Two Years Past and Present
“I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now” – Bob Dylan – My Back Pages
Two years past: it was mid-October of 2016. The nation was in the literal depths of the Presidential election. Hillary’s emails were already being leaked; the “Access Hollywood” tape was out. The nation’s leaders secretly knew that our election was being influenced by a foreign power (Russia, not China as President Trump suggested again last night.) They determined that revealing that information would have a greater impact on the future President, than concealing it. These smart people, President Obama among them, who knew polling and how to run national campaigns – they knew Hillary was going to win (what that leaves us is why, or if, they were really wrong?)
Only one bomb was left to explode – FBI Director Comey’s public investigation into convicted pervert Anthony Weiner’s laptop, looking for more Clinton emails. That’s something any political campaign would want to happen to their opponent – a pervert, named Weiner, husband to the candidate’s closest advisor, with the candidate’s classified emails on his laptop (alongside the perverted pictures – it’s a great visual.) It was a “bell” that couldn’t be “un-rung,” even when the investigation ultimately revealed nothing.
We learned about “bots” and “bot farms.” We learned (at least this sixty-two year old did) that more people got their information from Facebook then they did from the news media. We learned that the Russians were working hard to influence our politics; adding fuel to our fires, splitting our alliances, and disrupting our conversations with extreme views that stopped our dialogs.
We found out that secretive companies, as well as other governments, had “psycho-graphic” programs that could identify and single out individuals and carefully persuade them of a particular political view. We found that the data used was handed to them by a company we trusted as a “social network;” that the brilliant Mark Zuckerberg had found a way to make billions of dollars on the information we gave him, and wasn’t all that concerned with what happened to it once he got his payments. We discovered that the “line” between persuasion and manipulation was crossed long ago.
And, quietly, we heard that our actual voting system was compromised. How much and to what effect no one will admit – even now. But it seems likely that what we’ve already heard is just the “tip.”
But we are not the same as we were in 2016. We are now in the “#MeToo” era, we have watched the Women’s March, we has seen the power of the Parkland kids, we know the utter disaster of Trump’s Presidency. We have been energized and mobilized and we need to change the world.
It’s October of 2018, three weeks before “the election after the election.” Our government has really done little to “fix” any of the undue influences in our process, mostly because the “winning Administration” views any question about the election as a question of the legitimacy of their win. They should.
So as we go back to the polls, the polling shows much the same as two years ago, that the United States is polarized, but there seems to be a “wave” of Democratic support coming. We know that “the bots” still live: there already are trending chats re-hashing the Clinton/Sanders battles of two years ago. We see the “polls” that say more people think Trump will be re-elected in 2020. We need to realize: NOTHING HAS CHANGED in the digital world.
NOTHING HAS BEEN FIXED – so don’t fall for the same tricks that worked in 2016. There is no incentive for the “winners” of 2016 to alter things; that’s what they used to win. And the “big money,” in campaigning, and for the social media companies, is in manipulation – so they continue to do so.
It’s all “in the mind” of the voter. And if that mind is strong enough, to resist the dragging weight of the “bots” and the “false flags,” they can go to the polls and vote. And, if they actual election systems aren’t fully compromised, then there will be change. And it the systems are compromised, we will know, and a whole new battle will begin.
It’s about the vote. Do it.
