Republican Robert Mueller's report presented convincing evidence that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election by using trolls and Internet hacks.
I have wondered what convinced Russia that it could succeed so well in inserting stories on the Internet with no evidence to back them. I think it is possible the Russians observed Donald Trump's five-year campaign to prove President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and were encouraged by the millions of "birthers" Trump convinced to believe the conspiracy theory that over 50 years ago while Obama was being born in Kenya and raised as a Muslim jihadist, material was being planted in Hawaii to imply he was born there. They believed this was done to prepare the way for Obama to run for president someday and take away our guns in order to set the stage for a takeover of our country by pro-abortion Muslim communists.
Trump's birther campaign was only one in a string of conspiracy theories and "fake news" stories that have dominated the social media and fringe groups for the past decade or more. The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on Dec. 14, 2012, in Newtown, Conn., resulted in the murder of 20 students and six staff members by a mentally ill person. A number of fringe figures have promoted stories claiming the massacre was actually orchestrated by the U.S. government as part of an elaborate plot to promote stricter gun-control laws.
In September 2014, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who runs the website InfoWars, claimed that no one died at Sandy Hook Elementary School and that the supposed victims were child actors. Several followers of Jones' website harassed and threatened the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, claiming they were part of the conspiracy. In 2018, the parents of several children killed in the shooting launched a lawsuit against Jones for defamation, accusing him of engaging in a campaign of false, cruel, and dangerous assertions. Jones was forced to finally admit his stories were false. The "fake news" story generated by Jones caused great pain and suffering to the families of those children killed at Sandy Hook.
Donald Trump has long been an admirer of Alex Jones. Even after Jones promoted the Sandy Hook lies, on Dec. 2, 2015, Trump appeared on Jones' program and told him: "Your reputation's amazing. I will not let you down." Jones has claimed he and Trump continued to communicate even after Trump became president. On Feb. 20, 2017, the Newtown School Board wrote to President Trump and urged him to recognize the murders of 26 people at Sandy Hook and to "remove your support from anyone who continues to insist that the tragedy was staged or not real." Trump did not respond to the letter.
We Arkansans have been embarrassed by the actions of some of our politicians in the past, but few would compare to that of our Texas neighbors and their Republican governor, Greg Abbott. Russia decided to test its ability to influence American politics again by making up the most far-fetched theory it could manufacture. It used Russian bots and alt-right media outlets, including Alex Jones, to put out the story that a military exercise named Jade Helm planned for the summer of 2015 was really an elaborate plan by President Obama to use the military to declare martial law in Texas, round up his opponents and place them in vacant Walmarts.
Abbott, in order to placate the conspiracy theorist, instructed the Texas State Guard to monitor military bases in Texas to guard against this takeover. Some Texans showed up at the gates of military bases with rifles, demanding to be allowed in to inspect the base. They were lucky no one was killed as a result of this "fake news" story. Even some of Governor Abbott's Republican colleagues accused him of "pandering to idiots" and casting aspersions on the patriotism of our military.
The Russians decided to come up with a story so incredulous only the most ardent partisan would believe it. This was the birth of Pizzagate. In 2016 it put out the story that Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager were running a child sex ring out of the basement of the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant in D.C. It was immediately promoted by Trump's National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and many right-wing radio shows including, of course, Alex Jones.
This Russian fake news item resulted in a man from North Carolina going to the pizza restaurant in December 2016, firing an AR-15, and demanding the release of the children. It was only then that he discovered not only was there no child sex ring, there was no basement. An innocent person could have been killed by this fanatic conspiracy believer.
We tend to laugh at or be disturbed by the gullibility of those who believe the most outrageous fake news stories, but they can have serious consequences.
I fear we are descending into a society where half the people will get all their news from Fox and half from CNN. Arkansans need to pray that the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette succeeds in the transition it is attempting and continues to provide valuable news coverage to the people of Arkansas.
Without the ADG, we would be ignorant of many of the outrageous financial shenanigans of our legislators. Without the ADG, we would not be able to read fact-based reports on the "fake news" stories given out by our politicians on social media and national broadcasts.
------------v------------
Ron West is politically independent and resides in Little Rock, where he is a retired teacher, military officer and missionary in addition to being a proud grandfather.
Editorial on 12/09/2019