There is much discussion on all news outlets exploring the impact of Russia's meddling in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. The crux of these discussions almost always gets to the heart of the matter, and that is how are we going to prevent that meddling from happening again. That is going to prove to be a near impossible endeavor because it means more than just moving back to paper ballots and prosecuting hackers. It means dealing with 63 million U.S. voters minds--minds that are comfortable with voting with emotions-including gullibility, instead of with knowledge and with compassion.
The Russian Meddling is basically a two-pronged attack.
Prong One is where someone hacked campaign emails and computers, and then published that material in a choreographed and strategic manner benefitting their favored candidate.
Prong Two is the strongly suggested collaboration with either Cambridge Analytica directly or with the Trump Campaign Tech/Media officer (who had married Cambridge Analytica's Facebook profiling Election Management software with the extensive GOP voter database) to employ bots to mass-broadcast fake stories worded to sway the beliefs and minds of the 5 personality types of Facebook users (and probably other social media users).
So, even though, at this time, we have repeated "confirmations" from various public servants that "Russia's meddling did NOT include actual vote-tampering", there certainly was "mind-tampering" ... an intentional, strategic, exploitation of gullible and/or manipulatable U.S. voters that fail to see the horror of a U.S. election significantly influenced by a foreign entity.
Granted some of the 43 million Trump voters came to their act without being influenced by "bot bombings" or by Russian Meddling. Nevertheless, Trump's "base" is still saying that they support and approve of his presidency so far. This is shocking when considered in light of all the evidence of Russian contacts with his administration and campaign and of all of the evidence corroborating the existence of Prong One and Prong Two. This means that we--the United States of America, have tens of millions of citizens that find no serious problem with Russians participating in OUR election process, or with a foreign entity (or a group of organized Russian "citizens") providing IT assistance to a U.S. political campaign.
Is there something to be done to prevent any candidate from benefiting from IT assistance, fake news bombing on social media, or neurolinguistic manipulation of voters by a foreign entity -- it seem like "no". We have to burden voters with the responsibility of motivating themselves to make their decisions based on facts and with the responsibility of knowing how our brains can be manipulated by digital, print, and linguistic sensory data--and I just don't see that happening.
So, we are stuck with a president whose best campaign staff was Russian and who can run for re-election using the same staff and techniques.
That is both scary and brilliant.
@2017, June 23
UPDATE: June 25
FEC Commissioner on MSNBC today saying we need new rule to prevent things like Russian Meddling in the future.
Her short is that foreign influence is not allowed already but if it comes through a U.S. source/business, it is hidden and undiscoverable to the regulators/Commission.
The segment also referenced a recently filed FEC complaint filed by Free Speech for the People and Campaign for Accountability against Trump.
The amendment to their complaint is here:
https://freespeechforpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FSFP-FEC-Complaint-re-Russia-Trump-WEB.pdf
It has numerous live links which also make for juicy reading.
On a general note, I am noticing a lot more analysis of Trump's personality traits without any admission that those traits allow a diagnosis of some sort of pathology. I know--well, strongly feel, that the unspoken agreement is silence on this issue, just like there is an unspoken agreement in the media to remain silent on public discussion of Trump/Trump campaign's active collusion with and reliance on Russian intermediaries for significant strategic "advantages."
And, really, why subject us repeatedly with John Dean's opinion that Trump's actions do not rise to obstruction of justice. That seems like its an attempt at a "sophisticated" version of sensationalism, but, really, its a boring waste of time. Its like making us sit through listening to Newt Gingrich expound upon his opinion that there can be no seamy circumstances in which to serve your spouse with divorce papers.
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