Russia’s Number One Tool to Destroy America And Promote Russia’s Interests Is Our Partisan Divide
Russia has been waging a dangerous information war against America for years. His most effective weapon: our partisan divide. Russia has spent over $300 million a year and more from his oligarch allies to use our partisan divides to destroy us.
Russia created fake Right and Left “news” sources; groomed and manipulated partisan allies; paid journalists, YouTubers, influencers; and manipulated social media and bots to inject disinformation, promote extremism, spread conspiracies, sow divisions, undermine democracy, and undermine trust in credible information sources. www.atlanticcouncil.org/…. www.brookings.edu/...www.theguardian.com/… www.politico.eu/… www.nbcnews.com/...
- Russia Sought to Undermine American’s Trust in Objective Facts
- Russia Sought to Spread Conspiracies to Gain Acceptance for Other Conspiracies
- Russia Sought to Sow Fear and Chaos
- Russia Sought to Undermine Trust in Credible Sources of Information — the Government and Traditional Media
- Russia Sought to Undermine NATO and Western Institutions
- Russia Sought to Devolve the West into Partisan Fighting
- Russia Sought to Promote Extremism on the Right and Left
- Russia Sought to Sow and Amplify Race and Other Divisions in America
This is all designed to undermine our Democracy. Russia believes that the fear, chaos, distrust, and divisions will eventually cause the U.S. to devolve into fighting each other. Russia believes that the chaos, distrust, and divisions will increasingly cause Americans to turn to a strongman authoritarian leader to save them and to increasingly accept an erosion of Democratic principles, thereby destroying Democracy.
“’Russia has one simple goal: to erode trust in democratic institutions,’ wrote former CIA officer and current Republican congressman Will Hurd. “The current highly charged political environment is making it easier for the Russians to achieve their goal.’” www.theatlantic.com/...
Putin Reframes Issues As Partisan to Create Chaos, Divide Us, Weaken America, and Weaken Democracy
Putin realized the most effective way to destroy the West was to manipulate its partisan divisions.
- Putin realized that people are more likely to trust misinformation and conspiracies if it comes to them from their partisan sources.
- Putin also realized that partisan media is more likely to promote conspiracies and misinformation if it helps them with a partisan gain.
- Russia knows that people are more likely to reject true counter information when they received the misinformation through partisan sources.
- Russia knows that people believe what they hear repeated even if it is a lie.
- Russia knows that people believe what is familiar to them even if it is a lie.
Putin created and funded an entire information war ecosystem. Russia created and funded fake Right Wing and Left Wing “news” sites in America and around the world. www.brookings.edu/… www.forbes.com/…. www.reuters.com/… www.forbes.com/... Russian agents, disguised as marketing companies, constantly pay a wide range of influencers, You Tubers, journalists, and others to promote conspiracies, disinformation, sow divisions, and to reframe issues along partisan divides weakening American responses. Putin also created an influence campaign with partisans on the Right and Left to groom and convince them that the other was their true enemy. Putin promoted and amplified (sometimes even created) fringe Left and Right elements to make Americans fear each other.
Putin waged an information war and then took a fire hose to amplify the messages and fear responses on social media and with Russian trolls and computer bots. www.theguardian.com/… www.theweek.co.uk/… www.nytimes.com/… slate.com/… www.thedailybeast.com/… nypost.com/… www.state.gov/… www.brookings.edu/…. abcnews.go.com/… Partisans quickly grabbed on and amplified Putin’s propaganda to try to gain partisan advantages.
“The ads run the ideological gamut from Black Lives Matter to ‘blue lives matter,’ ‘family values’ to LGBT rights. In other words, they are equally inflammatory to both sides of every social issue, and they use similar messaging (though sometimes awkwardly written) to that of legitimate organizations and Facebook groups. But unlike activist groups, the ads were not in service of creating any real ideological change in America, unless you count geopolitical destabilization as such.” mashable.com/...
Putin Even Reframed Russia’s Information War Against U.S. As a Partisan Issue to Block A Strong U.S. Response
U.S. Intelligence agencies found that Putin was interfering in our election to harm Hillary and thereby help Trump. Putin’s campaign, however, went far beyond the election. Putin used is information war machine to smear the entire effort to stop Russia’s war against America as a partisan witch hunt against Trump. Putin made the Right think that the entire campaign to stop Russia’s interference was an attempt to undermine Trump. Russia’s information war machine launched an attack on claims of Russian misinformation as partisan and efforts against Russia’s information war as partisan. This was picked up by partisans who then dismissed all allegations of Russian disinformation as an attempt to undermine Trump and Republicans or a delusion of the left. The whole response to Russia’s undermining of America devolved into partisan fighting and was weak and completely ineffective.
Putin Attempted to Weaken Support for Ukraine by Miring it in Partisan Politics
Just one of many obvious examples of this is Putin’s reframing of the Ukraine debate. Ukraine used to have strong bi-partisan support. To splinter and weaken American support for Ukraine, Putin tried to tie Ukraine to Hillary and Democrats mire Ukraine in Hillary and Biden scandals. Putin spread through Right Wing media that Ukraine and not Russia interfered with the election and that Ukraine interfered on behalf of Hillary. Putin claims that Ukraine had the DNC server and had conspired with Hillary to mire Russia and Trump in the Russia interference scandal. Putin also tried to make Ukraine a partisan issue by claiming that Biden corruptly fired the Ukrainian prosecutor to hide Joe and Hunter Biden’s corruption. Putin pushed through the Right Wing channels that support for Ukraine should be held up until Ukraine turned over the evidence of the Bidens’ corruption. Yet again, Putin weakened support by miring it in partisan fighting and dividing support along partisan lines.
Putin’s Machine Worked to Enflame Social and Racial Divisions in the U.S.
Putin saw that long-standing racial divisions could be stoked and flamed through targeting racial divisions and identity politics. www.theatlantic.com/… repository.law.umich.edu/… Russia is trying to start a race war in the U.S. Russia used its information war machine to amplify police brutality, race issues, prejudices, race anger, and racism. Russia had a very complicated system of stoking racial fighting in America.
“Russian measures include ‘trying to influence white supremacist groups,’ ‘prodding white nationalists to more aggressively spread hate messages and amplifying their invective’ and ‘trying to push black extremist groups toward violence,’ according to the Times.” people.com/… Putin has aggressively led an influence campaign with white identity groups to manipulate and groom them. Putin convinced white identity groups across the U.S. and world that Putin will help them destroy their real enemy, the multicultural left. www.justsecurity.org/…. Furthermore, Putin has used his information warfare to encourage increasingly extreme activities by the far right and to foment their fears about America’s increasing diversity. hir.harvard.edu/…. www.businessinsider.com/…. www.npr.org/...
Putin has also tried to foment anger and radicalize African Americans. “[C]ommunications between associates of Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Kremlin-linked oligarch * * * laid out a new plot to manipulate and radicalize African Americans. The plans show that Prigozhin’s circle has sought to exploit racial tensions well beyond Russia’s social media and misinformation efforts tied to the 2016 election.” www.nbcnews.com/…
“The blueprint, entitled ‘Development Strategy of a Pan-African State on U.S. Territory,’ floated the idea of enlisting poor, formerly incarcerated African Americans “who have experience in organized crime groups” as well as members of ‘radical black movements for participation in civil disobedience actions.’”
‘The goal was to ‘destabilize the internal situation in the U.S.’” www.nbcnews.com/…
Russia created, among many others, “YouTube channels called ‘Don’t Shoot’ and ‘BlackToLive’ that shared content about police violence and Black Lives Matter. In another example, the Oxford report cites ‘Black Matters US,’ a Russian-created group that spanned multiple platforms including Twitter, Facebook, PayPal, and an independent website, all sharing stories about police violence. The various accounts were used together to promote events and encourage donations to the group’s campaigns.” www.vox.com/… www.theatlantic.com/….
Russia uses its information warfare to amplify, foment, and make partisan racial issues. Russia promoted and amplified both sides of the kneeling for the flag controversy and effective divided the country over the police. They supported and amplified both Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter to mire us in partisan fighting. Putin used his media empire to amplify and encourage the racial protests and the violence. Putin also promoted and amplified the White Nationalist protests and violence. Russia also promoted and amplified extremist views on racial issues to scare Americans and cause divisions.
Putin Promoted and Weaponized LGBTQ Issues to Sow Divisions
Russia promoted, amplified, and weaponized LGBTQ issues to cause divisions. "’It is alarming to see LGBTQ issues being weaponized against a community that is already under attack,’ GLAAD’s chief digital officer Jim Halloran told Mashable.” mashable.com/…. “LGBT United is a group Facebook found to have ties to Russian troll farms. * * * [its posts] supporting LGBT rights, was intended to ‘sow division’ in America — not genuinely support the cause of LGBT rights.” mashable.com/…. Russia would create fake groups and direct opposing groups to the demands and activities to scare and polarize them. This is then picked up by partisan groups who further polarized the issues. Then, Putin used his attack machine to push the parties to even further extremes on LGBTQ issues.
Putin Mired Our COVID Response in Partisan Fighting, And Used Partisan Sources to Spread Conspiracies, Distrust, & Disinformation
To create chaos in the West, Putin would constantly try to reframe every COVID issue in partisan politics to create a wedge. Putin also used his shadow information empire to create confusion and distrust. His campaigns included casting vaccines and mask wearing as a partisan issues to make our response dysfunctional, chaotic, and to mire us in fighting each other. To create confusion and distrust, he promoted conspiracies through his information war channels like the “scamdemic,” big Pharma vaccine corruption, and the “plandemic.” fortune.com/… fortune.com/… www.wsj.com/… www.nytimes.com/…. www.voanews.com/…. time.com/…. www.rand.org/…. www.rand.org/…. cepa.org/….
You Tubers, for example, were caught being offered money by Russians to spread disinformation about the death rates of Pfizer vaccines and to pretend that they had no sponsor that gave them the information. www.bbc.com/…. “The [Russian] campaign took advantage of online platforms including Reddit, Medium, Change.org, and Facebook, creating misleading articles and petitions then providing "influencers" with links, hashtags and more to spread vaccine misinformation ***.” Russia promoted conspiracy theories in partisan channels that were then spread into the mainstream partisan sources. abcnews.go.com/…. medecon.org/… www.healthline.com/...
Putin Reframes Attempts to Take Down His Promoted Conspiracies and Misinformation As Partisan Attempts to Shut Down Information
Because Putin sends his conspiracies and misinformation through partisan channels, he is able to attack any attempt to contain or remove it as “partisan” censorship. This immunizes his disinformation networks. Putin attacks the removal as partisan censorship through his partisan networks and then it is picked up by politicians and mainstream partisan channels. People then tend to trust the misinformation and conspiracies more since they think partisans don’t want them to see it.
The attack that it is “partisan” causes people to distrust the government’s and social media’s attempts to contain the conspiracies and misinformation and they are pushed toward even less credible sources of information and more partisan social media sites with even less counter information to Putin’s conspiracies and disinformation campaigns.
Thank Putin for Helping Create Left Wing And Right Wing Cancel Culture
Putin also knew that the best way to deal with opposition to his information war on America was to create information war bullies. Putin uses groomed allies, fake Facebook and Twitter accounts, fake journalists, unwitting real journalists paid by disguised Russian agents, Russian bots, Russian trolls, and social media campaigns to attack and scare people who counter the misinformation, to confuse people as to the truth of the information, and to promote extremism and division in America.
Because Putin frames every issue as partisan and amplifies it, when he unleashes the fire hose of media attackers, the partisans on the Right and Left follow the barrage of bullies thinking that is where their party is on an issue. The partisans follow right along attacking and canceling to gain their own political advantage and be where they think their party is.
Russia Pushes Partisan Election Conspiracies to Undermine Our Democracy
Russia has used its information machine to push many election conspiracies through partisan channels. The U.S. Intelligence Community found “with ‘high confidence,’ that Kremlin influence operations aimed to denigrate Biden, support former President Donald Trump, undermine public trust in the electoral process, and worsen social division.” www.businessinsider.com/...www.universal-rights.org/...www.dni.gov/. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ICA-declass-16MAR21.pdf. www.brennancenter.org/...
Any attempt to counter the conspiracies was contested and reframed as partisan.
Russia Fomented January 6th
Russia targeted its information war and encouraged violence to help foment January 6th. “Foreign adversaries like Russia and China ‘weaponized’ QAnon messaging to sow further discord among the American population in the months leading up to, and following, the January 6 attack, according to a new report released Monday that details how these countries are not only utilizing the same false narratives to peddle disinformation on social media, but also fueling a conspiracy theory that could incite more violence by domestic extremists.’” www.cnn.com/…
"’Our data collection and analysis has demonstrated that QAnon has been weaponized by America's adversaries,’ according to Zach Schwitzky, founder of a research company that partnered with the Soufan Center to produce the report. ‘Actors from Russia, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia have all entered the fray amplifying QAnon messaging, most likely as a means to sow further discord and division among the American population.”" www.cnn.com/...
Then, Russia launched a disinformation campaign through partisan channels to portray January 6th as a hoax and false flag. www.thedailybeast.com/…. www.thedailybeast.com/…. This was then picked up and promoted by other partisan channels. Russia did this all to create distrust against our government and officials and further encourage violent partisan divides.
Russia’s Use of QAnon
“QAnon believers subscribe to a fantasy that a ‘cabal’ of powerful Satan-worshiping pedophiles, including high-powered Democrats, run the Deep State.” www.rollingstone.com/… The conspiracy also promotes viewpoints that promote Russian interests, create distrust in America’s government, sows divisions, and encourages more extreme responses. Putin uses the conspiracy to promote his own propaganda manipulation.
Again, Putin has connected this conspiracy to partisan politics to make it immune from real attack. The conspiracy is pro-Trump and envisions Trump as the savior who will destroy the cabal of pedophiles. Yet again, all attempts to undermine the conspiracy are portrayed as partisan attempts to prevent the movement and to shut down the dissemination of information.
“Marc-André Argentino, a researcher and PhD candidate at Concordia University, shared posts from QAnon communities on Telegram cheering Putin’s invasion. ‘Ukraine is corrupt with many many Dems and their profits from human trafficking[,] drugs and weapons,’ a user named T Light posted.”
“Another screenshot Argentino captured showed user MAGALivesMatter posting a link alleging that a Ukraine airport was under attack and wrote, ‘Go Russia! Get rid of this Deep state bullshit.’” www.rollingstone.com/…. One Qanon organizer posted, that he doesn’t see the “‘invasion’ of Ukraine as a ‘bad’ thing’” because it is “a cleaning out of a VERY corrupt center of operations for the Cabal.” Sabal went on to say that the conflict is “NOT A WAR” but rather “a proper, and NECESSARY deep cleaning of Cabal operations and military assets, NOT an attack on innocent civilians.’” www.rollingstone.com/….
We Need Biden & the Traditional Republican Party to Explain This to America and Denounce Putin’s Obvious Attempts to Exploit Our Partisan Divides
There are many more examples of Russia’s attempt to destroy our country through an information War. Putin has worked to create, fund, and promote extremist views on the Right and Left to get Americans embroiled in fighting ourselves and to think the other side is the real enemy of America. Each side thinks the other has gone crazy and is destroying America. We are all being manipulated. Unless we mitigate our own political polarization, our own internal issues, we will continue to be an easy target for any malign actor,’ * * *.” www.newyorker.com/….
Our leaders need to get out ahead of Russia’s disinformation wars and warn Americans when Russia is fomenting our divides. The momentary partisan gains each side gets is not worth destroying America. We need the partisan adults in the room to stand together to combat and shut down Russia’s information war against us. We need a real, bi-partisan attempt to combat and counter Russian disinformation before it is too late. We have waited far too long because of Putin’s tactic to turn this issue into yet another partisan division.