
How a Russian Troll Fooled America - okket
https://medium.com/dfrlab/how-a-russian-troll-fooled-america-80452a4806d1
======
maltalex
As heinous and improper this may be, I feel like "The Russians" are being used
as a simple answer for Trump's election. Yes, it seems that they played a
role, but was it a key role? Would have the elections gone to Hilary
otherwise?

I'm not saying that their actions are permissible, or that they should be
tolerated. No. There should be a thorough investigation, and precautions
should be taken to avoid such external influence in the future. But the story
doesn't end (or rather doesn't start) with the Russians. There are deeper
questions here. How is it that the elections ended up being between two
candidates hated by the public? How did so many Americans chose to vote for a
racist, lying bigot? Was it just the Russian influence?

There were many forces at play here. While and blaming everything on a foreign
country is convenient to some people, no one should accept such a simple
narrative for something as complex as what happened during these elections.

~~~
locopati
Since she won the popular vote by almost 3 million and since the margins of
victory in important states were slim, it's fair to say that not much was
needed to shift the results of the elections. Hated by the public? Each was
hated by half the public who voted, which was only half of the potential
voting public. Hard to draw any grand conclusions from that. Also, it's hard
to say that the hatred of Clinton and the hatred of Trump are comparable. One
was based on decades of propaganda with little concern for policy; the other
based on a look at the candidate and their unprepraredness for office.

Many forces - sure - you can always say that, but sometimes the reality is
right there in front of us and, for whatever reasons, people don't want to
acknowledge it.

~~~
maltalex
> it's fair to say that not much was needed to shift the results of the
> elections.

Yes, the Russians contributed to that shift, but that's the small picture. How
did we even get to a point in which Trump is so close to being elected?

> Each was hated by half the public who voted, which was only half of the
> potential voting public. Hard to draw any grand conclusions from that.

From fivethirtyeight.com's analysis titled "Americans’ Distaste For Both Trump
And Clinton Is Record-Breaking"
([https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-distaste-
for-...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-distaste-for-both-
trump-and-clinton-is-record-breaking/)):

 _Part of the negativity voters feel toward Clinton and Trump probably has
something to do with growing political polarization in our country. But
polarization doesn’t explain everything. If Trump and Clinton’s strongly
unfavorable ratings were simply a byproduct of polarized politics, you’d
expect them to have high “strongly favorable” ratings too. They don’t. You can
see this in their net strong favorability ratings (the “strongly favorable”
rating minus the “strongly unfavorable” rating):

No major party nominee before Clinton or Trump had a double-digit net negative
“strong favorability” rating. Clinton’s would be the lowest ever, except for
Trump._

> Also, it's hard to say that the hatred of Clinton and the hatred of Trump
> are comparable. One was based on decades of propaganda with little concern
> for policy; the other based on a look at the candidate and their
> unprepraredness for office.

Problem is, both viewpoints equal in the ballot box, regardless of their
validity.

------
Grazester
This would be a good place to post this PBS documentary on Putin and his
sentiments towards the U.S. and particularly Hillary
[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/putins-
revenge/](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/putins-revenge/)

~~~
Overtonwindow
Be sure to watch both parts. Quite good.

------
Overtonwindow
I think a more interesting subject is how we allowed ourselves to become so
gullible. I was once told by a campaign manager that you can get a vote to
believe just about anything. The trick is to get them to believe it about 15
minutes before they walk into the voter booth.

------
RickJWag
First, I wish the left-side flood of not-hacker-news-items would let up. Trump
Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is in full force here.

About the Russian Troll: I am glad they took part, if it helped tip the
election. Hillary Clinton cheated Bernie, Trump didn't cheat the primaries.
Clinton is totally compromised morally.

As for the loss to the Democratic party-- the DNC is now re-visiting the
poisonous worship of Bill Clinton, (which occurred in spite of the group of
women rightly accusing him.) Of course Hollywood is now also suffering from
chickens coming home to roost. Once the Democrats (of which I am not) work
through these issues and really align with the pro-diversity message they
espouse, they will be stronger and better able to serve the American people.
(As it was, it was just a bunch of hypocrisy.) America will be better off with
a strong Democratic party. The GOP still needs it's reckoning.

------
dogruck
I do not believe that a single Twitter account, from some faceless, vapid
entity (not verifiably connected to a real person) meaningfully impacted the
election.

Also, this argument ignores bots that were pro-HRC and anti-Trump.

~~~
kurthr
Great, you say that. So show me a pro-HRC bot with 130k followers on Twitter.

Are you saying that bots with more followers are less relevant? I had learned
that impact was ~N^2.

Are you saying that only "meaningful" impacts on an election are bad? Is that
only 10k votes or or 10?

Are you really against all the Photo ID, registration, and voting controls
since there are only some 10s of illegal in-person voters found in the last 17
years?

[http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/665966.pdf](http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/665966.pdf)

Do you think that funding of election campaigns by foreign entities (and
governments) is OK, even though it's against election laws? Why?

~~~
dogruck
Huh? You seem angry.

