Senate Report Shows Russia Used Social Media To Support Trump In 2016 (bbc.co.uk)

AmiMoJo shares a report from the BBC: Russia used every major social media platform to influence the 2016 US election, the report claims. New research says YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram and PayPal -- as well as Facebook and Twitter -- were leveraged to spread propaganda. Its authors criticize the "belated and uncoordinated response" by tech firms. It is the first analysis of millions of social media posts provided by Twitter, Google and Facebook to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Russia adapted techniques from digital marketing to target audiences across multiple channels, with a particular focus on targeting conservatives with posts on immigration, race, and gun rights. There were also efforts to undermine the voting power of left-leaning African-American citizens, by spreading misinformation about the electoral process.

"What is clear is that all of the messaging clearly sought to benefit the Republican Party -- and specifically Donald Trump," the report says. "Trump is mentioned most in campaigns targeting conservatives and right-wing voters, where the messaging encouraged these groups to support his campaign. The main groups that could challenge Trump were then provided messaging that sought to confuse, distract and ultimately discourage members from voting."

Comments

Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Kunedog]

I swear, I've never seen such a longrunning and ineffective damage control campaign for a losing candidate. Is this a sign they really are going to run her again in 2020?

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[arbiter1]

Russia attacked both sides, they had meme's that attack Both Clinton and Trump. They want people to think it was only Clinton they attacked and it was reason they lost. Last i checked Clinton didn't show up here in Michigan til Mon nov 7th's, 1 day before voting happened. It wasn't Russia that turned Michigan Red. It was Clinton's lack of doing anything to get out there to get people to vote for her on top of all the very questionable legal issues surrounding her and all the money they some how many since leaving the white house.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Anonymous Coward]

It's clearly a false equivalence to suggest the Russians equally attacked both sides.

They did not.

They sowed dissension, but they knew the core republicans would vote for whoever the republican candidate was, regardless.

They also knew that they could discourage and disenfranchise voters in the center and on the left by creating division among their ranks.

And that's exactly what they did.

A lot of people didn't vote because they were disgusted by the infighting and the mud-slinging and felt there wasn't a clearly superior candidate.

The fact that people still think Hillary was a bad candidate is a testimonial to that. Her public service record is better than anybody, even Obama's.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia attacked both sides, they had meme's that attack Both Clinton and Trump.

Yes they did. It has been reported on and was detailed in the Cambridge Analytica investigation.
They targeted not just "both" side but many sides and found out that they got the most bang for the buck by riling up the right-wingers against Clinton.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Joce640k]

Yep, she's running again. Without a doubt. The astroturfing is already starting.

Seriously? Jeez.

I'm as anti-trump as anybody but I actually want him to win again:

a) To give his economic polices time to implode, and:
b) Because I think the world needs a completely different sort of leader than "politician"

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[thunderclees]

It is kind of fishy since the only people who hated Trump more than Democrats were Republicans. He was not their candidate and so only backed him since no one else was interested in the usual suspects. The Democrats gave the election to Trump by allowing Hillary to be nominated. Not that the rank and file had a choice since Hillary's nomination was given to her as the result of a deal anyway. There were so many better candidates than Hillary that wee over looked. Bernie ran anyway but had to quit when he was told "here is a half million dollar vacation home and here is a bullett to the back of the head, which do you want?"

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Areyoukiddingme]

So instead of a "politician", you place a "criminal" at the top.

We've had criminals at the top before. We're accustomed to a certain panache in our criminals. And a certain competence. We like criminals smart enough not to get caught at most of what they do.

This guy.... he involved himself with the highest law of the land while knowing nothing of law, while knowing so little about law that he was unable to hire a lawyer who could stand up to him and tell him what he can and can not do on the way to accomplishing his goals. There's often a weasel path to get what you want, whatever it might be. Trump never takes the weasel path. He bulls straight through. It's going to cost him. A lot. Fox News is so very fond of reciting the catch phrase "We're a nation of laws." They're going to profoundly regret it.

Too bad...

[Rick Zeman]

...we can't just drop the Soviet Union, err Russia from routing tables.

It's more complicated than that

[rsilvergun]

yes, Clinton could have won if she'd just taken Trump seriously. Also if she took notice of how badly beaten up the working class was. Her solution to everything was more education. For a woman who'd spent her entire life living large off the fruits of her education that makes sense. She's a classic left wing, elitest do gooder: she can't understand why folks don't just reach out their hands for all the money out there when it's all so easy. She's literally unable to comprehend that it's not so easy for most of us.

But all that said:

1. She still won the popular vote.

2. She lost by a razor thin margin. So thin that all she needed was to focus a bit more on the rust belt but...

3. By the same token that razor thin margin means that stuff that ordinarily shouldn't have mattered, mattered.

TL;DR; I think Clinton could have won if she tried harder, but I don't think she'd have lost without Russian interference and that last minute Oct surprise from Comey pushing Trump over the edge.

Re:It's more complicated than that

[Dutch Gun]

I don't think she'd have lost without Russian interference and that last minute Oct surprise from Comey pushing Trump over the edge.

Isn't that a bit like saying "I don't think he would have died without that hangnail and the bullet piercing his heart." One seems slightly more likely to have affected the outcome in question than the other.

People keep talking about "Russian interference", but if it was that easy to sway votes with a few anonymously-placed ads or astroturfing bots, it seems the campaigns are awfully incompetent with the $2.4 BILLION spent on the presidential race. I mean, surely the next presidential candidate who hires a Russian strategist is a shoo-in, since they apparently have some untapped genius for getting candidates elected without anyone even noticing.

Re:It's more complicated than that

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, Clinton could have won if she'd just taken Trump seriously.

Whether she won or lost is largely irrelevant. An attack on our country's sovereignty occurred and our current leader supports those actions, going so far to do everything he can get by with to weaken and destroy key pillars of our democracy to save his own ass. He fosters tribalism because it benefits him, the same way Putin foster'd it in America because it benefits him. They both are perfectly fine with watching America burn if it helps them.

"Also if she took notice of how badly beaten up the working class was. Her solution to everything was more education. For a woman who'd spent her entire life living large off the fruits of her education that makes sense. She's a classic left wing, elitest do gooder: she can't understand why folks don't just reach out their hands for all the money out there when it's all so easy. She's literally unable to comprehend that it's not so easy for most of us."

She provided real plans. He provided lies. I suppose you illustrated the key point. The angry people wanted the easy button. They wanted, "I alone can fix it." At best he's burning America's future through pollution and debt for a short term sugar high. As long as the average voter can be manipulated by a snake oil salesman like this, we are pretty much screwed long term. Sure we might dodge Trump part 2, and we might not, but the endless waltz will be repeated. Look for pain and resentment to exploit. Blame it on some other people. Claim to be the saviour and the one to protect us from the bad people. Hell its practically the Hermann Goering quote all over again.

I think Clinton could have won if she tried harder, but I don't think she'd have lost without Russian interference and that last minute Oct surprise from Comey pushing Trump over the edge.

Clinton was a poor candidate, but from what I can tell would have been a competent administrator. She had the skills and the experience. Sure the email was a minus, but it was a tempest in a teacup compared to what we saw of Trump. Clinton was pretty much as honest as the average republican in the field if you removed Trump, which while still sad, those were the choices you had, until the work is finally done for some ranked choice voting.

I suppose the biggest thing about Clinton was, the country needed her to be at her A game. Her failure to be that, to be strong enough to win despite the propaganda and lies, was a great disappointment. Sure a politician shouldn't have to fight foreign propaganda, or propaganda at all, but that is not the world we are living in.

Re:It's more complicated than that

[Powercntrl]

Her solution to everything was more education.

Which is fine if you're 18 and living at your parents place. If you're pushing 40 and feel like an old dog who doesn't want to learn any new tricks, it comes across as condescending.

Granted, Trump's "MAGA" was a bullshit snake oil pitch, but some people would just rather hear the fairy tale where you go back to work in the coal mine, rather than the one where you get to star in your own remake of Billy Madison.

Re:It's more complicated than that

[AmiMoJo]

The left is focused on basics like education and healthcare because those are the things that tend to keep people poor. Education opens up more opportunities, and that includes learning trades as well as purely academic study.

Clinton's real problem was that she had too much baggage. Nothing was wrong with her policies really. She was an easy target for a populist promising to "drain the swamp" and offer a bunch of simplistic solutions to complex problems that in reality take many years of sustain effort to fix.

Who cares about Clinton?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

The only people I hear bring her up are Republicans who keep going "Lock Her Up". Whether Trump worked Russia seems important because, you know, if he keeps working with Russia, that's really bad.

Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[rsilvergun]

no matter what he does or says or what comes out. Hell, he's mad that he took Pence as his VP because it turns out the Evangelicals will support him no matter what. These same Evangelicals just elected a dead pimp

To me the Russian interference is like a vial of blood in a shark pool. It didn't take much, but without the vial there wouldn't have been a frenzy. And we shouldn't be surprised. Vlad Putin's specialty was information warfare for Christ's sake. It's not like we weren't warned. He saw a weakness (Hilary) and exploited it to weaken us further.

Re:Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[Luckyo]

The obvious problem being that this support was bipartisan, as several pieces of evidence now clearly showed. The "social media ads"?

They supported both Clinton and Trump. The aim was clearly polarisation of the extremes of the supporting bases of each candidate, not supporting either of the candidates. You can see this in pretty much everything publicly released so far, from the facebook ads to the various reports.

Trump's popularity on the other hand doesn't drop for a very simple reason. Political smear jobs based on misunderstandings, misrepresentations and lies have to take out their target quickly. If they don't, the audience of the target sees one lie, than another lie, and then they simply assume that everything else coming out of those sources is probably a lie. Which isn't helped by the fact that to maintain the narrative for the audience of those doing the smearing, the narrative has to become even more extreme. And we have seen so many lies about Trump and his purported actions that were just patently false on the face of it, it's genuinely hard at this point to take any critique of Trump without reacting "ok, show me the full context of this claim you have".

And context usually ends up like that infamous statement about "migrants", which actually referred to one of the most violent gangs on the planet when viewed in context. And so, the actors actually generating the smear jobs have very little chance of being taken seriously any more beyond their own audience. Too many failures. All they can do at this point is preach to the slowly shrinking choir.

Which is why you should be genuinely afraid of Trump if you're against his agenda. Not because of the contents of his agenda, or because of any of the smears. You should be afraid of him because there's one thing on which Bannon was completely correct in that Munk debate. Trump is the paradigm shift, where disenfranchised people actually found franchise, and where there are now too many people who have been disenfranchised by the globalist trend. To the point where it's not limited to the continent - Yellow Jackets was a part of the exact same paradigm shift in a country that is about as different as a country could be to US while still remaining a part of "Western" umbrella. Utterly different court system, literal codification of anti-theism into all government functions, very socialist policies. And yet, France had protests that literally showed that Trump's paradigm shift clearly happened in France too, and it reached a point where it cannot be simply dismissed as "those deplorable people that are beneath us that we will call names and dismiss as if they're irrelevant".

Hell, the entire point that leadership adhering to the will of the populace, "populism" is now considered a bad word in upper echelons of society shows just how badly fractured the political elite and ordinary people are becoming. All it takes is a capable person who genuinely cares for their plight, and you get Salvini.

These people are not irrelevant any more. They're starting to organise. And as a traditional leftie who voted social democrats in a Nordic country his whole life, it scares the shit out of me. Mostly because I find that when they make points of failures of globalist aspects of policy, I find myself forced to agree with them because of my social democratic principles. I believe that those most disenfranchised in the nation, the workers, the farmers, should have a clear and loud voice in how country is run. And then I look at the party I voted for my entire life, and many among them are parroting the anti-populist narrative and singing praises of policy that is pointedly ignoring and even aggressively dismissing the disenfranchised. And when you're a social democratic party, you do not get to do that and get away with it. That is against the very core principles your party stands for. You are supposed to stand for the disenfranchised. That's why I voted for you my entire life.

And so, like so many people on the centre left, I find myself without a political home. Without even being an American. All because of Trump showing the world the ugliness that was allowed to fester for so long in the Western political systems as globalism co-opted the democratic republics.

Re:Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[quantaman]

The obvious problem being that this support was bipartisan, as several pieces of evidence now clearly showed. The "social media ads"?

They supported both Clinton and Trump. The aim was clearly polarisation of the extremes of the supporting bases of each candidate, not supporting either of the candidates.

Polarization was an objective, but so was Trump. To say the Russian interference "supported both Clinton and Trump" is to ignore overwhelming evidence to contrary.

Trump's popularity on the other hand doesn't drop for a very simple reason. Political smear jobs based on misunderstandings, misrepresentations and lies have to take out their target quickly. If they don't, the audience of the target sees one lie, than another lie, and then they simply assume that everything else coming out of those sources is probably a lie.

Virtually none of the attacks against Trump are "smear jobs", "misunderstandings", "misrepresentations", or "lies". The reason they don't hurt Trump's popularity is that virtually everyone except his base has abandoned him. And his base doesn't care about the attacks because they don't care if he's a corrupt businessman who colluded with Russia. They probably wouldn't even care if he was a literal Russian asset, at this point they're in it for the culture war, and no one goes after liberals with as much vitriol as Trump.

Yellow Jackets was a part of the exact same paradigm shift in a country that is about as different as a country could be to US while still remaining a part of "Western" umbrella. Utterly different court system, literal codification of anti-theism into all government functions, very socialist policies. And yet, France had protests that literally showed that Trump's paradigm shift clearly happened in France too, and it reached a point where it cannot be simply dismissed as "those deplorable people that are beneath us that we will call names and dismiss as if they're irrelevant".

The Yellow Vests in France have more to do with Marcon's centre-right economics than immigration and anti-globalism. It's just the US framing that makes it look Trumpy.

Hell, the entire point that leadership adhering to the will of the populace, "populism" is now considered a bad word in upper echelons of society shows just how badly fractured the political elite and ordinary people are becoming.

It's a dirty word because it's almost always used to justify policies that sound good as a slogan but have terrible consequences. The rise of populism is usually a sign that media institutions that help regulate the public debate and stop dump slogans from becoming policy are broken.

Mostly because I find that when they make points of failures of globalist aspects of policy, I find myself forced to agree with them because of my social democratic principles. I believe that those most disenfranchised in the nation, the workers, the farmers, should have a clear and loud voice in how country is run.

This has nothing to do with globalism. Globalism is just robust international trade and institutions. There's no reason why you can't have a boatload of those while still empowering the people to control their government. In fact if you look at the most "globalized" countries and the most democratic countries you have a really strong relationship.

And so, like so many people on the centre left, I find myself without a political home. Without even being an American. All because of Trump showing the world the ugliness that was allowed to fester for so long in the Western political systems as globalism co-opted the democratic republics.

The thing you actually hate is corporatism and oligarchy, corruption and rule by the rich. And that's exactly what Trump brings. Russia is probably the best example of the Trump model, and that's pretty much the definition of corruption and mass disenfranchisement.

Re:Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[fatwilbur]

Hear hear. This story is a couple of days old and amazingly for once, didn't get heavy coverage outside of the usual foaming-mouth anti-Trump sources. I have hope to believe it's because many news outlets rightfully laughed at the conclusions of the report.

I don't live in nor vote in the United States, and I have to say I find much more objective coverage of Trump in my country. We still definitely have some of those same foaming-mouth outlets, but they are generally easier to spot for their heavy left-leaning bias. I think every politician and their policies should be heavily scrutinized, but I can't understand how people still live this "Russia hacked the election and colluded with Trump" given the actual evidence that has come out. If there was any "Trump support" from these online trolls, it was because they clearly hated Hillary vs. liking Trump. But the Senate wants you to believe some online trolls posting memes stole an entire election. Ridiculous.

Re:Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[Jack9]

> Globalism is just robust international trade and institutions.

The simplicity of this statement is misleading. It's relevant to recognize the distasteful relevant practical relationship between these terms. "Robust" encompasses the economically supported exploitation of labor by totalitarian states (eg Chinese Manufacturing, African Diamond Mines, Venezuela oil) empowering these organizations. "Globalism" is a soft term that encompasses the humanitarian/political forces across the "globe" that result in the measurable results that are not purely economic. To be fair, these relationships existed before "globalism" was a commonplace term.

Re:Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[Anonymous Coward]

> They supported both Clinton and Trump.

The summary states the exact opposite. I'm not sure where you got this from. At best there were a handful of example supporting Hilary to create division compared to hundreds of thousands in support of Trump.

> Trump's popularity on the other hand doesn't drop for a very simple reason. Political smear jobs based on misunderstandings, misrepresentations and lies have to take out their target quickly.

This doesn't make sense as most of the attacks on Trump (such as his rapey comments) were factual, whilst the attacks on Hillary and the Dems (PizzaGate) were lies, so it doesn't explain how Trump survives, but Hillary didn't. If what you said was true then Hillary would be in the whitehouse because the smears against her were often lies, whereas those against Trump were factual (and continuously prove to be so).

> it's genuinely hard at this point to take any critique of Trump without reacting "ok, show me the full context of this claim you have".

Right, but that's not because of the reason you give, that's simply because you're a well known Trump supporter on Slashdot and are incredibly partisan. You won't believe negative news about Trump because you'll support him regardless. You're one of those supporters that would support him if, in his own words "I could shoot somebody and I wouldnâ(TM)t lose any voters".

> Which is why you should be genuinely afraid of Trump if you're against his agenda. Not because of the contents of his agenda, or because of any of the smears. You should be afraid of him because there's one thing on which Bannon was completely correct in that Munk debate. Trump is the paradigm shift, where disenfranchised people actually found franchise, and where there are now too many people who have been disenfranchised by the globalist trend. To the point where it's not limited to the continent - Yellow Jackets was a part of the exact same paradigm shift in a country that is about as different as a country could be to US while still remaining a part of "Western" umbrella. Utterly different court system, literal codification of anti-theism into all government functions, very socialist policies. And yet, France had protests that literally showed that Trump's paradigm shift clearly happened in France too, and it reached a point where it cannot be simply dismissed as "those deplorable people that are beneath us that we will call names and dismiss as if they're irrelevant".

An alternative world view is that we should be scared of Putin, because we thought we'd won the cold war in the early 90s and turned our backs and started to focus on sideshows like the Taliban and ISIS. Meanwhile, Putin spent 20+ years building up his intelligence apparatus to infiltrate Western society left and right, hence why people like Arron Banks in the UK have a wife who was exposed as a Russian spy, and who is also the person who illegally funded Brexit way beyond campaign spending laws with money that can't be traced back to his actual business because it comes from Russia. We saw the St Petersberg convention, where Russia hosted all of Europe's far right, and they all came away with millions of pounds in funding, some of it overt (France's NF) and some of it covert but now exposed (UKIP). In the UK we're seeing the same pattern repeat now with Tommy Robinson having Russian propaganda support on social media, and we've seen it across Europe with Hungary's Jobbik, Italy's Five Star, Greece's Golden Dawn, Germany's AfD, and so on. That's not to say it's restricted to the far right, though that's Russia's preference as it's the orthodoxy it now follows at home, but if no convenient far right actor exists, or is unlikely to succeed Russia will support the far left too (Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece for example).

It's not some weird coincidence that Russia hosted all these parties and/or their key figures, and that clear links to Russia keep getting exposed to their financing and online propaganda support. It's not some conspi

Self inflicted?

[petes_PoV]

So let's see what we have here.

The americans created a software environment that allows people to influence the views and votes of others. Then they complain when someone else uses it for that purpose.

What have I missed? Was it just that it was being used by the wrong sort of people?

Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[raymorris]

> Russia funded every divisive movement they could. Black Lives Matter, Muslims for Hillary, etc. Their purpose is psy ops to sow derision in the populace - the same purpose they've had when they've done the exact same thing for the past 75 years. We do the same.

Exactly. Russia is trying to beat the US, not Clinton. They want us fighting with each other instead of beating them at whatever. We just got new confirmation that Russia was running Black Lives Matter ads. Whatever gets Americans fighting Americans, whatever divides us.

> It had zero impact in the election's outcome though. This is all about providing an excuse for Clinton's loss to make her 2020 run more palatable.

Clinton was a really bad candidate, with terrible poll numbers. Of the six "finalists" for the Republican nomination, five of the six beat Clinton in the polls. Only one, Donald Trump, could lose to Clinton, according to polling during the primaries. Trump was also a pretty crappy candidate - the only one who didn't poll better than Clinton during the primaries.

I think the Russian ads probably did what they were designed to do and not much else - they made the election period more partisan, encouraged us to be even less unified, and probably didn't materially affect the election, but there's no way to be 100% sure of what would have happened if things had been different. Wen might have even had a more moderate, less polarizing candidate win. Doubtful though.

Re: Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[Anonymous Coward]

The NRA owns the Republicans and apparently the Russians own the NRA thanks to the efforts of people like the Red Sparrow Butina.

It is disingenuous to say that they did not favor Trump. Yes the primary goal was to sow discord however they favored Trump because they wanted sanctions eased.

Re:Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[AlanObject]

Clinton was a really bad candidate, with terrible poll numbers. .. derp derp derp.

Where does this horseshit keep coming from? You guys keep repeating it to each other so much that you think it is true. It has absolutely no basis in fact.

At the time the famous Comey letter was released Clintion was 6-8 points ahead in the polls. (source: 538) That isn't even close. That's a blowout election similar to the one we just went through in the midterms.

After the Comey letter and the media had a week or two to scream from every orifice about Weiner's laptop she took a hit of 4-5 points. That made it close enough for the Electoral College to work its magic. I have no idea what part the Russian media efforts had in that but whatever effect it has wasn't positive for Clinton. They were totally in it for Trump.

And she STILL got 3M more votes. The most terrible candidate in history.

I know this was totally useless but still..

Re: Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[internerdj]

"The NRA owns the Republicans" The NRA's 5 million members support the political party that they see as least hostile to the 2nd amendment. "apparently the Russians own the NRA thanks to the efforts of people like the Red Sparrow Butina" It seems a rather strange assumption that the NRA would have done less against Clinton given her record on the 2nd amendment without any Russian connection. From where I sit, it seems like just another division sowing tactic. Democrats have more of a reason to hate one of the biggest arms of the Republican party.

Re:Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[Vitriol Angst]

Exactly. Russia is trying to beat the US, not Clinton. They want us fighting with each other instead of beating them at whatever. We just got new confirmation that Russia was running Black Lives Matter ads. Whatever gets Americans fighting Americans, whatever divides us.

Well this really is the issue. Whether there are Clinton people using it as an excuse for the election or not doesn't really matter and it's beside the point if it was SIGNIFICANT enough to change the election (really, it was just 70,000 votes in 3 midwest states that tipped the electoral college). The issue is that Trump is accused of colluding with Russian agents for their help (whether it was good or not) to effect the election and they were offering help with the Magninsky act and perhaps other things. We also have money traveling from Russia to the NRA to the Republican party. While Putin is trying to divide the nation -- he is getting aided by the Republicans and that's where the problem lies.

And that's not getting to all the other crimes of the administration. Whether his machinations to pay off porn stars or get help from Chinese or Russian agents or if he made a profit on renting his hotels to people buying influence -- do we really need to allow this? It was poor judgement and a lack of ethics regardless on whether it was beneficial or not. We shouldn't have to go to trial to get tax returns or to get a President to divest themselves of conflicts of interests. This guy didn't have to be President. Why do we have to prove crimes beyond a reasonable doubt when we can't find any LEGAL way he covered billions of dollars in debts without any US banks loaning him the money and we can't PROVE that he's a Russian agent but we have little reason to suspect otherwise.

We can't even prove that Trump knows how to read. Why do we have to put up with this as a people? The divisiveness in this nation is because a sizeable percentage want to troll the rest of us.

Re: Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[Vitriol Angst]

Wow, the Russians even traveled through time and got us to enact a second amendment. They are powerful!

At this moment, on Slashdot, a comment that completely misses the entire point of the prior comment is at labelled "(Score:4, Insightful)". The problem with America is that there are people who are just content to be wrong. And proud of it. And they cheer each other on. They support Trump not because they believe a damn thing he says -- but because he pisses off half the country. They have given up on fixing anything and are waiting for supply side Jesus to take them to Heaven during the Rapture and meanwhile they just want someone who can piss off Liberals. The important thing is pissing of Liberals.

There was absolutely nothing in the prior comment about guns, gun rights, or anything about your rights. It was about a foreign country influencing a private group to influence our politics. But again, some people are OK with that because the Russians are better than the Liberals. These are people who have given up on solving problems after all and just want to stick it to those know-it-alls.

Slashdot has been infected by cancer because your comment was labelled as insightful when they damn well know it wasn't. You didn't come for a discussion or friendship.

Re:Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[iMadeGhostzilla]

"just 70,000 votes in 3 midwest states" is a ridiculous statistic. How do you change 70,000 minds and hearts? Russians? With laser precision, exactly those 70,000 you need and no others? It's hard to imagine that 2 years of media propaganda managed actually to change ONE living soul's vision of their and the country's future, let alone 70 thousands of those living souls, chosen with laser precision.

Re:Pay more attention.

[Zontar The Mindless]

Perfect example of disinfo from someone who doubtless posted lots of "SHE'LL START A WAR WITH RUSIIA" trolls in October/November 2016.

Uhhh, what?

[Obfuscant]

1. She still won the popular vote.

There is no "popular vote" for the US President. Please refer to the Constitution if you are confused about the process the US uses to elect the President. I'm sure there is a Wikipedia page about it if the old words are hard.

2. She lost by a razor thin margin.

"She won ... she lost ...". What? Trump won the electoral college 304-227. That's not "razor thin".

I think Clinton could have won if she tried harder, but I don't think she'd have lost without Russian interference

Do you have evidence that any Russians voted illegally in the 2016 Presidential election? That would be a good argument for voter ID, you know.

You do realize that lots of non-US people tried to exert influence in US elections, don't you? And we've tried to influence other country's elections. It's a tempest in a teapot trying to justify what obviously couldn't happen but did.

Re:Uhhh, what?

[Obfuscant]

1. Yes, there is. It's the total number of votes. It has no legal bearing, but it does exist.

Not only does it not have any legal meaning, it has no practical meaning. Nobody campaigns based on mythical "popular vote" results. If they did, then the "popular vote" results would be different.

No, the only time "popular vote" comes up is when someone LOSES and tries to justify how good they did because a meaningless sum total of the individual votes of all the states proved they should have WON! It's like a college student who flunks a 100 question test because he got only 50 questions right claiming that if the test had only 50 questions he would have gotten an A+. Yeah, if the election was different, the result would be different. So what?

Again, the electoral college is designed to dampen the effects of Democracy in order to protect the power of a landed owning ruling class.

Saying it again doesn't make it true. The electoral college was designed because the founders knew that both the people AND THE STATES had a vested interest in selecting the executive officer of the UNITED STATES. You forget -- we are not one big group of a few hundred million people, we are a confederation of fifty states and a few protectorates. That's why you are confused into thinking you can just add up all the individual votes and think it means something.

2. Yes, it is.

No, I'm sorry, but 304 to 232 is winning with 57% of the vote. That's a 14% difference. Not "razor thin" at all. Any state-level election with that kind of result would be a "landslide" or "a mandate".

Trump won a lot of electoral votes,

Yes, a lot more than Hillary did. He won. Get over it.

If you're a Russian yourself

Yes, if you cannot win an argument using facts, then claim you're being trolled by the Russians and look, come see the repression inherent in the system.

And the rest of your post demonstrates exactly that kind of nonsense. It was funny when Monty Python did it, it's just sad when real people do it.

You can stop it.

Sorry, you don't get a free pass to post nonsense just because you tell me to stop correcting you or try to claim "Russian oppression."

Re:Uhhh, what?

[Powercntrl]

You are not a member of the elite.

Most of the people who vote (R) aren't doing so because they believe themselves to be part of the privileged few. They believe the Democrats are going to take more of what little they do earn, and give it to people who (in their view) don't deserve it.

Even though I support the lesser of the evils in our two party system, I'm not blind to the idiocy which frequently comes from the left almost as often as it does from the right. A few examples:

Cash for clunkers - Didn't benefit me at all, because the vehicle I wanted to trade in was 1 MPG too efficient to qualify, even though the vehicle I wanted to purchase (a compact economy car) would've resulted in a larger net benefit to the environment, versus the hypothetical situation of someone trading in a vehicle which did qualify, towards the purchase of another gas guzzling SUV. The program didn't take into account fuel efficiency gains of what you intended to purchase, only the inefficiency of your trade-in.

Solar tax rebates - A nice handout to the rich who could afford to have photovoltaics installed on their home.

EV tax rebates - Another handout to the rich. The average hard working American can't afford this shit, with or without the rebate.

The ACA (Obamacare) - Crony capitalism meets healthcare. It is absolutely abhorrent to use taxpayer dollars to subsidize the cost of private insurance, and penalizing people on their taxes if they refused to purchase what is essentially a commercial product truly is unconstitutional. This would be like the RIAA getting a law passed requiring a penalty be paid if you're not subscribed to Spotify/Apple Music/Pandora/etc., because their business model can only work if everyone pays!

Now here's the part where I say despite all this, I still hold my nose and vote (D), because the Republican party's disregard for the environment, moronic trade policies, and pandering to the "religious right" bothers me much more than misuse of my tax dollars (which the Republican party is presently doing in true "hold my beer!" style, anyway).

Re:Uhhh, what?

[shilly]

Yeah, if the election was different, the result would be different. So what?

So what, you ask? If the popular vote result and the electoral college vote result are wildly different, then people may choose to infer that the electoral college vote is no longer fair. That is what is happening. Obviously. Disagree away with their inference, but it's stupid not to acknowledge the importance of questions about whether the voting system is fair and can be improved.

Re:Uhhh, what?

[Kielistic]

Saying the electoral college is working as intended in no way implies we are joining any discussion. You say it should be abolished because the results didn't line up with the popular vote. Most people think it is obvious that the two will differ at times because otherwise there would be no reason to have the electoral college. Democrats saying it should be eliminated because they lost it is the most fascist thing I have ever seen.

No,

[rsilvergun]

it's more like saying:

"I wouldn't have died from the hangnail if my immune system wasn't weakened by lead poisoning and constant illness from the bullet wound I got 30 years ago"

Like I said, Hillary had a _lot_ of baggage, much of it manufactured by a multi-million dollar right wing apparatus that saw she was getting ready to run for president and so came at her like a ton of bricks. Now, as a presidential candidate it was her responsibility to defuse those attacks (as opposed to throwing fire on them like she did with that Benghazi silliness). But again, we're being hopelessly naive if we don't acknowledge the effect Russia had.

Trump represents a breakdown of every single sane process our civilization has. I don't mean that as hyperbole. _Everything_ had to go wrong to make something as disastrous as Trump happen. The real question is will we put the breaks on it in 2 years? Trump's by himself limited in the damage he can do (though his two SCOTUS nominees are going to wreck some havoc on our few remaining protections against mega-corps). The real problem is that he's encouraged the working class to turn away from solid policy and into Demagoguery like "Build the Wall!" as a solution to their problems. If that keeps up it'll end like it always does with oppressed minorities. We'll start by kicking the Hispanics out at the barrel of gun, follow it up by enslaving the blacks again and probably finish where the Nazis left off (hello there, Godwin).

If all of this sounds too far fetched, keep in mind that Climate change is going to start making water, and by extension food, scarce in about 20-30 years. The American working class are riled up by some moderately poor working conditions. When they don't have enough to eat all hell will break lose.

Re:No,

[L_R_Shaw]

Grow the fuck up you fucking infant.

This is the delusional garbage people end up spewing when they sit around in a informational echo chamber on social media instead of having a good cry in their pillow on election night because their candidate didn't win waking up and acting like a fucking adult.

Re:No,

[gtall]

Politically, I think it is worse than this. That idiot is run what used to be the intelligent part of the Republican party out of the party. Now all that is left are Republicans who do not believe in founding American values and would be just as happy with a dictator.

How to win US election

[AHuxley]

Find a candidate that is healthy and fit.
Make sure they can give a speech that is filled with election winning ideas.
Have experts map out the actual "states" needed to win an election.
Got in person each state needed and give a great speech that is well liked by people in that state.
Talk about jobs, local issues, some past connection with that state. Be happy and smile.
Dont bring the same negative speech to each state and then go full negative about the state you are in.
The locals who have to "vote" later kind of notice what is been said about them in person. They like happy words and political leaders who can give a "great" speech.
A healthy, charming person with a winning message with new ideas and something "good" to say. In every state they have to win.
Stamina, charm and the ability to have real time local knowledge.
Have the "winning" political team ready to support the events in each and every state.
People in that state who can get people out to vote in that state.
Lots of people on each side of the USA do not will US election count. Many other states are needed to add up to "win".

No "Russians" needed.
A much better quality of political advice and the ability to stay "healthy" and "talk" to normal people will be noticed by all voters all over the USA.

Ray Morris, lying piece of shit folks.

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/16/putin-trump-win-election-2016-722486

07/16/2018 12:07 PM EDT Updated 07/16/2018 03:08 PM EDT
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday he wanted President Donald Trump to win the 2016 election because he believed Trump's policies would be more friendly to the Kremlin.

"Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal,” Putin said, standing alongside Trump at a joint news conference.

Putin was asked whether he directed any of his officials to help Trump’s presidential campaign, but Putin appeared to sidestep that part of the question.

Carry this out to its logical conclusion

[Solandri]

Why was it wrong for Russia to try to influence the election in 2016? The reason I arrive at is because Russians aren't allowed to vote in our election, so it's wrong for them to try to influence it.

But by that same reasoning, isn't it also wrong for the two political parties to influence elections for Senators and Congresscritters by shifting money to candidate's campaign that has been raised outside the state or district the candidate is running in? After all, that's money donated by someone who can't vote in that election being used to try to influence it.

So if you carry this outrage over Russian interference to its logical conclusion, you end up with a ban on political parties' unrestricted use of donations. No using money raised in New York to try to influence a Congressional race in Arizona. Money raised in New York has to be used in New York. Only money raised in that Arizona congressional district can be used to influence the race there.

Somehow I suspect the political parties aren't going to see it that way. And their stance is going to be that it's wrong for other people to try to influence races they can't vote in, but it's OK for them to do it.

Reading comprehension much? 7.4% lead

[raymorris]

Maybe you can read it the third and fourth time I say it:

>> Only one, Donald Trump, could lose to Clinton, according to polling during the primaries. Trump was also a pretty crappy candidate - the only one who didn't poll better than Clinton during the primaries.

"Oh that's bullshit, Clinton polled better than Trump", you say. Which is exactly what I said - twice. Derp derp indeed.

As I said, during the primary season (February and March), Ted Cruz beat into by 3-5% in the RCP average.
Marco Rubio had her beat 47% to 43%
https://www.realclearpolitics....

Kasich beat Clinton 48% to 41% - a whopping 7.4% lead
https://www.realclearpolitics....

Again, (for the fifth time) Republicans chose the only candidate who had a shot at losing to Clinton.

Re:Nobody sane gives a shit at this point.

[swillden]

Did the Russians interfere?

Yes? DUH?

Now. Did they connive WITH Trump to do it?

Evidence (or lack thereof) says "no".

No, the evidence says "maybe". There's definitely lots of evidence of Trump campaign officials and Russians feeling each other out. What's unclear is whether they actually made some sort of agreement -- which could have been implicit, note. It's possible to reach a mutual understanding without anyone actually saying the words. That would make it harder to prove, though.

So, to all of those who've welded their asses to the "Impeach Impeach Impeach" train that's going "Trump woke up this morning! IMPEACH HIM NOW!" "Trump tweeted something I don't like! IMPEACH HIM NOW!" "Trump exists! IMPEACH HIM NOW!"?

Take a fucking chill pill. Because your crazy fucking behavior is destroying the Democratic Party and is going to keep the man in office until 2024.

While the Democratic party is perpetually self-destructing, I don't think there's much chance that Trump will win in 2020. He only barely eked out a win in 2016 because he (a) ran against one of the most disliked presidential candidates in history, (b) got help from the Russians, (c) got help from the FBI (Comey's October surprise), and (d) was the beneficiary of some pretty stupid campaign missteps by his opponent. You maybe could take away any one of (b), (c) or (d) and he'd still manage a win, but take away any two, or take (a) away, and he'd have been toast.

All the Democrats have to do to beat Trump in 2020 is to run a candidate who's less hated than Hillary Clinton. That's pretty much anybody. Well, they also have to hope Trump can't manufacture a plausible war next year. Americans love standing behind their president in wartime. Of course he'd probably screw that up by tweeting nasty and stupid comments about the generals, so maybe that's not such a big risk.

Unless Mueller comes up with something really compelling, though, I think Trump is safe from impeachment. The peculiar dynamics of Trump's base mean that an impeachment in the House without a corresponding conviction in the Senate would probably harden their resolve, which would hurt the Democrats in 2020. And I think we all know that if Trump ran naked down the 5th street murdering people at random while making the Nazi salute and shouting "Heil Putin!", the Republicans in the Senate would say, in the words of Orrin Hatch, "Okay, but I don't care".

I think Trump is at great legal risk after he leaves office, though, so he's going to be really desperate to stay in office in 2020.

Hold on, guys, this ride is going to get crazy. We ain't seen nothin' yet. It's possible that one of the best things the Democratic candidates for president could do for the country is to all take a pledge that they'll issue blanket pardons for Trump if elected. He'll still have to worry about state prosecution and civil suits, but removing the fear of federal prosecution could be hugely beneficial.

A wider problem

[peppepz]

Don't reduce this to a "Hillary vs Trump" fight. The Russians influenced more than the last American elections: for instance, they facilitated Brexit in Britain, and supported Salvini in Italy. I don't think you should reduce the problem to a "Hillary vs Trump" fight. The problem is people being convinced by incendiary propaganda on social networks, and the control of this mechanism by malicious actors. And in this case it was the Russians, but in the future it could very well be others to take advantage of it.

Re:A wider problem

[AmiMoJo]

The scale of what Russia has been up to is incredible. They even trolled against movies like The Last Jedi, knowing that it would create division and feed the "sjws are taking over" meme. And somehow it's taken us this long to even understand it.

Who can blame them?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone not retarded was scared shitless of Hillary ending up in the White house!

Let's see here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary Clinton spent nearly 2 billion dollars to Trump's approx $600 Million, and some of the money she spent was laundered through the Democrat-hack lawfirm Perkins Coie as "legal fees" to a British spy named Steele who bought anti-Trump propaganda from Russia in the form of the so-called "Steele dossier" which was funneled into the FBI and used without validation to get warrants to spy on Trump's campaign, effectively bringing the CIA and FBI into the election on Hillary's side...... but we're supposed to imagine that a few thousand dollars worth of clumbsy Facebook ads swung the election to trump.

yup.

that makes sense all right.

It gets worse when you pay attention to two facts:
[1] The Russians also spent money against Trump (they wanted chaos in US politics, which all our mainstream media and the Democrats are now complicit in providing for two whole years)
[2] The US Senate contains a number of "Never Trump" establishment Republicans. Guys like Flake and Sasse despise Trump as much as Hillary does.

The American people need to wake up and realize that, like him or hate him, Trump has totally freaked-out the uni-party in Washington DC and if they manage to nullify him in one way or another they will have effectively blocked any future outsider from ever being elected. These freakish career double-speaking globalist elitists will close all the loopholes Trump got in through, and will intimidate funders from contributing to, and compaign workers from working for, any future outsider candidate. This nation has endured far worse than Trump and will survive him - he's certainly NOT Hitler as some Democrats and even a few Democrats insisted he would be. The big question is: Do we let the uni-party destroy the idea of equal justice in America as they feverishly work to knock him out and lock things down so they never lose control again?

So the Russians and Hillary agreed?

[argStyopa]

The Clinton campaign admitted that early in the top primary process, they had identified Trump as the candidate they most wanted to run against, so where they were able they promoted him too.
Are we considering that as pernicious as "Russian interference".

So tired of the Russia nonsense

[bradley13]

Russia tried to influence a US election. So what? This is standard stuff. Every country tries to protect its interests, and part of this is trying to influence other countries and their governments. News at 11:00.

The US not only meddles in elections; they go farther: the US goes in and overthrows governments they don't like (that's a list of 57 publicly known incidents).

If people want to get upset about something, how about prosecuting Bush and Obama for attacking sovereign countries without a declaration of war? While Trump hasn't ended any wars, at least he hasn't added any new entries to the list...