[johndoe90]

Do you think this could really have any impact on the elections?

I don't see how any of those images or texts could change my opinion on who I want to be the president. Why would anyone take them into consideration?

P.S. I'm Russian. I'm no fan of propaganda and I just want to figure out whether our government really wanted Trump to be the president and if so, then why? I might have missed something, but I don't see that the decisions Trump making are any good for Russia. I see the opposite.

For example, Trump wanted to remove the oil production limit, which would have affected Russian economics.

[peoplewindow]

Clinton was campaigning on policy of starting a war with Russia in Syria (establishing a "no fly zone" i.e. by shooting down planes that were flying). Trump was saying he'd make peace with Russia. So there is a motive.

However, I think this sort of article raises more questions than answers.

Firstly what makes them think this was the work of the Russian government vs private sector Russians with an interest in US politics? The only evidence seems to be the use of a particular payment service and the rest is assumption.

Secondly, how are these ads meant to benefit Russia specifically? What are these ads supposed to achieve? The evil plan being to "sow division in society"? US society is already very divided and has been for ages. It's very hard to imagine any government signing off on the purchase of a bunch of stupid Jesus arm wrestling memes, especially as there's no coherent theme to any of this.

The whole Russia-American-election story continues to look to me like a huge set of suppositions and dubious mental leaps. It's all very clearly an attempt to get Trump impeached. Motivated reasoning is bound to follow.

PS. I am not Russian.

[turndown]

>Firstly what makes them think this was the work of the Russian government vs private sector Russians with an interest in US politics?

The opposite reasoning also works. Why assume this is a private sector Russian with an interest in politics, when there is a more simple/straightforward answer in who would create something like this?

I do agree that Russians should have been interested in the election, as most of the world should for a country that has a large impact on the socioeconomic fabric, but any time you begin to input your own time/money into something, you immediately become obviously vested in the outcome of something you have no right in influencing.

>Secondly, how are these ads meant to benefit Russia specifically? What are these ads supposed to achieve? The evil plan being to "sow division in society"?

Come on, it should be very clear to you why these are beneficial to a supposed Russian effort to affect the election. Demonization is a classic, and effective strategy to influence opinion, and while I do agree that this meme is a very ineffective rhetorical strategy to you/me when we look at it in a more skeptical light than normal, just seeing this on your Facebook feed randomly could be very effective to many people.

>The whole Russia-American-election story continues to look to me like a huge set of suppositions and dubious mental leaps.

It's an investigation that hasn't been finished yet, so I do understand a skittishness in the veracity of some of the claims made so far in the dossier, but the idea that the entirety of the Russian collusion saga has just been trumped-up charges is a joke. Two men have been indicted, and another plead guilty to crimes that are at least casually related to a possible Russian collusion.

>It's all very clearly an attempt to get Trump impeached. Motivated reasoning is bound to follow.

Politically it's absolutely an attempt to impeach Trump, yet day after day more information is released/revealed/found that is more and more damning to the idea that something illegal didn't happen in the 2016 election.

Remember, the idea of Russian collusion isn't something that was just made up after Trump became President. There has been a natural build up of evidence/steam that has slowly shed more light on possible activities by those strongly linked with Trump, or by Trump himself.

>PS. I am not a Russian.

Neither am I. It doesn't matter.

[matthewvincent]

I totally agree there is no way these had any real impact on voter turnout. To me these read more like sowing the seeds of division in general than anything else.

[johndoe90]

So I thought about it.

There is a way that I could rethink of my candidate. If someone (a paid troll for instance) was targeted against me. If they would have been talking to me and sending proofs I could believe in, then, probably, I could even change my opinion.

And you know what? Russia has trolls. It's even worse, it's centralized troll factory — a house of paid trolls.

But even if those trolls were told to “make America great again” with Trump, they wouldn't have impact big enough to change anything.

[Feniks]

Clinton was going to be worse.

But keep in mind that a weak and divided America is the first goal. Keeping Washington dysfunctional.