Thread by @benimmo

Thread: if you're arguing whether the Kremlin operation's main goal was electing Trump or dividing Americans, you're missing the point. The most important thing is stopping a repeat. @DFRLab medium.com/dfrlab/electio…

All the way through, the operation attacked Clinton, with posts like these. How was that not helping Trump? (h/t @ushadrons for their repository of troll posts at medium.com/@ushadrons)

Mueller's indictment says the troll operators were ordered to support Trump from at least February 2016. They did it with posts like these.

But we also know that the day after the election, the operation posted this. Dividing Americans was always a goal, especially once the vote was over.

We know from the Mueller indictment that the operation was ordered to find sensitive issues and inflame them.

As early as May 2016, the troll factory triggered a face-off in Houston by organizing simultaneous pro- and anti-Islam rallies.

The trolls took both sides on issues like #TakeAKnee, #NoDAPL and LGBT rights.

Not all troll account were equally effective. The one which targeted native Americans, for example, didn't seem to get significant traction.

Other target communities, especially the alt-right, were fooled hook, line and sinker. Even Trump campaign members amplified troll posts.

Troll accounts which posed as BLM activists fooled many, too. Even @jack retweeted the Crystal Johnson account.

In all this, the most embittered and rancorous communities were also the most easily duped. The troll operation's biggest asset was America's hyper-partisan divide.

There's no point arguing over the "main goal" of the last influence operation. The important thing to prevent the next one, wherever it comes from.

That requires leadership on both sides with enough political courage to abandon the rhetoric of division, and accept that the greatest threats to America come from outside the country. / Thread ends