A year ago today, the US eagle flew beak-first into a pile of lurid muck. Happy Birthday, Mr President, and may I be among the very first to bemoan your improbable landing, one made possible in no small part by the campaign of your nominated rival. Certainly, there is hard evidence that the Clinton campaign actively sought to elevate Trump. Still, there’s really not much evidence about the Kremlin.
The Clinton campaign’s so-called pied-piper strategy, detailed here in a leaked document sent to the Democratic National Committee in 2015, urged that the press be instructed to take Trump, and two other Republican candidates with bigoted views, seriously. The reasoning went: if “communities of color, millennials, women” heard from a sexist, racist, ageist candidate often, they would be more likely to vote for Clinton.
The Clinton campaign and the DNC amplified hateful messages. Still, little harm was done by these to the GOP, or to the improbable Trump. “Communities of color”, on the other hand, did suffer.
More than a year later, liberals remain convinced that a shadowy mob helped Trump make it to the top. After all, Clinton was “the most qualified”. What is missing in this common analysis is reflection of the sort provided in portable paperback form by lifelong Democrat Thomas Frank. Frank points out that the US middle class has disappeared under conspicuously qualified administrations. For as long as the Democratic Party fails to genuinely address soaring wealth inequality of a type not seen since 1929, and its advocates refuse to admit that qualified technocrats, like Clinton, have earned a very bad name, the search for that shadowy mob continues.
But look. We found it: in Moscow.
I understand the basis for yesterday’s claims in Crikey that “The Russians” took part “in a dedicated campaign to get Trump elected”. It’s tricky for any Western individual, including reporters, to resist making such confident statements. It has become accepted alternative fact that “Russia” interfered in the US election. It is now even possible to say that “Russia loves election interference”, and that this historic passion outlasted even the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
To counter the Russia Dunnit story is to be seen as an opponent of what we now call “The Resistance” — that’s how centrist supporters of a war hawk who accepts six-figure sums to say relatable things to the richest people on Wall Street describe themselves.
To sustain the story, however, is to counter the truth.
The latest kerfuffle about Russia’s use of social media just doesn’t add up. To say that it’s a miscalculation to believe in the power of $100,000 worth of shoddy ads on Facebook — and this one featuring Clinton in devil horns fighting Jesus looks more like a gag than an effort at persuasion — is not to endorse the practices of either Silicon Valley or the Kremlin. It’s no surprise that a global business would accept money from any fatherland. It would be no surprise if we learned that Putin, a leader who once employed a post-modern theatre director to create a maze of propaganda, liked to stuff about with foreign media. But one hundred grand? Against Clinton’s US$200 million TV spend, and US$30 million on digital in just the last weeks of her campaign?
And this, of course, supposes that the ads were actually Russian and not, as was disclosed in the congressional hearing, “Russian-linked”; which apparently can mean a Russian IP address, such as I sometimes select on my VPN, a Russian name or any evidence that the buyer has used Cyrillic characters.
There is no evidence of orchestrated “misinformation”. Which is not to say this didn’t happen. Propaganda, and actual election interference — and the hacking story has been falling apart for some time — happens all the time. Such as in 1996, when Bill Clinton teamed up with the IMF to fund Yeltsin’s campaign.
This Facebook story will soon fade. When outlets so determined to find the “indisputable” cause for the Clinton loss find that the things they rushed to say are disputable, they will print small retractions. Such as The Washington Post did when their story on Russian “fake news” was itself found to be a fake. Such as The New York Times did when it incorrectly stated that 17 intelligence agencies agreed that Russia had orchestrated a hacking attack.
What will not fade is the widespread conviction that Russia, a nation that currently has US troops at its border areas, loves Trump. Fiction is, after all, less painful than the political truth: America has done a wonderful job of hacking itself to pieces.
I’ve sometimes wondered about the arcane thought processes that lead to some of the meanderings of these columns but it’s becoming even harder to make out the logic in them. Russian foreign policy is a little like that of the USA, my enemy’s enemy is my friend, as dumb as that it. So it’s not that ‘Russia likes Trump’ rather that Putin appears to hate Clinton. It really doesn’t take much to understand that but that would eliminate the need to write all the wasted words in this particular display of journalistic excellence.
No fake news here!
Well George, what you call “meandering” I would call “investigative journalism”, something which our MSM is abysmally short of. Try going through the links in the article one at a time so you can come to understand the “arcane thought processes”. As to your comment about “Russian foreign policy”, please provide evidence to back up your assertion.
“Russian foreign policy is a little like that of the USA, my enemy’s enemy is my friend, as dumb as that it.”
You’re putting words in Helen’s mouth.
Nobody’s foreign policy is like the US kind. Are you an old-fashioned realist? The hegemon can have a foreign policy all its own.
That’s just maths, mate.
And you could argue rather than saying that I have missed something obvious. But I guess it’s easier to call someone stupid that do that. Just as it’s easier to say that Russia did it, due to the odd conviction that Putin “hates” Hillary.
Hear! Hear! An occasional voice of reason in the miasma of neo-McCarthyist hysteria which is our mainstream media, including dear old Aunty, if Monday’s Four Corners is any indication. Its otherwise laudable coverage of the Paradise Papers leak just had to have a short irrelevant intro which claimed they showed a “Russia Dunnit” connection when there clearly was nothing of the sort. But going back to “Russian interference”, just this morning there was a piece (not MSM) where ex-NSA whistleblower William Binney claimed that forensic analysis of data transfer speeds indicated that the “DNC hack” was in fact a “leak”. Meaning a local download to a portable storage device. To add to the story, CIA Director Mike Pompeo is “under fire” for meeting with Binney. It seems the “Russia Dunnit” edifice is riddled with cracks and falling apart.
With a choice of Trump or Clinton, foreign interference was a relatively minor problem for the 2017 election. Whether it happened or not is kind of beside the point when the was no way to vote for a reduction in poverty and inequality and a return(?) to meaningful democratic representation. Having this argument is real deck chairs on the Titanic stuff.
Agreed. The real overall story is that there was no one worth voting for. Trump at least made some noises about “making America great again”, though of course has now been totally absorbed into the neocon camp.
I am torn on this.
I agree that whatever influence the Russian state may have had on the US 2016 election would not have been a major factor by itself – in more run-of-the-mill elections there would have been no discernible effect on the outcome – but in a finely balanced election, as 2016 turned out to be, then I can see Russian meddling via a troll-bot army could well have been one of many factors that tipped the election. We’ll probably never really know.
There is, as described in this article, a disturbing desire on the part of many establishment entities to try to focus blame on a few narrow factors that they choose as being the easiest to demonize – Russian interference being a very soft target, and an unwillingness to take a good hard, deep look at all the various factors at play.
So, yes, the Clinton camp, the Democrats, the neo-liberal establishment all have questions to answer that they are avoiding answering honestly, and they are definitely loading much more responsibility than is deserved onto Putin and ‘collusion’ with Trump.
However, I find the opposing camp of Putin apologists just as frustrating and just as unwilling to look honestly at internal and external Russian behaviour.
Putin, and the Russian state, clearly have an agenda – it’s not to support Trump because they love him per se, but supporting Trump is the best way to serve their actual agenda. Destabilizing the USA and the West in general, and discrediting liberal democracy, is a prime strategic goal, and goodness knows assisting Trump to get elected is a master stroke.
Certainly states of all persuasions have meddled in the affairs of other countries for as long as there have been states and countries and will continue to do so into the future – there’s nothing we can do about that, and the US, as noted by others, has been a prime culprit. It is something I think that should be discouraged and disapproved of whoever is perpetrating it, but getting all ‘het up’ about it is not going to solve anything – the only recourse I can see is to try to inoculate one’s own citizens as best as possible through ensuring a decent standard of living for all, and a good education for all. But that doesn’t seem enough anymore, and I don’t have any good ideas on where to go from here to counter fake news and deliberate stirring from whichever quarter it may come from.
Focusing on Russia (and on Trump for that matter) is certainly to be distracted from the significant real issues at play in the modern structures underpinning our Western economies and failures of democracy. But ignoring Russian behaviour is not sensible either. Keeping things in perspective, keeping an open mind, keeping an eye on what evidence there is and what it points to … that’s what I would ask of the media, and of the public in general.
Sadly, as Razer has pointed out in previous articles, this is an appeal to enlightenment ideals, and clearly that has no weight in this day and age.
I always have to laugh at the statement of Russia “destabilising the west, or the world for that matter”. The statement in itself is laughable if only due to the fact that we are not dealing with the Soviet Union anymore and Russia, aside from Syria and border squabbles is actually in Russia. Compare that to the Anglo-American empire which has been and still is destabilising the world since WWII through non-stop intervention, peacekeeping any other new euphemism that comes up with for starting a war. Obama inherited 2 wars and started another 5 to rightfully win a Nobel peace prize – what a guy! Count the US military bases around the world, vs the Russian one and tell me the score…
You can put your fingers in your ears and go “nyah nyah nyah” as much as you like but the (not alternative) fact is that Russia did indeed meddle in the election and generate fake Facebook/Twitter/etc noise. Argue as much as you like on what effect it had but bear in mind that Trump fell in with around 100k votes across three states and 3m less votes overall. That noise might just have been enough to tip him in. The reason they did it is pretty logical really. Anything that causes chaos in the US helps Russias foreign standing.
Russia didn’t make it a tight race, maybe the fact it was a tight race where one of the candidates was literally Donald Trump should be looked into?
Which meaning of “literally” are you using?
I mean it in the literal sense that one of the candidates, in fact the successful candidate, in the previous US presidential election was Donald Trump. Donald Fucking Trump, in the concrete, real sense, and not figuratively or metaphorically, won an election and this is not a Simpsons joke but something that happened in real life. It does not take 100000 bux of socmed ads to make that not absurd!
Let’s leave aside that there is no compelling evidence that the Kremlin dunnit. And that we will probably never know, given that $100,000 is an amount so small, it could never be audited. I think spies can get that in petty cash.
I am not denying that “Russia” (and, again, this seems to mean a lot of things, particularly in the case of the Podesta hacks—which were far more likely to be leaks, not hacks—which have only ever been shown to be “consistent with Russian hacking methods”. Which means “consistent with hacking methods”) did something. I am merely pointing out that there is no compelling evidence that there was, per wide claims, an “orchestrated” government attempt at disinformation.
The prevalent idea that this is just like the Russians and that it is a Russian speciality they have been doing it forever is plain, dumb bigotry.
And, again, yes. There may have been a Kremlin order. But, FFS. Like there is any nation with a reasonable GDP (Russia’s is about the same modest size as Italy’s) that does not do this.
The true experts in election interference and regime tinkering have been American.
I have little doubt that there are a bunch of dodgy Trump mates who have benefited from deals with Russian oligarchs. But, please, ask yourself who made these oligarchs possible? It was Clinton’s husband. There are very clear records of Yeltsin being elevated by Bill, and then very murky records of where those billions went.
And Hillary Clinton? Who permitted and even celebrated the murder, by anal rape with bayonet, of the leader of oil rich Libya? She said “we came we say he died” on television, thereby approving the act of Libya’s Islamic fundamentalists. Which we hate when they kill children in Manchester, but are fine to stir up by invasion. I mean, that’s some foreign tampering, right?
All of which is to say, yes (as I did clearly) it is entirely possible that Putin ordered a little chaos. And this is not good. Then again, nor is Clinton giving money to an independent operative who then gave it to the Kremlin. How is this not also an outrage? Clinton gave money to the Kremlin to research her opponent?
Yes, yes yes. IF “Russia” did some of what has been claimed (and a lot of it has already been disproved) then that’s bad. But, we must also say that this is, regrettably, business-as-usual, and a business perfected by the USA.
The obsession, which has now been going on for over a year, is ludicrous. I mean, look at US foreign policy on Russia? If Trump is, as claimed so cosy with Putin, why does he have so many troops at their border?
The primacy of the obsession is what concerns me. When there is a new president, either Dem or GOP (and anti-Russian sentiment still runs deep in that party) the USA will be committed to hostility toward Russia. A nuclear power. And largely because the effing press won’t quit with this Russia Russia Russia nonsense.
And to anyone here who says I am naive etc. Whatever. I have read broadly and often and for more than a year on the matter. I have spoken with other journalists and international relations scholars about it. That I come to a different assessment about the important of “Russian hacking” to you doesn’t mean I’m thick. It just means we disagree.
RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA
Thanks for that clarification, Helen. Having not followed this as closely as others (such as yourself) I’ve been willing to accept some degree of Russian malfeasance. But when the paltry figure of $100,000 was quoted, my response was as yours: “Is that it?”
If that’s all it takes to buy an election then I’m liquidating my term deposit and investing in anti Malcolm Turnbull social media today.
That paltry sum should make us all worried rather than cynical. Media barons like Murdoch spend countless millions trying to influence the population into voting his way when they could have saved their dosh.
FFS, Mike. You really have bought this whole “Russia decided the election” garbage, haven’t you.
Hey Helen. For some reason I can’t reply to your last post but for the record i haven’t “bought” anything. Show me where I have please. Anyhow what does it matter because no-one is invested in what I think and very few in what you think. FFS. Over and out.
Hi, Mike. I do genuinely apologise for my snappy tone. It was wrong.
I still disagree with your assessment though. (And, I do care what you think, because you often make useful contributions here.)
You have said several times that we *should* be worried about Russia. And while I have said, both in the article and in the comments, that, yes, it is wrong if Russia did this, my chief concern is the absolute primacy given to these allegations. It’s been more than a year since Trump was elected and a lot longer since “the Russians” were being blamed for fiddling with the election. There is still no compelling evidence that they did.
Yes. Again. It’s a worry. As you keep saying. I am not saying it’s not. I am, however, interested to make the case that this matter, which has now seen two major public DC investigations and continues to dominate headlines, needs to be set aside.
There’s no compelling evidence. After more than a year of looking for it, it’s still not appeared. What has emerged, though, is a very broad agreement that it did, in fact, take place.
So, what happens if that is the case? A bunch of Clintonites get to say “And that’s why we lost the election!” And if it is shown not to be? Well, Trump looks better to voters. Both results will be bad.
Again. It is only the blind insistence that this took place before evidence suggests it does that I am criticising. This is terrible for journalism and for politics. Much worse than the allegations.
The longer I live the more I am convinced that the grandest historic events are the simplest of human emotions magnified exponentially. There’s the basic psychological principle of deflection. If you’re caught doing something wrong or are embarrassed about, quickly point at someone else and make lots of noise. Quite simple and childish even, though grownups in suits and in grand oaken chambers and on television do so with straight-faced conviction. Sad really, but if you want to establish guilt, then look at who is doing the finger-pointing.
No worries Helen. Rock on.
It’s interesting that you write that ‘there is no compelling evidence’ as the start of your reply but then write ‘I have come to a different assessment as to the significance ..’. Which is it? Was there interference, significant or not, or was there not? The inconsistency in your stance is rather obvious. You really can’t have it both ways although old style Marxists and western capitalists all try. Russia, the USA and China, as well as every other powerful country, or countries that think they are, as well as rich people and organisations meddle in each other’s internal affairs. To single out the actions of the USA and ignore those of Russia and China sounds more like the prattle of the 50’s and 60’s Marxist left than anything I have read for a long time and that is just as intellectually lazy as justifying ‘capitalism’.
George, you’re sounding exasperated. If you don’t agree with Helen’s arguments then don’t be intellectually lazy, present a reasoned counter-argument. Your reply consists of unsubstantiated opinions, and borders on personal abuse because Helen’s opinion differs from yours. That said, if Helen sounds like a 1950’s Marxist to you, then you sound like a 1950’s McCarthyist to me. Both of you please calm down.