Russian Propagandists Are Pushing for Roy Moore to Win

[applegrove]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/12/russian-propagandists-are-pushing-for-roy-moore-to-win/

By Denise Clifton at Mother Jones

"SNIP.......

The Kremlin’s ongoing “active measures”campaign on social media has aimed to sow confusion and chaos by supporting both far-right and far-left interests in American politics. The Alabama election presented a ripe opportunity, according to former senior CIA official John Sipher, now an expert with the national security group Cipher Brief. “In the case of Moore, the Russians certainly assess that the hyper-partisan and heated campaign is pitting Americans against each other and they want to do all they can to add fuel to the fire,” he says. “They likely assess that a Moore victory will bring the fight to Washington and further weaken the strained US political system.”

Moore’s candidacy has the full-throated backing of President Donald Trump, who has consistently refused to acknowledge the Kremlin’s cyber meddling in US elections and has repeatedly called those efforts “a hoax,” contrary to the consensus of the entire US intelligence community.

The digital activity around the Alabama senate race, says Sipher, is a continuation of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy of exploiting social media and a bitterly charged political atmosphere in America. “Supporting Mr. Moore is another means to help Mr. Trump while stoking chaos in the US at the same time,” he says.

Moore has joined Trump in openly expressing a personal affinity for Putin. In an interview with The Guardian this summer, Moore praised Putin’s opposition to same-sex marriage, saying “Maybe he’s more akin to me than I know.” Several weeks after his comments, more than a thousand Russian-language Twitter accountssuddenly started following Moore’s official account. His campaign said it didn’t know why, and accused his Democratic opponent Doug Jones’ campaign of being behind the accounts. (The accounts were quickly deleted, reportedly by Twitter.)

.......SNIP"

[rainin]

1. I'm not clear why Trump originally supported Luther Strange since

Moore seems so nicely aligned with Putin. I missed that - or I just don't remember.

[Wounded Bear]

2. Trump was trying to kiss up to the McDonnell wing of the party...

temporarily to get his "agenda" passed. That went well.

Might as well support another loser. And whatever the vote count tomorrow, Moore is a loser.

[dalton99a]

3. And Trump deleted his supportive tweets as soon as Strange lost

[MountCleaners]

4. What is amazing is that...

Trump supporters are on FB and Twitter rubbing shoulders with Russian trolls and making the same arguments, and they don't even seem aware of it. I don't think they know anything about Putin or Russia, I don't think they understand why this is wrong. You never see them comment on it on social media. They wrap themselves in the flag while encouraging treason.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. Artem Klyushin has been heavily promoting Moore on his Twitter account

Klyushin is a Russian oligarch who—along with his then wife—accompanied Trump all around Moscow during his 2013 Miss Universe pageant. He then began to heavily promote Trump as a presidential candidate long before Trump officially announced.

He’s also is a close associate of Konstantin Rykov, a major Kremlin online propogandist who bragged over Facebook about running an information campaign to target potential voters for Trump.