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Election Meddling
The online edition of the Wall Street Journal has the following as its lead headline: ‘Putin Has Won’: Mueller Report Details the Ways Russia Interfered in the 2016 Election. The following is a slightly edited version of a comment I left:
Published in GeneralThere was no election meddling in 2016. There was meddling in the campaign. If somebody interfered with the counting of ballots, such as got Al Franken and Lyndon Johnson elected to the Senate, that would be election meddling. If somebody tries to influence the campaign, that is not election meddling.
It is dangerous rhetoric to suggest that it is. It is dangerous to our First Amendment freedoms and is more dangerous than anything the Russian government did.
Ret,
When you are making a legal argument there is supposed to be an injured party. All of the Russian influence combined couldn’t affect anything. Meanwhile, we just saw 10-15 house seats flipped in California by vote harvesting. Not a peep about that. Every time a Google or Facebook play with their algorithms conservative traffic on the internet drops 25% and left-leaning traffic isn’t affected at all.
This is another propaganda tactic of the left. Ignore the significant and scream about the trivial.
Regards,
Jim
Texas and the entire country sure lost out when we didn’t get a great man like Coke Stevenson in the Senate.
The exalted Barack O. stated there was no way the Russians could change even one vote. Of course, this was before Hillary went down in flames . . .
It turns out that when you are world power that projects that power into every corner of the earth, that other countries reflect an influence back into US politics. This is beyond the direct influences of 20 million illegal immigrants, West Coast politicians in the pocket of China, and extensive radio/TV systems broadcasting into the USA from Canada and Mexico. The Facebook clickbait put out by some Russian trolls is just a squirrel to distract you from the real “meddling”.
You’re not insinuating that Senator Dianne Feinstein employed a Chinese spy are you??????
One other thing that bugs me about the WSJ article is the attempt to direct the conversation with this question as the heading of the comment section: “What should be done to prevent a repeat of election meddling in 2020?”
In addition to the misinformation that there was “election meddling,” it assumes that it requires some action on our part. It doesn’t even consider the possibility that nothing needs to be done, that the results proved that our system works as it should. (The only possible actions, of course, would amount to censorship. It’s understandable that the leftmedia would need that in order to accomplish its objectives.)
Jim. On Wedneesday nioght, Tucker Carlson interviewed the managing editor of Breitbart about the very thing you mention: the social media’s algorithms that knock out and away the RW and Centrist perspective.
Here is the entire show. You can skip to the 29:00 minute mark to hear about the censorship going on, from an editor who is very upset about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiqNAEsMiIE
There is more than that. Detailed here.
Carol,
Thanks for the heads up, Carol. When there is a massive shift in internet traffic or heavily used resources like Wikipedia ban right-leaning website as references, this has a huge effect on the political climate. We need to get our Republican Senators & Congresspeople up to speed on this. When CEOs like Zuck are dragged before Congress their stock price takes a beating. Just the negative publicity alone can make a big difference.
Put their feet to the fire.
Regards,
Jim
I dunno. Election campaigning by non-citizens, let alone non-residents, is a very fuzzy area of democracy. I dunno if it should be criminalized (How the heck would you enforce such a law?), but it definitely leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
(Up here in the Great White North, it is illegal for foreigners to “induce” Canadians to vote one way or another at election time. According to Elections Canada, “inducement” implies that a tangible quid pro quo is involved, and that mere expressions of opinions don’t count. So, bribery. But then, it’s illegal for Canadians to bribe voters as well, so if the law was really only about bribery by foreigners what need would there be for a separate prohibition against foreigners doing it?)
I’ve watched how Putin puts the squeeze on candidacies that have even the slightest touch of association with foreign entities. I even mute my likes on Navalny’s facebook posts in order to avoid causing him trouble over it. That’s probably not healthy for democracy. In a way it would be good to know the source behind any campaign statements, but even enforcement of something like that can be ripe for abuse.
It’s interesting that here in the U.S. there are those who think citizenship should not be a barrier to social services or even voting. (There were debates in ante-bellum Michigan as to whether voting should be restricted to citizens.) But a lot of those same people think it’s fine for U.S. newspapers and certain U.S. presidents to spread misinformation, but not for Russia to do so.
If our democracy cannot survive memes on Facebook, then maybe we should just pack it in.
We should consider ourselves fortunate that there is a common section in which you could respond. The WSJ–now under new editorial management at the top–has sharply curtailed the number of articles on which paying subscribers can comment. Being a cynic, I suspect this may be a reaction to the negativity in the comments sections to the paper’s starting to tilt leftward.
If there’s going to be a law, how do you even define such a thing? President Trump had some things to say about an election in Israel. Former US President Obama actively campaigned against Brexit, threatening negative action by the US if the British voted in favor of it. And I think he was in Britain at the time.
Inside the US, a couple of state governments and their governors (New York, California) actively threaten action against other states (see North Carolina, Georgia) if the voters or legislators of those other states don’t vote in accord with the wishes of the threatening states and politicians.
I’m upset at something related. If you get your email from earthlink, you are treated to their “top stories” (interpretations) on logging in.
Today it was this one: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20190419/f416551f-f997-4555-bc95-04f486f798ff
…which tries to absolve the press by saying the Mueller report echos parts of the fake news of 2 years’ running. But if “fake news” means a complete blackout of anything outside the news narrative, leaving vast numbers of listeners and readers clueless about the soft coup hunt for anything on Trump, and investigations based on no credible evidence, misuse of the courts, etc. isn’t it time to call that a deficiency of performing the responsibility of the press? But no, they are using the report that clears Trump to convert it into a “press was right” story!
Deportation. Aliens don’t have 1st amendment rights.
That might be how Mexico does it. I read somewhere that it’s illegal for non-Mexicans to even make neutral comments about their elections, let alone express an opinion about how people should vote. I don’t have a citation to back up that claim, however.
But they are taking a beating on their headline and that story. I’ve seen many comments threatening to cancel WSJ memberships. (I was thinking of doing that too.)