“The Russians Play Hard”: Inside Russia’s Attempt to Hack 2018—And 2020 vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/i…
^^ This is a MUST READ. Hopefully it will help Washington D.C. politics wonks understand the scale of the vulnerability of elections infrastructure. /1
^^ This is a MUST READ. Hopefully it will help Washington D.C. politics wonks understand the scale of the vulnerability of elections infrastructure. /1
This for example is not a hypothetical scenario. We have known this happened since 2003. scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0310…
It even has a (albeit contested) wikipedia page >> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volusia_e… /2
It even has a (albeit contested) wikipedia page >> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volusia_e… /2
Yip. Hard to disagree with this.
"As one researcher said to me recently, if there’s one thing that Russia and the Democrats agree on, it’s that Trump is an idiot, and he’s so self-obsessed that he’ll always put himself before American democracy, and, in turn, weaken it. " /3
"As one researcher said to me recently, if there’s one thing that Russia and the Democrats agree on, it’s that Trump is an idiot, and he’s so self-obsessed that he’ll always put himself before American democracy, and, in turn, weaken it. " /3
Although I might dispute the idiot bit. If he is an idiot, then he is idiot savant. The last week has proven that Trump is able to run rings around the media and his political opponents on both sides in such a manner as to leave them bewildered and dispirited. /4
Personally I am still trying to digest what happened last week and in the days since. Yes Trump backed down on separating families, but having done so he appears to have successfully turned the madness of the previous few weeks to his advantage. /5
He has achieved the political benefits of Stephen Miller's malignant political ploy, uniting his base and launching a "divide America 2018" campaign, without having to continue to break families apart. twitter.com/i/moments/1009… /6
Of course he has decided not to resolve the issue of immigration legislatively. He never had any intention of doing so. Trump's plan is to execute an electoral Reichstag fire, and with Russian assistance he may well succeed. /7
There is a parallel to the electoral malaise of the US here in the UK. Two years after an impossibly divisive #Brexit vote the political process appears powerless to contain the hard brexiteers for the same reason that Trump cannot be contained. /8
And the reason is simple, the voting public provides the political center with no reliable direction of travel. Rational discussion of issues and solutions, of compromise or settlement, appears impossible. /9
W.B. Yeats poem written as the Irish war for independence began in 1919 captures this moment perfectly.
"The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity." /10
"The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity." /10
We have broken democracy. Perhaps the Internet has helped. But to my mind, the damage has been done to UK and US democracy over the past four decades, during which a politics of self-interest has become the norm. /11
There is an absence of political literacy in the Anglosphere that is now killing our institutions. People believe they are being virtuous if they vote according to their self-interest and in accordance with their prejudices. This is what "freedom" is all about. /12
There is a monumental irony in the fact that the "Freedom Caucus" of the GOP is legislatively the rock upon which Trump and Putin are in the process of building their neo-fascist project to build fortress United States. /13
