Russian 2016 Influence Operation Targeted African-Americans on Social Media nyti.ms/2R2pmzO
I’ve already gone over this umpteen times but once again let me just say that Putin used Bernie and his Bros as pawns in a clearly futile effort to put a dent in Hillary’s support from Black voters. Anyone who’s still denying this fact is/was part of the problem and propaganda.
In other words, we told y’all so from Day 1. When their ploy didn’t work on Black voters in the Democratic primary, they found greener pastures by peddling “Bernie or Bust” to White “moderates” who either voted for Jill (Russian plant) or stayed at home. nytimes.com/2018/12/17/us/… 
Good morning and here’s your ☕️
https://twitter.com/docrocktex26/status/965588485531987970?s=21
The reason we keep explaining this to y’all is you’re still falling for the bullshit and you refuse to listen to folk who saw this disaster coming from years away. Wake the FUCK up.
I’ve already threaded, filed and stored everything I ever have to say about Bernie so I’m not even gonna waste my time on him specifically. The larger issue is the propaganda attached to him remains upon us. The Russian trolls #onhere are well fed and prolific.
Folk think they can just say “let’s move past 2016” and stop relitigating the primary” and that will magically disappear all these trolls or hault the propagation of alt-left propaganda or cyber bullying against marginalized people on social media.
Fat fucking chance.
Fat fucking chance.
You’re living in a dream world if you still don’t recognize the ways in which White Americans on BOTH the left and the right consumed and proliferated propaganda online while outright refusing to listen to POC who saw it for what it was bc we were the subject of most of the lies.
As we live and breathe today the same exact lies are being told and ain’t shit changed because they’re the same lies that have been told about us for centuries. Denying the truth only serves to repeat the cycle and invite ever more propaganda. STOP giving it wings.
Bottom line is Black people damn near unanimously didn’t fall for ANY OF THIS SHIT and we proved it by voting ~90% for Hillary Clinton. This is why *our* VRA was dismantled, *our* votes were suppressed, and *our* party was infiltrated by Bernie Bros. Face the damn facts or STFU.
You don’t get to act surprised by the fallout when we told you the shit was happening in real time but you labeled our warnings “identity politics” and went right back to doing Putin’s work for him.
https://twitter.com/docrocktex26/status/965596614428676096?s=21
Spoiler Alert: they won’t grapple with it because it requires empathy, insight and taking responsibility for their willful ignorance and/or White privilege.
https://twitter.com/drvox/status/1074742277753335808?s=21
Those of us (namely women and POC) who’ve been targeted for harassment by Russian trolls and real life Bros on Bernie’s behalf since the summer of 2015 didn’t need a federal investigation to spot this fuckery. We told y’all so then and don’t plan to quit.
https://twitter.com/bravenakblog/status/1074789803672055809?s=21
Until folk find the courage to acknowledge that Bernie was to the left what Trump was to the right in Putin’s ploy to propagandize White voters none of this disaster will change. Clean up the WHOLE mess or expect more 💩.
https://twitter.com/docrocktex26/status/965582204003897344?s=21
Stop concern trolling with superpredator/crime bill propaganda as your justification for believing other propaganda about HRC in 2016 because 1) Black voters see right through you 2) it didn’t sway us in the 90s either 3) it makes you look complicit. wakelet.com/wake/d6415b3b-…
Stop peddling shit you learned from propagandists and propagandized people who have already been debunked repeatedly. If you fell for the cyberattack in 2016 doubling down on it in the future won’t ever grant you a shred of credibility, forgiveness or acceptance.
Period.
Period.
Propane Jane discusses “identity politics” and how the pitfalls of the 2016 election will haunt us again b/c the GOP’s bankrupt agenda thrives on bigoted propaganda about civil rights, the Democratic coalition and reliable White allies via @RickSmithShow podbean.com/media/share/pb…
Check out @sarahkendzior brilliantly breaking down social media propaganda and cyber bullying as it was experienced by women and POC vs the WWC and White moderates in 2016 #wetoldyouso
https://twitter.com/ricksmithshow/status/1075255091299565568?s=21
I think the most crucial aspect of what both @sarahkendzior and I are saying in the above podcasts is that Hillary supporters (predominantly women and POC) were the first to bear the brunt of the abusive aspects of the cyberattack on social media and warned ppl about it early on.
But here’s the thing, it wasn’t just that the cyber bullies were racist/sexist, it was also that they were exhibiting said traits in conjunction w/wholehearted endorsements of Bernie Sanders. Not Trump, Bernie. It wasn’t just clear they were a threat but also who they preferred.
I lived the shit so I can tell you exactly how it went down. ANY degree of insufficient Bernie worship or critique of his record on civil/women’s rights was met with all manner of block worthy vitriol and it’s how the fuck they even came to be known as “Bros” to this very day.
Circa February 2016. The hateful fuckery was so out of line that women and POC were literally asking Bernie to denounce the online activity of folk who claimed to be harassing us in his name and he couldn’t be bothered.
https://twitter.com/docrocktex26/status/697973622804090880?s=21
They paid lip service to the idea that Bernie’s campaign needed to address the issue head on but the lack of forceful execution was painfully clear and the prevalence of the online Bros COMPLETELY destroyed his chances with women and POC of the D base.
https://twitter.com/docrocktex26/status/693264059353792512?s=21
In other words, you can’t effectively sell racist and sexist propaganda to folk who fully recognize that buying it means placing their own selves in the crosshairs. The success of the cyberattack was rooted in the gullibility and bigotry of the privileged and unoppressed.
In more other words, what women and people of color quickly identified as an attack against ourselves was at the same time a cyberattack on American democracy. What was dismissed as the race/woman card and identity politics was actually the smoking gun. This isn’t a coincidence.
Beyond this fact (but not too far) is how the cyber bullying acted as peer pressure on White “moderates” and progressives who didn’t feel safe supporting HRC openly in the White community. It made reliable White allies targets for abuse from both Bernie and Trump supporters.
Again, this is a phenomenon we were observing as women and POC in real time on Twitter and FB but our warnings were not heeded:
“Confirmation Bias and Social Media Segregation: The Unveiling of Bigotry in Your Social Network”
- PJ Circa July 2016 wke.lt/w/s/JsCTf
“Confirmation Bias and Social Media Segregation: The Unveiling of Bigotry in Your Social Network”
- PJ Circa July 2016 wke.lt/w/s/JsCTf
All of this remains problematic to this day because the widely ignored epidemic of racist/sexist propaganda and bullying on social media is a microcosm of the broader trend toward fascism and White supremacist oppression in our society at large.
When we go on and on about the inherent dangers of pandering to the rural, WWC voters that conventional Beltway wisdom (and Bernie) holds in such high esteem, we’re doing it because this demographic was MOST ADEPT at falling prey to and disseminating racist, sexist propaganda. 💡
We’re telling you that people who have routinely fallen for the racist GOP Southern Strategy for the last 50+ years are easy marks for a propaganda campaign rooted in racism and misogyny and therefore by definition are incapable of being reliable allies to marginalized people.
We’re also telling you that racism trumps socialism and you can’t just sidestep civil rights/identity politics to trick the WWC into joining the left of center because they know who they hate and why they vote against US.
https://twitter.com/docrocktex26/status/1041490196150272000?s=21
It’s not only that it’s ludicrous to still be considering folk who bought fake horseshit from Russia wholesale as the holy grail of American politics, it’s also pretty sick/oppressive that they maintain this distinction through the normalization of White male supremacy and rage.
The persistent assertion that all Democrats need to do is nominate a sufficiently White male candidate to appease the segment of American society that can’t possibly be led by anyone other than a Bro is an explicitly biased endorsement of White male privilege/supremacy. Period.
It isn’t simply a matter of slapping a White male face on the Democratic platform and declaring victory, if the candidate isn’t capable of demonstrating genuine intersectionality/ability to be a reliable ally to marginalized, underprivileged groups the party base will reject him.
This is the case with things as seemingly small as how the candidate responds to BLM protestors or reports of online bullying from his supporters, to things as huge as addressing the “alt right” in a dedicated, premeditated, public campaign speech. It matters from top to bottom.
Marginalized people are looking for context clues to determine which candidates will best serve our vested interest in human/civil rights, if they’re too busy donning the cloak of White privilege in the form of colorblind classism to chase the WWC they won’t be reliable allies.
Unreliable White allies won’t make the necessary distinctions on the most pertinent culture war issues therefore they offer no viable rebuttal to the stream of self-aggrandizing, racist, sexist propaganda that is plaguing the White community online and on TV.
Even worse, unreliable White allies actually enable the propagation of not only the propaganda but the bigotry and misogyny because they will tie themselves in knots to deny that these people are actually racist/sexist. They invented “economic anxiety” for White fragility’s sake.
Ppl need to be more concerned abt why the propaganda even worked on the ppl who willfully consumed and disseminated it. They still haven’t learned any reparative lessons from any of this shit and are just as susceptible to online psychological warfare today as they were in 2016.
I know this isn’t an easy conversation to have and it feels more comfortable to just assume 2016 was a fluke but the cyberattack hasn’t stopped and the ground remains fertile because White rage/resentment and the institutionalized racism/misogyny that come with are rampant.
In light of everything that’s now been confirmed about Russia’s pro-Bernie/anti-HRC propaganda rooted in racism/misogyny shouldn’t we be more curious why Bernie 1) thought he could contain it 2) still hasn’t acknowledged how he was fueling/normalizing it? buzzfeednews.com/article/evanmc…
Platitudes about this not being who his supporters really were and behind the scenes apologies to the object of the Bros’ ire didn’t stop the onslaught and neither did his baseless charges of primary rigging or assertions that HRC was unqualified. buzzfeednews.com/article/evanmc…
Riddle me this and I’m done: How can one be a reliable White ally in this political climate if he/she is either unable or unwilling to accurately identify and forcefully stomp out a fascist infiltration of their support base? Just how? 🤷🏾♀️
Seriously, they thought they cleaned up Reddit. LMFAO and GTFOH. 🤣
Here’s Why The NAACP Wants You To Boycott Facebook essence.com/news/naacp-fac… via @ESSENCE
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