Washington Post Reports the Russians are Backing Bernie.

[Sherrerd]

@Unreconstructed_Man

FWIW, most people in most Western democracies would back Bernie, too. If for no better reason than most people in most Western democracies simply can’t imagine life without universal health care.

It’s quite possible to recognize that universal health care is the smartest and most efficient and prudent arrangement for any economy, and simultaneously to believe that Sanders as the Democratic nominee is, to put it mildly, unwise. (This is assuming that one sees getting rid of Trump as the first necessity).

[dalej42]

@Sherrerd

I’ve spent some time, in recent days, reading Twitter threads dominated by self-professed Bernie fans. Of course there’s no telling who’s actually a fan of his (much less a registered US voter) and who’s there to stir up mischief.

What’s stood out:

***The high emotion, for everything. Every topic is LIVE OR DIE / ARE YOU STUPID / YOU MUST BE A CORPORATE WHORE / YOU’RE A MORON GO KILL YOURSELF / HOW CAN YOU THINK THAT WAY YOU IDIOT etc etc etc. If people paid by Putin are encouraging this, they are finding fertile ground. (I won’t quote sample tweets here–it’s just the usual dimwitted invective, as shown in the all-caps.)

***The parroting of the standard Don’t Vote memes: Your vote stands for YOU and you must not cast it for anyone who doesn’t hold your positions on every issue! Politicians have an OBLIGATION to court you and please you and if they don’t, they don’t deserve your vote. If they don’t give us what we want they can just hold their breath because we will stay home! Staying home and not voting is the mark of a sophisticated person! (Or of a “spiritual” person.) Staying home and not voting will teach them a lesson! Next time they’ll work harder to please us! Etc. etc. etc.

Sample tweet: “No one has a right to your vote. If someone wants your vote let them earn it. Let them appeal to you.”
***The encouragement to see the DNC, and the Democratic Party in general, as the Worst Evil On Earth. They are AWFUL and they do not deserve to be rewarded with our votes (etc.)!

Sample tweet: “I gave them my vote begrudgingly in 2016 and they lost to an orange idiot. So excuse me if im not excited to repeat that mistake again.”

Another: “The GOP is banking on the DNC cocking their own voters over. The DNC is fine with being GOP enablers. Welcome to the politics of Neoliberalism.”
***Explicit mockery of any mention of Russian involvement in our elections that’s been in the news (such as has come out today and the past few days). The idea is repeatedly advanced that it’s utterly ridiculous to assume that the Kremlin has anything resembling a social-media strategy to meddle in US elections–or to put it another way, the findings of Mueller’s report are soundly and thoroughly rejected and derided.

Sample tweet: “How are you people so [effing] lazy that you still cry “Russia” at every opportunity?”

Who knows what percentage of actual American-voter Bernie supporters are purveyors of this stuff; it could be 1% or 90%. No telling, at this point. (That awaits a full-fledged poly-sci or sociological study.)

But it’s notable for how closely it adheres to what’s coming out of Kremlin-directed troll farms. Same themes; same emotion-intended-to-divide.

I always suggest looking at their Twitter feed. I am a huge supporter of Pete, my Twitter is posted in my signature. While I definitely support Pete, my Twitter is more than 24/7 politics.

[septimus]

@Aspenglow

I think you are missing the point. It’s not what Russia/China/Iranians/North Koreans/Turks are doing. It’s how one party is welcoming the foreign assistance and doing nothing to protect our elections from the interference. This is a national security issue and every American should be insisting that our government officials protect us from such subversion. That’s what’s different, and that’s where we need to pay attention and hold those officials to account.

Why have no election security bills been brought to the floor of the Senate for a vote?

Why are no Republican Senators speaking out against this foreign interference, or trying to do anything to stop it?

Why is Bill Barr requiring all investigations into foreign election interference coordination with American citizens to be personally approved by him?

These questions are just for openers.

This is what should really shock us. Elections being influenced by lies? Nothing new. Russia acting as a major enemy, using cyber warfare and exploiting weaknesses? Nothing new. A U.S. political party that actively encourages Russian interference? Not just Trump the Crook-in-Chief, but Moscow Mitch and the entire Senate Majority? This is an absolute scandal. Those who don’t sense the failure of American Democracy now, need to wake up.

But No. Every.Single.Republican takes the point of view: “Putin may be a ruthless anti-American tyrant bent on destruction of the U.S., but if helps Trump get re-elected I’m all for it!!” The shame!

[Aspenglow]

@Socsback

It wasn’t Russian trolls chanting “Wall Street Pete!”, and booing him before Bernie’s victory speech in NH. Those were U.S. trolls.

Are you familiar with the information in the Mueller report about how Russians targeted particular “influencers” in 2016 who were Trump supporters to go hold rallies on Trump’s behalf?

From the Mueller report, p. 35:

Starting in June 2016, the IRA contacted different US persons affiliated with the Trump Campaign in an effort to coordinate pro-Trump IRA-organized rallies inside the United States. In all cases, the IRA contacted the Campaign while claiming to be US political activists working on behalf of a conservative grass roots organization. The IRA’s contacts included requests for signs and other materials to use at rallies, as well as requests to promote the rallies and help coordinate logistics. While certain campaign volunteers agreed to provide the requested support (for example, agreeing to set aside a certain number of signs), the investigation has not identified evidence that any Trump Campaign official understood the requests were coming from foreign nationals.

Point being, would Bernie’s people even realize they were being thus manipulated? Would any of us? I see little evidence on this forum that people in general are willing to consider that they themselves may have fallen prey to such influence. It’s a hard thing to consider – and that’s one of the things that makes it so insidious.

[SlackerInc]

The really depressing thing is how indifferent most voters–even many Democrats–have seemed to be to all this Manchurian Candidate monkey business. Not a good sign for the health of our society.

I’m desperately hoping (I almost wrote “praying” but I’m an atheist) that this news will be a wakeup call to enough Democrats that Bernie takes a significant hit and can be overtaken in the primary race.

[Senegoid]

@Sherrerd

Putin has chosen the easiest possible way to affect the world: make it angrier and more divided.

This, and bring as much chaos as possible to American government. Thus, I think Trump is Putin’s first choice to be president, and Bernie possibly his second choice.

So, promote Bernie in the primaries with the strategy of getting him nominated.

Then, if that succeeds, Putin will be certain that one of Trump or Sanders will be president next.

[Dale_Sams]

@Paul_in_Qatar

Bernie Sanders briefed by U.S. officials that Russia is trying to help his presidential campaign

This certainly gives me no pleasure to report. The idea seems to be that Bernie is the weakest opponent to The Donald. The Donald is of course who they want in the White House.
How does this change your thinking?

Not a whit. I wouldn’t believe the Post if they told me water was fucking wet

I will continue to vote for whoever I feel best qualified for the job.

[Paul_in_Qatar]

@Dale_Sams

Not a whit. I wouldn’t believe the Post if they told me water was fucking wet

“Angrier and more divided” as someone said upstream.

[Unreconstructed_Man]

@SlackerInc

The really depressing thing is how indifferent most voters–even many Democrats–have seemed to be to all this Manchurian Candidate monkey business. Not a good sign for the health of our society.

I’m desperately hoping (I almost wrote “praying” but I’m an atheist) that this news will be a wakeup call to enough Democrats that Bernie takes a significant hit and can be overtaken in the primary race.

Or maybe that’s what Putin wants? Maybe it’s all just a big double bluff to scare Democrats away from Bernie so Trump can walk to victory against Senile Joe, Mini Mike or Pocahontas? Or maybe it’s a triple bluff? Or a quadruple bluff? Or…or…or…

Here’s an idea. How about Democrats just nominate who we want and then just work hard to make the best possible case for that person. Seriously, fuck Putin! Fuck his junior high school level social media machinations, and fuck what he wants. He only matters because we let him.

[septimus]

I’ll briefly paraphrase the valid and important message which now dominates intelligent political discourse:
Americans are now so confounded by all the Fake News that they treat all news as Fake and just follow whatever prejudice tickles their reptilian brain.
On this topic, I’m bookmarking one of the posts in this thread and marking it as Exhibit #1.

[bobot]

@Paul_in_Qatar

Bernie Sanders briefed by U.S. officials that Russia is trying to help his presidential campaign

This certainly gives me no pleasure to report. The idea seems to be that Bernie is the weakest opponent to The Donald. The Donald is of course who they want in the White House.
How does this change your thinking?

I’m curious how this plays with Trump. Does he concede that it’s happening? Does denying that it’s happening come off as a small defense of Sanders? Perhaps such a defense might be necessary to continue the charade that this interference is insignificant. But then again, that’s only one dimension, three sentences of thinking. I’ll see what mr. 4 dimensional chess comes up with.

[Lord_Feldon]

@bobot

I’m curious how this plays with Trump. Does he concede that it’s happening? Does denying that it’s happening come off as a small defense of Sanders? Perhaps such a defense might be necessary to continue the charade that this interference is insignificant. But then again, that’s only one dimension, three sentences of thinking. I’ll see what mr. 4 dimensional chess comes up with.

My guess is that he’ll decry it as a hoax, and cry crocodile tears in hopes of whipping up the small conspiracy-minded minority of Bernie’s coalition into believing that They are trying to steal the nomination from Bernie “again.” (In fact, I wouldn’t be shocked if that’s exactly why this came out.)

[Kimera757]

@Sherrerd

***The high emotion, for everything. Every topic is LIVE OR DIE / ARE YOU STUPID / YOU MUST BE A CORPORATE WHORE / YOU’RE A MORON GO KILL YOURSELF / HOW CAN YOU THINK THAT WAY YOU IDIOT etc etc etc. If people paid by Putin are encouraging this, they are finding fertile ground. (I won’t quote sample tweets here–it’s just the usual dimwitted invective, as shown in the all-caps.)

Being overly emotional is the left’s biggest weakness. Also the obsessive focus on identity politics. Pair that with “THEY’RE COMING FOR YOUR GUNS!” on the right (along with a desperate need for some right-wingers to control people’s sex lives) and no wonder a lot of people just give up on politics.

It reminds me about a Nixon voter who basically lost touch with reality after the Watergate scandal broke, insisting that Nixon did nothing wrong as more and more evidence went public. (I think that’s true of a lot of Trump voters too.)

Also nonsense like this: #StillVotingYang

He dropped out. Please don’t vote for Jill Stein or some other third party (and please don’t stay home) because Yang didn’t win. Presidents don’t pass legislation in the first place.

[Lord_Feldon]

Ahh, I see Trump (or whoever runs his account) has already tweeted about this, along the lines I expected:

MSDNC (Comcast Slime), @CNN and others of the Fake Media, have now added Crazy Bernie to the list of Russian Sympathizers, along with @TulsiGabbard & Jill Stein (of the Green Party), both agents of Russia, they say. But now they report President Putin wants Bernie (or me) to win.

The reason for this is that the Do Nothing Democrats, using disinformation Hoax number 7, don’t want Bernie Sanders to get the Democrat Nomination, and they figure this would be very bad for his chances. It’s all rigged, again, against Crazy Bernie Sanders!

This follows six other tweets just this month pretending to sympathize with Bernie over the supposed suppression of his campaign.

[enipla]

Vlad : “Let’s help Bernie a little bit too. And leak it. God knows we will have to leak it like a faucet turned on. The US won’t even listen to their own intelligence agencies, and now a moron is in charge of those as well. But this will piss off Trump supporters and Trump will get more votes”.

I very much doubt Trump could play Tic-Tac-Toe.

[QuickSilver]

And people say Trump hasn’t learned his lesson. Nonsense! He’s learned it very well: There are no real negative consequences to inviting interference by foreign actors in helping him win the election. A+.

[JKellyMap]

StillVotingYang? Good grief.

[Lord_Feldon]

@JKellyMap

StillVotingYang? Good grief.

Given the results from Iowa and New Hampshire that showed just how few people were ActuallyVotingYang, I don’t think we need to be worried about the hangers-on representing anything substantial.

[AK84]

@Sherrerd

Putin has chosen the easiest possible way to affect the world: make it angrier and more divided. (If I believed in hell I’d certainly think he deserved its deepest level.)

:rolleyes:
Americans have destroyed entire nations in the last two decades in the name of “democracy”.
Plenty of your countrymen deserve to keep him company in that level.

[UltraVires]

“Still trying to outsmart me, aren’t you, mule-skinner. You want me to think that you don’t want me to go down there, but the subtle truth is you really don’t want me to go down there!”