Jamming Democracy

Rather than shutting down dissenting voices, these leaders have learned to harness the democratizing power of social media for their own purposes—jamming the signals, sowing confusion. They no longer need to silence the dissident shouting in the streets; they can use a megaphone to drown him out. Scholars have a name for this: censorship through noise.

McKay Coppins

Troy Price, chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, resigned his position effective immediately upon the election of an interim Chair on February 15th. In his resignation letter he said, “The fact is that Democrats deserved better than what happened on caucus night. As chair of this party, I am deeply sorry for what happened and bear the responsibility for any failures on behalf of the Iowa Democratic Party,”

Price, by all accounts a good man, as well as an experienced and effective leader, took responsibility for the chaos in reporting that occurred on the night of the Iowa caucuses. He resigned in the classic “falling on your sword” manner of one who voluntarily takes personal responsibility for a group mistake. Such an act allows the remaining group to move past blame so they can deal with the situation and then move forward.

The important part of the story

It must be said, however, that while he took the responsibility, he did not cause the problem. Knowing the app was new, and that technology can be fickle, the Iowa Democratic party had two backups for the reporting app that failed.

The first backup was phone reporting as, no doubt, had been used in the past. The second was that they collected and kept the actual paper “presidential preference cards” (ballots). These paper ballots will guarantee that the final result will be accurate. Unfortunately for the Iowa Democratic Party, Americans value convenience (speed) over accuracy, so the complaints were loud.

But the important part of the story is about the failure of the phone backup. The Party is not responsible for this failure. Precinct Chairs could not get through to give their reports by phone because internet-recruited prank callers deliberately and maliciously jammed the phone lines.

The bullies are being organized

We’ve seen this before. In the 2000 Bush v. Gore election recount in Florida, organized crowds mobbed the Miami-Dade elections office every day. They shouted, banged on windows, and intimidated people until the day the Supreme Court stopped the recount and gave the election to George W. Bush.

Clearly, this is the behavior of bullies. And, just as clearly, neither Al Gore nor Troy Price were prepared for the onslaught. It is difficult to prepare against immature and underhanded tactics because one never knows when and where they may strike. Also, it can be difficult for good Americans to even imagine that someone would try to disrupt an election.

The 2020 Democratic nominee for President had better not be naive in this regard. The election of 2020 is already shaping up to be the dirtiest in American history.

Swamping the internet

The Trump campaign is planning to spend more than $1 billion, and it will be aided by a vast coalition of partisan media, outside political groups, and enterprising freelance operatives. These pro-Trump forces are poised to wage what could be the most extensive disinformation campaign in U.S. history.

McKay Coppins

Much of the democracy jamming will be done online. The Trump campaign has already set up their online disinformation command center. During the impeachment process they ran a multi-million dollar ad campaign that sent out thousands of micro-targeted ads .

People who watched the impeachment proceedings solely through Facebook and right-wing media outlets, rather than actually watching and listening to the hearings directly, got a carefully edited version of each day’s story that repeatedly cast Trump as a hero. Millions of people literally experienced an “alternative facts” version of the impeachment events.

Attacking local media and reporters

Every presidential campaign sees its share of spin and misdirection, but this year’s contest promises to be different. In conversations with political strategists and other experts, a dystopian picture of the general election comes into view—one shaped by coordinated bot attacks, Potemkin local-news sites, micro-targeted fearmongering, and anonymous mass texting.

McKay Coppins

The noise campaign this year will not be limited to national media. The Trump campaign has announced plans to train “swarms of surrogates” to undermine any negative stories on local media. The goal here is to weaken trust in local newspapers and TV stations.

They have also begun to attack reporters personally. Donald Trump, Jr. helps to coordinate a social media hit team that keeps dossiers on reporters who have written pieces critical of the administration. They search for any bit of potentially controversial material at any time in a reporter’s life, which they turn into an inflammatory Breitbart headline, which can then be spread on social media.

Fear and confusion is the goal

The Bullies do not need to be in the majority to win. They just need to create enough fear and confusion to stymie their opposition while they suppress the vote, stack the courts, persecute scapegoated minorities, and paralyze the legislative branch.

This has been the plan of former Trump strategist and advisor, Steve Bannon, all along. He has said he wants to “destroy the state.” He wants to control the narrative (the story about what is real) by jamming what he calls “the real opposition,” the media.

The Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with sh**.

Steve Bannon

Democrats must unite

It will take great patience, forbearance, and discernment as well as determination and hard work, for the Democrats to successfully navigate the Republican flood of manure. Currently, during the Primary Elections, there are Democrats unfairly attacking and telling lies about other Democrats. Unfortunately, this is typical of us.

I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.

Will Rogers

This infighting only helps the other side and needs to stop. This year we desperately must take back both the White House and the Senate as well as protect the House majority. We can’t afford to be fighting among ourselves.

Let us remain positive and hopeful. Let us remember who our friends are. Let us hold our primary debates vigorously, but amicably. And when our Presidential candidate is selected, let us unite and get that malignant narcissist out of the White House! (And the other one out of the Senate Majority Leader’s chair).

Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

Matthew 10:16

Sources: Samantha Sergi, “Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price resigns in wake of caucus chaos,” ABC News, February 12, 2020.
Brian Fung, et al., “Prank callers and internet trolls sought to sow chaos on Iowa caucus night,” CNN, February 6, 2020.
Michael E. Miller, “‘It’s insanity!’: How the ‘Brooks Brothers Riot’ killed the 2000 recount in Miami,” The Washington Post, November 15, 2018.
McKay Coppins, “The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President,” The Atlantic, February 10, 2020.
Taegan Goddard, “Through Steve Bannon’s Eyes,” Political Wire, February 9, 2018.