In 1996, interfering in other countries’ elections was considered something to brag about (Time, 7/15/96).
The media maelstrom around the Helsinki meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin obscures at least one point of view: that it’s possible to believe that Russia intervened in the 2016 election on behalf of Trump without thinking that this is remotely comparable to Pearl Harbor, as Politico (7/16/18) declared, or “the worst attack on America since 9/11,” as a Washington Post headline (2/18/18) claimed earlier this year.
Not saying it doesn’t make it less true that both Russia and the United States frequently interfere in other countries’ elections—the US somewhat more frequently, according to a database of electoral interventions maintained by a political scientist at Carnegie Mellon. That’s a lot of Pearl Harbors.
In 1996, Time magazine published a cover story (7/15/96) headlined “Yanks to the Rescue: The Secret Story of How American Advisers Helped Yeltsin Win.” Russian President Boris Yeltsin, you may recall, embraced the idea pushed by Western advisors that what the Russian economy needed was “shock therapy,” a policy that resulted in the country losing about a third of its GDP. Yeltsin also created the model for the authoritarian post-Soviet Russia we have today, notably when he called out the military to shell the Russian parliament—just one of many examples that make clear that the difference between US and Russian electoral interference is not that “we” intervene on the side of democracy.
Contrary to this Washington Post op-ed (7/17/18), Trump’s Helsinki performance wasn’t even the presidency’s lowest point in the last six weeks.
Should we talk about electoral interference? Sure. But we don’t have to be led by media who are outraged at Moscow doing things that never bothered them when they were done by Washington—“It’s different cuz it’s us” is not really a moral principle—or whose concern about “foreign” interference in US elections is orders of magnitude greater than that around the interference represented by anti-black and anti-poor voter suppression, inaccessible polling places or partisan gerrymandering.
What justified concern there could be is undermined rather than served by airily ahistorical claims like that of a Washington Post op-ed by Garry Kasparov (7/17/18): “The Helsinki Summit Marks a New Low in the History of the US Presidency.” Suffice to say there are millions who disagree that Trump failing to acknowledge that he had Russian help in getting elected is worse than Bush Jr. invading Iraq, Reagan arming death squads in Central America, worse than Nixon bombing Cambodia, or Truman dropping atomic bombs on civilians, or FDR rounding up Japanese-Americans or, well, worse than the deliberate separation of children from their families at the southern border. A conversation without that perspective is hardly worth having.
I’d add “invading Afghanistan” to that litany of horrors, as a reminder that “the good war” had nothing to do with “justice”, and everything to do with ringing in “A New American Century” ™.
This is a full of shit article. If you want to go back to the begining of the country there has always been political manipulation of our own politics as well as interference in foreign politics. That has nothing to do with foreign interference with our politics, a concern of none other than George Washington. The Russians at the direction of Vladimir Putin used social media to sow decention among Americans by spreading lies and exaggerations to inflame our differences. Case in point, If you try to convince a Conservative that Hillary Clinton didn’t murder Vince Foster or run a child prono ring out a Pizza parlor in Washington DC, you get laughed out of the room. Everyone knows that is true, but it’s not,…..it’s a fake story that is constantly being repeated and replanted on social media. That is the kind of crap all of us are being inundated with by Russian hackers. It is a purposeful attempt to screw with our minds. It’s a Russian speciality call propaganda. They have spent the 70 years perfecting the manipulation on their own people. Don’t let them do it here.
You didn’t need the Russians to sow dissent. The two major parties ran the most unpopular candidates ever. And in keeping with the theme of this article, Hillary Clinton was pretty much vilified during the 2008 election. There was the famous 2008 Barack Obama Ad:
“Hillary Clinton will say anything to get elected. Now she’s making false attacks against Barack Obama. The Washington Post says Clinton isn’t telling the truth. She championed NAFTA, even though it has cost South Carolina thousands of jobs. And worst of all, it was Hillary Clinton who voted for George Bush’s war in Iraq. Hillary Clinton. She’ll say anything and change nothing. It’s time to turn the page.”
If anything, your comment demonstrates the truth of this article as you seem to have forgotten how unpopular Clinton was. Then you go on to say its no problem when it is Americans doing what you claim the Russians did.
I’m sorry, but any “Russian interference” was de minimis compared with anything that US actors were already doing. Unless you want to tell me Barack Obama was a Russian stooge.
I don’t think you realize how significant it is that this president has not put his properties in a trust when he has claimed he has both significant loans from Russia and significant investments there. Nor the extent of the personality targeting via Facebook data that was obtained by a researcher, then provided to Russia via St. Petersburg University and additionally sold to Cambridge Analytica in the UK. Or the consequence of sluffing off Putin/Russia’s election meddling in the US. Your equivocation is not useful here.
These things you mention, none of them, are AT ALL as significant as the war in Iraq, and all the other things mentioned in this article. It is very disturbing that you think such things rise to the level of murdering people. You know also is not useful here? Your use of such cliche rhetoric like referring to someone’s legitimate argument as “equivocation”. Why don’t you throw in some logical fallacy terms in there as well, to make it even clearer that you are someone else’s pawn and speak in a prefabricated language paradigm.
Disagree with Matthew here, it is as significant as Iraq. However, Russians are not doing anything preventing emoluments clause impeachment, Trumps public popularity and that the Republicans themselves depend on money in politics is doing that.
Yet you have not even bothered to dispute a single fact in the article. You’re just repeating some of the propaganda, which this article does not even deny, I also doubt all comes from Russia.(ugh there is a name i cant remember..)
MB is being really charitable actually responding to it, to be frank.
Wow, Alex Wipf ,
A lot of the “crap ” stories originate in the NY Times, Washington Post Wall St. Journal—– and they seem to be guiding —– We, The Forever Innocent America : )——– into more wars… like Syria and Iran and Yemen, —-wait, you did know that Russia imploded after Afghanistan? I doubt that Russia was interested in interfering with America as they had their own problems.
Maybe you should read that TIME article about Yeltsin and how America controlled that election and got their guy, Yeltsin, elected. Russia didn’t do much rebuilding with Yeltsin. Besides that history , maybe you should read up on our own home grown liar of the 1950s, Senator McCarthy. As for George Washington—-He said “….”beware of entangling alliances…” .yeah that would be America and its 17 spy agencies all working at full throttle and never talking to each other, and too , we also have the BIG media that reports opinions and not much news. This all sounds sadly ENTANGLING to me.
I agree with Alex. Sure, MB, Hillary Clinton was NEVER a good candidate. It is why so many people wanted Sen. Sanders. But yes, the Russians have spent decades trying to mess with our heads and they succeeded on social media and are back this year because Putin’s Russia makes a habit of supporting the most right-wing elements and they have done in France with LePen, Germany with AFD, and elsewhere in Europe. And they have done it here and will do so again.
If you were reading Malcolm Nance you would know that Putin is seeking to destroy NATO and the European Union so that he has a free hand in Europe. Do not underestimate what Russia is doing so they may achieve very long-range goals having to do with their history and decades of resenting the western democracies.
You left out the Electoral College as another sickener of US politics. Clinton won the popular vote, the standard used by most democracies. She only lost in the Electoral College, which not only distorts the vote, but is purposefully anti-democratic. But there is an amusing aside to its existence: it is supposed to PREVENT foreign interference.
That is not actually the purpose of the electoral college AT ALL. It is to prevent the “tyranny of the majority.” It is to prevent a large faction of people that represent only a small geographical or ideological segment of this country from taking power. If America had 2 cities, each of them with 5,000,000 people (for a total of 10 million), and 8 million people that lived outside of those cities that had a completely different way of life, should those 10,000,000 in the cities be able to dictate all policy in favor of the urban areas? No, THAT is the point of the electoral college. And while I did not vote for Trump, it appears to be working as designed.
So those 8 million is the ideological segment dictate all policy instead of the 10 million.
You left out the Electoral College as another sickener of US politics. Clinton won the popular vote, the standard used by most democracies. She only lost in the Electoral College, which not only distorts the vote, but is purposefully anti-democratic. But there is an amusing aside to its existence: it is supposed to PREVENT foreign interference.
That is not actually the purpose of the electoral college AT ALL. It is to prevent the “tyranny of the majority.” It is to prevent a large faction of people that represent only a small geographical or ideological segment of this country from taking power. If America had 2 cities, each of them with 5,000,000 people (for a total of 10 million), and 8 million people that lived outside of those cities that had a completely different way of life, should those 10,000,000 in the cities be able to dictate all policy in favor of the urban areas? No, THAT is the point of the electoral college. And while I did not vote for Trump, it appears to be working as designed.
So those 8 million is the ideological segment dictate all policy instead of the 10 million.
Actually, there was something by Hamilton in THE FEDERALIST PAPERS suggesting an electoral college as a check on foreign interference among other things.
The AP article that Naureckas links to, which itself is a masterly piece of spin, observes that ‘The “Fancy Bear” nickname is a none-too-subtle reference to Russia’s national symbol.’ Indeed it is – and it might have occurred to a more rigorous journalist to ask: Is it plausible that a Russian undercover operation would choose a code name that so obviously said ‘Russian’? Let’s face it, the CIA has vast resources to spend setting up a false-flag operation of this nature. Why, in the notoriously smoke-and-mirrors world of undercover work, does the AP take at face value all the information it “obtained” – which would appear to mean “was given”?
The AP article that Naureckas links to, which itself is a masterly piece of spin, observes that ‘The “Fancy Bear” nickname is a none-too-subtle reference to Russia’s national symbol.’ Indeed it is – and it might have occurred to a more rigorous journalist to ask: Is it plausible that a Russian undercover operation would choose a code name that so obviously said ‘Russian’? Let’s face it, the CIA has vast resources to spend setting up a false-flag operation of this nature. Why, in the notoriously smoke-and-mirrors world of undercover work, does the AP take at face value all the information it “obtained” – which would appear to mean “was given”?