this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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[–] TropicalDingdong 197 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Bro this isn't news. Its r/TheDonald, Lemmygrad, and half of youtube and facebook. This has been happening since 2016.

[–] jeffw 87 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I’d still say it’s news, it’s just confirming that Russia has continued their same pattern of behavior. Early on the troll farms actually infiltrated communities (I remember reading that they targeted the Bernie subreddit too), but now they just upvote, like, and share unwitting US pawns

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Yeah I thought it was weird when so many Bernie supporters switched to Trump. They're political opposites.

[–] jeffw 49 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Not just that. The whole “Bernie or bust, never support democrats again!” Stuff

[–] BeardedSingleMalt 10 points 1 year ago

There were waves of people who claimed that because their guy Bernie didn't get the nom, they threw a fit and were outright voting 3rd party instead of Biden. Of course, none of them ever went to the polls to vote in the primaries because [insert 14 different excuses]

[–] Serinus 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yeah, that stuff was incredibly transparent I don't think it got many real people.. But if they get just one in five hundred former supporters then it still moves the needle.

It's insane that our margins are what they are. A lot of this stuff just shouldn't have debate. It's too common sense.

[–] fkn 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

First past the post creates these razor thin margins. It's not organic. If we had a ranked choice required plurality then the margins would widen in most races and flip in others.

[–] toasteecup 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I know a former Bernie bro. He switched to trump because "the system fucked Bernie and trump is trying to fuck the system"

[–] jeffw 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lol who downvotes someone for telling a story. Come on guys, he’s not advocating for this, just sharing a story.

[–] toasteecup 2 points 1 year ago

Give people a vote system and they'll prove they suck I guess. Thanks though

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wonder if some of these were former Ron Paul types. I know I was briefly until I learned more about him. Honestly I just wanted weed to be legal nationally.

[–] toasteecup 2 points 1 year ago

Honestly, I'm not sure. I know he worked for the DNC for a while, but I also know a deep end right winger became close friends with him so who the hell knows what happened. Dude always struck me as a bit impressionable

[–] grue 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Before the 2016 election, there were a few actually-good parts of Trump's platform that he had in common with Bernie, such as opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and a few other things that I can't remember at the moment.

Those commonalities were pretty much all either Trump supporting the right thing for the wrong reasons or just blatant lies, but some of the stupider Bernie supporters were duped, I guess?

(FWIW, I supported Bernie but still voted D in the 2016 and 2020 general elections.)

[–] Serinus 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And I'll likely vote against Biden in the primary, but when it comes to the general I'll compromise. Compromise is a core part of democracy.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Exactly. I can't stand Hillary, but I absolutely voted for her in the general. Because the alternative was considerably worse. Many of us saw through Trump's bullshit and recognized him as having the complete opposite mentality of what makes somebody a good president. It's not even about politics. Trump isn't a politician! He bragged about dodging taxes. He bullies people. The list goes on and on. And when he was elected, many people were sounding the alarm that there's no way this guy is voluntarily leaving office. If he gets impeached and convicted, loses the re-election, or hits his 2 term limit, it was pretty obvious how he was going to act. And what really drove it home was the vast number of crimes he committed while in office. He knew that being president was the only thing shielding him from criminal prosecution. There's no way he was going to leave office peacefully. Even during the primaries, he refused to pledge his support to whoever won the nomination if it wasn't him. He shoved other world leaders out of the way so he could stand in front of them. He doctored a National Weather Service map with a sharpie because he couldn't possibly admit that he made a mistake about where a hurricane was headed. He spent his entire presidency bullying people on Twitter.

I mean, yeah, Hillary and Biden suck. They're neolibs. But if Trump is the alternative, I'll be the first in line to vote for the neolibs. And sadly, being in my 40s, Biden is probably the best president we've had in my lifetime. I may question his true allegiances, but I stand with nearly every decision he's made while he's been president. I just wish we could get a left wing populist president in my lifetime. Everybody thought Obama was that person, but I saw through his shit when he was campaigning. He made a lot of promises that he would never be able to keep, and when push came to shove he turned out to be a neolib all along. But if I had to choose between Obama and Trump, Obama all the way.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It wasn't even subtle.

I remember posts with thousands of upvotes from this website called thedurian. I googled the people who ran it, one of them had a linkedin which mentioned his location as Moscow and that he had previously worked for RT.

Given I was banned for posting screenshots, I suspect the mods of /r/thedonald were in on it.

[–] Serinus 9 points 1 year ago

TheDonald started as a joke that was legitimately funny. As soon as anyone tried to call it out as a joke, that person would be banned within seconds. That's not normal, volunteer moderation.

There were people with the power to ban paid to control that sub. They took shifts, likely from Russia.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Id rather be a Russian than a Democrat"

Right around the time Russians stopped being "damn commies" to "antidote to the degenerate west" to them.

[–] asteriskeverything 9 points 1 year ago

Oh SHIT I actually forgot that was a thing commonly heard. Frankly it's been brain breaking news headlines (and usually the even with context it was accurate headlines) since 2015 so hard to remember it all.

[–] YoBuckStopsHere 17 points 1 year ago

It's also Tucker and Talk Radio.

[–] Hazdaz 16 points 1 year ago

And there is literally nothing to declassify. This has been happening out in the open for years. The FBI has been warning us about this shit multiple times. Yet the funny think is that people don't think it is happening to them.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

This has been happening for way longer than that

[–] someguy3 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I noticed a decent number of Russian memes (before Trump) trying to make Russia and Putin look cool, and remember wondering if they were from Russians actually trying or from Westerners having lolz.

[–] asteriskeverything 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There's another lemmy instance to watch out for??? Unless it's old hat already, I don't see much beyond .world stuff

[–] kameecoding 9 points 1 year ago

hexbear is another one that's defederated thankfully

[–] Miqo 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

IIRC, lemmy.world defederated with lemmygrad a while ago.

[–] asteriskeverything 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ah ty. Now I want something like r/subredditdrama but it's to keep track of this stuff lol. I miss consuming harmless drama

[–] orclev 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Honestly there needs to be some way to easily see who is defederated from who, and ideally why.

[–] asteriskeverything 3 points 1 year ago

So far it's safe to assume it's because the user base are tankies/pro russia/far right and spread those comments while also causing problems in whatever instance defederalizes them. I just want the tea

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] orclev 1 points 1 year ago

Really? Can you provide a link or the relevant search keywords to find such a thing?

[–] lemmylommy 1 points 1 year ago

Thank you for supporting the 24h news cycle, where everything is breaking yet nothing matters past a day because „it isn’t news“ anymore.