New Yorker (10/1/18)
The November 6 midterms are fast approaching, yet much of the media is still looking back to the 2016 elections, and specifically the alleged Russian interference in them.
The New Yorker (10/1/18) published a 7,000-word article headlined “How Russia Helped Swing the Election for Trump.” Considering other explanations for Trump’s victory and Clinton’s loss, such as her tactical campaign errors, gerrymandering, vote suppression, racism and the actions of James Comey for only a paragraph, it quotes one expert claiming, “It stretches credulity to think the Russians didn’t” win it for him.
Meanwhile, the New York Times (9/20/18) released an intensive 10,000-word history and analysis of the Trump/Russia story, explaining to its readers that it was Putin’s “seething” ambivalence towards the West and his “nostalgia for Russia’s lost superpower status” that were the driving forces behind Russia’s nefarious actions.
There is also a great deal of fear about supposed hacking of the upcoming midterms. USA Today (10/9/18) warned, “As Russia and perhaps other foreign governments seek to undermine democratic elections, Congress and states need to get serious about defenses.” The PBS NewsHour (10/11/18) quoted one official who noted, “Given our experiences of 2016 and what we saw the Russians attempt to do across the nation’s election equipment, the election infrastructure, we certainly have a degree of concern of what their capability is.” Meanwhile, the Washington Post (9/26/18) writes, “While Russia is clearly trying to influence the 2018 elections, this time the United States is prepared and taking action to counter it.”
New York Times (9/20/18)
There is little concrete evidence offered in these reports; see Gareth Porter in Consortium News (10/10/18) for a dash of cold water on the New York Times’ narrative. Yet even the lack of evidence is an ominous sign for some. The Daily Beast (10/8/18) published an article headlined, “No Evidence That Russia Is Messing with Campaign 2018—Yet.” Despite that lack of evidence, the article asserted that the US should brace itself: “Russia has an arsenal of disruption capabilities… to sow havoc on election day,” it said, and “everyone is expecting the 2016 shock and awe” again.
The concern of the media over Russian actions has not resonated with the public more generally; a July Gallup poll reported that the number of Americans who considered Russia a top problem for the country was less than 1 percent. On the subject of the midterms and threats to their legitimacy, NPR (9/17/18) found that large majorities feel voter fraud or suppression to be a much greater danger to election integrity than foreign interference. Yet these concerns are not addressed nearly as thoroughly by the media. A search for “Russia” and “election” in the New York Times database generates 4,489 stories since the start of 2017, as compared to just 234 for “voter suppression” and “election,” 306 “gerrymandering” and “election” and 727 “racism” and “election.”
Daily Beast (10/8/18)
The question is not whether Russia, like other countries with extensive intelligence apparatuses, seeks to influence the elections of foreign nations. The question is why corporate media are concentrating on foreign interference, and not the other threats to democracy. In a previous article (FAIR.org, 7/27/18), I argued that the Democrats are using Russia to deflect anger and discontent away from their own failings. If Russia is to blame, there is no need for introspection, nor to address the deep race and class divides in the country that are addressed by surging political movements on the left, from Sanders to Black Lives Matter, and exploited by Trump and the alt-right. The focus on Russia as the sole reason for Trump’s victory allows establishment Democrats to continue as normal, without need for radical internal or policy change. As Clinton said, “America is already great.” To deflect pressure from the left, they can construct a narrative to explain why they lost to the most unpopular candidate ever.
For corporate media, the story of Russia covertly influencing the country promotes a climate where they can re-tighten their grip on the means of communication by accusing alternative media on both left and right of being Russian-sponsored “fake news.” As previously reported (FAIR.org, 8/22/18), under the guise of protecting readers, big media companies like Google, YouTube and Bing have changed their algorithms, resulting in devastating drops in traffic for reputable alternative media sites. Alternative media has been deleted, de-ranked, de-listed and de-monetized, effectively sidelining them. In response to ostensible Russian meddling, media giant Facebook announced last week (Washington Post, 10/11/18) it had shut down over 800 US accounts and pages for “inauthentic behavior,” a term even more nebulous than “fake news.” Included in the 800 were several police accountability watchdog groups and other alternative media, adding to its recent (temporary) deleting of TeleSUR English.
USA Today (10/9/18)
However, the best example of fake news and “inauthentic behavior” by media outlets in the modern age remains the manufacture of consent for the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, with the crucial assistance of corporate outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post and NBC (FAIR.org, 11/1/01; 3/18/03; 10/23/17). Forty-five percent of Americans get their news from Facebook, but it seems doubtful the tech giant will remove accounts belonging to those publications.
While it is clear that Moscow has an interest in who the US elects and doesn’t elect, the media’s focus on Russiagate through the midterm elections has as much to do with its political utility as with the evidence. With President Trump accusing China of midterm interference (CNN, 8/26/18), it appears that both major parties have sown doubt into the process and have a pre-made excuse if they fail on November 6. Both sides undermining trust in the democratic process does not augur well for the future of US politics.
Drowning the democracy doldrums in Russian dressing
Let’s see, interfering with elections—oh yes, the US worked hard to get Yeltsin elected. Back when we had a real press, TIME even did a big story on it. Trumping the Russians , so to speak, before Trump. But really, why would Russia have to do anything at all to America ? The Congress, the media, the Military Industrial Complex and the president are disuniting and undoing everything. Russia needs to do exactly—–nothing. Oh America—–you are doing it to yourself.
The very notion that “the Russians”, whatever that’s supposed to mean, somehow influenced millions of Americans to vote for Trump is preposterous.
No doubt many who thus voted were not Trump fans but couldn’t bear the idea of seeing Clinton in the White House. Just as in France, where I live, millions who couldn’t stand Emmanuel Macron voted for him anyway, simply to stop Marine Le Pen from becoming president.
Excellent article.
I see the Russia-is-waging-war-on-our-Democracy mantra as serving a role similar to other right wing / pronto fascist campaigns around that world. In Brazil, anti Partido Trabajador propaganda Is helping to get extreme right Bolsonaro elected in Brazil. In Turkey, anti-terrorist propaganda has been used by Erdogan to get popular support for martial law and mass arrests. Sisi in Egypt and Duterte in the Philippines have used the media and social media to generate the fear that has enable them to enact proto-fascist practices.
In the US, the fear about evil foreign countries, and their supporters, ‘stealing our elections’, can only led us further down the path towards right wing oppression.
Of course, those of us who criticize these practices will be accused of being stooges of Putin, or worse.
It’s virtually a ‘no-brainer’ for the MSM to put the primary blame on ‘the Russians’ for Trump’s election because there’s no chance of any meaningful negative consequences, no downside. How can they go wrong? Make a few minor asides to very REAL, proven domestic causes as if they’re insignificant and then emphasize an unproven claim (via large-font titles and number of words) against a purported ‘official foreign enemy’. After all, those domestic causes could create problems for you, you’ve already got readership/viewer numbers problems, and the Iraq War episode proved that you won’t be penalized for waving the flag against the foreign ‘thems’, so the path is clear to any profit-pursuing entity catering to ad-revenue and power-access. And of-course most of the military and their supporters love it because it beats the war-drums for them. Sure you’ll probably lose some more serious, truth-pursuant readers/viewers, but those are by-and-large a negligible percentage, as has been proven repeatedly in this country’s politics over the past 500 years.
PS – For the record, I’m a 69 yr old disaffected Democratic-voter from Wisconsin who never uses Facebook, Twitter, etc and I voted for Jill Stein in 2016 (the policies she espoused were very close to my own beliefs, especially her anti-war/ anti-militarism positions) so you can disagree with my vote if you want, but you can’t attribute it to reputed Russian influence on social media. I believe there were a lot more like- minded voters in 2016 than those who were SIGNIFICANTLY influenced by any ‘fake Russian news’, be it real or imaginary.
I learned long ago to dismiss anyone who treated any diverse group as “the Democrats” as a unit and ascribed unified thought, action and blame to them (“… argued that the Democrats are using Russia to deflect anger and discontent away from their own failings.”)
– The Democratic party is a bloodbath of infighting, but you accuse “the Democrats” – Clinton Democrats, Union Democrats and even Sanders Democrats – of ‘as one’ acting of one mind on the subject.
You might as well accuse “the MSM” , “the Blacks” or “the Jews” of such unified thought and intent too.
I find your argument to be flabby and without substance, which is ironic as all you do is accuse Democrats and the leftist MSM of being flabby and without substance. Very disappointing. Your title led me to expect something more than your own biased assertions. You have rehashed what has been warmed over repeatedly and add only some easily refuted untruths.
This week everyone is piling on the Democrats, so I suppose you embraced the scorn du jour without having to put any thought into whether you had anything concrete to say.
As a long-time FAIR supporter, I have to say: this is a terrible article. Just awful.
First, election meddling by anyone is a serious crime against democracy. When the US did it against Russia in the 1990s, it was a crime. When Russia did it to the US in 2016, it was a serious crime. When Republicans do it by refusing to accept voter registrations on specious grounds, it is a serious crime. If we are ever to get to a world where there are free and fair elections, it will because we see these crimes as equal in importance, and equally reprehensible.
Second, the Russian meddling in the 2016 elections is not just alleged, but thoroughly documented. Rcihard Pinedo is in jail because of it, and many more people are under investigation to determine whether their meddling constitutes a federal crime. The only question is how extensive and well-coordinated it was.
Third, there is plenty of evidence of Russian meddling in 2018. An indictment was just issued, for heaven’s sake! And that indictment implicitly confirms the 2016 meddling as a willful and illegal act.
There has been a badly misguided effort on the left to minimize the importance of Russian influence operations. Articles like this, which don’t even bother to acknowledge that there is a problem, are terrible opinion journalism. Why the editors printed it is beyond me.
Thank you, our democracy can’t function as long as Russia has access to Facebook and Twitter. It’s been proven many times over that the KGB committed Wikileaks’s with a sophisticated Russian fishing email virus. Comey told congress that “our guys talked to their guys” thus confirming that the FBI trusted the assessment that crowd strike made on the DNC server. Russia needs to pay for this.
Personally I would have voted for Hillary, but Russian Facebook bots tricked me into voting for Trump. Anyone who thinks this isn’t a crime, Russia’s tricking me and millions of other Americans into not voting for Hillary is probably a KGB agent.
“Considering other explanations for Trump’s victory and Clinton’s loss, such as her tactical campaign errors, gerrymandering, vote suppression…”
Furthermore, her strategic errors of pushing the same neolib recipes for profitable “public-private partnerships” and building on her “success” in Libya, refusing to offer an actual alternative to the biparty ‘stablishment and the big donors.
If there was relevant foreign influence, it would have been Adelson/Mercer money and Israeli influence operations, followed by Saudi money and Saudi-UAE-Israeli “collusion” with Kushner/Trump.
Clinton/Obama have effectively taken voter disenfranchisement, gerrymandering etc. out of the debate to cover for their own failings, which were elective and in service of big donors over voter majorities. There are good reasons Clinton did not win this election, and the Democratic Party leadership have no concern for the dead and dying in Yemen, or the voters. Whether or not they see us “deplorables”, they certainly consider us “deliverables” and nothing else.
How they expect to win elections with this manufactured hysteria is beyond me. That they do not deserve to win elections, and won’t, until they offer a clear alternative to the Grand Old Partisans and their own Democratic Past should be obvious by now.
The so-called “Russian interference” in the 2016 Presidential election was a lie generated by the MSM, as well as other anti-Russian politicians. There’s only one country that interfered in the 2016 Presidential election, and that same country’s primed to interfere in the mid-term elections as well.
In fact, this country has been interfering in US elections for decades, as well as running its foreign policy; and such actions violate our nation’s sovereignty. The US shouldn’t be meddling in other sovereign nations’ internal affairs and elections, either. If every nation stopped meddling in others’ domestic affairs, the entire world would be at peace. Unfortunately, the Globalists don’t want peace, they want wars and chaos around the globe, and this has been going on for centuries.