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A Book Update and Reflections on Russian Information Warfare
I promised in early September that I would return regularly to post updates on the book to which many of you contributed. I have, again, been lax about doing this. It is troubling my conscience. I am sure some of you are wondering why, and I’m sure some of you have guessed exactly why.
The reason is exactly what some of you must suspect. I am in such profound disagreement with so many of you about the Trump presidency — and particularly about the significance of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election — that I’ve come to feel deeply alienated from you.
A yawning and bitter chasm now separates Americans. As thousands of journalists and pundits have by now remarked, we seem to inhabit two epistemic universes. We do not agree on facts, let alone our interpretation of those facts.
I am in the camp that many here now view as the enemy camp. I believe not only that Donald Trump is inherently unfit to be president, but that it is highly likely that he wittingly and illegally colluded with Russia’s efforts to swing the election in his favor, that these efforts probably did swing the election, and that this is preventing him from now acting in the American interest in critical ways.
I believe that Russia has attacked our country with the intention of destroying it. I believe we, and the world, are in great peril because of this.
This is a view significantly at odds with the majority view on Ricochet.
I don’t want to rehearse, here, all the reasons I believe this. The point of this post is to explain, first, why I’ve been reluctant to post or join discussions recently. It’s also to give you an update on the book, where I do offer the reasons for these beliefs, in detail. I explicitly connect Americans’ recent political experiences to those of other countries that have come, in the past decade, to be similarly divided.
But my arguments aren’t suitable for a post on Ricochet. They really do take a book to make. I’m reassured by this, because as you’ll recall, I was at first unsure that what I had on my hands was really a book. My first draft too much resembled a series of Ricochet posts, strung together. Now, I can say that the manuscript is coherent. It advances a thesis about what, precisely, is happening to established liberal democracies in the 21st century, and why it is happening. There is a chapter devoted to Russia’s role in this. I do not argue that Russia’s role is the whole explanation. But I do argue it is a significant part of the explanation.
These aren’t arguments I can reduce to the length of a Tweet or a blog post, but they are arguments I desperately want you to hear and understand. On many occasions in the past few weeks, I’ve wanted to just hit “publish” on the manuscript and have it all out there. I’ve thought, “That’s enough, this book is done, people need to read this now.” I’ve been emotional. I’ve been frustrated that our national debate seems to be missing so much evidence from events overseas, evidence that is so significant. I’ve wanted to make my arguments, at last, instead of saying, “Wait for the book.”
But I haven’t done it. I know that my arguments, even if by now they’re in pretty good shape, won’t instantly transform this debate. That’s a narcissistic fantasy. If I write this book very well, and very carefully, there is a chance it may slightly inform or shape public opinion. It may help a few people better to view our domestic problems in their international context. It might offer a few people a way of looking at our situation that’s helpful to them.
But I do not think this manuscript would have even that impact if I press “publish” now. It would be too easy to attack and dismiss, because it’s still too sloppy. It is repetitive in parts, unclear in others, emotional in places where it should be cool in tone, and in some places cool in tone — boring, that is — where it absolutely can’t afford to be. I’ve not yet subjected all of my sources to sufficient scrutiny. Nor have I been rigorous enough in my fact-checking. I’ve written too much in haste, and too much in anger. It is so easy to dismiss someone’s arguments if they make careless errors — to say, “See, what does she know about this?” — and I don’t want that to happen to my book.
So that’s what’s going on. The book is going very well. I have a clear thesis. I am on schedule. I know what I wish the book to accomplish.
And I fear you will hate it. And I feel very, very conflicted and bad about this, so much so that I haven’t been around much.
But here is the other thing. I believe — and argue, in this book — that the extent to which we have been divided into two warring camps with irreconcilable views is, in part, the product of Russian information warfare. Not in whole — it only works because the divisions are real to begin with. But that is its aim. Russia’s doctrines are widely known. This is just how they’ve done it elsewhere. This is a textbook case.
I agree with Clint Watts in his recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Please read the whole thing, but he concludes with these words:
It’s been more than a year since my colleagues and I described in writing how the Russian disinformation system attacked our American democracy. We’ve all learned considerably more since then about the Kremlin’s campaigns, witnessed their move to France and Germany and now watch as the world’s worst regimes duplicate their methods. Yet our country remains stalled in observation, halted by deliberation and with each day more divided by manipulative forces coming from afar. The U.S. government, social media companies, and democracies around the world don’t have any more time to wait. In conclusion, civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words. America’s war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America.
I believe this happened; I believe we are in danger because of it. Most of you don’t. That’s a big divide.
But for years, I happily thought of the members of Ricochet as my friends. I really enjoyed our daily conversations. I agreed with many of you about most things, and when I didn’t agree, felt that we could discuss our disagreements like adults. I felt, warmly, that you were my people — Americans (mostly) with common sense, people who looked at the world basically the way I did.
Now I feel otherwise. Now I feel deeply estranged from most of the American Right.
Now, oddly, this is almost exactly the feeling I had about the American Left in the wake of September 11. The Left seemed determined to deny the significance of what had happened, to argue that this was the natural consequence of our foreign policy, that we’d just got what was coming to us for meddling in places we had no business. A large part of America seemed to me unwilling to confront reality: Whether or not we “had it coming,” we sure had an enemy that meant to destroy us. We had to decide whether we would let that happen.
What do I conclude from this? Well, first, that I go berserk when my country’s attacked. I go stark-raving berserk. I have a history under such circumstances of becoming deeply alienated from other people in my country who react differently, who take such things more in stride–who believe, perhaps, that such things happen inevitably to powerful countries, and perhaps even that we do have them coming, from time to time–that this is the price of being a superpower. I have a history of becoming alienated from people who insist that it isn’t so easy to destroy the United States, so perhaps we ought not overreact, to the point of mocking and even demonizing those people in print, to the point of seeing them as enemies within.
But in retrospect, some of the people who said, “We ought not overreact” to 9/11 seem to me to have been right–they were not quite the moral cretins or the quislings I imagined them to be at the time. Some of the people who said, “The whole point of this is to provoke us into overreaction” were, in fact, right. I was wrong to think that everyone who said such things was blithely indifferent to the magnitude of the atrocity or incapable of grasping what it said about the nature and determination of our enemy. Some of them surely were indifferent or uncomprehending. But some of them were simply more strategic, more sensible, and wiser than I was.
What does this mean, in turn? It means that I should entertain the idea that people who disagree with me about the seriousness of this event might not be crazy. Perhaps I am–for the second time–overreacting. I don’t think I am, but I’ve done it once, so I might be.
There’s another parallel. All those cliches to the effect that “You can’t let yourself be terrorized because if you do, the terrorists win,” are grounded in the reality that yes, that is indeed exactly the point of terrorism. If you give in to it, you assist terrorists in their goals and you create incentives for them to do it again. Likewise, if I and people like me allow ourselves to be divided from our friends by Russian information warfare, Russia wins — and so does every other hostile actor in the world who sees how easy it is to divide us, and how much bang you can get for your information-warfare buck.
No, our disagreements in America are not only about Russia. But they are enough about Russia that my obstinacy kicks in: I refuse to react exactly the way the Kremlin want me to. I want to stay friends with my friends. The better angels of my nature tell me clearly that no, we are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.
Right now, I disagree with most of you, profoundly, about the most significant political issues of our era. That is awkward. That is not how I expected things to be, at all. But it’s reality.
So I will continue to make my case against many of your ideas–although I’ll do it in a book, not here–but I will not make a case against you. I do not and will not accept the idea that Americans who don’t agree with me are deplorable. I will not allow Russia — or Trump — to turn you, my friends, into my enemies.
I’ve been too fond of too many of you for too long for that to make any sense.
Published in General
gen,
This is another legitimate solution. You want the EU to go back to being only a trade organization. At this point, they are neither fish nor fowl and they are abusing everybody. Obama-Clinton were sticking their nose into Brexit because they form a coalition of soft socialists with the current Soros EU. The Trump-Russia thing is just great for the soft socialists as it obscures the reality of the EU’s security irresponsibility. The xenophobia-islamophobia immigration rap is just great for the soft socialists because it obscures the EU’s illiberal choking of the rights of their member states and in America undermining the values of flyover states.
The soft socialists on both sides of the Atlantic really can have their cake and eat too. They’re screwing everybody and have nice scapegoats all lined up to take the blame. Meanwhile, the governments keep getting bigger and the apparatchik’s total package, salary & benefits, gets astronomical.
Regards,
Jim
I will try to respond in pieces rather than in one big post
It’s been a while since I read about this, it was my understanding that Nixon had what he thought was proof. Obviously, I can’t speak to what evidence he had.
As I said before, I think voter fraud / ballot stuffing is far more widespread than most people are willing to acknowledge, and I think it happens on both sides. I think this is a serious problem that we as a nation need to deal with. But I don’t think it swings the outcome of national elections. I think voter fraud is vitally important precisely because it impacts the local elections that create the feeder network for national offices down the road.
FWIW, this is one of the many reasons I continue to support the electoral college. One of the unintended benefits of the EC is that any voter fraud that swung the election is necessarily isolated to one or two states (think Florida in 2000) and almost by definition, a so-called “purple-state” where both parties have influence. If we eliminate the EC, voter fraud in massively blue states (and blue cities) could swing the popular vote nationally. Right now, there is little incentive to engage in massive voter fraud in NYC/Boston/LA/SF in presidential elections because the Dems are going to win that state going away and extra votes don’t have any additional benefit, but if we eliminate the EC and go to popular vote, every fraudulent vote matters.
On the other hand, if you can de-legitimize a Republican winner of the EC by claiming the Democrat won the popular vote…
Couldn’t have stated it better. It’s very telling that Clair isn’t really saying much right now. Will she ever come back here and deliver? Or is it more likely we’ll hear much of nothing from her until her book comes out, when she’ll make the rounds on the left leaning “news” shows and toss out the same baseless accusations that we’ve been hearing for over a year now, again with no proof at all.
Yeah, that sort of advantage is definitely worth spending a couple million on Get Out the Vote in New Orleans and Chicago, rather than, say, buying bus tickets to Michigan.
Still riding a wave of schadenfreude over here.
One of the big challenges in impeaching a President for stuff that goes on during campaigns is, the overwhelming majority of corruption that I believe happens is done either by low-level campaign staff, people associated with the local political party but not the campaign itself, or a “Hit man” high up in the campaign that carefully keeps a “firewall” between the dirty tricks and the candidate.
So, (I think) I get that you are saying that only acts committed by the candidate individually, but implicit in my thinking is that putting aside TV shows and movies (I think the TV show Scandal has a plot where the President was involved in a plot to steal the election), the candidate personally does not get into the mud that the campaign inevitably does. So, if we wind up impeaching a President for things done during the campaign because (s)he was personally involved, we are impeaching someone for being stupid and inexperienced while letting much worse corruption go unpunished because they had the minimal level of intelligence required to create a firewall. Further, the follow on consequence would not be a reduction of corruption, just the creation of stronger firewalls.
A) The US has been actively interfering in elections in other countries for decades, including Obama who funded opposition parties in Israeli elections
B) Other countries have been getting involved in our elections for decades. The Soviet Union obviously spent the entire cold war trying to interfere with our elections (given the CultMarx take over of our nation’s educational infrastructure, I have at times wondered whether if Soviet Union actually won the cold war, we just haven’t figured it out yet.) Barack Obama, as a young candidate, was a member of a third party here in Chicago, called the New Party, that was a JV between the Democratic Socialists of America, a group funded and effectively run by the Soviet Union and the predecessor to the near-marxist, ACORN.
C) I’m not entirely sure what “act of war-without-bloodshed” looks like, but if that was the rule, we should have had another world war-without-bloodshed for the last 80 years. My own view is, we should defend ourselves against foreign intervention into our election by acknowledging that they are inevitable. Let’s not go to war with other countries for doing what we as a nation do routinely do. At a minimum, let’s stop doing it for a couple of decades before we star going to war with countries over it.
One reading is this: while he had proof of some shenanigans in Illinois and Texas, California was even closer than those two states. He needed both Illinois and Texas to flip, and needed California to stay. While there was the usual LBJ nonsense in Texas, it wasn’t entirely on one side; that could have been the case elsewhere. So it wasn’t a clear win. And, of course, he was (relatively) young. And – what a conflicted character – had much of honor in him.
So he wasn’t giving up a sure thing; but he also made the call for noble reasons.
One benefit of reading biographies of earlier Presidents is to put into context the foibles, real or imagined, of the current occupant of the Whitehouse.
Sure, but my suspicion is: A) the Dems would rather win the election than put a lot of time/money/effort into what is effectively a meaningless talking point that doesn’t change who sits in the Oval Office; and B) they were pretty sure they were going to win in 2016, so they didn’t think they needed to put a lot of money/time/effort into fraudulently building up the popular vote total to de-legitimize Trump.
Did I give you the impression I was certain that going to war would be the correct response? If so, I apologize. I do not know what would be the correct response to foreign-funded ballot stuffing (you know, the illegal stuff). Paying for ads? Not illegal, not what I was talking about.
This almost sounds like you’re saying “don’t punish the murderers who are stupid enough to get caught, because …”
I know, that’s not really what you’re trying to say. But I found that particular “slant” on it amusing, when it popped into my head.
I have to admit, in the back of my mind when I wrote that, I was thinking that if we ever had a major party stupid enough to not create a firewall between the candidate and corruption, it’s Donald Trump.
FWIW, I tried to use your formulation of “war-without-bloodshed” because I thought that is what you were calling for, but upon more careful reading, I see that is how you were describing the intervention, not what our response should be. My apologies.
I still don’t think of it quite as “act of war-without-bloodshed” perhaps because it is just so commonplace.
You believe that foreign-funding of vote fraud, ballot-box stuffing, and the other illegal election-tampering activities is commonplace? I am … astonished and disheartened.
But it seems to me that if such foreign attacks have become commonplace, then actions to curtail such activity should be taken. Again, I don’t know what would be appropriate actions – but shrugging seems like a very bad idea in the long run.
Why?
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think that underhanded methods of interfering in other people’s elections is a good idea. It creates lasting ill-will and, even when successful, necessarily temporary benefits.
But the question “should we do it” and “would we be willing to declare war on someone who did it to us” aren’t necessarily linked. At most the question ought to be “are we willing to risk war to get this benefit”. Which, I hasten to add, I’d set as “no” in your typical election interference.
I just see very little reason to engage in foreign relations with anything other than a rational self interest and a Nietzschean Will to Power.
Yes, and I think the US does routinely engages in those activities (even with allies such as Israel.)
I think we should beefen up our security and deal with nations that do this diplomatically, there really isn’t much else we can do. Anything we could actually do would be completely symbolic (like expel a couple of diplomats.)
I know it sounds like I’m just saying we should lock our doors and not prosecute thieves who steal our stuff. But in local crime, we have a government that can punish criminals and has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. In the international arena, there simply is no “government police” to punish wrongdoers. The UN was initially supposed to play part of this role, and it has failed so badly that most conservatives want to get out of the UN.
I guess I’m a Kantian Catergorical Imperative believer at heart. I don’t think we should punish other countries for doing exactly what we do. You have a different perspective, that is fine.
I’m happier acknowledging that everybody does it, so let’s exert more effort protecting ourselves from it than punishing those who engage in it.
Really, while this comment may not violate the Rico-CoC, I find this, and others like it outside the spirit of this site.
Claire, please start a new thread when you’re ready to respind. This one is past conversation.
I re-read my comment and I’m just not seeing how it’s so terrible. She wrote a post with some incredible accusations and statements about the President, I didn’t. If I wrote what she did, I would fully expect to be asked to back up my accusations with some form of hard evidence, yet so far we’ve seen none.
I’ve not hurled insults, called names, used a bunch of caps (yelling) or in any way that I know of violated the CoC. I, along with the majority on this thread I think, have every right to ask for evidence to back up the claims she made in the OP.
I agree that the desire to force Claire into a corner, or claim that she ‘owes’ something is wrong. But I have confidence that Claire knows this.
But I’m enjoying this thread, which is, I think, in the majority, not trying to force Claire to do anything. Jim, A2, Hank, TG and I are having fun here. Claire can start as many threads as she wishes, but please let the rest of us continue to play here (:
Conspiracy theories not only violate the spirit of the site, the CoC specifically forbids them, in writing, in the codified CoC. All but a few members have signaled that they feel that Claire’s charges sound like an egregious conspiracy theory and have requested, quite reasonably, that she provide the proof to back up her allegations. All we ask is for her to respond promptly with facts proving that she is not engaged in conspiracy theorizing.
Her original post is allowed to stand, available for the public to see (and even to use against us) on the Main Page. I believe that this causes harm to Ricochet’s reputation and unfairly tars all members as belonging to a conspiracy site. This is a grave issue effecting the future of the USA and the world; allegations such as hers are critical and far-reaching. If she promptly provides facts that can be verified, information that can be checked, people willing to speak on the record and other data that supply solid proof of her allegations, then we could be facing a momentous crisis. Or not. But either way, let us get answers to the essential question: Where’s the beef?
Of course you can stay and play.
Interesting that you used “force into a corner” because that is what that part of the conversation felt like.
As an observer, it uncomfortable to see that. If I were at a table, I would excuse myself.
Which is why I mentioned that Claire give any responses in a new thread .
Continue on, as you were. ?
Yeah, don’t worry.
Totally. I didn’t mean to sound like I was announcing that everyone must stop speaking as they pleased. I should have said, “Okay, I will only read up to comment X before composing my reply, because otherwise that reply won’t ever happen.”
No … no, I’ll explain better. (As you see, I’m reading the comments in backward order now.)