THE USUAL SUSPECTS: The declassified @ODNIgov report reveals Putin and his Kremlin cutouts continue to attack our democracy. dni.gov/files/ODNI/doc… 1/
KEY JUDGMENT 2: In 2020, Putin and his Kremlin cutouts continued their assault against the Democratic Party and Biden’s Presidency by undermining confidence in our elections and exploiting divisions. 2/
KREMLIN DIRECTION: @ODNIgov determined Putin and senior Russian officials were aware of probably directed Russia’s influence operation against the 2020 election. 3/
THE NETWORK: Network analyst and disinformation specialist @DaveTroy has been documenting the connections between former American military and intelligence agents who are spreading conspiracy theories linked to a disinformation phenomenon known as QAnon. 1/
Troy also has been tying up loose ends between powerful right-wing groups such as the Council for National Policy (CNP) and its history with Kremlin-linked operatives. 2/
The CNP formed as an alliance of conservatives created in the aftermath of the Reagan election in 1981 to lay the groundwork for policy objectives. Among its associates are the Mercer and Koch families, backers of prominent right-wing movements and organisations. 3/
MESSAGING INJECTIONS: In my interview with @davetroy on the network responsible for the January 6 insurrection and weapons’ grade psyops, he explained how America’s bias toward individualism makes us particularly vulnerable to social manipulation.
“Particularly in the United States we have a bias toward individualism and the idea that each of us is a rational actor and we have agency and we can take in information and decide about stuff, and therefore any failings that any individual has is like their fault.”-@davetroy 2/
“So therefore there cannot be manipulation in that context because everyone is sovereign.
My opinion is that’s bullshit. We are group creatures, we are social animals, we have a social identity that we use to interpret the world. We see the world through social lenses.”-DT 3/
“QAnon crawled out of the sewer that is the chans, it started moving around, people observed it and said, ‘Hmm, this has some utility.’ And people started feeding it and using it..It got tuned to be something that could be manipulated,used to an effect.”-@davetroy in @BylineTimes
“Troy says he finds it alarming that Flynn is an expert in networked insurgency.
‘He would know that if you want some people to do some things you just have to plant messaging with some mullahs, get the mullahs to put out the word..and then what do you know, something happens.”
“We spent a lot of time last fall raising alarm bells with journalists, saying, ‘Dudes, this is crazy.’ Military folks and intel people are saying this stuff, some of whom have backgrounds with psyops..so aspects of QAnon may be informed by people w/expertise in psyops.”@davetroy