Individuals exercising their first amendment rights do not have the same reach as a propaganda apparatus of a major nation state. It's ridiculous to say that one person has the same reach as a government propaganda machine.
I think there's room for debate on what draws the line between "propaganda subverting the election" and "leveraging our modern scary-effective digital marketing techniques to spread your electoral message." Does it only count as an attack on democracy if a foreign state or individual is doing it?
Both parties made use of shops like Correct the Record in the last election, what does it mean when in addition to the campaigns, wealthy and influential individuals can exert even more reach in the next election? Is it only propaganda if the message is factually false or misrepresented, or is it enough to have enough money to spend or leverage over the platform that you crowd out all alternate dialogue? Is there a definable ethical spectrum for subversive digital messaging? I think there's plenty of subversive messaging online already, that's advertising. Personally, I think creating fake Americans on twitter to influence the American election crossed whatever the line is. It fails the smell test, it stinks of deception.
it's not purely about reach. A foreign government acting to affect elections to destabilize and weaken a country is very different from greedy citizens attempting to enrich themselves with political subterfuge. At the very least, rich American corporatists want to ensure the continuity of American hegemony; it's the cornerstone of their empires. Russian government interference is about deteriorating American hegemony; a system from which Twitter is a beneficiary.
Not the sort of thing that a grassroots could easily manage; buying a few hundred ads was just a small part of the wider propaganda and sabotage.
Twitter has just been complete shit at figuring out what happened on their platform, anyways; half of their 'identifications' come from, "Facebook told us this account was a sockpuppet on their platform..."
Might RT simply have the goal of getting a foothold in American news reporting by serving an underserved market? If learning more about the drastic mishandling of the Flint Michigan water crisis stirs class conflict in America, are you telling me you think that is a bad thing? It's what is missing from our democracy!
It's like Voice of America. They can break real stories of corruption and dysfunction, but I'd like to see them investigated and picked up by a more impartial source before I'm going to give them much headroom.
Which is another reason why local journalism is so important and criminalizing/demonizing it for being unflattering is so heinous.
What, exactly is the underserved market here? Who exactly are they serving with propaganda?
What is the propaganda you are referring to? You seem to assume all of RT's content is propaganda but can't name or link to any stories that qualify. Lol.
One could argue their reach is more efficient than pulling out a million dollar 30 second ad aired to less people. Also consider the millions in marketing materials that RT don't need.
e.g. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-...
It's still a false equivalence inasmuch as a rich American is spending money in a way to maintain the status quo; rich Americans like the Koch Brothers benefit from American hegemony. They spend their money to enrich themselves, but they still want the US to remain in power.
A rival government, however, does not want the US to remain in power. As an American company, Twitter benefits from American hegemony, and will act to protect it.
That's the kind of stuff RT publishes most of the time! Read through the historical headlines. This is a very embarrassing and inappropriate move by Twitter, likely intended only to curry favor with American elected officials.
This susceptibility is likely not particular to Americans. It's this difficult-to-fix nature that necessitates taking an indirect approach to solving this problem.
There was a podcast where locals in a small town in Eastern Ukraine said they leave the area immediately if a camera crew (for tv news I presume) shows up because they think wherever there is a camera crew in that town, the chances of some kind of bombing or another becomes very high. I mean there are various degrees of "fake" news. One could argue that "suits are back" [submarine] is fake news as well.
[submarine] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
You are telling me that this story and the great reporting about issues like this that the RT has published are horrible because they might impact American democracy?
The victims of the Flint crisis are some of the poorest Americans who do not have a voice in politics. For RT to report on issues of concern to the least empowered Americans may cause political change but that is not a bad thing. Papers that generate ad revenue from subscribers averaging over $100K per year in income simply won't write certain stories because nobody would care to read them.
Yes, IMO, they should. On net, they are not an honest "journalism" organization IMO and should suffer.
> Papers that generate ad revenue from subscribers averaging over $100K per year in income simply won't write certain stories because nobody would care to read them.
State media outlets can afford to lose tons of ad revenue for their cause. They create a remarkable simulation of the press that they exercise considerable editorial control over.
How about a direct approach: Governments should stop lying 24/7 to their citizens; Corporate Media needs to get off (rather kicked off) the privileged 'Fourth Estate' pedastal; and education and mental health issues are taken [as] central and fundamental issues to address.
That would do it.
And far as I can deduce, civilization boils down to sanity and thoughtfulness. The rest is window dressing and 'product'. (I am /not/ dismissing the fruits here, but rather focusing on 'roots'.) What is necessary is sanity. What is necessary is the ability to think effectively. Individually and collectively. Everything else is secondary, and if the former are lacking, abundance in other dimensions only gets you so far and then it peters out.
Seems bullish for advertising. I've chuckled at the fact Facebook tells its advertisers how amazing advertising Facebook is, while at the same time saying to the public that it's ludicrous to think Facebook had any impact on the election.
It seems like a fair portion of the US government now strongly believes that Russian social media propaganda is attempting to destabilize the United States government, with Twitter being a dominant platform for spreading the disinformation. So I'm sure there was quite an incentive to block some of this in some form.
The US has its own propaganda networks, of course. Russia's response to them tends to be far harsher. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/moscow-turns-off-voice-...)
So you expect companies to have jingoistic political allegiance to the jurisdiction that they happen to have been founded in? That is actually quite scary.
> strongly believes that Russian social media propaganda is attempting to destabilize the United States government
The key word here is "destabilize". If the NYT were to write a story about the water pollution in Flint Michigan and also break a story that officials covered up polluted water in 20 other major US cities, would that cause "destabilization"? I certainly hope it would! More than a few people should not win office again after such a fiasco.
The purpose of journalism is to be adversarial to powerful interests, and to share the truth (even if it's unflattering) with the public, so that corrective actions can be taken... corrective actions may involve changing the status quo.
As for "disinformation", nobody has pointed out what stories should be considered disinformation, and whether they were completely false, or if they were true but misleading.
Russia shutting down VOA is not terribly relevant here. The VOA is obviously propaganda if you listen for 10-15 minutes, while RT has focused on some important issues for the poorest Americans that do not get reliable coverage from other big media outlets.
We'll never know is how much Twitter management agreed to drop RT/Sputnik advertising based on what they felt was right (due to whatever reason), what was right or good for the business, or whether they did this largely due to pressure from the government. The main thing we know is that Twitter's corporate reaction here is obviously different than, say, Twitter's corporate reaction to their role in the Arab Spring.
Most of the time, in general, I think RT / Sputnik do report actual events, but with a very heavy pro-Kremlin slant (so not unlike VOA in this regard). However, they dip enough of their toes into the Infowars style conspiracy theory stuff (in part because relying on native disaffected groups is part of their strategy -- http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2015/57133... ) that I wouldn't trust an article only sourced there at all. If RT "broke" that officials covered up polluted water in 20 other major US cities, for instance, I'd look elsewhere to confirm that story.
Of course, as would I. It is not my understanding that the allegations of disinformation have to do with fake stories RT has allegedly broken. If so the number of stories to read to gauge the accuracy of the claims would be much smaller :)
Also, how are you going to "fix" people being dumb? We've been trying to figure that one out for a long time and it's going to take a while to make progress on that front.
Please explain where the "pollution" occurred. Over the past few years I have read RT from time to time and most of the stories were simply about negative aspects of American life that do not get much exposure/focus from American news organizations because they are not flattering. Things like the Flint Michigan water crisis, other areas of failed infrastructure, etc.
For many Americans, reading RT would be likely to create valuable awareness of important issues and make that person more likely to vote in his/her own best interest in the next election.
To say that RT has "polluted" the marketplace of ideas you really have to back that statement up with what you think "pure" ideas are that Americans should be exposed to before casting their vote.
Are you reading the Russian language articles they put out?
https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage_en...
What are the "memes" (per Dawkins' definition) that RT intends to publicize? Which of those are false, which are true but misleading, and which are actually true?
Does publishing stories that might make some voters angry with the status quo constitute being "fake news"?
Is RT "fake news" simply because of its origin? Or because of its content? Or because of the timing of its content? Specific examples please.
Under whatever definition you would use to classify RT as fake news, are any American news orgs (NYT, WaPo, CNN, Fox News, WSJ, etc.) also fake news? How do you draw the line? Is it based on content that is false, true but misleading, or true?
Do you believe that certain ideas are dangerous for Americans to believe? Should reading the writings of some of history's dictators be banned? Should violent music lyrics be banned?
All their articles related to Ukraine: Donbass, Crimea, MH-17.
They're repeating same lies designed by Kremlin hosts.
I'm not looking to RT for useful coverage of issues in the Ukraine, but when it writes about the Flint Water crisis or police brutality, it might actually have a less biased view than the American press. I hope this isn't actually the case but I fear it may be.
You're really trying to have it both ways, aren't you, comrade?
Specific examples, please: Exactly what have they gotten right that she got wrong? What have they covered that she missed? When have they brought attention to it when she ignored it? Who have they interviewed who she wouldn't invite to her show?
You yourself just insisted on specific examples, so I would expect you to provide the same courtesy and evidence to back up your own claims that you demand of other people. Why didn't you?
If you don't have any evidence for your claim, just say so, and don't try to deflect instead. Better yet, don't make claims you're not willing to provide any evidence to support, in the same breath that you demand other people to provide specific examples!
I used the example of the Flint Water crisis not to compare RT's coverage to the coverage offered by US media, but to use an example of a very embarrassing thing about the US that is the sort of thing that RT is inclined to publish.
Most people consider it quite reasonable that Maddow covered the Flint water crisis. But there are many other similar issues that do not get any press coverage by the US "news and entertainment" media.
One thing I will say about the US media's coverage of the Flint Water crisis is that a great effort was made to focus only on the problem in Flint, and a small number of officials who acted irresponsibly in the matter.
In reality, many elected officials make similar judgments all the time across all areas of government. It's just rare that we have something as reliable as a simple water pollution test to observe the harm that was caused.
So the real issue with the Flint water crisis is how did incentives come to exist that led Flint's infrastructure to fail so horribly? Where else in the US are similar incentives causing the decline of other important infrastructure? What can we as citizens do to help fix the incentives so that our leaders take it upon themselves to fight for proper upkeep of key infrastructure?
And, even more pragmatically, how many city water supplies are tainted by lead and other chemicals? Have all tests been administered and interpreted properly, etc. I recently learned (for example) that lead level testing in many cities has been highly inaccurate and has led to artificially low readings. This stuff has a tremendous public health impact.
It would be great to have a news organization (RT or other) whose goal it was to publish embarrassing things about the US, its failing infrastructure, and its corrupt politicians. For some reason we are told (by the charlatans) that in order to be patriotic we must defend those things against any foreign assault.
In reality, we in the US would benefit tremendously from increased scrutiny of our nation, its leaders, and its infrastructure. Why is Paul Ryan worth $8M after earning a paltry public servant's salary for his entire career? I'd like to know, and I think chances are if the truth were discovered he'd be run out of office with pitchforks.
Were you aware that Rachel Maddow got an Emmy for her coverage of the Flint water crisis? Or is that a big surprise to you?
Since you apparently were not aware of Rachel Maddow's coverage of the Flynt water crisis or the award she won for it, why don't you watch her Emmy-award-winning reporting for the answers to those questions you asked me to deflect from answering the questions I asked you first, to see if she's already answered some of your questions?
MSNBC’s complete coverage of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan – the health threat to residents, and the response from Governor Rick Snyder and others: http://www.msnbc.com/flint-michigan-water-crisis
Rachel Maddow wins Emmy for Flint water crisis coverage: http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2017/10/rachel_mad...
"Maddow persistently reported on the city's lead-in-water crisis in December 2015, weeks before Gov. Rick Snyder declared Genesee County in a state of emergency."
"A month later, the cable news host visited Flint, holding a live town hall broadcast at the Brownell/Holmes STEM Academy on the city's north side to speak with residents, educators, researchers and politicians, including Mayor Karen Weaver, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha and Virginia Tech Professor Dr. Marc Edwards."
"Maddow also spent time speaking with Flint residents, including master plumber Harold Harrington and activist-turned-mayoral candidate Arthur Woodson."
Since you presume to know so much about RT's "less biased" coverage of the Flint water crisis, then please tell me exactly when RT started to cover the Flynt water crisis, how many minutes of coverage they gave it, and what awards they won for their coverage, if any.
How does their coverage compare to Rachel Maddow's, and how is it "less biased" as you claim without proof? Give me SPECIFIC examples of how they were better and less biased. Links to evidence please, not diversions.
To quote your own words: "you really have to back that statement up". I will. Won't you?
Some more specific examples and links to evidence for you:
This article shows when other media outlets like MSNBC started covering it, but it doesn't mention anything about RT. You seem to think you know what the facts are in regard to that, so will you please share them with us? Again: Post evidence for your claims, don't just make more claims without evidence again!
ANALYSIS: How Michigan And National Reporters Covered The Flint Water Crisis: https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2016/02/02/analysis-ho...
"Among national media figures, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow stood out for her extensive coverage in December 2015, when she devoted far more time to the situation in Flint than every other major television network combined."
"More Than 68 Minutes devoted to the crisis on MSNBC's primetime programming in December and the first four days of January -- all of which took place on Rachel Maddow's show. That was far more than all the other broadcast and cable networks' primetime coverage of Flint, combined."
The evidence is overwhelming:
https://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/uploader/image/20...
https://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/uploader/image/20...
I think I had heard about Maddow's Emmy but forgotten about it. Please note that I did not claim that RT's coverage was superior to any other specific coverage, just that RT tends to cover many more of that kind of embarrassing, unflattering story that generally is not part of the major media/entertainment companies' coverage.
My point was not about the Flint crisis specifically, it was about the importance of those unflattering kinds of stories to the democratic process.
How many times do I have to ask you for evidence? You're the one who first demanded specific examples, then reneged multiple times when asked to provide the same thing yourself.
You want to have it both ways: in your mind, RT's extremely biased and politically motivated reporting of the Kremlin's official position on Ukraine doesn't disqualify their non-award-winning coverage of Flynt that you can't even produce examples of, but the bias you perceive when Rachel Maddow dares to criticize Trump by reporting his own words and deeds in her coverage of the Russian scandal totally disqualifies all of her award-winning reporting on the Flynt water crisis. Bullshit, comrade.
That's totally dishonest and hypocritical of you. You asked for specific examples, and now that I gave you some you don't want to discuss them, and still refuse to prove any specific examples of your own. I gave you those specific examples that you asked for. So I wish you would provide the same when asked again and again. I'll give you another try, now.
Please give me links to those RT articles about the Flynt water crisis that you claim are unbiased and better than Rachel Maddow's coverage, and give me links to Rachel Maddow's reporting on the Flynt water crisis that show she's biased.
Otherwise admit you don't have any evidence, even though you demand it from other people. Your stonewalling and deflecting and false equivalencies means it's true you have no evidence, and you're ignoring the evidence I gave you, but you don't have the intellectual honesty to admit it.
At least you've admitted that you're guilty of whataboutism, even though you don't understand what the term actually means.
Your own words:
"OK I'm guilty."
"Specific examples please."
I think this is the current boogey-man to go after. I think it's a useful tool for politicians (DNC, Hillary Clinton, Democrats and Republicans - none of them wanted Trump where he is today) to bury their heads in the sand and say that it wasn't their fault that they got the election so wrong. They can point to Russia and ignore their own shortcomings that in my opinion put people off of voting for what they "should" have voted for. Given the choice of a deeper soul-searching or blaming someone else, humans usually choose to point the finger at someone else.
Did Russia/Russians attempt to influence the election? Absolutely. I'm sure most major powers in the world did, in one way or another. They'd be silly not to at least consider it, in the same way that I'm sure the United States attempts to serve its own interests via other countries' elections. But I don't think it's anywhere near as effective as politicians seem to want to make it appear.
The issue here is that we have an entire generation that was raised in an environment where having stupid beliefs didn't matter, since news came from mostly "expert" sources, which is now living in a world where a big part of the information you give and receive comes from sites like Facebook or Twitter. If it's an education problem, it's unsolvable: you can't easily teach 50 year old the way they thought about media their entire life was wrong.
I think the fact that the core of our democracy was attacked with a vast and sophisticated operation by a foreign government to potentially prop up a candidate both friendly to and quite possibly compromised by that foreign government should lead to MORE fury than is currently happening.
This is nothing new though. For decades (perhaps longer), democracies have been subverted and are, unfortunately, a liability for many countries. Patriots see it as their duty to protect their countries by insulating themselves against this subversion and consolidating power. It's a dangerous trend.
You may want to investigate the voter ID / disenfranchisement question.
No one is arguing if it's new. The point is it was massive, sophisticated, and targeted. It was an organized attack. We can debate the history of election subversion some other time, but there is a real threat happening right now. Let's focus on that, yes?
What are you talking about?
The son of the candidate openly admitted to meeting with Russian foreign agents in order to secure a quid pro quo agreement (and that doesn't even touch on Flynn and Manafort). We have evidence of pen testing on voting infrastructure, we have copious amounts of evidence of psychological operations currently on-going from Russian services via social media.
This isn't about clinton, this is about defending the core of our democracy from foreign powers. It's obscene to try and shrug it off with such shallow cynicism.
Yet the "dossier" that was paid for via a quid pro quo arrangement is not of concern? IMHO both are very concerning.
> pen testing on voting infrastructure
Have you heard that an un-patched windows computer connected to an open internet connection will be pwned in minutes? This is only possible because of massive "pen testing" being done on all IP addresses.
So of course companies that manufacture voting equipment and have public IP addresses for web or email servers will be "pen tested".
Where will that traffic originate from? Probably in one of the many places where there is a lot of cyber fraud. Russia/Ukraine is one of those places. Without very hard, detailed evidence it is not reasonable to conclude that any such efforts were connected to the Russian government.
We have not been given any evidence, we've simply been told to believe this highly politicized narrative. I'm not ready to do that until there has been actual evidence.
> psychological operations currently on-going from Russian services via social media.
So you consider RT publishing stories about the Flint Water Crisis to be highly detrimental to the orderly nature of American society? News orgs are supposed to publish true stories that point out problems that need to be solved. It's sad and reminiscent of highly compliant citizens of a facist regime that anyone can take seriously the idea that stories in RT about Flint MI or about Laquan McDonald are endangering American stability.
Paid to an american firm by both the GOP and Dem campaigns. That is not the same as a quid pro quo with the intelligence service of a foreign government that is actively trying to interfere in an election
>So you consider RT publishing stories about the Flint Water Crisis to be highly detrimental to the orderly nature of American society? ...
That came totally out of no where. I'll let you argue that with your self all you want.
You can't throw around concerns about divisiveness or "sowing destablization" without asserting your view on stories that are true and legitimately concerning.
I suppose you think those are harmful to keeping everyone happy with their lot in life too?
Once our government learns that the consequence for subverting the trust of their citizenry is chaos, things will get better. But not until then. These people work for us, not the other way around.
In this case, there are plenty of factions which are capable of profiting from that chaos. It's not an accident, it's their preferred outcome. Mostly factions within the Republican party fighting against the "permanent state".
Other than the one thing for which there is some evidence, all of these are conspiracy theories so perhaps you're making your point but not in the way you'd like.
You've proven GP's point.
Edit: here is a source backing up the claims about Fusion GPS https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2017/07/11...
What's strange is that you cited as a source a newspaper article you don't agree with and which not only doesn't support but discredits your original claim. Then you spin wild conspiracy theories essentially claiming that Fusion GPS is an arm of the Kremlin without any sources.
Also, the entire point of providing links is to back claims, you need to now provided additional links to the ones you just made. (EDIT: Now provided. Thank you).
I'm still baffled why these reasonable concerns, no context being provided, is receiving a ridiculous number of downvotes.
According to this article in Mother Jones from October 31, 2016 (this is the first mainstream media article I have seen that directly references/quotes the dossier): http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave...
Steele denied in October 2016 that his "US company" client (the DNC) instructed him to go to the FBI. But then again, Mark Elias has been denying that the DNC funded this dossier for a year:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/10/25/fusion-gps-fallou... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/10/fbi-chief-gi...
In June 2016, a request to the Fisa court for surveillance of the Trump campaign was turned down. In July, the dossier was delivered to the FBI. In October, the Fisa surveillance request was granted. However, this Fisa court request was NOT about Carter Page - Page had been under FBI surveillance since a FISA court ruling in 2014: http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/18/politics/paul-manafort-governm...
> requested the meeting with Donald Trump Jr under pretenses of having damaging info on Clinton
This is a major claim to make without any solid substantiation.
From your “edit” link:
> Fusion GPS says it had no involvement in the meeting although it did work on a lawsuit that involved Veselnitskaya for more than two years. The firm’s work on the Trump dossier was on a different timeline. Nevertheless, Trump’s legal team is already conflating the two issues as part of their defense of the president’s son.
[1] I wouldn't say "won" but I would say "definitely helped" - there are a large number of other forces that contributed much, much more to the GOP win than Russia.
I mean, come on, a lot of us here know how web sites work. For a major country's spy agency, it would be trivially easy to automate account sign up and posting. Is it that hard to imagine? And when every dumb Joe on the planet is likely to believe the first thing they read that strategically appeals to their emotions? You do the math.
The problem is that you also need the gutted Voting Rights Act, rampant GOP gerrymandering, and the ridiculous favouring of Southern States by the Electoral College to get the win - and those have much more of an effect than a Russian finger on the scales.
Who stands to benefit or avoid harm from such a belief? Arguably the people responsible for the national circumstances that lead the population to vote for someone like Trump.
Growing wealth inequality? No, it's Russia
Questionable foreign wars? No, it's Russia
Massively deprived communities across the states? No, it's Russia
Off-shored working/middle class jobs? No, it's Russia
The Russia narrative is extremely attractive to those whose policies have been very unpopular with a large segment of society. Providing this can be kept up through the Trump presidency than the Democrat (and Republican to some extent) lines do not need to change. More of the same. It is not that people don't like our policies, they were just duped by Russia.
To believe that the effects of certain policies have been just rosy for a large section of Americans, is naive. To try and dismiss their views and blame them for being unknown puppets of Russia, is cruel and wrong.
note: I am not suggestion that Russia were not involved in some way in the US election.
Like Hillary being the worst candidate in a lifetime.
Would a good candidate brag about grabbing pussies, and attack a gold star family?
But hey, email.
There is also no corresponding scrutiny of American "news" outlets and the heavily biased stories that they run with impunity. We really don't have news anymore, it's just partisan entertainment. RT is at least as newsworthy as any of the major US news outlets, and I think quite appropriately focuses on issues of concern to the poorest and least politically empowered Americans.
We've seen similar levels of cognitive dissonance in the UK after Brexit. Russia, Low Information Voters, etc etc. It's all just excuses. Examine your policies and your candidates first.
Let me rewrite your post so it's more honest about where you got your misinformation from:
"Sean Hannity has said that the "Russia won the election" conspiracy theory is the Democrat's equivalent of "Obama was born in Kenya" birthers."
I'll leave it to you to explain why you didn't write that in the first place, and why anyone should ever take your seriously.
Stop right there. This is not the place for that. We all know the who desperately claims that again and again, using those exact same weasel words, and he's a pathological liar, so you embarrass and discredit yourself by parroting him.
Right-oh, king of the internet. I'll do exactly as you command.
Your and Trump's implication is that you're not going to say it yourself (even though you do), so you don't have to prove or defend it or stand by it, and it's not your fault if it's wrong -- the only thing you're saying is that people have said it, but you won't say who, and you won't say where you heard it or if you believe it, and you won't say whether they're full of shit or not, but we're not allowed to question or criticize you because your statement that "people have said" may be literally true in some sense, and you're staying above it all by not talking sides, just reporting what people have said, so it's unfair to shoot you as the messenger if it turns out what "people have said" is wrong.
There is absolutely no value to any sentence beginning with "People have said ..." Trump's words that you're literally parroting are the weaseliest of weasel words, the exact same words he used to self aggrandize and deflect responsibility for lying about a grieving mother in his vicious personal attack on a gold star family.
"She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me. But plenty of people have written that. She was extremely quiet. And it looked like she had nothing to say. A lot of people have said that."
"A lot of the people have said that, some people said it was the single best speech ever made in that chamber."
"People have said they’ve never seen this ever before in China."
"When you look at really what’s happened since Charlottesville, a lot of people are saying – and people have actually written – ‘Gee, Trump may have a point.'"
'A lot of people are saying...': How Trump spreads conspiracies and innuendoes
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-lot-of-people-are-...
Following the country’s most deadly mass shooting, Donald Trump was asked to explain what he meant when he said President Obama either does not understand radicalized Muslim terrorists or “he gets it better than anybody understands.”
“Well,” Trump said on the “Today Show” Monday morning, “there are a lot of people that think maybe he doesn’t want to get it. A lot of people think maybe he doesn’t want to know about it. I happen to think that he just doesn’t know what he’s doing, but there are many people that think maybe he doesn’t want to get it. He doesn’t want to see what’s really happening. And that could be.”
In other words, Trump was not directly saying that he believes the president sympathizes with the terrorist who killed at least 49 people in an Orlando nightclub. He was implying that a lot of people are saying that.
At a rally in New Hampshire in September, a man in the audience loudly declared President Obama a Muslim and “not even an American,” then asked Trump to get rid of Muslim “training camps.”
“You know, a lot of people are saying that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there,” Trump responded. “We’re going to look at that and plenty of other things.”
“Some people say it’s worse than stupidity. There’s something going on that we don’t know about,” Trump said in Hilton Head. “And you almost think — I’m not saying that, and I’m not a conspiracy person. . . . Half the people in this room are saying it. I’m trying to be — you know, I’m just hoping they’re just stupid people, okay?”
“I’d hate to see something like that get in his way, but a lot of people are talking about it, and I know that even some states are looking at it very strongly, the fact that he was born in Canada and he has had a double passport,” Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post at the time.
“I don’t bring [Foster’s death] up because I don’t know enough to really discuss it,” Trump said in an interview with The Post in May. “I will say there are people who continue to bring it up because they think it was absolutely a murder. I don’t do that because I don’t think it’s fair.”
“Somebody asked me the question the other day, and I said that a lot of people are very skeptical as to what happened and how he died,” Trump said. “I know nothing about it. I don’t think it’s something that, frankly, really, unless some evidence to the contrary of what I have seen comes up, I don’t think that it’s something that should be part of the campaign.”
Sean Hannity has said it. The quote is attributed. My bad for not spending 5 mins to google it first.
There's nothing stopping someone on US soil from exercising their first amendment rights in the same way to subvert an election. In fact I expect the next presidential election will be dominated by the same tactics from local organizations.
The susceptibility of Americans to shitty lies, conspiracy theories, and a lack of numeracy is a vastly greater threat to the integrity of the US government and much more difficult to fix.