I promise I’m going to dig into this in more depth when I have time. But even with Special Investigator Robert Mueller is handing out indictments, even while POTUS45 incessantly tweets nonsense about it being fake news, that isn’t the biggest part of Russia’s efforts to disrupt American society.
The bigger, more important part is that Russia (probably) didn’t hack voting machines; they hacked the MINDS of the American people. And they used Facebook to do it.
In short: Russia wants to instigate a race war in our country.
For example, “Being Patriotic,” a group that regularly posted content praising Donald Trump’s candidacy, stated in an April 2016 post that Black Lives Matter activists who disrespected the American flag should be “be immediately shot.” The account accrued about 200,000 followers before it was shut down.
Another Russia-linked group, “Blacktivist,” described police brutality in a November 2016 post weeks after the election, and stated, “Black people have to do something. An eye for an eye. The law enforcement officers keep harassing and killing us without consequences.”
The group “Secured Borders” had the most violent rhetoric, some of it well after the presidential election. A post in March 2017 described the threat of “dangerous illegal aliens” and said, “The only way to deal with them is to kill them all.” Another post about immigrants called for a draconian new law, saying, “if you get deported that’s your only warning. You come back you get shot and rolled into a ditch… BANG, problem solved.” And a post about refugees said, “the state department needs to be burned to the ground and the rubble reduced to ashes.”
Uh . . . WHAT?
Like I said, I’m going to dig into this more, see if I can help create some noise about it. But let’s be clear: Russia isn’t just targeting so-called “white conservatives” with their propaganda; they’re targeting YOU, as African Americans. And they want to throw gasoline on America’s simmering racial tensions.
They went so far as to hire self-defense experts to teach free classes in black neighborhoods under the name “Black Fist,” and promoted it on social media. And you can best believe they turned around and blasted that fact out to Trump voters. Gasoline, meet flame.
Russia is like that kid on the playground — the one standing behind two kids circling each other who don’t really want to fight, but don’t want to back down either. You know that kid. He pushes one classmate into the other. The other shoves back. Now, there’s a fight and the instigator gets to watch the fireworks without really having to deal with the consequences, without having to tend to a busted lip or a black eye. And he’s LAUGHING about it. LAUGHING.
I’m a known idealist. The idealist in me would like to think that in the American family, it’s one thing if we fight amongst ourselves. But it’s another thing when an outsider tries to get me to turn on my own people. In that world, black folks and white folks put aside our differences (at least for a while) and go handle the jokers that tried to split us up. And who knows? Maybe after that, we’ll realize we’re not that different after all.
But first, we have to get this on the radar. Maybe I’m alone on this one. But if I’m not — if you don’t like getting played (while you’ve been TOLD you’re getting played) — share this story. Talk about it among your people.
Or better yet, talk about it with someone outside your political spectrum. Talk about it with a Trump voter. Be forewarned, you may not agree at the end of the conversation. Just don’t come to blows.
Because that’s EXACTLY what the Russians want.
