Trump was smashed by Clinton in outside money.
Didn’t look for data showing how much outside money Trump had in the primaries. Nevertheless, his total for the whole election was less than Bush and Rubio had in the primaries by a good amount. Cruz also had 2/3 of what Trump would end up with.
Sigh. I stated that the evidence is against the claim that the Russians cost Hillary the election, and I laid out a clear logical argument for what I said. You quoted my post but scissored out most of my argument, and then you declared that “Only Trump apologists believe that”. Is that really the best that you can do? Are you not even pretending to have evidence on your side?
Let me state the facts again. The amount spend by the Russians on ads was trivial. There is not a single research study which suggests that they had any effect on anybody, much less that they had enough influence to sway the election. If you want to contest those facts, bring some actual evidence.
Incorrect beliefs lead to bad decisions. In 2016 the Democrats lost an election that they should have won easily by a huge margin. Normally this would result in a serious study of what the party did wrong and how their platform, their presentation, and their strategy should be changed. Instead many Dems just keep repeating “It was the Russians, it was the Russians, it was the Russians,…” and thus avoid confronting and solving the party’s problems. Blaming the Russians for American election results is like that guy who blamed the Jews for snow.
Then you insist that Bernie must not be nominated and your argument rests on what “the GOP and the Kremlin” will do. So what exactly is the thinking here? That if the party just nominates someone nice and proper like Joe Biden, then “the GOP and the Kremlin” will treat him with kid gloves and be sure to say only truthful things about him? Trump would have a field day running against any center-leaning, corporate-friendly Democrat. He already did.
Actually, as pointed out by Chronos, many Super Pacs are anonymous.
But I give you cites:
*But the bombshell 37-page indictment issued Friday by Robert Mueller against Russia’s Internet Research Agency and its leadership and affiliates provides considerable detail on the Russian information warfare targeting the American public during the elections. And this information makes it increasingly difficult to say that the Kremlin’s effort to impact the American mind did not succeed…1. What was the scope of the Russian effort?
The Mueller indictment permanently demolishes the idea that the scale of the Russian campaign was not significant enough to have any impact on the American public. We are no longer talking about approximately $100,000 (paid in rubles, no less) of advertising grudgingly disclosed by Facebook, but tens of millions of dollars spent over several years to build a broad, sophisticated system that can influence American opinion.
The Russian efforts described in the indictment focused on establishing deep, authenticated, long-term identities for individuals and groups within specific communities. This was underlaid by the establishment of servers and VPNs based in the US to mask the location of the individuals involved. US-based email accounts linked to fake or stolen US identity documents (driver licenses, social security numbers, and more) were used to back the online identities. These identities were also used to launder payments through PayPal and cryptocurrency accounts. All of this deception was designed to make it appear that these activities were being carried out by Americans.*
https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/26/us/2016-presidential-campaign-hacking-fast-facts/index.html
*The indictment alleges that an organization called the Internet Research Agency had a monthly budget of approximately $1.25 million toward interference efforts by September 2016 and that it employed “hundreds of individuals for its online operation.” This is a fairly significant magnitude — much larger than the paltry sums that Russian operatives had previously been revealed to spend on Facebook advertising…I tend to focus more on factors — such as Clinton’s email scandal or the Comey letter (and the media’s handling of those stories) — that had easier-to-prove effects. The hacked emails from the Clinton campaign and the DNC (which may or may not have had anything to do with the Russians) potentially also were more influential than the Russian efforts detailed in Friday’s indictments. Clinton’s Electoral College strategy didn’t have as much of an effect as some people assume — but it was pretty stupid all the same and is certainly worth mentioning.
But if it’s hard to prove anything about Russian interference, it’s equally hard to disprove anything: The interference campaign could easily have had chronic, insidious effects that could be mistaken for background noise but which in the aggregate were enough to swing the election by 0.8 percentage points toward Trump — not a high hurdle to clear because 0.8 points isn’t much at all.*
However, no us Democrats are ignoring the other stuff that Nate and other pointed out- the Comey letter, the email scandal, Clintons bad electoral strategy.
But you said “Rove and the Kremlin” had no significant effect on the 2016 election."
This is demonstrably false. Yes, certainly there were other factors- a couple of which were blunders. And that "The amount spend by the Russians on ads was trivial. " is true, but they spent millions on other activities , not to mention hacking.
However- that election was very close. The Russians, Comey, and poor strategy all each could have cost her the election.
But to say the Russian hacking AND Fake news campaign had no effect? We now know otherwise.
Why is Bernie not a good candidate?- well, I will give you solid facts- he lost the damn nomination. By a significant margin. He got clobbered.
And it is a fact that the fake news machine never hit him, and in fact worked in his favor. I guess it is possible he could have weathered that. But he couldnt even win the nom, even with the kremlin and the GOP working as hard as they could to torpedo the one person they were scared of- Hillary.
Also, ad buys weren’t the primary focus of the Russians, and some of their other efforts did have significant effects. Like, how many people voted against Sanders in the primary because his supporters were too obnoxious? That’s a reason I heard a lot. And guess who most of those “obnoxious Sanders supporters” turned out to be?
Damned Commies, always wrecking it for the happy socialists.
I’ve always been saying that the Democrats can’t afford to fuck around in this election, but now that we have the most recent reports of scientists about the effects of climate change, we REALLY CAN’T AFFORD TO FUCK AROUND. While climate change probably isn’t a productive issue to campaign on, the necessary measures are not going to be enacted by a Republican administration. The fate of the planet hangs in the balance here; we cannot afford to have four more years of inaction (at best) or deliberate malicious action (at worst) towards improving the environment. This is life-and-death shit, even though most people don’t care about it because we’ve just been kicking the can down the road. Life-and-death shit.
And I’m more concerned than ever that the Dems do not have anyone on their roster who can get it done.
So run on that. Get scientists out everywhere. And run on that.
Two points. First, ok, so the Russians spent more money than just the Facebook ad buys. $1.25 million per month is still very small compared to what the actual candidates and political parties were spending during the campaign.
Second, from the Wired article that you linked to:
The content was not designed to persuade people to change their views, but to harden those views. Confirmation bias is powerful and commonly employed in these kinds of psychological operations (a related Soviet concept is “reflexive control”—applying pressure in ways to elicit a specific, known response). The intention of these campaigns was to activate—or suppress—target groups. Not to change their views, but to change their behavior.
So overall, the purpose of most of what the Russians did was not to deep-six Hillary. It was to create a general atmosphere of chaos and lead Americans to distrust our government and politicians, regardless of who wins. Recall that the hackers did not publish emails that they stole from the DNC during the battle between Hillary and Bernie. They waited until Hillary had the nomination secured and then published the emails.
So it is simply not the case that the Russian goal was to defeat Hillary because she was “the one they were scared of”. If that were true, they could have gone all out against her during the primary, or even before she officially entered the campaign.
Looking forward to 2020, though, the main point is that whoever gets the nomination is going to have to campaign in an environment filled with lies, fake news, &c… Bernie has a strategy for dealing with that. His strategy is to present an economic platform that’s popular with the voters and to stick with it. Throw anything at him and he deflects it and goes back to talking about health care. That’s why Bernie’s supporters like him. That’s why they’ll stay with him even if a Russian troll farm sends them a link to a video claiming that Bernie joined a KGB pedophile ring in a pizza place in 1963.
As for saying “he lost the damn nomination”, no Democrat who’s running in 2020 has ever won a damn nomination (unless, God forbid, Hillary enters the race.) Bernie has come closer to winning the nomination than anyone else involved.
The obnoxious supporters I saw were on video behaving like idiots. Did the Russians have agents on our soil?
Perhaps so, but he has the support of maybe 40% of one party. Aka the support of about 20% of the voters.
Actually you make a great case for Hillary to come back.
No more Comey memos. All the lies are out there. She almost won, and can tailor her strategy to won more states now.
WillFarnaby, your notion of “obnoxious supporters” is “anyone who supports government doing anything at all, no matter what it is”. And yes, there are a lot of folks like that supporting Sanders, because there are a lot of folks like that supporting anyone you care to name.
No. My definition is: people acting like idiots while supporting someone. The videos were filled with those idiots.
Anyway, do you think those people were Russian agents?
You’ll want to repost this in the Pit if you need a point-by-point rebuttal.
I’ll just say that it is absurd to think that the idea that states like Pennsylvania would swing the election was some mystery that only a genius or fortune-teller could have known.
Nate Silver even had a graphic showing Pennsylvania at the fulcrum of a teeter-totter, for heaven’s sake!
I don’t know, WillFarnaby, show me the videos and idiots you’re referring to.
In any event, I never said that all of the obnoxious “Bernie Bros” were Russians, just that most of them were. You can find genuine obnoxious supporters for any politician; their mere existence doesn’t prove anything. Though, for some politicians, it’s hard to find any non-obnoxious supporters.
Because the only way you can rebut is by personal insults?
And Nate ranks campaigning in those states as the least likely thing that cost her the election. He ranks the Comey memo as the #1 thing, and that aint happening again.
But so? Mistakes were made, over confidence. You think she would make those mistakes again?
Where did I say it’s because he’s a Christian fundamentalist Republican? I didn’t mention his religion at all. Jesus Christ, Chronos, why are you putting words in my mouth? You’ve been on the Dope since God was a pup, and you still haven’t learned the most basic civil interaction, FFS.
In fact, I think Pence is an emotionally constipated wierdo with significant issues around women. I suspect he’s a racist as well, but that’s lagniappe really, and I think if Harris did to him what Trump did to Hillary -followed him around, got too close, invaded his space - he might flip out. Now, that’s mostly a joke, as many people who are not Chronos can tell. Do I really think that he’ll lose his mind and leap from the stage? No, I’d say only 2% chance. Do I think it might discombobulate him? I’d say maybe 10-20% chance. He lives in a very insular, very male world.
NOT CHRONOS. Sorry, I meant cmkeller.
My apologies to Chronos.
In fact, Chronos went so far as to point out the fact that Pence doesn’t interact with women if he can avoid it. So, I feel doubly ashamed of my misstatement.
Attach from the 3rd Dimension:
No, no, no. He doesn’t interact ALONE with A WOMAN without his wife present. This is not due to some sort of weird neurosis, but as a way of keeping him absolutely beyond reproach in his dealings with women. It’s called the “Billy Graham rule” and is something quite a few Christians (and many Jews, under a similar Jewish law) follow. I would think that in this day and age, such conduct would be considered praiseworthy, but of course, when you’re politically opposed to the man, it has to have a weird vibe, doesn’t it?
Why would conduct that is inherently discriminatory be considered praiseworthy?
So you think Russian agents were captured on video meddling in the election and that you can identify them if shown.