Help Elok understand the ongoing Russia ... thingy

[Elok]

I read that as "well, it could have done something, but it'd be damn hard to prove." Fair enough. Supposing this did happen, though, how would you fight it? Keeping Russians off the internet is not plausible, sanctions don't appear to influence Russia's behavior that much, and I sincerely hope we're not going to try to threaten war over memes. I suppose we could simply drown it out with proud made-in-America BS. We have plenty of idle hands right now, and it would be a simple matter to pay them to flood the internet with lies. This is not an enlightened or healthy way to run a society, but it does have old roots; people have been paying deniable third parties to spread vicious lies about their opponents for about as long as there have been democracies. And probably before. Certainly Thomas Jefferson relied heavily on proxy smears.

As counterweight to what 538 says, though, I'd like to point out that, for every paid Clinton or Trump (or Russian) staffer, there appear to have been about five "volunteers" spending half their waking hours screaming on social media pro bono. Actually, five is a conservative estimate, to judge by my experience. To say nothing of actual media coverage, which was all nakedly partisan. I have no idea what percentage of their pictures, videos, etc. originated where, but since those some people have now gone on to spreading different angry and often false talking points about different politically charged subjects, I don't think Russian aid was critical.

[Dinner]

I am more worried about the hacking into government and party systems especially voter registration systems and vote tabulation systems. That is an obvious area where we need to improve but have not done so. Other than that a public education campaign about how Russian disinformation campaigns work and why they are doing it would certainly help. That way the public is more informed and skeptical thus making them harder marks for Putin's FSB to get to.

BTW I think 538 was off on one thing in that article. It claimed the Russian hacking of the DNC hasn't been prove when all the intelligence agencies have confirmed that both the DNC and the RNC were hacked by Russia yet only edited versions of DNC emails were released all out of context to try to make them appear as bad as possible. THAT right there very well could have been the 0.8% margin in the swing states especially since tge release was timed right before the election so as to have maximum effect.

[Elok]

That would depend on the public finding the government credible.

[Jon Miller]

The simplest explanation is that whatever Russia did likely amounted to a boy peeing in the ocean.

But it didn't because there were some things that the legitament campaigns (including the Trump legitament campaign) did not do.

It certainly appears significant. At least on the order of other effects (if not more). And this is a foreign power, not even one of our homegrown bad guys.

JM

[Jon Miller]

[QUOTE=Elok;n9342697I have no idea what percentage of their pictures, videos, etc. originated where, but since those some people have now gone on to spreading different angry and often false talking points about different politically charged subjects, I don't think Russian aid was critical.[/QUOTE]

Someone had to make the false talking points in the first place. While Fox News and related people are happy to do a lot of it, that is a relatively small number. The Russian trolls vastly inflated that number.

JM
(And yes, this sort of thing is standard on the right now while only existing (at a more limited extant) on the extreme left.)

[Dinner]

Remember, to change the outcome it had to swing votes in key states just a total of 0.8 points so getting 0.4% to switch sides changes the percentage take 0.8%. Or getting 0.8% to just say **** it and not to show up would also effectively do that as well as long as it was a reliable dem voting block. Say, minorities especially blacks... And we know those are groups tge Kremlin specifically did target.

To say there was no effect is simply an unbelievable conclusion and even a marginal effect very well could have been enough to effect the outcome in key swing states. We also know Putin's efferts were highly targeted at not just swing states but key districts and demographics in those swing states. That is where I expect the real collusion to be found; GOP operatives providing the voter info data to Putin while he had his paid troll army and bot networks do the rest while Republican groups laundered illegal Russian money into the campaign.

[Aeson]

Again, if it's so ridiculously easy ... why wasn't this angle exploited more effectively by Hillary's campaign? Were all her well-paid PR guys complete morons who knew nothing about effective use of advertising dollars? You can't tell me it's an ethical objection; she was perfectly happy doing dodgy crap with DNC money, etc.

They probably did try the same type of things through third parties. If they did they were less effective at it. That’s to be expected though, as the truth about Trump is already so salacious that it’s hard to top with a lie.

In any case, it’s an important factor in why comparing dollar amounts doesn’t tell you much as to the effectiveness of a campaign. Hillary clearly ignored key states, but that certainly doesn’t excuse any illegal activity on the other side.

[Dinner]

Putin has a long history of giving/laundering money to fringe groups in Europe. Anything to sow decension and political discord. So his laundering money to Trump via Republican front groups is just a continuation of a very long pattern.

[rah]

I saw that Russia denied it all, so nothing to see here.

[Uncle Sparky]

If the co-conspirators both deny it, it can't be true...

[pchang]

Trumps reaction is very troubling as well. Look at this: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/1...ww.google.com/

[rah]

I liked from the article

It’s as if George W. Bush had said after 9/11: “No big deal. I am going golfing over the weekend in Florida and blogging about how it’s all the Democrats’ fault — no need to hold a National Security Council meeting.

Maybe if he had gone golfing we wouldn't have attacked Iraq. Golf makes everything better.

[Lorizael]

I don't know about that. He had to get even with Saddam for trying to kill his daddy, after all.

[pchang]

Attacking Iraq was a confluence of things:
1) Saddam miscalculated - He thought the threat of weapons of mass destruction would deter an attack. So, he did his best to convince the world he had them. Instead, it triggered an attack.
2) Bush wanted to get rid of Saddam - Therefore, he was primed to believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
3) Saddam was so ruthless he alienated members of his own inner circle - Some members of his inner circle signed on as spies for various western nations. They all wanted Saddam out, so they all perpetuated the myth that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Because Saddam was so ruthless, we had no other sources of information about the inner workings of his regime.
4) Our gulf allies wanted Saddam out - Saddam's invasion of Kuwait made him an existential threat to the rest of the Arab regimes. Thus, they also perpetuated the myth that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

Congratulations to Saddam for fooling us.

[rah]

I've always favored the tried to kill daddy motive myself. I think we suckered him by making him think we didn't mind if he attacked Kuwait then used it to take him down..

[Aeson]

Also, Halliburton wasn't going to get all those no-bid contracts otherwise. The military industrial complex needs to sell more boom boom. And Oil something or other.

Saddam is golfing with Osama somewhere in a CIA black site golf course. Or hell. They have the worst sand traps in hell.