The Russians are becoming

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by decimon, Oct 5, 2017.

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  1. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

  2. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    For some reason, there are a lot of dumb people on Facebook who will fall for anything. In Texas, fake news was being spread about gas shortages (not by Russians, just by paranoid people). This led to people all over Texas rushing to the gas pumps consuming a lot more gas than usual. After Harvey, the trucks were running a little bit slow, but we would have been fine if we had purchased gas at the normal rate. But, since so many people were filling up at once and repeatedly topping up, most gas stations ran out of gas every single day for about a week or two. This fueled people's stupidity and paranoia even further because this was somehow a confirmation that there was a gas shortage. If there was a gas shortage, then how come San Antonians were able to purchase 2.5 times as much gas as they normally do? There were also hoarders dangerously filling up trash cans and other insecure containers. Idiots were fighting at the pumps. The whole ordeal made me wonder if Homo sapiens could truly be considered intelligent life.
     
  3. jhp

    jhp Member

    The RNC & the DNC combined could not mount a marketing campaign that swayed the masses, but the Russians did - and no one during the election noticed!?
    The majority of the US voters are Facebook users!?
    The majority of the US voters who voted for President Trump are Facebook users!?
    1.32 billion people on average who log onto Facebook ... daily.
    The average conversion or click-through is between 0.05% to 0.25%.
     
  4. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Did you see the margins in that election?

    Saying Russians couldn't have possibly swayed the result is preposterous. Russia-supported Jill Stein alone quite possibly spoiled the result in a few states. Russia had a major candidate, eventual winner, parroting its lies ("Hillary founded ISIS" - originally from Russia-operated zombie Facebook group), and superior analytics using stolen data from RNC, DNC, and voter databases from several states. Are you sure none of that had an impact?

    Russians waged a campaign of division and fear that worked so well on their own population. It was a well-honed strategy, not an ad hoc Facebook advertisement buy. They didn't need to sway the majority to succeed.
     
  5. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    I have a problem with the article minimising potential danger of Russian influence. Their "puny means" are much greater than what those of both Al Qaeda and ISIS, combined. Not to mention that in a covert stage they may utilize unwitting "useful idiots" to spread and amplify their message. Conveniently, they in fact have a message targeting both ends of political spectrum. But more than that, they can and do wage proxy wars using both official armed forces and quasi-independent militants, like various "Cossack Hosts" and "Russian Orthodox Armies" in Ukraine and shady "Wagner's private military company" in Ukraine and Syria (a weird entity that officially don't exist but is able to recruit and pay to mercenaries, have heavy weaponry, and whose fighters are routinely awarded Russian military decorations). There's nothing "puny" about any of this - this is the biggest, richest, and most sophisticated terrorist group on the planet. ISIS is JV in comparison.
     
  6. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    It's totally absurd. But when the alternative is believing that the majority of voters in 30 states were actually attracted to Trump's positions, positions which seemingly contradict almost every piety of the left, they choose to go with the absurdity. The idea that they haven't already won all of the culture wars is simply unacceptable.

    I voted for Donald Trump, and Facebook had nothing to do with my decision. (I don't have a Facebook account and never look at Facebook.)

    None of the older mass media (or new "social media") influenced me.

    So what did influence me? The fact that I found that I agreed most often with Trump on the issues that most concerned me (but never quite 100%). Often he was the only candidate that placed any emphasis on them.

    Russia had nothing to do with that.
     
  7. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member


    Better than favoring particular candidates is creating general discord.

    As to that political spectrum. Left-Right is, IMO, BS. I much prefer a Nolan chart:

    [​IMG]
     
  8. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    It is not necessary to be responsible for position of the MAJORITY to swing an election. It's especially true in a highly polarized electorate, such as it is in US now. You are clearly sophisticated enough to understand this, so I wonder what's your motivation to spin. I'm fairly confident that you're above the going rate for rank and file Saushkino troll, but far below the level of high level asset like Manafort or Assange; so it's unlikely you're an actual Russian agent. Why then? I'm interested because there are many of you online; what's the driving force?


    Hoo boy, where to begin...
    - Anecdote is not data.
    - Moreover, I do not believe even you would describe yourself as any kind of "typical" voter. Most Americans of any stripe are not familiar with, let alone supportive of, say, the current Hungarian wannabe dictator.
    - What I said above. Especially considering that major goal of both Trump and Russia influence ops was to suppress turnout rather than win new adherents.
    - Replace "Trump" with "Putin", and "social media" and "Facebook" with "TV", and your statements are verbatim stance of your average Putinist online. It's uncanny; none of them watches TV yet all have the same political views and worldview - as served on TV. Many are sincere, too.

    I see it as evidence there is actually a Free World, and US is the center of it. You can't find such naïve propaganda virgins in any proper authoritarian country. Even Hungary or Turkey.
     
  9. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Hillary Clinton didn't lose because Russians didn't like her, she lost because Americans didn't like her.

    And unless the Democrats want to prove me again right, they need to stop blamestorming and start soul-searching.
     
  10. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    This would be an interesting argument if the same thing stopped Trump. Yet it didn't. So there.

    My hunch is Trump would have a harder time in 2020 without Hillary to push around. The media was trained to push her around for decades. Still, he would have lost without the combined help from James Comey, Julian Assange, vote suppression, and the Russians. Talk about crappy candidate.
     
  11. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  12. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

  13. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    blaming the victim?
     
  14. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    If the Trump supporters on this forum are representative of Trump voters, then it's easy to tell why Trump won the electoral college (not the popular vote, though). Trump would need more diverse appeal to win the popular vote, and he is nowhere close to getting the 95% of the black vote he says he's going to get. Even black Republicans are regretting their vote. He's going to have to actually get stuff done to turn things around. I'm just happy that I was smart enough to know that he wouldn't be able to fulfill most of his ridiculous promises, so I won't feel the sting of disappointment.

    At least the Trump administration is entertaining. The latest funny thing is that Tillerson wouldn't deny calling Trump a moron. Anyone with a brain knows that Trump is a moron with no people skills.
     
  15. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member


    You talkin' ta me? If so then what the hell are you talking about?
     
  16. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    I guess six people heard Tillerson call Trump a moron so he couldn't exactly deny it. He he!
     
  17. jhp

    jhp Member

    Elucidate please. Are you just referring to racial diversity or something more?
     
  18. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    I'm referring to Trump appealing to white people's fears of cultural and demographic changes in this country.

    He also appeals to the anti-intellectual crowd and those too dumb and lazy to take advantage of grants in order to receive post-secondary training. Trump has promised people who refuse to enter the 21st century that he will bring all these 1970s and 1980s jobs back. We'll see.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 6, 2017
  19. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member


    You haven't noticed black people's fears of cultural and demographic changes in this country?
     
  20. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    I know what a lot of black people fear now, and it's the resurgence of white supremacist groups that started almost immediately after Obama was elected and got even worse during Trump's campaign.
     

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