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The Fake Americans Russia Created to Influence the Election

47 points| prostoalex | 8 years ago |nytimes.com | reply

18 comments

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[+] paulsutter|8 years ago|reply
An even better idea: find a candidate that people like, someone who could beat the least popular candidate in history. That might work better than endless excuses about marginally relevant sideshows.
[+] throwaway5752|8 years ago|reply
Don't you think it would be better to both 1) get better candidates 2) stop foreign states from successfully interfering in our elections via propaganda and hacking private systems?

edit - disappointed this got flagged, it's only political because certain parts of the users turn it into flamewars. Russia intelligence was attributed as the hackers behind the DNC intrusion by top firms, and is accused of systematically coordinated the timing of damaging info with Wikipedia, the Trump campaign, and networks of social bots to successfully flip the election. Then Trump damaged NATO alliances and softened his part's platform on Ukraine/Crimea, among other things. Regrettable that we can't have a mature conversation about this critical and topical subject.

[+] flunhat|8 years ago|reply
One can logically believe both - that HRC was a flawed candidate who should not have run, and that the allegations of Russian interference (mainly through an intense, mostly false propaganda campaign in favor of one candidate) are troubling and should be investigated to their fullest extent. In fact, if you believe the former, the latter should at least concern you as a citizen.
[+] mjevans|8 years ago|reply
I'm still 'salty' that Bernie wasn't on the Democratic ticket.

I feel like he was actually addressing the issues of the country and could have appealed to much of the electorate that ended up voting for Trump; at least the parts of it that weren't voting for Trump based on his more headline-grabbing (and other kinds of grabbing/threatening) attributes.

[+] narrator|8 years ago|reply
I always groan nowadays whenever I see a nytimes.com or washingtonpost.com byline. What "anonymous sources say" Trump/Russia theory are they going to try to get us to believe now? I thought it would go on for a month or two and then the news would be readable again, but it just keeps on going.
[+] TheIronYuppie|8 years ago|reply
100% HRC was the wrong candidate, but make no mistake the impact of this stuff is huge. Why does it have to be eithe/ or?
[+] asveikau|8 years ago|reply
So Melvin Redick of Harrisburg, PA really existed then? Glad you figured that one out. Not sure why I could not see it was Hillary's fault he wasn't real.
[+] IBM|8 years ago|reply
There's a good measure for the candidate people like, the popular vote, and Hillary got 2.9 million more than Trump.