. otherwise the citizens united verdict creates an impenetrable wall.
I actually agree with Ross' point: the effect of the Russian media campaign pales in comparison to the decades long vilification of Hillary Clinton, Democrats and liberals in general by Fox "News", National Enquirer (google 'National Enquirer, Hillary') and the far right hate media.
Comey's intervention 11 days before the election was certainly more damaging than the clumsy Russian media campaign.
Russian trolls--it's not the effect, it's the interference in a sovreign country. America interferes wherever we can also. It is realpolitik--a government's attempt to acquire more power. We seek for weak places and try to exploit them.
You can't conflate our identification of the Russian interferemce with a desire for more weapons of mass destruction, as you seem to do. Technology has birthed a new weapon--hacking. It's thrown a monkey wrench into the long-range plans of governments all over the world. We are vulnerable to malicious actors who can affect much more than an election.
As with old mutually assured destruction (MAD), we now face cyberterrorism that can come from anywhere. Our electrical grids, communications, and nuclear facilities aren't strictly under our control anymore.
This calls for a new diplomacy among nations, setting aside old power struggles for the new united front against the cyberweapon which can wreck us all.
1
I know this is an opinion piece, but from where does Douthat drag his conclusion -- enemy propaganda doesn't work to alter our elections?
In my opinion, the same place as arms manufacturers who, let,s claim, just waste millions in a fruitless attempt to equate lethal weaponry with "freedom" and the mere study of gun violence with totalitarian gun confiscation.
A welcome counterbalance to all the "REMEMBER THE MAINE" reactions to the recent indictment in this newspaper and others.
Don't forget Jill Stein. The Russians touted the Green Party too, as a way for American youth, particularly, to waste their votes.
Douthat and other right-wingers need to stop pretending that Trump Russian-Republicans are "populists."
Modern Republicans are authoritarians, who resolutely oppose democracy and seek to invest all political power in a strong-man leader (i.e, tyrant, dictator, despot, Caesar, fuehrer).
Because Republicans also seek to create a governing partnership between their fuehrer and large corporations, modern Republicans are true fascists, in the exact sense of the word that Mussolini coined.
Populists believe in participatory democracy: Government of ALL the people, by ALL the people, and for ALL the people. In dreadful contrast, Republicans are at this moment enslaving most of the people.
When I was a teenager (in the 1980s), we used to buy copies of the Weekly World News and the National Inquirer for entertainment. Their reports of aliens, conspiracies, and celebrity scandals, with their doctored photos and breathless headlines, were hilarious. But here’s the thing: we knew they were hoaxes, rumors, and exaggerations. We knew they were entertainment, not news, even though they looked like newspapers. No adults we knew read them, except to chuckle or shake their head at an outrageous cover photo in the grocery line.
I hope for a day when that clear line between legit information and tabloid entertainment becomes clear again.
154
"... clear line between legit information and tabloid entertainment becomes clear again."
The Times regularly publishes opinion pieces, including editorials and OpEds. Which side of your "line" do they fall on?
The two prongs of the Russian interference in the election are inseparable. Did the Russians exploit issues that were important to the electorate? Yes. Was that benign or inconsequential? It is hard to be sure, but since the intent was malicious, why assume it was ineffective?
Except the crime did not occur. These leaks were by insiders who gave the info to WikiLeaks. Julian Assange has been demonized, to the extent of Putin. The real scandal is that this Russia stuff has ruined Obama's reputation. These clowns in his administration ruined him in their unseemly effort to advance Hillary Clinton to the White House.
1
I run digital media campaigns targeted to specific voter demos. I work for candidates on both sides of the aisle, ballot measures, charities and trade groups. Douhat is absolutely correct, for two reasons. First, the size/scope/spend of the Russian effort is minor league in terms of reach and impact. Second, anything and everything they did can be (and often is) duplicated by anyone with American citizenship. Every losing campaign has a thousand excuses. Clinton's has a thousand and one.
I agree on all counts, Mr. Douthat, but I do wonder about one thing:
"Neither is a theory that obsesses over tens of thousands of voters when the Americans who switched from Obama to Trump, in the Midwest and elsewhere, probably number in the millions."
How and what made these voters switch? Many, I suppose, simply swapped out one "change agent" for another, not bothering much with the details. Many others were likely influenced by the "fake news" that the right wing in this country has been producing for at least the last ten years. From Fox News to Rush Limbaugh to Alex Jones, right wing media is one giant lie factory (which is not to say that a legitimate right wing critique doesn't exist. Indeed, you are exhibit "A"). Politics does make for strange bedfellows, but who thought they'd see Paul Ryan waking up next to Vladimir Putin.
1
18 U.S. Code § 1349 - Attempt and conspiracy.
Any person who attempts or conspires to commit any offense under this chapter shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the attempt or conspiracy.
(Added Pub. L. 107–204, title IX, § 902(a), July 30, 2002, 116 Stat. 805.)
No one who says the Russian actions demonstrated no tangible impact on the election process, implying or stating that since there's no harm, there's no crime, ever researched Federal Law, or if they did, ignored what the laws that govern this nation state, clearly and succinctly.
8
Nonsense! Those Russian efforts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. did influence voters out in the hinterland. I personally listened to them barking about the new revelations that they discovered about Hillary on social media. All were patently absurd but they swallowed that propaganda up. This was especially prominent in the younger rural crowd that are non-college. One of my tenants was so swallowed up in this that she believed everything nasty about Hillary such as "Hillary Clinton will remove snipers from the military." What?!
2
Ross' columns always have enough logic to be plausible.
What they usually lack is self reflection. A movement that he is a prime and continuing supporter of did all it could to create polarization for pure partisan gain with pretend morals.
But I never hear responsibility or accountability. Its always the fault of others to not respond exquisitely to the faults of a rationally bankrupt movement.
3
This hurts: I agree completely with Douthat.
2
And who is the troller-in-chief? Donald Trump, who aids and abets Russian infiltration into our democratic system by refusing to call out Putin by name, instead hiding behind Sarah Sanders who provides him a shield by spewing out whoppers, such as the president has done more to punish Russia than Obama did in eight years. When she came out with that one, you could hear the laughter from the press corps. I don't know how she is able to keep a straight face deflecting every question and criticism away from Trump. The ugly truth is this: Donald Trump, master of conspiracy theories (see Obama's citizenship allegation) is being driven crazy by the thought of being viewed as a willing participant in the 2016 election meddling. So he continues to spew the big lie, constantly uttering NO COLLUSION NO COLLUSION hoping that if it's said enough times people will give it credence eventually.
5
When people like you minimize parts of the effort you minimize all of the effort and willingly provide aid and comfort to Trump. It only took under 80,000 strategically placed "unwitting" voters to fall for the ruse. That is not to be minimized. It is to be searched out, ended, and defended against. Otherwise,you're Fox News.
3
"... Such conduct is certainly worthy of indictment, legal and rhetorical. What it is not worth is paranoia and hysteria, analogies to Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11 attacks, and an “America under attack”/“hacking our democracy” panic that give the Russian trolls far too much credit for cleverness and influence and practical success. ..."
The significance of the Russian trolling is that it exposes the extreme degree of credulity and gullibility of 35% of America. Trolling, like religion, only 'works' on those with untrammeled credulity, who lack critical thinking skills.
There is no magical garden with a talking snake, there is no pedophile ring operating out of a pizza place, Obama was born in Honolulu, Trump U was a scam, etc. People can fall for this are the same ones who are targeted by the Russian trolling.
By far my greatest fear is with the target of Russian trolling, not the trolling itself. That 35% could fall for this nonsense is downright scary.
6
Russia cast a wide net and found fertile ground with a particular demographic. We all know who they are. Now you are carrying water for the Trumps, why the NYT inflicts OP-ED's like this on their subscribers is a mystery. The question should be did the attack have any effect at all. If the is yes them we have a major problem. Your effort to minimize puts you in the absolute worst of company.
1
The Republicans won in 2016 the same way they always win--character assassination. But in 2016 they found the perfect candidate for their preferred methodology. Even in the primaries, Trump showed his uncanny ability for ad hominem attack. No one can belittle and foment hate like Trump can. This has always been the Republican stock in trade. This is how they beat Dukakis, Gore, Kerry and of course, Clinton.
Because the Republicans had already spent 30 years attacking "Killery," they had a pre-existing armory of ammunition. The exit polls confirmed that Clinton did not lose because of racism, sexism, the economy, etc.; she lost because she was the most dishonest and crooked politician ever, who was going to be jailed as soon as she took office.
The Russian memes were perfectly targeted and likely accounted for at least the 80,000 votes that caused her defeat.
4
There is something willful about this--if I steal your second car, it might not have any effect on the way you live your life (you still got to work this morning; you were intending to junk it anyway), but still, a crime has been committed. If you get shot by a passerby, but it only grazes your arm, a crime has been committed. We don't prosecute crimes just because they have disastrous effects.
Brexit and Trump are different phenomena. ANd blaming it all on liberals and "mandarins" (oh dear) is just darn lazy.
2
Douthat, you, yourself, are on the wrong side of this war. Thank you for the good advice to Dems to look within and reach out to those Obama to Trump voters, but you should get your red, rolling dumpster fire house in order before addressing sane America.
3
'Hysteria' is not a word found in our American community not far from the Big City. Russia is seldom mentioned; let alone allegations of tampering with Voters's Trust.
One fine newspaper to read daily, that would be The New York Times now, is sufficient for this reader who used to have an affinity for its crossword puzzle at Noon. Of Russian Trolls and Goons, it is not implausible that some Americans have joined The Gang.
When Mr. Putin wrote to our Nation in a letter published by The New York Times a few years ago, bringing to our attention that we were essentially a Nation of Weaklings and should turn on back on President Obama, as an American citizen and a matter of civility, he received the following:
'Dear Sir: We are in receipt of your letter in the times we live, with your observations of our Governance, and these will be forwarded to the appropriate parties in our Administration. In due course, you may rest assured of an acknowledgement from the above, and on a personal note, keep up your passionate endeavors for 'Human Rights' in your Country'.
A reminder to tell friend Austria that our photo was taken at our request by a young Russian parent, enjoying a summer outing with her child, living in this green valley. A cautionary word to our American Russian Community to go low-profile, until Mueller and his team have unearthed the 'Moles' among us.
Russia’s sowing division in the U.S. via social media is not “fake news.” It happened and it’s real. Its impact on the US political landscape may be a matter of opinion, but that doesn’t undermine its reality. When you label a real news item with a term that means—in the parlance of its most prominent user—“news I don’t personally like,” you undermine your own credibility.
1
Once again Ross Douthat defends the Conservative Conspirisum by denying that the Russian attacks on Hillary and the supportive gestures for Trump saying "...nothing they did particularly mattered.". NONSENSE!
He claims there is no evidence and I dispute that vigorously. The very fact that thousands of "regular non-voters", The Deplorables - the Unwashed, Unlettered Haters turned out to vote-in their "Strong Man" proves that the Russian tactics combined with Trump's natural tendency to be a dictator prove the worth of their efforts.
The actions of the Russian assault on democracy served to inflame the lowest base tribal instincts of the Deplorables - for once...FOR ONCE someone, TRUMP was speaking out loud their hatred, racism and bigotry that even they had become to embarrassed to speak out loud.
But now that genie is back out of the bottle and with two illegitimates - Trump and Gorsucks - in positions of great power along with the GOP owning both Houses of Congress the Great American Dream and American Exceptionalism could die in a single generation...we may well be seeing them put America and Her People behind...forever!
What the trolls did were crimes. That’s why they have been charged. Ross’s distinction between that and the dnc hack is wrong.
"[O]n the evidence we have, nothing they did particularly mattered. The D.N.C. hack was genuinely important because it involved a real theft and introduced a variable into the campaign that would not otherwise have been present. But the rest of the Russian effort did not introduce anything to the American system that isn’t already present; it just reproduced, often in lousy or ludicrous counterfeits, the arguments and images and rhetorical tropes that we already hurl at one another every day."
Sorry to use such a long snippet, but the point needs to be made that this DOES matter, and very much so, because the President of the United States has made himself into the leader of the band in hurling (tweeting) nasty, untrue, socially divisive "rhetorical tropes." He's exactly like the 400-pound internet hacker, sitting in his bed somewhere, whom Trump posited as the source of the real hacking -- as cover for Russia, it must be additonally pointed out.
The 400-pound internet hacker sitting on his bed is wearing a plush bathrobe with a floridly monogrammed "T."
With maybe an adult film star nearby . . . .
That many Americans can't stop making excuses for this inadvertent cretin in the White House is nuts.
1
If even one undecided voter was swayed by actions described by this "fake scandal," one has to question this current administration's reluctance to pursue punitive and preventive actions. Ross, "No puppet, no puppet; you're the puppet!"
I truly appreciate the effort to clarify a difficult political issue that seems to be equal parts reality show and Cold War bluster. But it doesn’t quite work and Masha Gessen has covered this ground more sensibly.
What we have here is what I’m gradually coming to recognize as Douthat’s default mode: Manecheism piled on with extra dressing. To frame the issue as a choice between conciliation to vaguely articulated grievance, or ruthlessness in counter-attack does nothing to reduce polarization. Rather, it adds intellectual ammunition to the victims of those who choose the ruthless path.
Hacking and trolling are just part of the picture. It’s becoming clear that Trump did not “collude” with Russia, he was used by Russia because he owes them money and they are blackmailing him. That’s what Trump has in common with Manafort and Kushner. Trump is totally corrupt and amoral.
So Mr. Douthat, I'm trying to understand your thinking here. In that vein here's a non-partisan thought experiment:
My goal is to sell my brand of toothpaste to 50.0001% of the populace; I am spending $100 million on advertising, but only selling to 49.95% - not my goal. So I throw another $2 million into the campaign and, voila, I'm over the top. That tiny extra effort got me the razor-thin margin I need to be successful.
What I'm saying is, granting that all the other purely domestic factors you cite are present, why are you so sure the various other slivers of influence from a hostile foreign power didn't change the outcome? In a razor-thin electoral outcome why wouldn't there be a good chance it made all the difference?
(Just as an example, with the part Mueller cited about Russian efforts to suppress the black vote; have you looked at the difference in black voter turnout in, for instance, the Detroit area between 2012 and 2016 - is that **entirely** because Obama was no longer on the ballot?) and that's one example from one of the three crucial states Mr. Douthat cites.
Fellow commenters, please feel free to point out any holes in my logic.
3
Once again Mr. Douthat gets it partially correct. But to discount the misinformation campaign by the Russians and the impact it had is rewriting history that is not even 18 months -- almost Trumpian in its inanity. I am old enough and mentally sharp enough to remember that summer of 2016 and the constant chant of "Lock her up!" at those disgusting rallies for stupidity. I cannot tell you how many people I spoke to or heard interviewed that were not enamored with Trump and knew he was a liar and con artist, but just had this vague sense that Hillary is dishonest; Hillary is a crook; Hillary doesn't care about the little people, only the Wall Street billionaires. All false, but all placed there by the constant barrage of falsehoods and attacks against her dating back 25 years. Yes, the Russians did not start it. Yes, others (Trey Gowdy, Darrell Issa, etc.) were continually spreading them for years. But yes, the addition of Russian bots most certainly did add to the cacophony of lies and hatred against her and most definitely influenced people into believing Hillary = bad. I'm glad Mr. Douthat is "quite sure" it did not have an effect. Maybe the DNC should enlist Germany or France or maybe even Norway to create a constant barrage of fake memes and attacks on Trump and McConnell and Ryan and all the other GOP hypocrites running for office. Since it has no effect and is not a problem to be addressed, I'm sure Mr. Douthat and the GOP would be good with that?
Trump continues to collude with Russia's massive disinformation and social media trolling campaign against America.
Just this morning he again assaulted our own media to lay cover for Putin.
When is someone going to do something about the fact that the so-called president continues to do Putin's bidding by calling his own lies the truth and attacking reality as "fake news"?
We ALL need to WISE UP.
1
Even broken clocks tell the correct time twice daily. So it is with Ross Douthat. Clinton lost because she was a lousy candidate. 45% of all Democrats didn't want her as a candidate. 52% of white woman voted for Trump. The black vote self-suppressed. Did the Russians exacerbate that dislike? Almost certainly. But they didn't create it. It was percolating within her own party throughout the election.
The second factor is our election system. We're not a democracy, we're a republic. With constitutional and infantalizing checks upon the popular will: the Electoral College; Senate apportionment by state not population, etc.
All contribute to a system where twice in 20 years the popular will has been frustrated and a catastrophic Republican candidate has snatched victory from a more moderate Democrat. It stinks but its legal.
The solution? Since the electoral college or Senate aren't going to be reformed anytime soon, run better candidates. Enough with the dynasties and triangulation. We're the party of Roosevelt and Truman for god sakes not Wall Street and Citibank. Act like it. And vote your self-interest (I'm talking to women and African Americans).
This old white man is sick and tired of fighting for women's reproductive rights and insisting black lives matter when those very groups are too stupid or too apathetic to pull the lever for the candidate that will best represent them. Wake Up America and start taking responsibility for how we got here.
"lock her up" sounds like an imported chant, not something any American would have thought of as appropriate in any part election
A friend of mine read a story on Facebook that said that Hillary Clinton trashed her hotel room in a fit of anger. My friend said she could not vote for someone who would do such a thing. The story was obviously fake news probably planted by a Russian bot. How many other people fell for that or the story that Clinton was running a sex ring out of a pizza parlor? You can't convince me that Russian interference did not influence enough people to give Trump his narrow election via the electoral college. He won three states by a margin of around 20,000 votes.
Foe me, I almost hesitated to vote for Hillary after Comey's dramatic announcement that he was reopening his investigation into Hillary's email just days before the election. I thought he would only do that if there was serious evidence of wrong doing. Wrong! I wonder how many voters then just stayed home? Comey's announcement was a big nothing and yet at the same time we find that the FBI was investigating Trump for collusion with Russia to influence our election and we don't hear a peep of that from Comey! Hillary is pilloried for made up scandals by Republicans while they turn a blind eye to Trump's collusion with the Russians and the graft of his family and rich buddies as they milk the government and hence us taxpayers for as much money as they can stuff into their greedy pockets.
And if their Facebook efforts DID swing the election, well, we do it too.
What an apologist column.
"Because on the evidence we have, nothing they did particularly mattered."
There's no clearer example of trolling Americans than the line above. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, as Mr. Douthat knows all too well, but in an effort to dismiss the mortal damage this scandal is inflicting on his party, he's willing to use any means at his disposal.
Mueller's investigation is far from over, and yet what it has revealed so far presents a damning picture of hostile foreign operatives working hand-in-glove with domestic partisan zealots willing to do anything to "win". It will be interesting to see what he and other conservative pundits have to say when the full picture emerges, and the role Republican voters and candidates have played in this national disgrace—wittingly or otherwise—is laid bare.
If you read many of the editorials and comments on the NYT and WSJ websites, you have to conclude that either the Russians were very effective in dividing us and getting each side to conclude that the other side was evil and stupid, or that we were already that way.
I might suggest to the NYT editors that they focus on Trump's policies and actions more, and on on his personality and tweets less.
It is arguable that the Russian troll operations did not LOSE any votes for Trump. And since his margin of victory across three critical states was just about 70,000 votes, it is quite likely that the trolling operation was successful in delivering the needed votes (and the office) to the russian candidate for the American presidency.
In interviews on CNN yesterday with Americans who posted verbatim the propaganda provided by the russians, it is hard not to be struck by how very stupid some of our voters are--willing to swallow hook, line and sinker whatever the Russians fabricated for them. It is hard to imagine how voters who seem to lack any semblance of critical reasoning skill can be prevented from making poor choices again and again. When an election is close, or when it is subject to t he odd vagaries of an electoral college system which allows a loser of the popular vote to win, it is hard to have confidence in the outcome.
So yes, a crime was committed by the Russians and it is quite likely that their amateurish operation was sufficient to sell enough of us the snake oil necessary to elect the charlatan in chief.
1
Mr. Douthat poses a false choice. We should do both: advocacy of policies which address economic inequality as the New Deal did, while forthrightly condemning the Republican alliance with neo-nazis and the Klan.
1
This is an amazing column, even by the standards of Mr. Douthat. He is absolutely certain that the Russian trolls had no effect on the outcome of the 2016 election because he. . . . .skimmed newspapers.
Why did the Russians spend all that money? Just for kicks? And does it strike Mr. Douthat as merely a coincidence that Russia was supporting Mr. Trump before he announced his candidacy? No connection there for sure, right?
Despite his certainty, Mr. Douthat is able to say only this about the millions who saw the Russian propaganda: “And the people who believed them, by and large, were *probably* not the nearly 78,000 Midwestern swing voters who officially determined the election’s Electoral College outcome.” Probably?
It is amazing that America could be attacked at this most fundamental level and that the response of conservatives like Mr. Douthat, known for their bravado in sending (other) young Americans to war, would be an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. Shameful.
Respectfully disagree.
The 78,000 votes in the three states could have been a result of anything, but since there was interference in the election, it is the place to look first.
The Russian interference was led to the three states, they did not know the value on their own, and as we now see, that's all it took.
Mueller is looking into this.
Douthat says nothing Russia did re: the 2016 election amounted to anything. Au contraire.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/russians-penetrated-u-s-voter...
A hard choice? Really? When has nationalism not been racist or noxious?
Whenever there was a push to ban cigarette advertising, the advertising industry itself insisted that advertising does not affect behavior and certainly would not encourage an underage person to smoke! Then why spend billions of dollars on advertising if it has no effect? Viral advertising, of the type practiced by the Russian trolls, is the most effective of all and costs a fortune because, like any advertising, it relies on repetition and ubiquity. Normal people do not have the time to devote to posting comments on the major news sites, but if you pay people, they will do it all day. The brainwashing of the aggrieved rust-belt states was very effective. To persuade a deep blue state like Michigan to vote for a hyper-conservative con artist with zero political experience is so extraordinary that it could only be accomplished through extraordinary means. What's more, the Russian ad campaign was illegal. The "law is the law" crowd doesn't seem to feel as strongly about that law as it does immigration. The Russians invaded our system and played us for fools. Given our level of sophistication, it wasn't hard, and the results have been catastrophic. We hate each other with a purple passion and have absolutely no trust in any institution. We see nothing but corruption. That view certainly did not come from Voice of America!
2
The influence was part of an overarching plan to install the puppet Trump. Trump is not a dupe in this, nor are his children and closest associates. Collusion is not the applicable word, co conspirator is. Mueller is following the laundered Russian money, only part of that money leads to these troll farms, other trails lead to hacked emails, hush money for porn stars, the NRA, and banks. This IS an attack on our country of Pearl Harbor dimensions and the current administration is not just sitting on its hands, it is purposefully obstructing the investigation. Why? Because they've been in on this for years. They may have believed they could never pull it off but they did. This lack of faith is not evidence of innocence. Ross is not in on this coup and he cannot believe it is happening so he will continue to tell us chunks of this plot do not matter, but in the totality of it, when we finally get there, Trump will be found guilty of acting on behalf of a foreign government, possibly several, and obstructing the investigation. All Republicans, in that light, will be found guilty of aiding and abetting after the fact. Mueller will trace this laundered money right through the party and right into the bank accounts of the Koch brothers and the Mercers. They will be found to have concocted this heinous plan with their Russian Oligarch counterparts. One party of this government is in trouble that makes Watergate look like petty theft. It is about time for the "Event". Hold on......
1
I lived in Chicago during the 2016 presidential campaign. I could see that Russians were trolling on facebook. I had no special information other than I could clearly see it was Russian colored propaganda against our democracy. I would actually post under these Russian photos on facebook, this is a Russian trying to influence our election. Yet, my friends or people I met seemed to take it all at face value, no pun intended, as it was facebook. The bigger problem is that about 2/3rds of Americans are mentally deranged in other ways and actually agree with the Russian propaganda. What I find interesting is how the Russians were able to get people to actually gather in the streets. It is clear that Trump went to Russian in 2013 the Russians backed him and in 2014 started an organized program to get him elected. How much Trump knew about that is under investigation. Personally I never felt that Hillary Clinton was the perfect candidate. The wife of a former president and then his own scandals. Although, I am certain she would have won without the Russian influence. At this point lets hope we can
I can agree with you Ross--as far as it goes.
The big question, though, is how we got to this point; how we developed such a naive, uninformed population that Russian disinformation was disseminated because it MIGHT influence some of that population. Surely, if the Russians had determined that we had responsible, educated, informed people living here, they would have spent more of their money and time on some other ways of influencing the election, such as you allude to.
But apparently, they (an others) recognize that in the US you can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
I don't disagree with you that this phenomenon is on us--it's our own fault, for being lazy, unmotivated, gullible, uniformed, for not being smart enough to realize there were no child pornography rings being run out of pizza parlors and the like. I suspect, though, we would diverge on what the solutions to such stupidity are.
1
Thank you for this column! The mainstream media has continually conflated two very different issues: 1) Russian hacking of computers, election software, etc. - direct attacks against the election system which would, of course, be highly illegal, and 2) Russian efforts to buy ads and influence social media which whether illegal or not are probably not really that important nor that new. (Hello America - we've been trying to meddle in Russian politics since 1917 #VOICEOFAMERICA). The media says totally stupid things like the Russians spent $50,000! The Russians spent a million dollars on ads! - "as if" that's a lot of money and "as if" that made a difference. It's 100% fake news on #2 and I can't count how many stories start with some implicit "smart people" idea about "Russian interference" without explaining whether they mean A or B. And then you're right about the real motives - it's just liberal hatred of Trump voters and the much more comforting thought that everyone in NYC or SF is just "so smart" and everyone in PA or WI is just "so dumb" as opposed to seeing the terribly trouble in our heartland and among middle class, and dare I say it, white voters. #Fakenews.
Journalism, and op ed pieces, should reflect obvious truths.
When a tax cut of $4,000,000,000,000 that explodes the debt by $1,500,000,000,000 is presented as a good thing, Mr Douthat is one who believes it is, even though 80% of it goes to the very rich and the ultra rich, and 30,000,000 tax payers will see their taxes go up.
For Douthat, this is populism, this is America growing in the right direction.
He supported Trump and the Republicans. He is for them.
That makes him an accessory to all the hyperbole, all the hysteria, and all the new fascist leanings of his party.
More artful deflection and defense of Trump by yet another conservative "pundit" who claims to oppose the president but always finds some flimsy excuse to rush to his defense. This column is nothing more than a fancy version of a Trump tweet of " no collusion." We won't know until Mueller's investigation is over whether the Russian troll indictments are central or a sideshow. If members of the Trump campaign provided guidance to the troll farm supervisors, it's very important. Douthat shows today he is another conservative who puts party loyalty ahead of country.
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Russian bots blogs obviously were music to the ears of people already predisposed to believe anything demonizing Hillary, thanks to decades of relentless domestic right wing propaganda. Nevertheless, there is simply no way one can conclude that it had no effect on the election outcome. It is probably true that it was less consequential than the DNC and Podesta e-mail hacking and Comey's decision to publicize just weeks before the vote that Hilary's e-mails were again under investigation. I think it is reasonable to conclude that the sum of all this sleaze cost Hillary the election. The right wing noise machine and money from greedy billionaires (Koch, Mercer, Alderson, etc) have been polluting US politics for decades now. Spare me the phoney concern for the working stiffs that have been taken to the cleaners by corporate greed and evangelicals obsessed with abortion but no compassion for poor children. Democrats may not have paid enough attention to the losses of good paying jobs in manufacturing but most of them have not been conspirators in their fleecing and have defended social programs essential to prevent greater misery. The election of Trump may seem the result of a cold civil war between the lower classes but the true civil war is between oligarchs exploiting distrust for their own benefit and the rest of us.
Ross Douthat concedes the obvious--that Russia significantly interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential race--but advances a convoluted theory to conclude without evidence other than his own opinion that it didn't really matter to the outcome. This undoubtedly makes him feel better about his fellow avowed conservatives' willingness to look the other way while Trump trashes the Constitution, but I see no evidence to support his claim that Russian trolls' actual influence was inconsequential. Leaving aside Trump's disturbing lack of concern over a hostile foreign power's meddling in U.S. affairs, how can Mr. Douthat possibly calibrate the degree of influence Russian trolls' calumnies had on swing-state elections? Ross, you clearly see Trump's faults and concede in theory the danger potentially posed by complicit Republicans acceptance of them. Why do you keep trying to minimize the actual damage Trump and his GOP enablers have done and are still doing? Admit it. We are in the midst of a Constitutional crisis.
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Ross writes as though he knows the extent of the "trolling". He does not.
Ross writes as though he knows no Americans were treasonous and helped to target and refine the trolling. He does not.
Ross writes as though he knows the (previously) secret and pervasive relationships between Trump Inc. and the Russian oligarchs -- likely featuring illegal money-laundering, tax fraud and quid pro quos for relief from sanctions -- which were the reason for the extensive trolling efforts on his behalf, were negligible. He does not.
It's really curious that Ross would seek, at this point, after the early rounds of indictments and guilty pleas, to distract from and minimize the overwhelming likelihood of conspiracy to harm our electoral process and tilt the playing field to a consumately evil (yes, a term borrowed from his religious identification), man.
There is a very large percentage (say, 1/3) of citizens incapable of moral and even practical judgement concerning our political leadership. They are easily inflamed by rhetoric of the precise kind poured into their social media feeds (and amplified by TrumpTV) every hour of every day. If such advertising didn't work we wouldn't have commercials in media nor corporate sponsorships of every social event in our culture.
Ross pretends to knowledge he lacks, minimizes the facts that are known, and disregards their effects.
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'Did 9/11 destroy America? No? Then why get upset about it?' -- That's Douthat's logic.
He is desperately trying to throw some legitimacy on Trump's presidency.
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Ross, the domestic out-group, as you call it, has "otherized " itself by a credulousness so sublime that it can be easily manipulated by Fox and Trump. The Russian trolls are merely an affiliate of our own right-wing media. The real enemy is within.
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Ross, You always conveniently ignore what I consider more important than the points of your opinion; therefore, you are trollish. Our president has not done anything for Russia's 'attempts' at influencing our election, which means either he doesn't believe it or he doesn't care. Either scenario denigrates the constitution--the document #45 is supposed to defend. He has done more damage to it then defense of it.
2
The four freedoms are just as important now as they were on Monday, January 6, 1941.
You make a good point- those Russians just added a little to the nonsense that was already out there.
When even nice old men like Chuck Grassley lie about death panels to scare other old people, the number of believers "in the Midwest and elsewhere, probably number in the millions." Many still think tax cuts pay for themselves. Many don't understand climate science or natural selection.
That's the kind of nonsense that needs crushed, not conciliated or co-opted.
2
Ross seems to want to differentiate between the DNC e-mail hacks and Russian social media tampering, saying the latter didn’t really matter. No. Both were elements of the same campaign, mutually reinforcing each other.
He argues that millions switched from voting for Obama to voting for Trump and THAT was decisive. Obama wasn’t on the ballot and so those voters had to choose. And HRC still won the popular vote by over 3 million. The fact is that 80,000 or so votes in 3 states swung the Electoral College vote for Trump.
He says that diehard conservatives weren’t swayed by the Russian propaganda because they already believed and were saying the same things about HRC and that is reasonable. But can we really say that there was NO effect on more lukewarm Trump supporters leading to more enthusiasm or dampening HRC supporters’ enthusiasm and leading them to stay at home? This is what Trump and his defenders claim, but I don’t buy it. All the “advertising” alleging that she was a criminal to be locked up and had “rigged” the election somehow, etc. had NO effect on people? Our entire system is based on advertising working for God’s sake!
At a minimum all this gave Trump cover to make the same claims and reinforce the anti-Hillary hatred. Hatred, by the way, fomented by 30 years of Republican/conservative Hillary bashing and promoting unproven “fake” scandals (Clinton Foundation, Benghazi, e-mails, Uranium 1, etc.)
So, just business as usual, nothing to see here? Come on!
3
Ross, I think a trap that we fall into is the thinking that everyone processes information the same way as you. Get away from your keyboard and go out in the "trenches", just mingle with rural voters for a while. Where I live and the electorate that I come in contact with 78,000 votes seems like a low number to be influenced by Facebook alone not even considering Twitter and YouTube.
1
Oddly enough, I don't vehemently disagree with most of what you present here.
It's hard to argue against the fact that most of the people that voted for Trump have tiny, shrunken brains that resemble something resulting from an ancient voodoo ritual and might just as well be burnt marshmallows based upon their functionality.
Can brains like that discern the difference between the product of a Russian troll farm "bot" and something that might have originated from Trump's 400 pound "New Jersey fat guy" (was that a Chris Christie reference?)
I'll concede to you that they probably can't.
However, all that doesn't mean that we should just give up and let Russia have a broken field here to do whatever they want. The first amendment has been under heavy attack by Trump with his relentless fake news meme, and this Russian interference aides and abets his efforts to undermine our free press.
This may not be "Pearl Harbor", but it is serious and we do need to treat it as such.
The people who believed them were most certainly the 78,000 swing voters, at least in part. It's preposterous of Mr. Douthat to make that assertion .What we KNOW about Cambridge Analytica is that it capably targets exactly those people who reveal ambivalence. And what we further know is that Cambridge Analytica can then feed them a carefully tailored, bespoke message. I am all for opinion columns, but when faced with the reality, it would be helpful, as says Walter Hall below, if facts were employed. And by the way, that's MR. Mueller to you.
2
Yup, the right wing talk shows, the incendiary books, the constant propaganda of FoxNews have been getting us closer to a real civil war. Only a very few Republicans now hold high the principles that made it worthy of its name: the GREAT old party.
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that the Russians merely stoked existing resentments and that it doesn’t matter any way. Trump voters wouldn’’t have voted in droves for him if he’d said he wanted a tax cut for the wealthy, to hamper environmental progress, to put down women and minorities, etc. Trump gave voice to some downright un-American memes. He told people that the redress for their grievances was to tear down the edifice of Democracy without having a credible replacement. That’s doing the Russian’s bidding. People bought it and it will take a generation to overcome.The Russians perpetrated an act of real-live war against the US and the puppet-in-chief is letting them get away with it.
2
Ross, you are the worst. You wear the mask of rationality and reasoned conservative anti-Trumpism, when in fact this column is the worst kind of Trump apologia.
Liberals who are screaming about Russian interference in the 2016 election are not under the impression that Russian online trolling was decisive. Although questions like "How was it that close to begin with?" are uniquely unhelpful and irrelevant. Because it shouldn't have been close, anything goes? Whatever the reasons, we still deserve elections that are fair. And because it was so close, small factors can loom large.
The real Russia issue is how Trump and his supporters have reacted to it, both during the election and especially since. Faced with strong evidence of Russian interference in our elections, Trump and his minions' reaction has not been to rally Americans and hold Russia accountable. It has been to undermine American law enforcement and call more than half of America treasonous for lending credence to these claims. His politicization of the Florida school shooting to undermine the FBI and the Russia investigation is a particularly rank example.
Ross, you call for liberals to conciliate and co-opt this "re-emergent nationalism." WHAT? This is nativism and racism. Unlike conservatives, we are not calling our political rivals un-American, and we do not seek to "crush" or disenfranchise them. But we do call out their racism for what it is, and we call for good people to resist it.
1
Democrats long ago abandoned the New Deal and the working class and then fostered identity politics so that they could "feel liberal."
Identity politics exacerbates the innate human tendency to form an "in-group" attachment to about 200 people, and to see all others as subhuman predators and prey. (A human tendency to which Fox "news" is the pornographic version, exciting out-group hatred.)
Democrats must find a class-based set of policies that again restrain capitalism and its incentives to serve the whole society.
I think you devalue what went down during the election. I do understand your point, but minimizing the attack, the echoing defensiveness or the benefactor, and the suspicious activities conducted by this White House, make this much larger than troll moving the election by 78,000 votes. There isa subversive nature about this administration and its tactics that defend and praise its Russian counterpart more so than our own intelligence agencies. The possibility that Trump might be a Russian Asset has now been officially written about in your paper, and in the Post. That's a very serious charge, from two respected, one conservative, editorialists.
The enemy within is going to turn out to be the ones who cooperated and aided and gave comfort to the enemy without. There are more indictments to come. This column is an unproductive distraction with its silly characterizations of paranoia and hysteria. The president daily colludes with those enemies without by doing absolutely nothing in the face of incontrovertible evidence. Look at all those supposedly patriotic people in the photograph. They've been duped, not by Russia, but by the Republican party and conservative pundits like Ross Douthat.
I suggest, Mr Douthat, that you wait for the results of the Mueller investigation to be completed before making any pronouncements about the efficacy of the Russian interference so as not to appear foolish
Russia had interference into US politics planned for years and was a consequence of relevant successful efforts in Europe.
For Russians, the bottom line of their disruptive efforts is the promotion of white supremacy, degradation of the non-white Other, a false premise that has given rise to fascist-like political parties in Europe, many financially associated with Vladimir Putin’s political party. It is an easy task to make people fear Others. The goal is to destroy liberal democracies and military alliances, to benefit corrupt oligarchs.
In the US, white supremacy had always been a vile undercurrent. Today, the central figure in the process of creating a similar political movement amenable to Russia is Donald Trump. Since 2011, Trump has provided proof of a faithful base of the most extreme and most naive of Americans believing President Obama was not born in the US. In 2015, Trump, unlike any normal presidential candidate, praised Putin and Russian foreign policy, something drawing attention to the likelihood the candidate was compromised by Russia in some fashion because no sane, normal candidate for president would voice such ridiculous ideas that have no basis in reality. Trump railed against immigrants, mostly Others and undocumented, spreading lies from the old playbook of political racism and bigotry, which had a drooling audience primed for justification of their superior perception of themselves.
1
I agree with Mr. Douthat, coming at the same evidence from the opposite direction. The Republicans and the right-wing media have been doing what the Russians did on a much, much larger scale for decades. Neither Democrats nor the "MSM" have registered any serious complaint about it, so they look silly now sounding the alarm & pretending that the problem with lies is the nationality of the liars.
1
You're 100% correct this time. Good job, Ross.
Your colleague Charles Blow argued the other day that the Russian trolling amounted to a "racialized crime," because the trolls made the argument that Hillary Clinton was not on the side of black Americans, and they urged black progressives to vote third-party or stay home.
But this is the exact same argument that many progressive *Americans* made! How can it violate American law for Russian citizens to say, on the global internet, the same things American citizens are saying? Exactly which law is being broken?
At least 4 times a week I receive emails from friends and relatives . These emails usually are "fake news" and arise from either the far right or the far left.
A little searching reveals the truthfulness of these statements. It is up to me to decide. Not up to the folks who run Facebook or control the email server.
Focusing on the source of the email statements or Facebook posts is missing the point. The point is that the accusations that the Russians make "fake" statements avoids looking at the recipients of these communications. People who BELIEVE the "fake news" do so because that is what they want to believe.
In the same way that people who believe in God do so because that is what the want to believe. The Russians have not attacked our democracy. They have merely exposed our democracy for what it is.
I had him spotted as a fool, a phoney, a crook, a liar and as an exceedingly low character the first time I laid eyes on him in a Times news article more than 25 years ago and never gave a second thought to him in the years that followed.
His successful run for President and his disastrous first year in office have confirmed for me that he and his merry band of hard-core supporters are political bums, naifs and cowards intent on betraying the core ideals of this country.
Anything the Russians have done, are doing or may do in the future is peanuts compared to what Trump and his crowd are doing.
In order to insure that my loathing for them remains ar a fever pitch, I try to take good care of myself, exercise regularly and work hard to avoid carbohydrates and starches.
My big failure in the past year has been in vastly overestimating the smartness of women who I aways believed were far too intelligent to give him a first, let alone a second look.
3
... compared to what Trump and his crowd are currently doing.
1
Mr Douthat,
Thank you for a very sensible column. When you are not obsessing on the sex habits of Americans (are too many people masturbating and not enough procreating?) or complaining that the Catholic church does not meet your strict standards, or telling us progressives why we should be happy with right-wing gains under trump, you can actually sound sensible.
I agree that the biggest problem is trump's and the republican party's con job on the working class - pushing fake conservative ideas that only benefit the oligarch class, to the detriment of the 99%. Also agree that trump's brand of politics (abetted by his sycophant allies in congress and his clown car advisors) is bad for most Americans and horrible for democracy.
But you are very right to point out that the Russian interference was merely a secondary infection taking advantage of a cancer that is killing our body politic. Very good column.
1
If discontent is truly the outgrowth of neglect on the right and the left then yes, it needs to be addressed and policies changed. But the component of pseudo-populism that is merely the latest manifestation of nationalism, xenophobia and racism does deserve to be treated like the social disease it is. Whatever the approach, conflating the two won't solve the problem.
I think I get it. The malicious efforts by Russia to get Trump elected and wreck our government are not important because they were swamped by the equally malicious efforts of our citizens like the Kochs.
Whew! I feel a lot better now.
2
The Russians troll operation provided critical momentum to Trump in the social media sphere that he parlayed into momentum in the real world. In the critical period of time when Trump was going from joke to nominee to sticking around in spite of everything, the media momentum caused Americans to normalize his abhorrent behavior and lack of qualifications because they perceived that others were doing it. Saying the Russian troll operation was ineffectual because the last 80,000 voters weren't likely impacted misses the point.
To be clear - I generally agree with with Ross writes here. This is not Pearl Harbor and hyperventilating on the left when no hyperventilating is needed to make the point is entirely counterproductive.
This is a rare occurrence where I agree with Mr. Douthat. The million dollar Russian propaganda effort was dwarfed by the billions of dollars each campaign spent. Are we supposed to believe that their posts were somehow more influential? Seems a stretch. Instead of restarting the cold war, the Times and the Democrats should ask themselves what truly lost the election: a small group of Russian trolls or unpopular corporate policies and neglect of the working-class.
Ross,
As a thoughtful “big picture” writer you know better. Parsing the importance of this or that element of the attack on our democracy does you little credit. The time for arguing the effect of particular efforts to undermine our social cohesion is long past. The effect is cumulative, the intent is clear. This is cancer and it has spread,
1
Americans don't have to be influenced by Russian trolls. Just stop using twitter. Use Facebook only to stay in touch with family and real friends, not "Facebook friends." If the trolls (Russian or American) have no audience, they'll be rendered useless. People seem to think we're helpless in this and at the mercy of the trolls. But, we definitely are in control and can end this if we choose to. Or, we can continue to knowingly be manipulated.
It is downright amazing that a professional wordsmith like Ross Douthat fails to recognize the power of words as weapons that can effect real political change even more effectively than weapons like guns. Sure, many of those Russian messages were poorly phrased and laughably ridiculous, but birtherism is also fact-free nonsense, and birtherism effectively delegitimized a President in millions of susceptible minds. Remember that Trump was a leader of the birtherism movement for at least 5 years, and this certainly did not keep him from the WH.
1
I guess this is meant to somehow counter Friedman's piece: it doesn't. You've missed the point. You have a "president" actively working, at a minimum in public relations department, to help Russia in its efforts to weaken/destroy America: every American who isn't a trumper, a member of trump's cult, is an "enemy". As is the free press and any and all branches of government that don't bow down to him, repeat his lies for him, protect him no matter the costs. "America" now exists to serve Trump, and Trump alone. You think if 2020 comes and he loses he won't be willing to burn America to the ground with his screams and ravings of "rigged election"? Trump's "army" is some 60 million strong and they are well and truly trained: Trump is always right, always speaks truth, "has done more for America than any President in history" and all naysayers are enemies and liars. After all we've witnessed and still you underestimate the evil that trump's tormented soul is capable of. This is a Pearl Harbor and 9/11 event-like situation, well underway.
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There weren't only pro-Trump projects from the Troll House. There were also Jill Stein ads from them that perhaps moved some of the Bernie Sanders supporters to vote for her rather than Clinton. That may have made a difference in the upper Midwest (on top of Clinton's inept campaign). The context here is decidedly different than the Hoover's paranoia and racism. This stuff appears to all invasive and, aside from the blame game, that man in the White House is ignoring all his intel agencies' findings and warnings about this year's vote.
Ross, you do not know what Mueller knows. You use the old Trump trick of discrediting a portion of the wrong as an excuse to discredit the whole, then conclude, the wrong made no difference. Ross, take into account the whole of the wrong, email hacking, voter research, Facebook, Twitter, etc, hacks into voter rolls, the timing of illegal information and I am sure there is more. Know claim it makes no difference. In fact when you think about it Fox news does daily, what the Russians do, sow discord, false facts, I guess Fox makes no difference also.
That Russian sponsored bots could swing an American election is a neat proposition but hardly provable. Clinton, and by a wide margin, won the popular vote. I’m more worried about the propaganda distributed hourly by Fox News and Sarah Huckabee Sanders than any Russian bot.
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It's a continuum, though, Ross. What else could the Russians think now than "we're definitely on the right track"? And our other enemies from North Korea to ISIS are not notably stupid. They can easily learn to the same spectacular gullibility that (as you say) has always fed the American nightmare, from the Duke and the Dauphin (which was fiction but right on the money) to Reds Under Your Bed. That gullibility is even now exploited by FOX for money and by our enemies for strategic advantage--and it continues, a crescendo with a climax potentially violent. Indeed, it is arguable that the right wing insistence on their firearms is their preparation, conscious or not, to act on their delusions.
Excellent column. 'Mindful resistance,' indeed.