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You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / The Black PSYOP Part V: Russia Was, Apparently, Listening – Election 2020 Edition

The Black PSYOP Part V: Russia Was, Apparently, Listening – Election 2020 Edition

by Adam L Silverman|  January 13, 202010:45 pm| 63 Comments

This post is in: 2020 Elections, America, Domestic Politics, Election 2016, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Politics, Russia, Silverman on Security

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I’ve written several posts about Black PSYOPs, which are attempts to launder misinformation, disinformation, and agitprop through legitimate sources to influence people’s, groups’, and governments’ attitudes and actions. I’ve specifically focused on attempts by Republican elected and appointed officials, as well as the President’s surrogates, to launder the debunked, factually inaccurate, lie that Vice President Biden knuckled the Ukrainian prosecutor back in 2014 and 2015 in order to protect his son Hunter Biden. The truth is that Vice President Biden, representing the official policy of the United States and working with US allies in Britain, the EU, and the IMF sought to force out a corrupt prosecutor who was covering up and slow walking investigations into corruption in the post-Maidan Ukraine.

Moreover, as I’ve repeatedly covered since September, the assertion that Hunter Biden did anything wrong is actually Russian created agitprop that was first put forward in Russian state backed news media in May 2014. It emerged because it was being reported at the time that Vice President Biden was considering running for president in 2016 and Putin was looking to dirty him up should he emerge as the Democratic nominee. It is the same reason that one of Secretary Kerry’s, who was also being reported in 2014 as considering another run for the presidency, step-sons was mentioned in the reporting by RIA-Novosti.

The New York Times is reporting that the GRU, Russian military intelligence, appears to have now hacked Burisma, which is the Ukrainian natural gas company that employed Hunter Biden.

The GRU attacks appear to be running parallel to an analog effort by Russian spies to dig up information that could embarrass the Bidens. Russian spies are trying to penetrate Burisma and working sources in the Ukrainian government in search of emails, financial records.

— Nicole Perlroth (@nicoleperlroth) January 13, 2020

With President Trump facing an impeachment trial over his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, Russian military hackers have been boring into the Ukrainian gas company at the center of the affair, according to security experts.

The hacking attempts against Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company on whose board Hunter Biden served, began in early November, as talk of the Bidens, Ukraine and impeachment was dominating the news in the United States.

It is not yet clear what the hackers found, or precisely what they were searching for. But the experts say the timing and scale of the attacks suggest that the Russians could be searching for potentially embarrassing material on the Bidens — the same kind of information that Mr. Trump wanted from Ukraine when he pressed for an investigation of the Bidens and Burisma, setting off a chain of events that led to his impeachment.

The Russian tactics are strikingly similar to what American intelligence agencies say was Russia’s hacking of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential campaign. In that case, once they had the emails, the Russians used trolls to spread and spin the material, and built an echo chamber to widen its effect.

Then, as now, the Russian hackers from a military intelligence unit known formerly as the G.R.U., and to private researchers by the alias “Fancy Bear,” used so-called phishing emails that appear designed to steal usernames and passwords, according to Area 1, the Silicon Valley security firm that detected the hacking. In this instance, the hackers set up fake websites that mimicked sign-in pages of Burisma subsidiaries, and have been blasting Burisma employees with emails meant to look like they are coming from inside the company.

The hackers fooled some of them into handing over their login credentials, and managed to get inside one of Burisma’s servers, Area 1 said.

“The attacks were successful,” said Oren Falkowitz, a co-founder of Area 1, who previously served at the National Security Agency. Mr. Falkowitz’s firm maintains a network of sensors on web servers around the globe — many known to be used by state-sponsored hackers — which gives the firm a front-row seat to phishing attacks, and allows them to block attacks on their customers.

“The timing of the Russian campaign mirrors the G.R.U. hacks we saw in 2016 against the D.N.C. and John Podesta,” the Clinton campaign chairman, Mr. Falkowitz said. “Once again, they are stealing email credentials, in what we can only assume is a repeat of Russian interference in the last election.”

The purpose of this hacking is not just to get access to emails and other documents, remove them, and either leak them through third parties to gullible members of the US news media who will be all to happy to publish them in a repeat of 2016 or to credulous surrogates of the President like his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. The purpose of hacking into these systems is also to be able to adjust actual emails and documents, as well as plant false ones, that can then be removed, leaked, and laundered through the news media with the real emails and documents as part of the ongoing Black PSYOP campaign. If there’s nothing actually incriminating in Burisma’s employees’ or board of directors member’s emails or the company’s documents about Hunter Biden, then the GRU will be happy to fabricate them (agitprop), embed them with the real information, and then ensure that all of that information – real and fabricated – makes its way to the information laundries of the US news media so it can be weaponized against Vice President Biden and on behalf of the President. They did this with the Clinton campaign and DNC emails in 2016 and they’ll do it again here too.

And the GRU’s, as well as other hostile state actors and, most likely, those of some partners who have a preference in the outcome of the 2020 elections efforts will not be confined to Vice President Biden. I guarantee that they have operations ready to go for any of the leading Democratic candidates contesting for the Democratic nomination. Some of these efforts will be easier than others. Attempts will be made to get to files, documents, and emails from Senator Warren’s time doing legal consulting. And you’ll see hacks attempting to bring to light that she got unfair treatment by falsely claiming to be Native American or lying about when she was pregnant. Four decades of speeches and public access show episodes and writings from Senator Sanders will be released in toto (the most controversial ones) or barbered and adjusted for maximum influence effect to make fairly banal left of center statements seem nefarious. Documents, emails, and records from Senator Klobuchar’s time as a local prosecutor will be combed through. And attempts will be made to get into McKinsey’s systems, as well as those of South Bend, Indiana looking for anything that can be used against Mayor Buttigieg. And if nothing really damaging can be found on any of these candidates, then it will be manufactured and that will be weaponized. Remember, part of what led FBI Director Comey to usurp the authority of the Attorney General in 2016, including not even just recommending that then Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates take the lead regarding Secretary Clinton’s email investigation, was a false memo fabricated by the GRU, which they allowed US intelligence to collect. When even the most senior professionals with extensive experience can be manipulated to make terrible professional errors through agitprop, imagine what it is going to do to the Ken Vogels and Mike Allens of the world, let alone Rudy Giuliani, Jeanine Pirro, Seant Hannity, and Lou Dobbs? All of whom are just salivating for someone to hand them this type of information gift wrapped and ready to go regardless of who is providing it and whether or not it is accurate or even germane to the election.

As I wrote way back in March 2019, the 2020 elections are an information war. And that information war is wrapped within an undeclared interstate war between Russia and the US. And that is the reality that every Democratic campaign, up and down the ballot from municipal special districts to those seeking the presidency, America’s Intelligence Community, the National Security Directorate’s at the DOJ and FBI, and the news media, especially those covering politics, need to understand and prepare for. After the 2016 election and what has now been well documented as happening since as far back as 2014, there is no good excuse for refusing to learn from the past 5 and 1/2 years, for campaigns and the new media to not have counter-influence operations in place and operating, and for Americans not to be informed and realize that we are at war. The 2020 election is not just taking place while that war is ongoing; the 2020 election is actually one theater of operations in that war.

Aux armes, citoyens!

Open thread!

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Reader Interactions

63Comments

  1. 1.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 13, 2020 at 10:48 pm

    This is so important: Effective propaganda ALWAYS mixes truth with lies to slide the lies by more easily.

    If there’s nothing actually incriminating in Burisma’s employees’ or board of directors member’s emails or the company’s documents about Hunter Biden, then the GRU will be happy to fabricate them (agitprop), embed them with the real information, and then ensure that all of that information – real and fabricated – makes its way to the information laundries of the US news media so it can be weaponized against Vice President Biden and on behalf of the President.

  2. 2.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 13, 2020 at 10:51 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: I just added this sentence to the end of that paragraph:

    They did this with the Clinton campaign and DNC emails in 2016 and they’ll do it again here too.

  3. 3.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 13, 2020 at 10:52 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Good

  4. 4.

    mad citizen

    January 13, 2020 at 10:55 pm

    Thank you again for this continuing education.  Very much appreciated.

  5. 5.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 13, 2020 at 10:57 pm

    @mad citizen: You’re welcome.

  6. 6.

    Gravenstone

    January 13, 2020 at 10:58 pm

    Just saw this on CNN and my first thought was Wikileaks 2: Electric Boogaloo! Yeah all sorts of shit, true and otherwise will be trickling out in the not too distant future.

  7. 7.

    painedumonde

    January 13, 2020 at 11:00 pm

    Where the fek are the counter-ops? Looking at our security agencies: j’accuse !

  8. 8.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 13, 2020 at 11:02 pm

    @painedumonde: Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.

  9. 9.

    joel hanes

    January 13, 2020 at 11:04 pm

    Are our media capable of learning ?

    [consults Magic 8-Ball]

    Signs point to “No”

  10. 10.

    painedumonde

    January 13, 2020 at 11:04 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: very well, merci pour les informations.

  11. 11.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    January 13, 2020 at 11:04 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    That’s exactly what I’m afraid of; that Burisma will be Hillary’s emails all over again. And even worse, that this can be done to anyone. Warren, Wilmer, Buttigieg, Amy K,  it doesn’t matter. Hell, this disinfo strategy could’ve been used against Obama if the infrastructure had been there in 2008.

    I’m curious why the Russians didn’t try this shit even earlier. I remember reading something about there being suspicious activity surrounding Ron Paul’s campaign in 2007.

  12. 12.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    January 13, 2020 at 11:12 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    And even worse, that this can be done to anyone. Warren, Wilmer, Buttigieg, Amy K,  it doesn’t matter.

    Edit: Which you (Adam) commented on in your post.

  13. 13.

    Bill Arnold

    January 13, 2020 at 11:18 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    That’s exactly what I’m afraid of; that Burisma will be Hillary’s emails all over again. And even worse, that this can be done to anyone. Warren, Wilmer, Buttigieg, Amy K, it doesn’t matter.

    This is why the high road is no longer an option. At the very least, the Democrats need to be ready to respond with tit-for-tat, realtime, and build better ability to seize news cycles. The media of 2016 was embarrassingly dominated by the Republicans and their helpers.

    And yeah, sorta repeating what Adam said.

  14. 14.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 13, 2020 at 11:21 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I have a theory, but I’m not sure it can actually ever be tested, let alone validated. Specifically that Soviet Intelligence were working both sides in the US and doing so pretty far back. For instance, if you were looking to influence Senator McCarthy and ensure that the US would domestically damage itself, what better way than to flip his highly ambitious, but heavily closeted senior counsel Roy Cohn. The guy was a living breathing textbook example of someone who could be subverted. Similarly, I have serious questions about why so many national level organizations, organizations that had largely tried to stay out of politics unless they had no choice and then tried to be as non-partisan or bi-partisan as possible, suddenly became hard right all around the same time between 1977 to 1981. The most prominent two are the National Rifle Association and the Southern Baptist Convention. Both of which had very well publicized internal revolts that remade the organizations into far right actors. And that occurred within months of each other.

    It had to have been clear to the Soviets by the late 60s/early 70s, if not earlier, that they were never going to achieve their objectives trying to work through the far left in the US. They were too disorganized, they wouldn’t follow orders, they couldn’t stay focused on message. Unions wouldn’t work as in the US they were too bound up with white ethnic American communities. Like I said, I can’t prove it, but these types of coincidences bother me. Of course I may just be seeing a false pattern and my software is telling me there is more there than there is.

  15. 15.

    Bill Arnold

    January 13, 2020 at 11:25 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The most prominent two are the National Rifle Association and the Southern Baptist Convention. Both of which had very well publicized internal revolts that remade the organizations into far right actors. And that occurred within months of each other.

    Interesting, quite. Are these internal revolts well-documented?

  16. 16.

    Sandia Blanca

    January 13, 2020 at 11:27 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:  If I understand your implications, this is a real “wheels within wheels” kind of situation!  How can we possibly insulate our fellow citizens from being influenced by this stuff?

    P.S. Thank you and Cheryl both for the level of knowledge you bring to us every day on topics such as this.

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 13, 2020 at 11:27 pm

    @Bill Arnold: Yes. There’s an entire sub literature within the Religion and Politics in the US academic literature dealing with the Southern Baptist Convention revolt and reorientation, as well as the reemergence of the evangelical sects back into active actors, including political ones, in the middle to late 1970s. There is also popular, as in not academic coverage.

    The NRA revolt, known as the Cincinnati Rebellion or Revolt, is very well documented in public sources, as well as academic ones.

  18. 18.

    hells littlest angel

    January 13, 2020 at 11:28 pm

    Republicans: don’t blame us for telling lies about Biden. You tell the truth about Trump. It’s called tit for tat, libtards.

  19. 19.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 13, 2020 at 11:29 pm

    @Sandia Blanca: Individually all you can do is make sure you’re informed, using good sources, and that you use critical thinking on information that you see. And recommending that to people you know from friends to family. That’s about it.

  20. 20.

    L85NJGT

    January 13, 2020 at 11:36 pm

    @joel hanes:

    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/meghan-markle-kate-middleton-double-standards-royal

    The side-by-side screen caps are something else.

  21. 21.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 13, 2020 at 11:39 pm

    @Sandia Blanca: I try to hit the “here’s what you can do” side of this. I have at least three topics for posts.

  22. 22.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    January 13, 2020 at 11:50 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    A very interesting theory, indeed! It does seem odd that all of these organizations turned hard-right so soon with each other, but this could also just be the backlash to the Civil Rights Movement emerging, culminating with the ascension of St Ronaldus Magnus, with the Soviets (and later the Russians) co-opting these same organizations. It’s difficult to prove either way.

    It had to have been clear to the Soviets by the late 60s/early 70s, if not earlier, that they were never going to achieve their objectives trying to work through the far left in the US.

    Humanity wastes so much time, energy, and blood trying to tear each other down. I’m sure those Arctic trade routes will be worth it for Russia once much of the world is rendered uninhabitable to humans and the global economy is nonexistent because of climate change!

    This is so fucking stupid, it hurts. Yes, let’s try to destabilize the world when we’re approaching the point of no return wrt climate change. I thought Putin was supposed to be smart? Putin will likely live long enough to witness the beginnings of the Great Collapse. We’re already seeing effects that scientists originally thought weren’t going to happen for 70-100 years

  23. 23.

    West of the Rockies

    January 13, 2020 at 11:52 pm

    I wish The UN would do something, sanction the hell out of Russia for their non-stop rat-fucking, blowing up planes, invading other countries, and having a short, homely gnome for a president.

  24. 24.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 13, 2020 at 11:54 pm

    @West of the Rockies: That’s neither what the UN does, nor how it works.

  25. 25.

    NotMax

    January 14, 2020 at 12:00 am

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Smears, whisper campaigns and innuendo have been a part of politics since the day after politics was invented. what has changed (an will continue to change) are the scale, scope, and reach and technology which provides platforms of greater speed and efficiency in delivery of mudslinging as well as lowering the cost of entry for the scurrilous .

    If you find the time, do some background reading on Nixon’s campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas, for example. His campaign strategist, Murray Chotiner, laid it out in the open: “The purpose of an election is not to defeat your opponent, but to destroy him.” A dictum which, we can be grateful, did not become universally etched in stone as the equivalent of the Prime Directive.

  26. 26.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    January 14, 2020 at 12:00 am

    I don’t know who’s a bigger bunch of spies, the GRU or the Houston Astros

  27. 27.

    Ruckus

    January 14, 2020 at 12:03 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    It is of course what a lot of people say about the UN.

    We know that a lot of what is happening now is because the technology allows it, but it was being done on a much smaller trajectory long ago. It was also harder to catch then but those things seemed to cancel out. Now the shear size of the operation makes it harder to find and respond to. Seems to be a lot easier for an enemy than building an effective large military operation though.

  28. 28.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    January 14, 2020 at 12:03 am

    @West of the Rockies:

    I wish The UN would do something, sanction the hell out of Russia for their non-stop rat-fucking, blowing up planes, invading other countries, and having a short, homely gnome for a president.

    So do I! I wish the UN had actual teeth to do something, but they don’t, which was intentional from the start. National sovereignty worked fine before the advent of modern warfare in the early 20th century and before global problems like nuclear war and climate change emerged. Since then, human beings have only found worse and more creative ways to kill each other and climate change will kill us all eventually unless decisive and concrete actions are taken very soon.

    National sovereignty is an outdated concept that is allowing evil leaders like Putin to imperil humanity. In the current global order, who holds powerful, evil people like Putin, Xi, or Bonesaw accountable? Nobody, really. And we can’t simply wait for their regimes to fall or them to be replaced by better people. The world can’t afford it. If authoritarians like Putin, Xi, Bonesaw, and their western counterparts succeed, then freedom as we know it will be snuffed out, perhaps forever, even if climate change doesn’t lead to the apocalypse

  29. 29.

    NotMax

    January 14, 2020 at 12:06 am

    @Adam L. Silverman

    Yup. Networking is a non-partisan term. It’s those one chooses to network with which is the tough, often tedious, but absolutely necessary chore.

  30. 30.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    January 14, 2020 at 12:14 am

    @NotMax:

    If you find the time, do some background reading on Nixon’s campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas, for example. His campaign strategist, Murray Chotiner, laid it out in the open: “The purpose of an election is not to defeat your opponent, but to destroy him.” A dictum which, we can be grateful, did not become universally etched in stone as the equivalent of the Prime Directive.

    Maybe I’ll do that. I understand what you’re saying and it’s true, but the world can’t afford any longer for human beings to be, well, human beings. Society, the world over, has to change for us to survive. “Saving the planet” means saving ourselves in the process. And selfish evil fucks like Putin are making that harder to do

    @Bill Arnold:

    This is why the high road is no longer an option. At the very least, the Democrats need to be ready to respond with tit-for-tat, realtime, and build better ability to seize news cycles. The media of 2016 was embarrassingly dominated by the Republicans and their helpers.

    Yes, this. We have to defeat the GOP to save the planet. That’s one thing Berniebros have gotten right. I just don’t think that Bernie is the right man for the job. Biden probably isn’t ideally either, but he has a much better chance of beating Trump than Bernie does, and that matters a hell of a lot. So does Warren or any Dem

  31. 31.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    January 14, 2020 at 12:16 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    No, but it’s how it should work, honestly

  32. 32.

    Raven Onthill

    January 14, 2020 at 12:19 am

    I am left thinking yet again that we ought to have listened to the cipherpunks back when, and implemented digital signatures and email encryption widely. I’m in no way bought into their anarchist agenda, but they were for-sure right about the need for security in civilian information technology.

  33. 33.

    The Dangerman

    January 14, 2020 at 12:19 am

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:

    …or the Houston Astros.

    Dodgers fan here; the Astros should of been stripped of the title and the offending players should of joined the Black Sox in infamy (25 Men Out?). They were told no electronics for cheating and they did anyway.

    And that OPI against Clemson might have been the worst call I’ve seen this year. P12 refs; what are ya gonna do?

  34. 34.

    Mary G

    January 14, 2020 at 12:32 am

    Thank you for another post that helps me focus on the important things, Adam. I’m another one who thinks that Russia has been working on the right for a long time.

  35. 35.

    Felanius Kootea

    January 14, 2020 at 12:33 am

    @L85NJGT: Wow.  I didn’t realize how blatant it was.

  36. 36.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 14, 2020 at 12:37 am

    @Raven Onthill: Yep.

  37. 37.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 14, 2020 at 12:37 am

    @Mary G: You’re welcome.

  38. 38.

    West of the Rockies

    January 14, 2020 at 12:41 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I know… I was just venting erratically.  Obviously, the US isn’t doing anything under the direction of Donald Llyich Trump.

  39. 39.

    trollhattan

    January 14, 2020 at 12:46 am

    “Frontline” tonight is really something. “America’s Great Divide: Obama to Trump”

  40. 40.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    January 14, 2020 at 12:47 am

    @NotMax:

    @Adam L Silverman:

    @West of the Rockies:

    Sorry if it seemed like I was yelling at you guys or something. It’s not what I meant. I was just venting about the BS situation the world is in right now.

    Thank you Adam for posts like these. They’re very informative. Thanks to @Cheryl Rofer: as well for her work

  41. 41.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    January 14, 2020 at 12:48 am

    @trollhattan:

    It’s not using the “economic anxiety” trope I hope

  42. 42.

    West of the Rockies

    January 14, 2020 at 12:55 am

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Seconded.  You folks are an amazing pair:  clear, informed, and not prone to unsubstantiated fluff.

  43. 43.

    West of the Rockies

    January 14, 2020 at 1:00 am

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    To quote Lil’ Boots Marco Rubio, can we dispense with the notion that economic anxiety was ever the issue?  The concern was always skin color.

  44. 44.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 14, 2020 at 1:00 am

    @West of the Rockies: You haven’t seen my beard.

    and not prone to unsubstantiated fluff

  45. 45.

    West of the Rockies

    January 14, 2020 at 1:05 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Didn’t you play Bigfoot in The Six Million Dollar Man?  ;-)

  46. 46.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    January 14, 2020 at 1:06 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    unsubstantiated fluff

    Does your beard look like a Beatnik’s? ; p

  47. 47.

    VOR

    January 14, 2020 at 1:10 am

    @trollhattan: I hope they are better than the sorry article I saw in the Guardian today. The article was supposed to be talking about people who switched from Obama in 2012 to Trump. First person quoted was the Republican campaign manager for an Iowa county, a life-long Republican. Didn’t say whether he actually voted for Obama. For balance, the chosen Democrat campaign manager was a Bernie supporter in 2016 who quit the Democratic party in disgust after 2016.

  48. 48.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    January 14, 2020 at 1:11 am

    @The Dangerman: Wait, they had Pac-12 refs officiating the Championship game?  Idiots!

  49. 49.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    January 14, 2020 at 1:13 am

    @West of the Rockies:

    Let us dispense with the notion that Macro Robotio is a human. He is a robot

  50. 50.

    Mallard Filmore

    January 14, 2020 at 1:20 am

    @West of the Rockies:

    Didn’t you play Bigfoot in The Six Million Dollar Man? ;-)

    Naw, he played John Reese in Person of Interest.
    John Reese: search YouTube for “Leon Tao (Person of Interest)( 2 x 1)”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LQFJfPSdAA

    https://personofinterest.fandom.com/wiki/John_Reese

  51. 51.

    Cathie from Canada

    January 14, 2020 at 1:27 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: It always seems to surprise Democrats that Republicans will lie about them. And that people will believe the lies.

    John Kerry’s reaction to the Swiftboating was typical “ok, we’ll just ignore it, nobody could possibly believe something so stupid”.  But they did, and it destroyed his primary advantage over Bush.  So why haven’t Dems learned yet to strike back?

    I read a story today that Trump’s supposedly-retired brother got a government contract worth millions. Why haven’t I heard anything about this before?  And what about his sister, too?

    And every time Dems talked about Hillary for the last three years, they should have been calling her “popular vote winner Hillary”  Why oh why haven’t they been doing that?

  52. 52.

    susanna

    January 14, 2020 at 1:51 am

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Thirded, though erroneously worded.

    Thanks to you both, sleep is attainable as sane, comforting clarity is restored with your knowledge.

    Being in the right isn’t enough, and we all must work hard for this election to whatever level we’re able.  Women’s March is this Saturday!

  53. 53.

    Dan B

    January 14, 2020 at 1:52 am

    @Cathie from Canada:  Democrats have done a second rate job of mass comminication.  Many professionals have pointed this out with little effect.  Justice Lewis Powell outlined how to save the GOP when it appeared to be fading.  The monolith of institutions that were established paved the way for people who have expanded the propaganda campaigns to the new media.

    A few billionaires could bankroll a counter to the far right’s communications juggernaut.

  54. 54.

    Aussie Sheila

    January 14, 2020 at 2:07 am

    The 2020 election appears it will be a rat f$&@ competition between the two sides. Perhaps the Dems might think about utilising their deep connections with Silicon Valley ‘future/ tomorrow/don’t stop thinking about it ‘ mates, and start putting together a similar operation. Honestly, at this point , if the deep resources the Dem elites have cultivated over the years can’t develop a wide and deep response to this kind of outrageousness, what are they good for?

    Moaning about how terrible the Repthugs are is simply not good enough the second time around. They fall into every piece of bs militarism the security state throws up, but appear incapable of defending their own base and their own vaunted patriotism against a petrol state like Russia.

    What is wrong with them?

    Asking for the rest of the world.

  55. 55.

    Kathleen

    January 14, 2020 at 3:46 am

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Trust me. It won’t be done to Wilmer.

  56. 56.

    Another Scott

    January 14, 2020 at 6:52 am

    Thanks Adam.

    Evan Hurst’s take on Bloomberg’s reporting:

    US officials have announced a surprise development, or at least they are leaking a surprise development to the news reporters, and it is that Russia may be meddling in the 2020 election to hurt Joe Biden and help Donald Trump. Whoa if true! It is like Russia is on the same page with Donald Trump, who was impeached for bribing Ukraine — the country Russia invaded in 2014 and wants to be part of Russia again, and so does Trump — to meddle in the 2020 election, to hurt Joe Biden and help Donald Trump!

    It’s good when Donald Trump and the country where his true allegiance lies (“allegedly”) can work so very independently of each other (NO COLLUSION!) for the exact same goals.

    […]

    Shocking, shocking!

    Much more at the link.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  57. 57.

    Chris Johnson

    January 14, 2020 at 7:35 am

    Timely: thank you, Adam, once again.

    I’m not sure to what extent your ideas about the NRA and Southern Baptists turning hard right because they got taken over by the USSR, matters. On the one hand, in 2020 we can be sure that this DID happen to the NRA at some point. When? Hard to say.

    My concern here is sort of the difference between ‘great man’ theory of subversion, and ‘stochastic terrorism’ subversion. I feel like, as humans, we tend to look for a Big Main Villain behind things, who’s manipulating things to his will in a coordinated way. The main innovation behind what Putin’s been doing, is that he’s turned (first internally, and now as foreign policy) to stochastic terrorism, where he’ll commit effort and manpower to making GENERAL classes of things happen without being too fussed about specific outcomes.

    I don’t know when this kicked in. Was it a KGB thing, with Putin learning it there? To what extent did specific Putin associates (there’s one in particular referenced in the movie ‘Hypernormalization’) bring this concept to the table? What I’m seeing indicates that Russia has gone all in on this concept. We know a lot thanks to Mueller about the effort Russia’s put in to sabotage us, but it’s important to understand specifically what their aims have been and continue to be.

    In a certain light, it’s hardly difficult to spot. Look at Twitter, or our ‘public discourse’. Anywhere that is subject either to troll/bot amplification, or to having someone sneakily putting forth ideas, we’ve got that ‘circular firing squad’ effect, where existing and legitimate objections are weaponized and escalated… or, by contrast, denied and defended and made into hills to die on. It seems like it only works if you stoke both sides of the fire, and I’ve been seeing that happening for years now.

    It’s stochastic terrorism: it’s constantly working to generate the conditions where unrelated people will pop up and get in a fight. Like the quote in the article ‘all wars are banker’s wars’: which IS TRUE but the implication becomes, anyone touching bankers in any way must be shunned and removed.

    Example: ‘Biden serves the bankers and credit card industry rather than people’. Well, black voters have seen him reaching out year after year to them, and he serves a US State with all the credit card companies his personal constituents, so it is his job to represent them among his other constituents, and it’s other people’s job to oppose that if it’s a larger problem. The implication, pushed by Russia, is that he is singlemindedly pushing that interest, but humans aren’t singleminded… but we generalize, and that’s the mechanic by which this kind of attack is done.

    To oppose stochastic terrorism we kind of have to GTFO Twitter and work to see both sides of the problems facing us: and to see a large-tent society where we coexist with citizens (like hippies, like credit card companies, etc) who have sharply distinct interests to our own. We don’t get exactly what we want, but under normal circumstances we are represented.

    One obvious goal of the Russian psyops is to emphasize the idea that we are out of control, that we’re not represented: Putin took the wheel rather than Jesus, the crisis is upon us, also that the American public is utterly compromised and far gone to whatever extreme we most fear (I see a LOT of Russian energy behind the idea that the American public is just plain racist, sexist, and also loves private health insurance companies). This conclusion isn’t well established other than it being a meme that ‘everyone knows’, because we’ve got really well-funded and diligent messaging out there all the time (from Russian trolls) telling us that’s how the world is.

    I don’t buy it. Obama won in spite of being black. Clinton won the popular vote in spite of being a woman, and having a political history that can be weaponized and exaggerated. Biden could win in spite of exactly the same problems Clinton had: a political history that is currently being weaponized and exaggerated. Warren could win. Sanders could win.

    In none of these cases, even Sanders, would it be because the person is there to follow detailed orders from the Kremlin. They just all have their shadow side that can be blown up to suit the propaganda. We all do. It’s a human condition to generalize and want to find enemies and allies. It’s Russia’s innovation to put THIS MUCH energy into exploiting this particular human weakness.

  58. 58.

    Chris Johnson

    January 14, 2020 at 7:54 am

    Also, the idea of ‘the GRU will just fabricate things if they can’t find real stuff to exploit’ is tricky because it is doing the Russians’ work for them in a specific way.

    There’s a two-sided exploit that has to be done (Adam, if you’re working with people you can’t talk about to use this weapon against Russia in turn, please be listening). On the one hand you do the obvious thing of finding an argument to criticize someone with: let’s use ‘Hillary is a neoliberal who only helps bankers and sells out the working class’. That’s an exaggeration: her economic background out of the 80s and 90s established that economic philosophy, but it’s reductionist to say that’s all she is, therefore say that’s all she is. That’s one side of the Russian attack.

    The other side is to get someone to say, not only is she NOT that sort of bad person, there is no such thing as that. There was never a third way, there’s no such thing as a neoliberal, none of that even exists! Third Way Dems, Blair’s New Labour, none of it exists, and people complaining about a political philosophy are actually secret racists serving an entirely different and wicked agenda, because they are secretly just evil monster people. And that’s the other side of the Russian attack, outlined on just one issue (economic philosophy as commonly accepted truth).

    Russia stokes both sides of this specific issue with working, real-life trolls to push these specific views: (A) person X is a neoliberal economically right-wing shill who will side with whatever pumps the stock market at the expense of human beings, and furthermore said stock market serves NO function other than making rich people impossibly richer and on the flip side (B) there is no such thing as ‘neoliberal’ and anyone complaining about economics is a racist serving an entirely different and wicked purpose, plus the stock market and modern economy is the only possible way for anything ever to happen, and any change must be implemented through independent private enterprise seeking profit and thus enacting market pressures.

    Those are the sides that are identified and exploited and heightened by troll action. I’ve tried to outline the angles of attack here as clearly as I can.

    And that’s just one issue that I personally am so interested in that it grabs my attention… this exploit is run on every issue at once.

  59. 59.

    Another Scott

    January 14, 2020 at 8:08 am

    Relatedly, Nancy LeTourneau at WaMo:

    As I have already noted, it wasn’t just Russia that launched a disinformation campaign against Hillary Clinton in order to influence the 2016 election. Peter Schweizer, with an assist from mainstream media, spread a smear against the former secretary of state that was demonstrably false.

    But I have to take issue with how Tapper framed his concern. Notice the examples he gave of people who spread knowingly false information. They included:

    1. Bob Salera, Deputy Communications Director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, who tweeted a doctored video of a Biden speech, referring to the former vice president as a “white nationalist.”

    2. Tony Shaffer, a member of Trump’s 2020 advisory board, who tweeted a doctored video that makes Speaker Nancy Pelosi appear to be intoxicated.

    3. Donald Trump, who tweeted a video of Rep. Ilhan Omar dancing, along with a suggestion that it was filmed on 9/11.

    4. The White House press secretary, who tweeted a doctored video of a Trump press conference, suggesting that a reporter had rough-housed a staff member.

    It strikes me that all four of those examples have one important thing in common: they came from Republicans. Yet, during his commentary, Tapper blames this kind of disinformation on “folks in the political world” and ends by cautioning us not to lose sight of “what Americans are doing to each other.” In an apparent nod to balance, he failed to tell the truth, which is that we shouldn’t lose sight of what Republicans are doing to our political discourse.

    Yup. Bothsiderism is a prion disease and we need to fight it.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  60. 60.

    Mrearl

    January 14, 2020 at 9:10 am

    @Raven Onthill: Yes.  Punks write code.

  61. 61.

    low-tech cyclist

    January 14, 2020 at 12:18 pm

    as I’ve repeatedly covered since September, the assertion that Hunter Biden did anything wrong is actually Russian created agitprop

    Depends on what one considers ‘wrong.’

    By my standards, drawing a hefty salary by being put on the board of a company you know little about, in a country you know little about, only because you’re related to a VIP – yeah, I’d consider that a bit sleazy and morally questionable at the very least.

    Nice work if you can get it, but the point is that very few of us can.

  62. 62.

    StringOnAStick

    January 14, 2020 at 1:48 pm

    Thanks again Adam, you provide clarity and a distilled summary that is always very illuminating.

  63. 63.

    UncleEbeneezer

    January 14, 2020 at 1:54 pm

    @Kathleen: It will if he becomes the nominee.  In fact I’m guessing that’s WHY Russia wants him to be the Dem nominee, because he will be a very easy target and will help hand the election to Trump.

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