It is not clear what form that Russian assistance has taken. U.S. prosecutors found a Russian effort in 2016 to use social media to boost Sanders’s campaign against Hillary Clinton, part of a broader effort to hurt Clinton, sow dissension in the American electorate and ultimately help elect Donald Trump.
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My response, so what? Sanders didn’t ask for the help. And before you get your dander up. Realize that if Sanders WINS the nomination, the Russians are going to be targeting MODERATE DEMOCRATS.
Wake up people, we hang together, or we hang separately!
Here’s a hot take from Rachel Bitecofer that makes a lot of sense to me.
Sanders people won't like hearing this, but this cold, hard truth. The Russians are desperate to keep Trump in the WH bc he is destroying America domestically & abroad. They are accomplishing through sabotage what they could never have achieved militarily: weaponizing our low civic literacy, high polarization, and "suicide-pact" 1st Amendment laws (as they relate to our campaigns).
The Russians believe a Sanders nomination helps Trump & thus, are keen to help him win the primary. They, along w (NOT coordinated w but they have the same goal) he Trump campaign, the RNC, and other groups working to re-elect Trump will focus a lot of $ and effort on dividing the not-Trump coalition.
The fact is, anyone/ any group that wants Trump to win will have a vested interest in promoting division in the non-Trump coalition because Trump almost certainly can not win any swing state in which he needs to break 50% of the vote. Instead, they need to re-create the situation in 2016 in which Trump was able to win w a plurality vote share & the only way to achieve THAT, is to encourage/fund/support 3rd party candidates like the Green & Libertarian Party candidates & use social media to sow discontent, anger, and distrust among supporters of losing primary candidates to try to keep them from supporting the eventual Dem nominee.
And I'll tell you what, this is going to happen if the nominee is from the mainstream faction (progressives will be targeted as they were in 2016) and it will happen if the nominee hails from the progressive faction (moderates will be targeted to not support Sanders or Warren. The propaganda will be pervasive and disguised to look organic and most of it will not come from foreign actors this time: it will come from groups aligned with the party.
It is our greatest vulnerability.