America, the manipulated

If Americans learned that the U.S. government was flooding social media with propaganda designed to influence how they vote, the uproar across the country, and on the steps of Congress, would be deafening.

But even as Americans learn more and more about how Russia used social media to manipulate voters in the 2016 election — and how it continues to try to shape public opinion — we seem to be a populace torn between outrage, denial, indifference and resignation.

It doesn’t help that President Donald Trump is among those in denial, unwilling to admit that he owes his presidency, to one degree or another, to Russian efforts to help get him nominated and elected. Or that Republicans, who have for two years controlled both houses of Congress, have been only slowly confronting that reality, wary of the likely blowback from Mr. Trump, his loyal base and the right-wing media.

The latest revelations come in two reports released this month by the Senate Intelligence Committee. They were prepared by cybersecurity company New Knowledge and the Computational Propaganda Research Project, a study by researchers at the University of Oxford and Graphika, a social media analysis firm. They detail how the Internet Research Agency, a firm owned by a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, used a host of social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, to target groups of voters with tailored messages, including African Americans in an effort to depress what was expected to be a key portion of Hillary Clinton’s vote.

It’s worth noting that this stoking of racial animus in America was a tactic of the old Soviet Union as well to create social unrest in the U.S. But race isn’t the only thing propagandists have had to work with. They’ve also focused on our sharp ideological divides, hammering home patriotic, anti-immigrant, anti-liberal narratives to conservative and right-wing voters. More recently, they’ve focused on, among other things, trying to discredit scrutiny by the FBI and Special Counsel Robert Mueller of the very interference they engaged in — memes we can all see echoing on right wing internet sites, radio and Fox News.

While Congress has been looking into this, the pace at which Republicans have been doing so has been conspicuously slow. And with Mr. Trump alternating between outright denial and tortured attempts to suggest somehow, contrary to all credible evidence, that this was really done to benefit his Democratic opponent, the official response to this interference has been muddled at best. With little diplomatic or other pushback, the researchers warn, America will be open to continued attacks on its democracy.

The growing evidence of Russian interference, and a more bipartisan Congress next year, could change this dynamic. But in the end citizens can expect only so much of elected representatives who, even under the best of circumstances, are sensitive to public opinion. Until Americans themselves accept that they are not immune to the power of propaganda, they will remain vulnerable to an adversary who has been practicing it for the last hundred years.