With Alex Vindman and George Conway’s losses, Democratic voters are forcefully rejecting the notion that Russia is to blame for America’s ills.

Alexander Vindman lost to Angie Nixon in the Florida Democratic senatorial primary on Tuesday, marking a long-overdue end to one of the worst liberal mass delusions of the Trump era: Russiagate.

Over the past decade, these conservative Democrats and “Never Trump” Republicans relied on liberal fears of Russian election interference and shadowy Moscow kompromat over the president to leverage influence in the party.

From the beginning, Russiagate was used by a shellshocked liberal establishment to explain away Trump’s victory in a way that didn’t implicate the Democrats. Rather than address what it was about Hillary Clinton’s political platform — and the preceding eight years of President Barack Obama — that opened the door to MAGA, many Democrats and their allies in the media fully bought into the idea that only a nefarious, Kremlin-driven plot could have led to America electing Trump.

This was an attractive proposal, and it found an enthusiastic, if niche, audience. Democratic voters responded well, notably to commentators at MSNBC like Rachel Maddow, who went all in on the conspiracy and pushed it far beyond what was plausible.

As MSNBC and, to a lesser extent, CNN, found ratings success with the largely fabricated scandal, the infection spread across legacy media. The New York Times published Louise Mensch, a serial fabulist whose Twitter feed was a laundry list of delusions, in the opinion section. The Washington Post reported an implausible story that Russians were targeting the Vermont energy grid. ___

  • UsernameHere@lemmy.world
    16·
    17 days ago

    Key Evidence and Methods of Russian election interference:

    • Cyber Hacking: Russian military intelligence (the GRU) hacked the computer networks of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and key campaign officials like John Podesta, subsequently releasing stolen data via outlets like WikiLeaks, DCLeaks, and Guccifer 2.0. [1, 2]
    • Social Media Disinformation: The St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) used hundreds of fake social media personas, bot networks, and purchased advertisements to amplify divisive political and social issues, masquerading as U.S. citizens to sway public discourse. [1, 2]
    • Targeting Election Infrastructure: Russian cyber actors scanned and probed state voter registration databases and election systems across multiple states ahead of the 2016 election, though vote tallies were not altered. [1, 2]
    • Criminal Indictments: Federal grand juries indicted dozens of Russian nationals and military intelligence officers for computer hacking, identity theft, and conspiracy against the United States. [1, 2]

    Official Findings

    • Intelligence Community Assessments: Concluded that the Russian leadership developed a clear preference for Donald Trump and aimed to denigrate Hillary Clinton while undermining public faith in the American democratic process. [1, 2]
    • Bipartisan Senate Findings: Confirmed the extensive nature of these foreign cyber and influence operations, noting coordination between online Russian fronts and active distribution channels