Here come Donald Trump and the Russians again
As Trump’s scandals multiply at a faster rate than ever, with each one seeming much worse than the last, it’s easy to miss the rest of the news cycle – and some of the more sordid things he’s been trying to get away with in secret. One issue that lurks in the background is the complete failure of the Republicans to do anything about potential Russian meddling in the election, essentially welcoming it since it’s one of their few means of staying in power.
On Thursday, they made an attempt to hack Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. The group, known as Fancy Bear, is the same one that went after Hillary Clinton’s campaign four years ago and successfully broke into the emails of her staff. The important thing is that this time, there was no breach – the attacks were picked up immediately by the Washington-based communications firm SKDK, which is working closely with the campaign and the Democratic Party to guard against threats.
We are gradually learning now that some of the more vicious rumors about Joe Biden, such as his cognitive state, were heavily promoted by Russian propagandists hoping to handicap the race for Donald Trump. We must be cautious moving forward, but the good news is that we’re on the lookout for foreign meddling this time around, and SKDK probably saved us from a few weeks of phony scandals played up by the media. While Russia clearly does have a favorite and is looking to interfere, they’re fairly limited in how far their influence will go – that’s why we need to turn out as many voters as possible to vote for Joe Biden and Democrats down the ballot by November 3.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making