Monday, November 13, 2017

Trolling Joe Biden from the Blue Danube

Interesting, disconcerting, upsetting, disappointing, and depressing to see some longtime Democratic veterans engaging negatively in an unsourced (as is the practice) post by a pro-Hillary eastern European troll discrediting Joe Biden. This is but one of the dangers of trolls writ large, broad, and general. Not just anti-Hillary trolls. Pro-Hillary trolls, too.

Trolls target emotions and get visceral responses. It's their MO. In the long run, this can be damaging to the party and to future primaries no matter how the Unity Reform Commission transforms the primary process. Trolls can, as we saw last year, influence the vote and interfere with the democratic process. The bottom line is that this borders on illegal. The fact that the troll is for Hillary should be irrelevant.

Here are some comments made by Joe Biden this morning.
Joe Biden has insisted that under no circumstances would he have agreed to replace Hillary Clinton last year as the Democratic presidential nominee running against Donald Trump.
The former US vice-president was asked about former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Donna Brazile’s book, Hacks, which says she considered replacing Clinton with Biden because of health concerns, particularly after the nominee suffered a fainting spell at a 9/11 anniversary commemoration in New York.
Biden told NBC’s Today show on Monday: “I give you my word, the first time I or any of my staff heard of anything about that was in the book, number one. And number two, I would never have taken it.”
He added: “I was for Hillary. I did 83 campaign events for Hillary. I think I can say I did more events and worked as hard for Hillary as anyone else. She would have been a first-rate president.”





















Has Joe made critical comments about Hillary's campaign? Sure. He said it lacked joy, a subjective judgment with which campaign staff, volunteers, rally attendees, and voters disagree strongly. He also said there was no discussion of issues.” That simply is not true. The evidence is here on this blog as well as at Hillary's website. The truth is that the media chose to focus on emails and bogus health reports rather than on the issues she spoke about routinely on the trail. We can agree to disagree with him on these remarks.

Here is the portion of a Facebook post that elicited a firestorm of negativity against Vice President Joe Biden today.
Joe Biden publicly adored Hillary all the time when she had great chances (yes, great chances) to be POTUS, and now that she is robbed, he turns against her? It is hypocrisy and backstabbing in my book. Plus, horrible tactics: Hillary fans are the majority.
Minus a single quote from him or link to a story attributing remarks, Facebook friends came down on Joe Biden like Sharknado based solely on this Facebook character's allegations.

 https://i0.wp.com/media2.slashfilm.com/slashfilm/wp/wp-content/images/Screen-Shot-2017-06-16-at-9.48.20-AM.png

Aside from the fact that Americans for Hillary object strenuously to being called "fans" since we worked our hearts out, voted for her,  and consider ourselves supporters, the problem here is two-fold.
  1. There are no links to remarks indicating that Biden has "turned against" Hillary. This source routinely eschews posting links. Readers are supposed to trust "her" as the source. The Facebook character who posted this offered no basis for the "report." (I am not certain "she" is not a coalition, i.e. electronic troll farm, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that her name is also the name of a fictional character.)
  2. That Facebook character is neither a Democrat nor even an American. Technically, a foreign agent has no business influencing any Americans regarding any internal issues be they national or partisan.
As to the first issue, a few commenters asked for links to source material on this subject or argued with the assessment. One who asked for a source was told to "Look around on the news, it is everywhere that he is criticizing Hillary, AGAIN."  (Let me remind you, this account is operating out of eastern Europe.) A few objected to the effort to sow discord within the party. One chap said the discussion was getting "too tribal" for him. A few, having heard Biden's remarks, said they did not interpret recent remarks as negative. Another veteran handful tried to argue that Hillary, in fact, has no intention of running again, to the chagrin of the character in charge of that page.

The overwhelming majority, however, went after Biden ruthlessly. (Think kids with tin cans at the end of "Suddenly Last Summer.")

On the second issue, there is much to be wary of. There is no reason why a foreign fan of Hillary's cannot say "we Hillary fans" or "we Hillary supporters." Lots of my friends are foreign nationals who like Hillary but do not refer to themselves as "we Democrats" or imply by omission that they are Americans. They do not say "We (emphasis mine) however have a candidate to vote for in 2020 and IT IS HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON." This character does that regularly leading friends to believe that they are interacting with an American  who lives here and can vote. Untrue on both counts. This is a foreign agent.

Aside from the deception and subterfuge, which is despicable, there is the emotional impact a post like this inspires. The Facebook friends have faith that these comments 1)come from an American and 2)are true.  

That troll stirred up a mighty reaction against Vice President Joe Biden today. Think about that. Digest it. It was an attack by a foreign agent on a former vice president of our nation who is now a private citizen not running for any office. Anything here sound familiar?

When no one but Hillary Clinton is an acceptable candidate, the clear objective of this troll account, there are a few imaginable ways, none of which I choose to entertain, to throw this country into chaos such as we have yet to see although we thought we had seen it all.

In the end, for me it is interesting, disconcerting, upsetting, disappointing, and depressing that smart, battle-tested veterans of campaigns take this bait. It is divisive and dangerous for Americans, for Democrats, for the party, and for future elections.

It imperils the nation when politically aware people cannot see that they are being played by a troll even when five full days after Election Day that character finally but vaguely refers to "the Blue Wave of the last few days," and no one catches on.

We know exactly when we saw that Blue Wave. We can pinpoint it. It was last Tuesday night and most of us were up late on social media posting and celebrating.

It did not take us until Sunday to know about it or to mention it. We whooped and hollered and drank all kinds of Chardonnay and other spirits. It did not take days. We knew right away that night. We exploded the social nets with it.

So what kind of comment is that? It is a troll comment from someone who had no idea that we were even having elections here.

Disinformation on this account has been called out in the past. The reaction is never to correct the original statement but rather to blow off the truth and then act hurt. Saying you "try to be as accurate as possible" doesn't cut it when you refuse to be accurate about who and where you are.

You don't like backstabbers? I don't like liars ... especially when they stab others in the back with lies.
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