Harnessing Americans as Useful Idiots – Election Disinformation

Breakfast with Bwana

By Anil Madan

The Chairman of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warner (D-Va) has warned that the U.S. may be more vulnerable to Russian, Chinese, and Iranian efforts to undermine its democracy by spreading disinformation as we enter the final months of campaigning for the 2024 election for president. 

Senator Warner’s alert is a sharp contrast to the description of the 2020 presidential election as “the most secure election certainly in modern history,” by Christopher Krebs who was then the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA). Donald Trump had, falsely of course, claimed that the 2020 election was stolen and declared himself the real winner. The history of those absurd claims rejected by courts in some 63 lawsuits, his subsequent actions, and the lack of any evidence of fraud that changed the outcome, have been well documented. Rudy Giuliani, formerly lauded as “America’s Mayor” after the September 11, 2001, attack on The World Trade Center and now disgraced prevaricator, famously told a judge: “We don’t have evidence, but we have theories.” For his “disloyalty” to Trump in speaking the truth, Krebs was fired from his position by Trump.

Election Disinformation in the US. Pic – Press Relations

Why would Russia, China and Iran want to undermine America’s elections and confidence in the electoral system of the most significant democracy in the world? Interpretations vary, and range from ascribing Russia’s efforts to undermining U.S. support for Ukraine—and thus indirectly promoting Trump’s candidacy—China’s efforts to undermine U.S. commitments to come to Taiwan’s defense in the event of a Chinese attack—and again, indirectly promoting Trump—and Iran’s efforts to become a nuclear weapons power and to erode the outsize role of Israel as a force in the Middle East in an effort to dominate the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf Arabs, Egypt, and Jordan.

Russia’s prowess in Internet hacking is well known. If China can be called a second-level power in this role, so can Iran. Adding the use of artificial intelligence or AI to create massive amounts of generated videos, images, and simulated scenarios exacerbates the problem since it is often nearly impossible to separate genuine recordings from fake. 

Both Russia and China seek to recruit what are known as useful idiots to their causes. The tragedy is that such unwitting recruits may not be required to commit overt acts of disloyalty. Merely having them cast their misguided vote on the basis of disinformation is what the meddlers seek to achieve.

So, Senator Warner and the American intelligence community are well justified in raising alarms about foreign interference in America’s democracy

A society receptive to falsehoods

But there is more to the story. It seems undisputable beyond cavil that for foreign actors to gain traction with disinformation, they must find a society receptive to their falsehoods and alternative narratives. This is, of course, true also of home-grown candidates and groups who seek to gain an advantage from spreading falsehoods and rumors.

Just about a year ago, Robert Yoon, an AP reporter noted that with Donald Trump facing felony charges over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, he was flooding his social media platform with distortions, misinformation and unfounded conspiracy theories about his defeat.Read More… Become a Subscriber

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 9 August 2024