Instead Of Saving Face Americans Need To Face The Truth: 2016 Election Was Hacked

For good reason P.T. Barnum Bailey claimed that “There’s a sucker born every minute.” He was, after all, in America. A renowned showman, politician, and business man, he promoted hoaxes and founded the traveling Barnum and Bailey Circus. From the Feejee Mermaid to Tom Thumb’s Giant and Cardiff Giant, a lot of Americans were duped into putting their money into his personal coffers. This included placing their trust in him and his tricks, all of which made people believe something was real when it was not.

Easily Mislead, Managed And Suppressed
The same can be said about the presidential election in 2016. It too was a hoax. Not only did Facebook, Twitter, Google, and YouTube sell their sites to Russian oligarchs, military officials and foreign advertisers by being able to specifically target users on the basis of their own self-declared interests, but allowed Russian trolls to engage in repeated efforts to influence American policy and voters. The goal was to convince Americans to vote for Donald Trump while dissuading them from voting for Hillary Clinton. And it worked.

For now, the Justice Department just charged Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova. Another Russian troll, she’s been charged with tampering with American elections. This included managing the finances of a hidden but powerful Russian social media effort aimed at spreading more distrust for American political candidates. She also caused divisiveness over hot-button social issues like immigration and gun control. Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel has also indicted Russian oligarchs and military officials for their part in 2016.

In fact, data suppression and manipulation and electioneering, and pretend sites and groups and protests, were used on a massive scale. Controlled by the Internet Research Agency headquartered in St. Petersburg,[1] it was one of many that undermined confidence in democratic institutions and influenced public sentiment and government policies. They sought ways to influence voter perceptions and decision-making, namely to vote for Donald Trump or a lesser known candidate at the expense of Hillary Clinton.

Shaping Hearts And Minds
Shaping the political battlefield ahead of the U.S. presidential election, other agencies, like the Translator Project, tested the resonance of more themes. Their cyber scripts on NFL football, white nationalism, banning Confederate Statues, Black Lives Matter, the Opioid Crisis, Chicago’s ongoing violence, building a wall to stop illegal immigrants, Nancy Pelosi, and sanctuary cities were eerily similar to Donald Trump’s campaign script. So too were feedback loops, as people shared news, commentary and memes.

Their aim was to reach any American-especially conservatives, independents and alt-right voters-amenable to messages mixing patriotism and politics, and who might be easily outraged over political hoaxes. Political hoaxes, that is, which consistently denigrated Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and anything liberal. Russian trolls and military officials who propagated fake news and ads received millions of clicks. Others reached tens of millions of users, including Eric Trump, Roger Stone, Ann Coulter, and Michael Flynn.

But then there’s nothing new about disinformation in Russia, or the U.S. Both governments and oligarchs have always been in the business of spreading information with the goal of deception and suppression. A national specialty of both nations that dates back to their origins, state- and corporate-sponsored news and disinformation has mainly flowed one way: top down and into the hearts and minds of the most gullible. Once reason is surrendered, there’s no remaining guard against the most absurdities.

Knowing Americans Better Than They Know Themselves
Thanks to data collection, Russian trolls and military officials knew Americans better than Americans knew themselves. Their automated bot accounts found ready audiences for messages that were strikingly different in style but with one common political bent: they ably exploited underlying tensions among Americans, be they cultural, ethnic, racial, religious, sexual, or ideological. They targeted the right and left, encouraging the former to vote for Donald Trump while dissuading the latter not to vote for Hillary Clinton.

There were pretend groups for gays and lesbians, politically active Muslims and African Americans upset over police brutality. These invented cyber groups staged fake meetings and protests, and followed them by a disinformation campaign to cause deeper divisions. There were also fake ads with African Americans actors and actresses saying: SOME PEOPLE ARE BETTER LIARS THAN OTHERS, STOP HILLARY.”[2] It received millions of “Likes.” As emotion superseded reason, gullibility followed.

Other fake ads had the effect of amplifying a message key to both Donald Trump’s and the Russian trolls campaigns: that Hillary Clinton was so repugnant that even savvy black voters were abandoning her in droves. Meanwhile, some gullible Americans and conservatives picked up and amplified the same messages even more, such as FOX News and talk radio pundits Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones of Info Wars, and Mark Levine. All of these are still echo-chambers for Donald Trump who won the presidency.

Electioneering The Already Electioneered
From the beginning of Donald Trump’s candidacy, Russian oligarchs and military officials were overwhelmingly supportive of him. Whether this was a quid pro quo will be left up to Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel. Either way, Hillary Clinton was damaged by the Russians working on a variety of internet-managed accounts that were blunt in attacking her as weak, ailing corrupt, dishonest, evil, racist, incompetent, and elitist.[3] Their electioneering hacked the election of 2016-including the minds of many Americans

Researchers and investigators also say that the Russians had so thoroughly infiltrated online political conversation that what the Russian trolls and military officials posted and those produced by actual American conservatives and alt-right groups were often indistinguishable. They found that Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Twitter filtered the ads and posts, ensuring they matched up with their users opinion. This included WikiLeaks, Guccifer 2.0 and the Trump Campaign’s backdoor channels.

But then in many ways America’s election processes has always been hacked, a side show and three-ring-circus at best. Still, and given that just by itself the Internet Research Agency disinformation campaign reached 126 million Americans, and the total number of Americans who voted for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump would turn out to be less than 132 million, Americans need to quit saving face and face the truth. The last election was hacked and engineered to favor Donald Trump.

Lesser Of The Two Greatest Hoaxes Ever Perpetuated
It’s also time to admit America’s pervasive credibility gap and gullibility gap in politics and its voting process, something that still goes unchecked. This includes the power of social media to distort reality-and elections, and the kind of political messaging that might move a voter to cast a ballot a certain way or to skip an election altogether. These are the hoaxes many Americans continue to play on themselves, with Donald Trump being the latest-and perhaps the greatest-hoax ever perpetuated on the American people.

As for Hillary Clinton, she would have been the “lesser of the two greatest hoaxes” ever perpetuated on the American people. As a result, its important to develop a more critical understanding of America’s voting processes, including its fairness, accessibility and accuracy. This entails a healthy skepticism towards a two-party political system, the electoral college, the influence of Wall Street, lobbyists and special interest groups, and a “free” media and press that actually belongs to those who own it and ultimately control it.

Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John’s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.WN.com. You can read more of Dallas’ writings at www.beverlydarling.com and www.WN.com/dallasdarling.

(1) Miller, Greg. The Apprentice: Trump And The Subversion Of American Democracy. Custom House Publishers: New York, New York., p. 176.
(2) Ibid., p. 179.
(3) Ibid., p. 181.