Why do you think Trump was so surprised to learn Biden is likely going to be his opponent in the general election? I’m quite sure Putin had reassured him at one of their private meetings that he would be working hard to put Sanders at the top of the ticket. Trump seems genuinely baffled to discover he’s probably going to have to face Biden instead.
The Russians helped Bernie in 2016. This is not in dispute. The idea was to create division between Clinton-supporting and Sanders-supporting Democrats. Worked a treat, too. Mueller flat out told us the subversion efforts have never stopped. The Republican party is all in with their illegal Russian help and quashed virtually every effort to shut it down. We should all be appalled.
Same reason Jill Stein ran as a Green in 2016. Her candidacy, supported by Putin, was meant to peel off 3-4% of the Democratic vote. That’s a lot of voters in a close election. The tactic worked well in 2016. For 2020, I predict Tulsi Gabbard will be advanced for this purpose.
I’m not saying any of these Democratic candidates are actively using Russian support. I don’t think they are. Trump is, though.
I was happy to see Bernie repudiate Russian intervention in our elections in a very forceful way. But whether any of the Democrats actively invite it, they are still the beneficiaries of Russian subversion efforts in our elections.
As for Putin trolling for Biden if he wins the nomination, where have you been? Did you miss that whole Ukraine impeachment thing? The entire scheme originated with Putin as a way to blame 2016 Russian interference on Ukraine, so Trump had a path to lift the sanctions against Russia imposed in response to that interference. Bonus: Smear Trump’s most worrisome opponent, Joe Biden. Putin is really good at this stuff.
The intent of the Russians is to clear a path for Trump to win reelection with a narrow but somewhat believable margin. If successful, it will play out in multiple ways:
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Create division in the Democratic party, same as 2016.
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Try and advance the weakest candidate possible for Trump to run against, and of the available most likely nominees, that was Sanders.
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Peel off a few percent of Democratic voters by advancing a third-party candidate. Same as 2016.
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Create memes of Trump reelection inevitability. Sadly, I’ve seen evidence of the success of this tactic here on this board. It’s working. There is no real evidence that Trump can win again in 2020, but if he manages to cheat his way into another “win,” we’ll all be softened up to accept it without question.
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Mess with voting machines or voter rolls during the election, if possible. If they can’t create a “win” for Trump, at least create such havoc in the election that its results are not trusted by the citizens.
I’ve made this observation in another thread that I found it curious that there is so much monetary support for Sanders via small donors, and he has enjoyed such a vocal contingent of followers on Twitter and Facebook – yet these same highly motivated people couldn’t be bothered to vote for him in the primaries on Super Tuesday. I find these disparities very odd. It’s not hard to create thousands of “small donors” as a way of providing foreign money to help to a campaign. And we already know how vulnerable Twitter and Facebook are to foreign manipulation with fake personas.
So it appears that on this very rare occasion, I agree with you in large measure, Shodan. Russian interference with be a significant factor throughout this 2020 campaign. Only this time, Trump is using the levers of government (illegally) to help them help him.
I disagree, however, that Putin doesn’t care which candidate wins the election. He wants Trump. He has Trump under his thumb. Putin will never again have an American president so willing to do his bidding, so corrupt, so beholden and so happy to smash through every tradition or Constitutional norm established since this country’s founding. Putin wants Trump for a second term bad, and he’s going to fight hard to get him “reelected.”
