And the Russians, who’ve been aiming that direction for decades, finally scored a hit.
The Russians — just like everyone else — didn’t really think that Donald Trump was going to win the election. This is a separate matter from the whole question of collusion. Nobody thought Donald Trump was going to win.
But that wasn’t the goal of the Russians (save, perhaps, for some outside contingency planning). The goal was to divide the nation. And for all the various problems, conflicts, and weaknesses we have, race remains the greatest.
So when you look at the adverts they state-sponsored, race pops up as a motivator more often than any other. Racist, anti-racist, white nationalist, black nationalism, black crimes against police, police crimes against blacks …. The morality of the position made no difference. Just something that turned people against each other, divided the nation, the body politic, anything that promoted hatred, that promoted separation, that made the US weaker.
It didn’t matter who won (though the presumption was that it would be Clinton). All that mattered was that, whoever was in charge, the US would be that much less able to oppose Russia.
Something to think about, next time you run across an advert in social media, especially with racial overtones, about how Those Folk are ruining our nation, and how only if We Folk stick together will We be safe (and all the Others can go hang).
“We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
— Ben Franklin
More Than Half of Russian Facebook Ads Focused on Race
Race was the Russian operation’s go-to wedge when it tried to divide Americans before and after the 2016 election.
