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Okay, Biden isn’t popular. But his policies sure are.
(www.washingtonpost.com)
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this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2024
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politics
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Just curious, what percentage of Americans do you think are under the influence of Russian bots? Because roughly a third voted for Trump and roughly a third didn't vote, add in third party voters and I'm pretty sure that would mean a supermajority of Americans are Russian assets, which is a fascinating perspective.
"Victim of Russian propaganda" isn't the same as "Russian asset."
Ok then, what percentage is believing, repeating, and being actively swayed by Russian propaganda?
I'm just one person and my sample size is small. But judging by the number of right-leaning people I know that send me stuff from RT and other similar places, and the number of left leaning people who repeat dispiriting talking points I see in those pieces (They may never vote republican, but their enthusiasm is certainly being sapped.), I would say the percentage is quite high. That's just people being swayed like you asked, not necessarily convinced to vote or act a certain way.
Again, I'm just one person, but from what I see around me Russia and its allies are winning the propaganda war.
At least a majority of trump supporters, and probably a small fraction of non-voters.
That's wild. Like, to think all it takes is a handful of Twitter bots to instantly sway like half the population of a country.
Say, why doesn't anyone else try this? Just set up some bot accounts to spread misinformation in favor of Biden, and it should be just as effective right? I mean, it can't be that people have different beliefs and different material interests or anything like that. Everyone who disagrees with you is simply so stupid that they just instantly believe anything they see. Shouldn't you be able to use that to your advantage?
I didn't say or even imply people support trump because of Russian bots, I'm saying that trump supporters are largely stupid or uninformed, and trump is putin's puppet and repeats Russian propaganda.
It's actually kind of funny that you're being incredibly reductive while accusing me of the same. Like I said, not everyone and not everything. Trump supporters, however, are largely dumb enough to swallow Russian propaganda specifically because they've been primed for it.
My question specifically included the words "actively swayed."
It's harder to get people in favor of something than it is to point to something/someone and convince them they are an enemy.
This is a truth known for a long time. I think it is linked to our tendency to lose aversion.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion
Both parties are speaking to us about what we are going to loose it the other side wins. For Biden he is claiming (probably rightly based on the recent Trump supreme court decisions) we are going to loose democracy if Trump wins. Trump is claiming we are going to loose America, the real America, if Biden wins. What real America is depends on who he is talking to.
It is not just bots but an infrastructure of heavy investment in mass media that mislead americans. Fox News, NAEBC, Tucker Carlson, the NRA, Breitbart and then you can add in the bots on social media.
Trump received 74 million votes.
The NRA, which has proven to be infiltrated by russian assets has about 5.5M members so that's almost 7% right there. https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-unveils-report-on-nra-ties-to-russia-findings-show-nra-misled-public-about-2015-moscow-trip#:~:text=New%20evidence%20that%20NRA%20insiders%20may%20have%20violated%20U.S.%20sanctions,pursuit%20of%20personal%20business%20opportunities.
In 2021 there were about 20M users of Parler which amplified russian propaganda: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/10/01/report-fbi-catches-another-russian-made-fake-news-site-targeting-us-voters/
There's probably some overlap, but with just two instances we've seen how over 20-25M right wingers (1 out of 3 trump voters) are subject to russian propaganda.
Amazing. So because the NRA met with Russian weapon manufacturers to try to get rich, it means every one of the 5.5 million NRA members has been swayed by Russian propaganda. Absolutely zero of them were legitimately just gun nuts who were always going to vote Republican because they oppose gun control, 100% of the members were swayed by Russia the moment someone on the board met with a Russian arms dealer.
I guess it becomes very easy to show that a large number of Americans have been influenced by Russia if you're allowed to play like 6 degrees of separation like that. Why don't we count anyone who ever used Facebook too, while we're at it? What percentage of Americans bought a coke in 2020, while Coca-Cola was doing business in Russia? This goes way deeper than I ever imagined.
To some degree or another? A significant portion.
What constitutes "a significant portion?" 5%? 20%? 60%?