Earlier this month, it was announced that Russian hackers are once again meddling in our elections. As you probably know, the 2016 elections were deeply affected by Russian hackers spreading misinformation that led to more people supporting Donald Trump. Trump, of course, denies knowing anything about this, despite Robert Mueller’s investigation unquestionably pointing to this as fact.
This year however, the hackers are supporting Bernie Sanders, who strongly denounced the interference and cautioned the Russians against this behavior. Putin’s government is still strongly pro-Trump, and it’s likley that the support for Sanders stems from Putin thinking that Sanders won’t be able beat Trump. Or it could be that Russia thinks that Sanders will cut military spending, which would allow Russia’s military to go unchecked. Putin might even think that anti-establishment candidates will obstruct American authority. The major goal of the hackers is to create unrest in the American populace by spreading misinformation to impact the elections.
Why should I care?
The fact that another country has undue influence on our elections signals deep-seated failures in our system. We know that our privacy is constantly being invaded by a government paranoid about potential terrorists, but this same government can’t or won’t do anything to stop foreign interference on the people’s will. This is a grand overstep in power both in Russia’s part and on the part of our government, who is failing to protect its constituency. All of our dearest freedoms are at risk if we don’t hold our government accountable for doing its most fundamental job. The people are the most important thing in a democratic government. We should all express our disappointment with our government, and push for reform, before it’s too late.