Local man published in the Washington Post (really)
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Russian interference in U.S. elections isn’t new, but this time it was different. Commentariot humanoidpanda – not his real name – explains why in a co-authored Washington Post article:
Russian meddling in American elections is a venerable tradition. In 1968, Soviet agents approached Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s campaign to offer clandestine aid. The ardent Cold War liberal refused. During the early 1980s, the KGB energetically, but futilely, spread propaganda and disinformation aimed at damaging President Ronald Reagan’s political standing.
Despite these precedents, the Russian involvement in the 2016 election is actually the opposite of history repeating itself. During the Cold War, the USSR intervened to preserve the international order and prevent the ascension of Richard Nixon and then Reagan, men it perceived as erratic, perhaps irrational. In 2016, however, Russia worked to elect an erratic, perhaps irrational, American president in hope of shaking up the international order.
The explanation for this dramatic reversal lies in a transformation of the power structure in the Kremlin. Put simply, the foreign policy elites are out and the spies are in.
Read – as they say – the whole thing.
