The journalist Aaron Mate has recently published a good article in The Nation magazine entitled “New Studies Show Pundits Are Wrong About Russian Social-Media Involvement in US Politics.”
I have copied an excerpt from Aaron’s story below. Click on the headline
above to read the entire article. It is well worth your time.
“On top of straining credulity, fixating on barely detectable and trivial social-media content also downplays myriad serious issues. As the journalist Ari Berman has tirelessly pointed out, the 2016 election was “the first presidential contest in 50 years without the full protections of the [Voting Rights Act],” one that was conducted amid “the greatest rollback of voting rights since the act was passed” in 1965. Rather than ruminating over whether they were duped by Russian clickbait, reporters who have actually spoken to black Midwest voters have found that political disillusionment amid stagnant wages, high inequality, and pervasive police brutality led many to stay home.
“And that leads us to perhaps a key reason why elites in particular are so fixated on the purported threat of Russian meddling: It deflects attention from their own
failures, and the failings of the system that grants them status as elites. During the campaign, corporate media outlets handed Donald Trump billions of dollars worth of air timebecause, in the words of the now ousted CBS exec Les Moonves: “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS…. The money’s rolling in and this is fun.” Not wanting to interrupt the fun, these outlets have every incentive to breathlessly cover Russiagate and amplify comparisons of stolen Democratic Party e-mails and Russian social-media posts to Pearl Harbor, 9/11, Kristallnacht, and “cruise missiles.”
“Having lost the presidential election to a reality TV host, the Democratic Party leadership is arguably the most incentivized to capitalize on the Russia panic. They continue to oblige.”
A small handful of genuine reporters such as Aaron, Max Blumenthal and a few others have consistently pointed out the absurdity of this manufactured Russia hysteria from its beginning. It has never made a lick of sense.
The greatest threats to our democracy come from within, from the very power-players who have worked so hard to keep this bogus, anti-Russia story alive.
Our elections are menaced by rampant voter suppression,
disenfranchisement, financial corruption, purging voter rolls, election fraud, outdated, faulty equipment, electronic, paperless voting machine (which are easily hacked by school children), and the Republican party’s growing use of the ridiculous Cross Check program.
Yes, the Democrats are also corrupt, as every Bernie Sanders support knows all too well. They just seem to be too inept (thankfully???) to reach the depths of black-hearted efficiency to which Republicans so gleefully sink.
Former president Jimmy Carter once said that “we have one of the worst election processes in the world right in the United States of America.
The Carter Center has monitored hundreds of elections in countries around
the world. Do you know which nation the Carter Center rates as having the best, more democratic, most trustworthy electoral system in the world?
Venezuela. Yes, Venezuela, folks.
We all need to stop swallowing the rubbish that the establishment voices constantly feed us about Venezuela, too.
