Anonymous's War on Trump Described as Successful and Disastrous (techinsider.io)

CitizensForTrump.com and the Trump Hotel Collection site reportedly went offline Friday, seeming to confirm threats made by the hacktivist collective Anonymous. But TechInsider is reporting that "The 'total war' that Anonymous declared earlier this month against Donald Trump has devolved into a war among hackers fighting within the group and pro-Trump supporters who are trolling them within their chat rooms." They describe two warring factions within the group's anti-Trump movement, also quoting CloudFlare's CEO as saying denial of service attacks "are sort of the functional equivalent of a caveman with a club." But while Trump has warned that law enforcement officials are pursuing the attackers, one Anonymous member unequivocally announced that still more attacks were planned. "This is NOT the last time you hear of this operation. We will be watching, and will act when the time is right."

Comments

Oh, good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, anonymous. I was worried that Trump wasn't getting enough media attention; I almost started remembering there are other candidates.
Pro Trump, Anti Trump, Trump Trump, Trump? Trump! TRUMP TRUMP TRUPM TRUPMUTRPRATRRUEMMP

What do they hope to accomplish?

[Tanktalus]

I can't imagine what they could possibly do to derail Trump's campaign. Trump is not cowed by divulging his affairs - he's been a "reality" TV star, and his loud mouth has already exposed all manner of nastiness without derailing the campaign already. His websites are just that - websites. He likely doesn't rely on them either for getting out his message (the MSM is doing a fine job already) or for his business dealings, so shutting them down is useless.

His supporters don't support him because he's a high-and-mighty politician of impeccable ideology. They support him because that's precisely what he isn't. There's simply nothing that Anonymous can do to dissuade Trump's followers from following. And everyone else who might be swayed by anything they uncover is already swayed by the ranting that has already come out of Trump's mouth. I just don't see anywhere they can go from here.

Re:What do they hope to accomplish?

[Applehu Akbar]

"Unless they can show that he really is part of the political establishment?"

This year, the most constructive way that Anonymous could turn the public off any candidate is to reveal corporate funding sources.

Setting fire to the process

[Okian Warrior]

All this "disrupt the process" behaviour is ridiculous.

It started with people at rallies shouting Trump down while he was trying to speak.

What's the point of that? You are so incensed and against that one candidate that you don't want the democratic process to happen?

This goes on for awhile, then protesters come to rallies and get manhandled by the supporters who actually want to listen to what he says.

Next, protesters come to rallies dressed as KKK members and are surprised when they get beat down?

Recently, a 15yo girl protester punched a supporter while he was turning away, got pepper sprayed for doing that... and tried to file sexual assault charges against him? (He was only exonerated because the incident was caught by security camera. And if it *hadn't*, that man's life would be completely ruined with no chance of redemption.)

Anonymous is so against Trump that they want to sabotage the democratic process by taking down his websites?

Elites are so against Trump that they are going against their "support the candidate, whoever he is" pledge? Rubio does not give up his delegates, even though he's out of the race? Delegates are allowed to be "faithless" and vote for whomever? Make an 8-state rule to exclude Ron Paul, but change it to allow Cruz in?

(Trump gets fed up with all of this, decides that if everyone else is breaking the pledge that he can also... and of course the media only reports that Trump broke his promise. Also, breaking that promise loses him delegates, but of course no one else loses *their* delegates for doing the same thing.)

I honestly think that if Trump has a clear majority of support (which seems likely) and doesn't get the nomination, through skulduggery (which is also likely) that there will be riots.

...as well there should be.

We're often told "it's our fault, we voted for him". If we actually vote for someone and he *doesn't* get in, it is completely rational and just to set fire to the process.

Really. This whole thing is ridiculous.

Re:freedumbs

[ArmoredDragon]

Why would it be? Islam isn't a race. Even though I'm an atheist, it bugs the shit out of me that ultra liberals will bash Christians just for being Christians, but if you bash a Muslim even if they do their backwards third world shit (i.e. women in burkas) then you get an earful from ultra liberals about how it's racist.

Re:freedumbs

[Applehu Akbar]

"Why would it be? Islam isn't a race"

Whenever a terrorist atrocity occurs, we are piously lectured to about not judging all Muslims by a small minority of terrorist radicals. Yet whenever some nutbar shoots up a school, the same pious lecturers claim he represents all gun owners.

Re: How about Ted Cruz?

[WarJolt]

The perceived danger of Trump in a 4 years term is worse than the actual danger. He'll be fighting against establishment Republicans in congress and ALL Democrats. Without that support, he'll have a hard time abusing his executive powers like many of our Presidents have. One dangerous thing about him is he calls people on their shit, which is ironically what Anonymous is kinda known for. He's not even the front runner in the polls between Hillary and Trump.

Anonymous can waste their time on American politics, but this seems ridiculous when there are issues that inspire far more consensus. Also, Trump finds ways to turn negative actions against him into poll numbers, so I wonder how counter-productive this all is.

*with a tinfoil hat on head* Maybe this was all orchestrated by his campaign.

Presidential power(s) unrelated to congress

[fyngyrz]

The office of the president can exert power without the compliance of congress in the following areas:

1) Foreign policy
2) Arbitrary short term military action; "commander in chief" is not just a meaningless phrase
3) Executive orders (which is a pretty broad canvas to paint on...)

All of the above are potential sources of long term consequences in the areas of military action, social change, international trade and relations.

Having said that, I am very confident that no Republican of any stripe can win the presidency this time around. This is due to the torpedo-at-the-waterline that has been, and continues to be, Trump's effect on the Republican party. I see concern about presidential action by Republicans like Cruz and pseudo-Republicans such as Trump as something that be be safely deferred until the Republicans can rebuild their brand from the mess they've made out of it the last six years or so. I also suspect that will take them quite a while.

I do worry about having Clinton in there; she's Trump-lite as far as I'm concerned. It seems pretty clear from the media bias and the disruption of the Republican party's ability to be effective that it will be Clinton we end up with; the American public has a consistent history of going with what the media tells them. For a while, I nursed some hope that the ability to do one's own research becoming available to most via the Internet would change this, but I have seen very few such signs, and it's been around long enough that I think they would have been easily obvious by now if they were actually there.

Sanders still has a chance; but the odds are, at the very least, quite seriously stacked against him.

I'm most interested in the next iteration of congressional elections. Last time around, voter satisfaction was 14%, and re-election rates were 94%. Recent polling puts satisfaction with congress at this point even lower at 11%; I keep asking myself if that might be enough to make people actually realize that the problem is congress in general, and not "the other representatives in congress." I'd like to think so, but last election's set of numbers doesn't make me optimistic about it at all.

Interesting times, anyway.