As Russia makes 2020 play, Democratic campaigns say they are in the dark

[TomCADem]

Russian election interference will likely be even more aggressive in 2020, particularly since the Trump administration has been doing its best to undercut any claims of Russian election interference. It would be nice to hear the candidates squarely address this threat. Instead, you have some candidates like Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard echoing Trump talking points that minimize this threat.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-russia-makes-2020-play-democratic-campaigns-say-they-are-in-the-dark-and-experts-fear-us-elections-are-vulnerable/2019/10/28/71ffb55c-f5eb-11e9-ad8b-85e2aa00b5ce_story.html

Several Democratic presidential campaigns targeted by a Russia-based operation on Facebook’s popular Instagram app said they had been unaware of the new foreign disinformation efforts until the tech giant announced them publicly last week, raising alarms that American democracy remains vulnerable to foreign interference even after three years of investigations into the Kremlin’s attack on the 2016 election. The lack of advance notice to the apparent victims of the first known Russian attempts to interfere directly in the 2020 race has heightened fears that campaigns are largely on their own when it comes to guarding against attacks from foreign interests.

Campaign officials, security experts and Democratic lawmakers said the latest material served as a warning that the Trump administration and the tech industry are still struggling to coordinate their response as threats to the U.S. political system intensify. In particular, the threats now emanate from multiple countries, including Iran and China, where malicious actors have adopted Russia’s playbook in a bid to manipulate social media to their political advantage.

Some said they were unnerved by the nature of the recent Instagram posts, which seemed to target battleground states and demonstrated a nuanced understanding of the dynamics at play in the 2020 Democratic primary race. They appeared, for instance, to stoke African American resentment of former vice president Joe Biden while tapping into themes designed to undercut Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Kamala D. Harris (Calif.) as well. The Russian network appeared to be relatively small and in an audience-building mode, analysts said.

“The Russians are repeating the same tactics they used during the 2016 election, but only growing more strategic in identifying divides and capitalizing on those divides to create fault lines in society and distrust between people and institutions,” said Ali Soufan, a former longtime FBI agent who wrote a report in May for the Department of Homeland Security that warned, “To date, the United States has no national strategy to counter foreign influence.”

[tirebiter]

1. It's already in gear

Those “Epoch Times,” ads on YouTube for starters. The proTrump ads at the top of DU were noticeable, too.

[Firestorm49]

2. So exactly what is it that all seventeen of our three letter agencies are supposed to do?

[Turbineguy]

3. This is the Russian version of

Apollo 11.

[Pachamama]

4. When something worked great the first time & nothing has changed to prevent you from doing it, why..

...wouldn’t you do it again?

In fact, now that the Russians have their puppet in the White House and have all their GOP puppets openly declaring their Propaganda and loyalty to the Puppet and covering up a high crime and risking US National Security and even attacking and undermining the very intelligence agencies that would be the ones to be a threat to Russian activities - expect them to kick it into overdrive and have election interference and their tactics on steroids.

Americans need to wake up and help the Democrats to protect our democracy.