Arthur Bruzzone | BEHIND THE WALL

Ten Reasons Facebook Fails to Deliver Votes

Inherent Facebook flaws limits its impact on political campaigns

  

PBS’s “Frontline” recently aired a two-part series titled “Facebook’s Dilemma”. The series highlighted Facebook’s privacy holes and how it was used as a tool for genocide in Myanmar.

Unfortunately, the program also pushed the narrative that Facebook was used to affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential campaign, and possibly the 2018 midterm elections.

The program included interviews of James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence, who claimed that the Russians used Facebook to elect Donald Trump, and comments by Rand Waltzman, researcher for the Defense Department, who said that social media can manipulate users to vote in a prescribed way.

It’s troubling that very smart people like Waltzman and Clapper can confidently make such statements, but have never run a political campaign.

From my experience as a campaigner and chair of major political party in San Francisco, I offer ten reasons why Facebook fails to deliver votes.

DC's Dueling Echo Chambers, On Fire

A fiction writer and former Obama Administration strategist changed tactics of DC spin

 

 

Echo chambers — a media phenomena in which information, ideas, or allegations are amplified and reinforced by repetition — have been with us as long as there’s been party politics.

Before radio, television and the Internet, when printed newspapers issued news, the editors and news syndicates had monopoly power to embrace allies and destroy opponents. As Aled Jones noted in Powers of the Press, newspapers then “had been securely implanted into the cultural landscape as an essential reference point in the daily lives of millions of people”.

That changed with social media and journalism’s democratization.

Voters Should Decide 'Sanctuary' for Undocumented Dangerous Felons

Sixty-five percent of Hispanics, 70 percent of independents, 73 percent of Democrats agreed that “local authorities should not be able to ignore a federal request to hold a detained person who is in the country illegally".

 

When it comes to dangerous and violent unauthorized-immigrant felons, California voters, not lawmakers, should decide sanctuary policy. This is first and foremost a crime issue and secondarily an immigration issue.

Sacramento lawmakers, provoked by the Trump administration’s defunding threats, are considering new legislation, SB54. The bill’s requirements make San Francisco’s sanctuary city ordinance look moderate in comparison. The California Values Act would effectively prohibit all California cities, schools, including charter schools, and public hospitals, from cooperating with federal immigration authorities — including with regard to violent felons in the country illegally. The bill prohibits “detaining an individual on the basis of a hold request” issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection as well as any other federal immigration authorities.

Technology has Disrupted the Leak Tradition

How instant leaks, using encrypted messaging apps, are expanding the deep state beyond shadowy CIA operatives

 

Early in episode four of Showtime’s “Homeland”, an angry President-elect Elizabeth Keane (Elizabeth Marvel) faces CIA Director Dar Adal (F. Murray Abraham) and says, “if you think it’s wise to tie the President’s hands so publicly, what’s not wise is peddling unverified and politically motivated horseshit to the press. And if you can’t find me the ‘career officers’ responsible, I’ll get someone who can”.

Pure synchronicity. Since, at the time of the airing, President Trump was facing a similar situation that would lead to the termination of his National Security advisor, Michael T. Flynn.

Not since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has the mainstream media been so focused on the deep state

“’’Deep state’ has historically been associated with countries like Turkey, where sophisticated shadow governments allegedly control or influence key aspects of state policy,” notes Amanda Taub in the New York Times. Winston Churchill referred to the state within the state as the “High Cabal”.

Technology has disrupted the leak tradition. Completely transformed it, in fact, with a mobile app called Confide.

Trump's Overhanging Fear

Trump will Pivot to the Left to Insure his Re-election

 

The night Donald Trump won the 2016 election, his 2020 re-election campaign began.

His 2.8 million vote loss in the popular vote overshadowed his razor thin electoral win. He beat his opponent in Michigan by 10,704 votes, Wisconsin, by 22,748 votes, and Pennsylvania by 44,292 votes. With those 77.744 votes, he secured victory.

He knows his margin of error in 2020 could also be precariously thin.

On election night 2016, Donald Trump was prepared for defeat. The pollsters and media had lowered his expectations. But to lose re-election, that would be a humiliation. Almost as humbling as the multi-billion dollar losses from his three Atlantic City casino projects.

Russian Hack DoubleThink

 

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.8 million (still counting) — the third highest total votes of any presidential candidate in history . Russian hackers negatively impacted Clinton’s vote count.

Doublethink. The ability to hold two contradictory opinions at the same time without noticing the contradiction. If the second proposition is true — that the alleged Russian hack impacted Clinton’s election results — then the final polls and vote count would show erosion.

So how did the alleged Russian email hack affect Clinton’s poll numbers before Election Day?

Post-Election Media Self Cleansing

 

By the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign, every form of media was under attack. No one escaped. Mainstream media, remote news outposts, noted commentators, and popular sensational blogs were all involved in the wreck. Donald Trump may have instigated it but he couldn’t have imagined that he would jolt the entire media world.

 

In a previous article, I spotlighted Donald Trump’s use of armed propaganda — — namely, the tactic, used by armed insurgents, to incite an opponent’s overreaction. And in the process, unmask the enemy’s deviousness, injustice, and some cases, brutality. Trump relentlessly attacked mainstream media, and they counter punched. That was Trump’s precise intention: to demonstrate that mainstream media is not impartial.

Pain Relief, If Your Candidate Loses

The Constitution has baked in a healthy dose of counterbalance to alleviate their fear of despots

 

Over this weekend, before Election Day, I have received several calls and emails from friends and colleagues.

Some support Trump, others support Clinton. Each used the word "fear" or "worried" in their message.

I tried to calm them by reminding them that those who wrote the U.S. Constitution baked in a healthy dose of counterbalance to alleviate their fear of despots.  

Then, it was King George III of England -- a stubborn, self-absorbed monarch who didn't simply reject America's demand for independence; he wanted to punish the colonies with a prolonged war to break the will of the new country.  

The drafters of the Constitution didn't just have King George III in mind.  They also addressed the flaws and dangers of all men and women who assume power.  

"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition," wrote Benjamin Franklin.

In their wisdom, they anticipated a President Hillary Clinton and President Donald Trump.

Not All Scandals are Created Equal: Clinton's Emailgate versus Watergate

 

 (This article was originally published at Huffington Post's Politics Section)  

Candidate Trump says the current email investigation is worse than the 1972 Watergate scandal.  His media surrogate, Former House Speaker

FBI

Newt Gingrich, in a Fox News interview, also referenced the 1972 re-election campaign of Richard Nixon and the ongoing FBI investigation at that time. 

But the Trump campaign had better hope that the Clinton email crisis is not like the Watergate scandal.  

As Gingrich noted, despite an ongoing FBI investigation, Nixon won a landslide election victory. He won the electoral votes of every state xcept Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. No candidate since has managed to equal or surpass Nixon's total percentage or margin of the popular vote and his electoral vote total.

But there are differences between the two FBI investigations.  

Trump's Use of Armed Propaganda

A version of this post was Published at Huffington Post

For hundreds of years, poorly armed insurgents have used armed propaganda to compensate for the overwhelming strength of the adversary.  Eventually, decisive battles and a traditional army determine victory.  In Trump’s case, voters mobilized, votes counted, and a winner elected. 

Armed propaganda was used by the Tupamaro in Venezuela, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam after World War II, and, domestically, by U.S. anti-Vietnam war activists to radicalize the non-violent Peace Movement.  Americans used the tactic in the early days of the American Revolution.

In each case, the objective was clear.  Expose the opposition’s vulnerabilities and brutality, and in the process, raise consciousness.  And the operating principle: All conflicts are media conflicts.  Win the media war and you win the people’s hearts and minds.

Donald Trump understands non-lethal armed propaganda. He has used it to push his major initiatives.  His main adversary is not his Democrat opponent.  It is the media itself.