HP:Bernie Sanders Campaign Faced A Fake News Tsunami. Where Did It Come From? The trolls set out to

[PatrickforO]

distract and divide the invigorated left.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-fake-news-russia_us_58c34d97e4b0ed71826cdb36?63g&ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

There were in fact a lot of anti-Clinton types of posts on sites I went to as a Bernie supporter. Some, sadly, were even parroted on here.

But here's the bottom line: most of these 'trolls' were from Eastern Europe. At first, they were anti-Clinton in an effort to stop some Sanders supporters from voting Clinton in the general, then they were anti-Clinton, presumably to encourage people to vote Trump in the general.

How much of this happened courtesy of Vladimir Putin? How extensive was Russian involvement in elevating the clown Trump to our highest office?

And, MOST importantly, how much did Trump, Pence, Bannon and the rest know?

Because if they knew ANYTHING, and did nothing, they they are guilty of treason.

The fact that a foreign power influenced one of our elections is NOT OK. We need to focus on this issue with single-minded intensity until we have the answers and have fixed the situation so it never happens again.

[bettyellen]

1. The thing is a lot of non trolls picked up these reports and ran with them...

I was sort of shocked last year but I saw it happen among friends. RT, Wikileaks and Guccifer.... The MSM being maligned as partisan along with Hillary and "the establishment" was a huge thing. I think it was messaging planned at a few segments of both right and left.

[PatrickforO]

2. Yes. This is not good, that we fell for it.

I admit to falling for some of it, at least, as I was a fervent Bernie supporter. And I know what I saw. There was some sophisticated stuff the came down the pike to take Bernie down.

Gotta like the guy, though. He dusted himself off, put a smile on his face (figuratively) and got back in the ring. Now, though, he and Warren are national figures and they've between them got a great bully pulpit going.

I sure like Warren. She is taking over for Teddy as the new 'Lion of the Senate.' We're lucky to have her, and in spite of the snarky comments one gets on here about how Bernie 'isn't even a Democrat,' we're lucky to have Bernie too.

But we've got to get to the bottom of this Russia thing because things can go south awful quick if we begin allowing foreign powers to affect US elections. So, you know, DOWN with the treasonous RATS!

[bettyellen]

3. One of my friends- a smart guy too- was obsessed by it all....

And I just saw right away issues w Wiki- stripping dates off emails and exaggerations about everything to inflame Sanders supporters. I could see it was selectively edited to hurt HRC to the max. My friends could just not accept it was slanted w a specific purpose- even with RT!?!?

At first I thought it was just the normal sexist nature of Internet hacker culture, which I credit as a reason for Anonymous staying so silent as well. But with the Twit bots and comments sections and the leaks of the leaks it was apparent the set up was conspired w A huge amount of paid trollers amplifying this crap and Trump people.

To be honest, none of these people have been forthcoming about how manipulated they are... in fact they're still prone to it. So I'm not sure how we convince some of these people anything.

[Igel]

4. The fake news was obviously fake.

The scandalous, fairly trivial non-fake news was obviously trivial and, well, pretty much non-fake.

People were manipulated by Russia not because Russia was so devious. Russia's deviousness lies not in superb falsification or convincing stories, but in knowing their marks. For a good con, first you make sure that the con will buy into your game, accept your narrative.

Many on the left had long assumed that the establishment in the US was evil, and any counter-narrative was likely true; that Obama was president put lipstick on a pig, but most of the country was corrupt and bad. Many on the right assumed that the Obama administration was corrupt and bad, as was the Clintons. Both narratives feed on hyper-partisanship and a deep sense of grievance and humiliation. It doesn't take a genius to recognize this, just somebody that can sit back and observe without being part of the game. Domestic enemies are worse than foreign ones.

The flood of irrelevant news played into those narratives. But the irrelevant news was obviously constantly recycled, fairly unimportant, and ultimately using it rested on the realization that the listeners would do 99% of the work of "self-hacking" and self-deceiving.

Dangle the bait before a mark and see if he'll bite isn't a big gamble. If you know the right kind of bait, there's no way you can lose. Russia wanted to trash Clinton. Getting Trump elected they thought a bit of additional gain. It's not working out that way. Remember the finding, which rings true: The first thing they want is to sow distrust and dissent, to make sure that the US political system can't be taken seriously.

A sucker isn't born every minute. Given the US population, and the general political views I've observed, it's more like 4-5 suckers are born every minute. And that's just in the US.

The first step on the road to not being a sucker is to admit it. What we have here are excuses for being suckered: The news was clever and all fake (it wasn't clever, and most was true); we were barraged and couldn't reject it when it was everywhere (sure, we could, just look at how easy it is to reject the barrage of Trumpiana flung at us like chimps throw poo).

Those who wanted to believe what was said did so without thinking deeply about it. Now they want excuses for why they failed to stop and think, because, well, they can't accept responsibility. Blame Russia, blame fake news, blame everybody else--and in addition, not only are you innocent and not guilty, but suddenly we're victims, taken advantage of by our foe most evil, the dreaded (R).

Pogo. Was. Right.

But we only say that when we can shove the words into somebody else's mouth. We've met the enemy and he is us. We are our own fifth column.

I say that because we continue to do exactly what Russia wanted to do last summer. Don't have a solution, because the bait they dangled was very, very good, and the only solution is reprehensible. Close ranks against the common enemy. We're so used to focusing on internal divisions there's no way to achieve unity--9/11 did that briefly, but it crumbled within a week in some quarters, a month in others, and was mostly gone within a year. (For which, of course, the other could be blamed because we're always innocent and, if possible, always the victim.)