In Nov, Fiona Hill testified that Russia was gearing up to attack the 2020 election. Last spring Robert Mueller testified that the Russians were interfering “as we sit here.”
Today we learned that Russia is backing Trump’s re-election—and Trump was furious lawmakers were briefed about it.
Just yesterday, Asha Rangappa, Alex Finley, and John Sipher published this fabulous piece in Just Security.
Here’s what we can expect:
This time around, the Republican Party is “working in parallel with Russian intelligence. . . “
No, the GOP is not working in tandem with Russia because Putin is blackmailing them all. The GOP is working in tandem with Russia because their goals are aligned. And because they’d rather have Russia-style oligarchy than true liberal democracy.
The GOP is aligned with Russia because the GOP has morphed into a reactionary party. To take us back to the ‘good old days’ when [white] men could do as they pleased, they have to destroy our institutions and dismantle the government.
Russia also wants to destroy our institutions and dismantle our government. Hence Trump-Fox-GOP + Russia = True Love
I agree with this conclusion:
(From the Just Security article linked earlier)
They don’t have to actually flip votes. They just have to undermine public confidence in the outcome of the election. I’ve been taken to task for suggesting that it’s far easier to sabotage an election through a disinformation campaign that undermines confidence than by manually flipping votes.
Fact: It’s less risky and more efficient to undermine an election through a disinformation campaign.
Clint Watts explains that a goal of active measures is to “undermine democracy, to make Americans lose confidence in democratic institutions. . .”
That’s what Obama meant by “citizenship.” I wrote about that here.
“Increased public awareness” is also what the Rand Corp, in this essay, called “putting raincoats on the population.”
If we expect to be drenched with a “firehose of falsehoods,” if we prepare by putting on raincoats, we won’t be caught by surprise.
The Just Security article also cautions us not to “overreact” to the outrage. . .
[Isn’t that just what I’ve been telling you? Now you can see she’s backed up by very smart people.]
To put the matter bluntly, the US President—with the help of a major political party and in tandem with Russia—will wage a Russian-style disinformation war against the citizens of the US.
Let that sink in.
So expect lots more crisis and spectacle.
One of the ways a disinformation campaign kills democracy is by destroying what social scientists call the public sphere.
The antidote is to strengthen the public sphere through community organization.
When you reach out to potential voters, talk to them about the disinformation blitz that’s coming and the cycle of outrage. Help them prepare so they’re not caught off guard.
People have been asking about how to reach out to MAGA people. For the 2020, ignore them.
Jennifer Rubin is correct:
Jennifer Rubin’s conclusion dovetails with what Rachel Bitecofer been saying: The 2020 election will be won or lost depending on who turns out to vote–not what the “swing” or “undecided voters” do. She explains that swing and persuadable voters are fewer in number and less important than people realize.
MAGA people are entrenched in the lies, and they’re unwilling to give them up. See more on that, see the article I wrote for Slate in 2018, here. If you’ve canvassed for a campaign you know the campaign sends you to likely or possible voters. They don’t wear you out by sending you to people “marinated in Fox News”
A long term solution is fixing the separate media bubbles. The short term goal is winning the 2020 election by a comfortable enough margin to leave no doubt about the outcome.
This should get you started.
I didn’t include “privileged” because when the frontier was open, non-privileged ordinary white men had a place they go to pillage and grab. I know about this. I wrote a biography of Andrew Jackson.
The people stealing land from the Indians were often ordinary men with rifles. Moreover, all white men benefitted from the subjugation of women. During the age of Empires, rule breakers could go to the colonies.
One theory is that when the age of Empire ended, and the American frontier closed, the rule breakers had no place to go where there were no rules. The wild west really was lawless. (You know how Trump’s grandfather first made his money, right? If not, see this post.)
Now that they have no where to go, the rule breakers have taken over our government.
I rest my case.
And I yield back the remainder of my time.
