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Thursday, July 22, 2021

Second American Civil War

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The "Second American Civil War" is a term used to describe a potential second civil war in the United States of America (the first being the American Civil War, which took place between 1861 and 1865). Rhetorical or hyperbolic references to a potential Second American Civil War have been made on numerous occasions throughout the history of the United States since the Civil War, with usage varying from considering certain politically and culturally fractious periods of American history as cold civil wars to predicting an impending military conflict within the United States.

Interpretations

1861–1865 war as Second American Civil War

Some historians name the 1861–1865 war as the "Second American Civil War", since the American Revolutionary War could be considered a civil war (since the term can refer to any war to separate one political body from another). They then refer to the Independence War, which resulted in the separation of the Thirteen Colonies from the British Empire, as the "First American Civil War".[2][3] A significant number of American colonists stayed loyal to the British Crown and as Loyalists fought on the British side while opposite were a significant amount of colonists called Patriots who fought on the American side. In some localities, there was fierce fighting between Americans including gruesome instances of hanging, drawing, and quartering on both sides. As Canadian historian William Stewart Wallace noted:

It must be admitted that the Loyalists were guilty during the war of some unpleasant atrocities. But so were some of the Revolutionists. No one can take pride in tracing descent to the worst of the Green Mountain Boys, any more than to Bloody Bill Cunningham and his gang or to the raiders of Cherry Valley. And it is fair to remember that the Loyalists had been driven from their homes, that their property had been confiscated, and that they and their families had been subjected to persecution. They would have been hardly human had they not waged a mimic warfare. At the same time, it is no more surprising that after the war the victorious Revolutionists treated the Loyalists with scant generosity. They too would have been hardly human had they done otherwise."

As early as 1789, David Ramsay, an American patriot historian, wrote in his History of the American Revolution that "Many circumstances concurred to make the American war particularly calamitous. It was originally a civil war in the estimation of both parties." Framing the American Revolutionary War as a civil war is gaining increasing examination.

Reconstruction as Second American Civil War

After the American Civil War, the federal government started in 1865–1877 a process called Reconstruction, which aimed to restore the South to the Union and update the federal and state governance in accordance with the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Due to severity of the social, political and constitutional challenges and conflicts of the Reconstruction Era, the Reconstruction is sometimes called the "Second Civil War". The term was cemented by the American Experience episode "Reconstruction: The Second Civil War" and made its way to the school curriculum.

Statements about a possible Second American Civil War

In the 21st century, during an ongoing culture war between American conservatives and liberals over opposing cultural, moral, and religious ideals, some political commentators have characterized the polarized political discourse as either an actual Second Civil War or a potential prelude for one. According to one 2018 Rasmussen poll, 31 percent of American voters feared that the intense partisanship following the 2016 presidential election and the victory of Donald Trump would cause a Second Civil War within five years. In 2019, the national bipartisan Battleground Civility Poll by the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service revealed that "the average voter believes the U.S. is two-thirds of the way to the edge of a civil war."

Predictions during 2020

In 2020, the United States was faced with thousands of deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, protests and riots from both the right and the left, and deep partisan divisions and civil unrest relating to the 2020 United States presidential election. Some analysts have said that the events unfolding may lead to a Civil War in the future and strongly resemble countries that experienced civil wars in the past.

  • In May 2020, a journalist from The Independent said that the Second Civil War is already happening and will escalate, due to the pandemic and the divide between rural and urban areas in the United States.
  • During the George Floyd protests, some former CIA analysts expressed fear that President Donald Trump would commence a military crackdown against protesters and possibly risk a violent national collapse. This came particularly after his administration ordered tear gas to be used against nonviolent protesters in Lafayette Square for a photo op at St. John's Episcopal Church and called for the U.S. Armed Forces to be deployed against protesters across the country under the Insurrection Act. King University professor Gail Helt wrote, "I've seen this kind of violence.... This is what autocrats do. This is what happens in countries before a collapse. It really does unnerve me." Marc Polymeropoulos compared Trump to Bashar al-Assad, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Gaddafi. Other analysts accused the Trump administration as describing American urban centers as foreign war zones, or criticized his intent to declare the antifa movement a terrorist organization as a pretext for a crackdown. Additionally, a U.S. intelligence report claimed that the Boogaloo movement, a far right extremist movement, was active in the protests. This movement included both radical anti-government activists and white-supremacists who seek to cause a second Civil War by undermining race relations.
  • In June 2020, an audio tape leaked in which three police officers from Wilmington, North Carolina, were caught using derogatory remarks to describe black Americans, saying that they should be slaughtered and that "there should be another civil war to wipe them off the fucking map." The three officers involved were fired after an investigation. On his first day of the job, Wilmington Police Chief Donny Williams condemned the incident and advocated for police reform. It was later revealed that two of the officers had prior disciplinary issues, including some which occurred in the 1990s.
  • In October 2020, according to a federal indictment, 14 members of a group called "Wolverine Watchmen", who were arrested for plotting the kidnapping of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, were planning to start a second civil war "leading to societal collapse".
  • In November 2020, Sky News reported that many Americans from both sides of the political spectrum are buying guns, preparing for civil unrest or civil war. "They're from all political sides. And all driven by fear," the reporter said.
  • In December 2020, after the Supreme Court refused to hear Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit regarding unproven claims of fraud in the 2020 elections, Texas GOP Chair Allen West criticized the Court and suggested "law-abiding states" should secede. West faced widespread criticism, including from Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger and Democratic Senator Brian Schatz.

Other political and social commentators acknowledge that extreme partisan politics on Capitol Hill, accompanied by related commonplace verbal and occasional physical acts of aggression in the streets, are tearing apart the fabric of American society, but state that "culture wars cycles" are imminent to the process of replenishing American values, and the first such cycle started after George Washington's retirement, and that Americans have to find "America's middle again and return to civility."

In popular culture

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Literature

  • In the semi-satirical 1935 political novel by American author Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here, a second civil war breaks out due to the tyrannical policies of fictional President Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip. Published during the rise of fascism in Europe, the novel describes the rise of Windrip, a politician who defeats Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and is elected President of the United States, after fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and "traditional" values. After his election, Windrip takes complete control of the government and imposes a plutocratic/totalitarian rule with the help of a ruthless paramilitary force, in the manner of Adolf Hitler and the SS. The novel's plot centers on journalist Doremus Jessup's opposition to the new regime and his subsequent struggle against it as part of a liberal rebellion. Reviewers at the time, and literary critics since, have emphasized the connection with Louisiana politician Huey Long, who was preparing to run for president in the 1936 election when he was assassinated in 1935 just prior to the novel's publication.
  • Philip K. Dick's 1974 novel, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said is set in a futuristic dystopia, where the United States has become a police state in the aftermath of a Second Civil War. The story follows a genetically enhanced pop singer and television star who wakes up in a world where he has never existed.
  • In Canadian author Margaret Atwood's 1985 dystopian novel, The Handmaid's Tale, a secretive group of religious fundamentalists called "The Sons of Jacob" stages an attack that kills the U.S. President and most of Congress. In the ensuing political and social upheaval, the group launches a hostile revolution and suspends the United States Constitution under the pretext of restoring order. Within this autocratic new system, the group is quickly able to curtail or take away human, civil, and in particular women's rights. Under their newfound authority, The Sons of Jacob declare the establishment of The Republic of Gilead — a theocratic military dictatorship within the borders of what was formerly the United States of America. The new regime moves quickly to consolidate its power and reorganize society with an Old Testament-inspired social and religious fanaticism, and enshrines in law a militarized, hierarchical system of newly-created societal classes and cultural castes. At the same time, the Gileadian army continues to fight a Second American Civil War against various factions who oppose the new regime. The novel primarily takes place 16 years after the events that occurred during the establishment of Gilead, and depicts a grim picture of society, where pollution caused by nuclear and biological issues have caused near-universal infertility and a sharp rise in birth defects, where women are subjugated and valued only for their reproductive capacities, and where minorities of every stripe are persecuted.
  • In 1993, author David Aikman wrote When the Almond Tree Blossoms, a novel describing a second American Civil War. The book detailed an account of an East-West divide following a U.S. defeat and surrender following a battle in the Middle East. The two sides, The Constitutionalists and People's Movement are locked in a bitter fight. A sequel to the book is currently under development by Aikman.
  • In the 1995 alternate history/time travel novel ARC Riders by David Drake and Janet Morris, the United States is on the verge of collapse and possible nuclear civil war due to over two decades of harsh military rule as a result of the ARC Raiders meddling with the Vietnam War.
  • In the 1997 alternate history novel Back in the USSA by Eugene Byrne and Kim Newman, a Second American Civil War and a Second American Revolution occur as a result of the corrupt presidency of Charles Foster Kane, who becomes the 28th president after former president and Progressive Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt wins the 1912 presidential election, but is assassinated on December 19, 1912 before taking office by the sharpshooter and exhibition shooter Annie Oakley when he personally attempts to break up a labor strike at the Chicago Union Stock Yards with the help of the Rough Riders. Due to his being Roosevelt's running mate, Kane becomes president on March 4, 1913. By 1917, the U.S. becomes unstable politically and socially. That year, the Socialist Party led by Eugene Debs gains increasing support and both a Second American Civil War and Second American Revolution (both based on the Russian Civil War and Russian Revolution, respectively) breaks out, following which Kane is ousted from the White House, overthrown, and executed for treason. The United States becomes the United Socialist States of America (USSA) with Debs as its president, surviving until his death in 1926.
  • In the 2002 short story "Southern Strategy" by Michael F. Flynn that is collected in the anthology Alternate Generals II by Harry Turtledove, a shortened World War I leaves the German Empire a world power in the 20th century, while the United States all but collapses during a genocide-based second civil war.
  • In the 2002 novel A Disturbance of Fate by Mitchell J. Freedman, Barry Sadler gets elected President of the United States in 1984 and causes a second civil war due to his conservative politics. After much destruction of the nation, Sadler is arrested and a new Constitution is put into place, which abolishes the office of the presidency.
  • In one of the timelines in the 2003 novel Fuzzy Dice by Paul Di Filippo, George McGovern is narrowly elected president in 1972 after incumbent Richard Nixon had undergone an assassination attempt and become completely paranoid, waging a crackdown on real and imagined domestic foes as well as a huge escalation of the Vietnam War, and setting off a huge explosion of countrywide riots. The riots continue and even increase after McGovern's election and a call by the new president for a return to calm proves completely ineffective. McGovern rejects a call in Congress to use the Army to quell the riots, leading to an attempted impeachment. Some military commanders try repression on their own, killing civilians and only adding to the ferocity of the riots. Eventually, the country is plunged into chaos, an all-out Second American Civil War, and eventually the total collapse of the Old Order. When the book's protagonist arrives some decades later, he finds a "Hippie-style" dictatorship presided over by the monstrous Lady Sunshine and with Hells Angels acting as the police, and the final fate of McGovern is unknown.
  • Empire by Orson Scott Card is a 2006 novel set in a near-future US (implied to be 2008) where after the President and Vice President are assassinated civil war breaks out. A left-wing group called the Progressive Restoration rises up, seeking to reverse change since George W. Bush's election, with the main characters becoming involved in the conflict. The novel is a tie-in to the Shadow Complex video game, with Hidden Empire following in 2009.
  • In the 2012 novel by Billy Bennett titled By Force of Arms (part of a series by the author focusing on a victorious Confederacy), the United States (led by William Tecumseh Sherman) and the Confederate States (led by Robert E. Lee) fight "The Second American Civil War" in 1869 due to Confederate and French military involvement in Mexico, with fighting spreading across the two countries from ironclads firing at each other in the Gulf of California, trench warfare in the Confederate state of Virginia, Buffalo Soldiers fighting in the west, pro-Confederate bushwacker partisans in the Union state of Missouri made even more deadly by the usage of the introduction of breech-loading rifles and Gatling guns.
  • The 2013 novel Pulse by Patrick Carman depicts a Second Civil War, escalating into a nuclear disaster, leaving only one area of land habitable, divided into 2 states constantly at war.
  • American War, the 2017 debut novel by Omar El Akkad, is told from the viewpoint of members of the Chestnut family who have experienced the War first-hand. The War begins in 2074, when anthropogenic climate change has led to a ban on fossil fuels, leading to the secession of several Southern states. The events of the novel themselves are influenced by widespread plagues, and culture wars over increased immigration of Muslims.
  • Tropic of Kansas, the 2017 debut novel by Christopher Brown, is told from the points of view of Sig, an orphan running from the law, and Tania, a government investigator forced to hunt him. The two are foster brother and sister. In this setting, the US has broken into warring factions, with most of the action taking place in a new wasteland in the Midwest.

Film

  • The 1999 film Barb Wire, based upon the 1994 comic book of the same name, is set in 2017 during the "Second American Civil War". Titular heroine Barb Wire (Pamela Anderson) owns the Hammerhead, a nightclub in Steel Harbor — "the last free city" in a United States ravaged by the civil war—and she brings in extra cash working as a mercenary and bounty hunter.
  • The Second Civil War: a 1997 made-for-TV movie wherein the title conflict erupts over immigration, with the country having become inundated with immigrants and refugees, and the president attempting to settle more refugees in a resistant Idaho.
  • The 2005 film adaptation of V for Vendetta mentions an ongoing civil war in the United States, with fighting said to be devastating the midwest. The war, combined with a plague, allegedly cripples the country to the point where it's government petitions to the United Kingdom for medical supplies. However, both reports come from the fascist Norsefire regime's propaganda sources in the United Kingdom, leaving the existence of the war in question.
  • The film Bushwick set in the New York City neighborhood of the same name, deals with mysterious invaders. It is later revealed that the invaders are mercenaries sent by a Texas-led coalition comprised by Southern states seeking to secede from the US.
  • The film In the Shadow of the Moon set in Philadelphia is a sci-fi thriller about the death of several people at different points in time. It is later revealed that the deaths caused by targeted killing happened to prevent another civil war.

Television

  • In season two of the 2006 TV series Jericho, a second American Civil War begins between the United States and the separatist Allied States of America. Members within the US government conspire to bomb 23 American cities in order to kill the President and other heads of Government. After the power grid is knocked out, new leaders organize and make a new government called the Allied States of America, which occupy everything West of the Mississippi River, excluding Texas, which becomes independent. Everything east belongs to the remaining United States. The Allied States leaders frame Iran and North Korea for the attacks, and subsequently nuke the two countries. The new government gradually transforms into an oppressive and authoritarian fascist regime. Civil war begins when it is revealed that leaders within the Allied States of America were ring leaders of the previous attacks on American cities. In the sequel comic book series, the Allied States military launches a devastating invasion of Texas, presumably defeating the country. Despite this, the war against rebels within Allied territory and the United States continues.
  • In the Family Guy episode "Back to the Pilot", Brian travels back in time to 1999 and tells his younger self to prevent the September 11 attacks. By doing so, George W. Bush is unable to exploit fears of terrorism and secure re-election. After losing the 2004 election, Bush reforms the Confederacy and declares war on the United States, resulting in a post-apocalyptic future.
  • A pilot film for a proposed TV drama, Civil, about a disputed election that slides into civil unrest and eventually war, was optioned by TNT in 2016. However TNT decided not to proceed as it was felt to be too close to home for the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Video games

  • The Deus Ex video game series, first released in 2000, depict a United States reshaped by what is called the "Northwest War", where several states secede from the union due to an unpopular gun control law and increasing dissent with the federal government. The main antagonists for the first act of the game, the National Secession Forces, are descended from the Northwest Secession Forces who fought the United States during the war, although the newer NSF is more kin to a left-wing populist movement, and the original was more akin to a right-wing militia.[citation needed]
  • Shattered Union, a 2005 video game published by 2K Games, depicts a civil war between six factions of the former United States and the European Union, following the destruction of Washington, D.C. in a nuclear attack.
  • The science-fiction, action-roleplaying, third-person shooter Mass Effect series, first released in 2007, has this subject in its backstory, spawning from the creation of the United North American States.
  • Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg, a mod for Hearts of Iron IV, depicts a Second American Civil War where several ideologically driven blocs claim to be the legitimate government after Douglas MacArthur organizes a coup and installs a military junta following the 1936 presidential election. Those blocs are the Combined Syndicates of America, a syndicalist nation mostly located around the Great Lakes led by Jack Reed, the American Union State, a nationalist state located in the South, led by Huey Long, the Pacific States of America, who claim themselves as the true successors of the former American government, and New England, which stays neutral in the war and becomes a Canadian puppet state.
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Make America Great Again

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Trump's "Make America Great Again!" sign used during his 2016 presidential campaign before Trump selected Mike Pence as his vice presidential running mate

"Make America Great Again" or MAGA (/ˈmæɡə/) is a campaign slogan used in American politics popularized by Donald Trump in his successful 2016 presidential campaign. Ronald Reagan used the similar slogan "Let's Make America Great Again" in his successful 1980 presidential campaign. Bill Clinton also used the phrase in speeches during his successful 1992 presidential campaign and used it again in a radio commercial aired for his wife Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful 2008 presidential primary campaign. Douglas Schoen has called Trump's use of the phrase "probably the most resonant campaign slogan in recent history", citing majorities of Americans who believed that the country was in decline.

The slogan became a pop culture phenomenon, seeing widespread use and spawning numerous variants in the arts, entertainment and politics, being used by those who support and oppose the presidency of Donald Trump.

Since its popularization in the 2010s, the slogan is considered a loaded phrase. Multiple analytic journalists, scholars, and commentators link it to racism in the United States, regarding it as dog-whistle politics and coded language. The slogan was also at the center of two events originally reported inaccurately in most media outlets, the alleged assault of Jussie Smollett and the January 2019 Lincoln Memorial confrontation.

Use before Trump

Use by Alexander Wiley

The phrase was first used by Republican senator Alexander Wiley in a speech at the third session of the 76th United States Congress in anticipation of the 1940 United States presidential election: "What is the way? Here is America. There are 130,000,000 of us. America needs a leader who can coordinate labor, capital, and management; who can give the man of enterprise encouragement, who can give them the spirit which will beget vision. That will make America great again."

Use by Barry Goldwater

The slogan was found in some advertising associated with Barry Goldwater's unsuccessful 1964 presidential campaign.

Use by Ronald Reagan

A button from Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign

"Let's make America great again" was famously used in Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. At the time the United States was suffering from a worsening economy at home marked by stagflation and Reagan, using the country's economic distress as a springboard for his campaign, used the slogan to stir a sense of patriotism among the electorate. Within his acceptance speech at the 1980 Republican National Convention, Reagan said, "For those without job opportunities, we'll stimulate new opportunities, particularly in the inner cities where they live. For those who've abandoned hope, we'll restore hope and we'll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again."

Use by Bill Clinton

The phrase was also used in speeches by Bill Clinton during his 1992 presidential campaign. Clinton also used the phrase in a radio commercial aired for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential primary campaign.

During the 2016 electoral campaign, Clinton suggested that Trump's version, used as a campaign rallying cry, was a message to white Southerners that Trump was promising to "give you an economy you had 50 years ago, and ... move you back up on the social totem pole and other people down."

Use by Donald Trump

Donald Trump wearing a "Make America Great Again" cap during his 2016 presidential campaign

In December 2011, Trump made a statement in which he said he was unwilling to rule out running as a presidential candidate in the future, explaining "I must leave all of my options open because, above all else, we must make America great again." Also in December 2011, he published a book using as a subtitle the similar phrase "Making America #1 Again" – which in a 2015 reissue was changed to "Make America Great Again!"

Trump popularized the slogan "Make America Great Again" by stitching it onto his widely distributed cap

On January 1, 2012, a group of Trump supporters filed paperwork with the Texas Secretary of State's office to create the "Make America Great Again Party", which would have allowed Trump to be that party's nominee if he had decided to become a third-party candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Trump himself began using the slogan formally on November 7, 2012, the day after Barack Obama won his reelection against Mitt Romney. By his own account, Trump first considered "We Will Make America Great", but did not feel like it had the right "ring" to it. "Make America Great" was his next slogan idea, but upon further reflection, he felt that it was a slight to America because it implied that America was never great. After selecting "Make America Great Again", Trump immediately had an attorney register it. (Trump later said he was unaware of Reagan's use in 1980 until 2015, but noted that "he didn't trademark it.") On November 12 he signed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office requesting exclusive rights to use the slogan for political purposes. It was registered as a service mark on July 14, 2015, after Trump formally began his 2016 presidential campaign and demonstrated that he was using the slogan for the purpose stated on the application. Trump used the slogan in public as early as August 2013, in an interview with Jonathan Karl.

Banner displaying "Vote To Make America Great Again" on a roadside in California shortly after the November 2016 election
 
Trump wearing a "Keep America Great" hat in December 2019

During the 2016 campaign, Trump often used the slogan, especially by wearing hats emblazoned with the phrase in white letters, which soon became popular among his supporters. The slogan was so important to the campaign that at one point it spent more on making the hats – sold for $25 each on its website – than on polling, consultants, or television commercials. Millions were sold, and Trump estimated that counterfeit versions outnumbered the real hat ten to one. "... but it was a slogan, and every time somebody buys one, that's an advertisement."

Following Trump's election, the website of his presidential transition was established at greatagain.gov. Trump said in 2017 and 2018 that the slogan of his 2020 reelection campaign would be "Keep America Great" and he sought to trademark it. However, Trump's 2020 campaign continued to use the "Make America Great Again" slogan. Trump's vice president Mike Pence, when campaigning in 2020, used the phrase "make America great again, again" in his 2020 Republican National Convention speech, garnering ridicule.

Less than a week after Trump left office, he spoke to advisors about possibly establishing a third party, which he suggested might be named either the "Patriot Party" or "Make America Great Again Party". In his first few days out of office, he also supported Arizona state party chairwoman Kelli Ward, who likewise called for the creation of a "MAGA Party". In late January 2021, the former president viewed the proposed MAGA Party as leverage to prevent Republican senators from voting to convict him during the Senate impeachment trial, and to field challengers to Republicans who voted for his impeachment in the House.

Use on social media

Donald Trump took the campaign slogan to social media (primarily to Twitter), using the hashtags #makeamericagreatagain and its acronym #maga. In response to criticism regarding his frequent and untraditional usage of social media, Trump defended himself by tweeting "My use of social media is not Presidential – it's MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL. Make America Great Again!" on July 1, 2017.

In the first half of 2017, Trump repeated his slogan on Twitter 33 times. In an article for Bloomberg News, Mark Whitehouse noted "A regression analysis suggests the phrase adds (very roughly) 51,000 to a post's retweet-and-favorite count, which is important given that the average Trump tweet attracts a total of 107,000."

Trump attributed his victory (in part) to social media when he said "I won the 2016 election with interviews, speeches, and social media." According to RiteTag, the estimated hourly statistics for #maga on Twitter alone include: 1,304 unique tweets, 5,820,000 hashtag exposure, and 3,424 retweets with 14% of #maga tweets including images, 55% including links, and 51% including mentions.

Donald Trump set up his Twitter account in March 2009. His follower-count increased significantly following the announcement (June 16, 2015) of his intention to run for president in the 2016 presidential election, with particularly notable spikes occurring after his securing the Republican Party nomination (May 3, 2016) and after winning the presidency.

Accusations of racism

Regarding its use since 2015, it is considered a loaded phrase. Marissa Melton, a Voice of America journalist, among others, explained how it is a loaded phrase because it "doesn't just appeal to people who hear it as racist coded language, but also to those who have felt a loss of status as other groups have become more empowered." As Sarah Churchwell explains, the slogan now resonates as America First did in the early 1940s, with the idea "that the true version of America is the America that looks like me, the American fantasy I imagine existed before it was diluted with other races and other people."

Writing opinion for the Los Angeles Times, Robin Abcarian wrote that "[w]earing a 'Make America Great Again' hat is not necessarily an overt expression of racism. But if you wear one, it's a pretty good indication that you share, admire or appreciate President Trump's racist views about Mexicans, Muslims and border walls." The Detroit Free Press and the Los Angeles Times reported how several of their readers rejected this characterization and did not believe the slogan or MAGA hats are evidence of racism, seeing them more in patriotic or American nationalist terms. Polling has shown that about ten percent of black voters identified as Trump supporters, while about thirty percent of Hispanic voters identified as Trump supporters. Nicholas Goldberg described the slogan as "fabulous", writing: "It was vague enough to appeal to optimists generally, while leaving plenty of room for bitter and resentful voters to conclude that we were finally going back to the days when they ran the world."

Use by others

In politics

Political commentator and author Peter Beinart published a 2006 book titled The Good Fight: Why Liberals – and Only Liberals – Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again drawing on the philosophy of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr after the Invasion of Iraq and early years of the War on Terror.

In 2011, Christine O'Donnell published a book about her Republican Senate campaign in the 2010 Delaware special election titled Troublemaker: Let's Do What It Takes To Make America Great Again.

After Donald Trump popularized the use of the phrase, the phrase and modifications of it were widely used in reference both to his election campaign and to his politics. Trump's primary opponents, Ted Cruz and Scott Walker, began using "Make America Great Again" in speeches, inciting Trump to send cease-and-desist letters to them. Cruz later sold hats featuring, "Make Trump Debate Again", in response to Trump's boycotting the Iowa January 28, 2016 debate.

The phrase has also been parodied in political statements, such as "Make America Mexico Again", a critique of Trump's immigration policies regarding the U.S.–Mexico border.

Use by political rivals

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said America "was never that great" during a September 2018 bill signing. Former US Attorney General Eric Holder questioned the slogan in a March 2019 interview on MSNBC, asking: "Exactly when did you think America was great?" During John McCain's memorial service on September 1, 2018, his daughter Meghan stated: "The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great." Trump subsequently tweeted "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" later that day.

Use by hate groups

A 2018 study using text mining and semantic network analytics of Twitter text and hashtags networks found that the "#MakeAmericaGreatAgain" and "#MAGA" hashtags were commonly used by white supremacist and white nationalist users, and had been used as "an organizing discursive space" for far-right extremists globally.

Other countries

In June 2017, Emmanuel Macron, President of France, rebuked Trump over withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. The last sentence of the speech delivered by him was "make our planet great again."

During his campaign for the 2019 Indonesian presidential election in October 2018, opposition leader Prabowo Subianto used the phrase "make Indonesia great again", though he denied having copied Trump.

During the Swedish European Parliament election in May 2019, the Swedish Christian Democratic Party used the slogan "Make EU Lagom Again".

February 2019 Fridays for Future protest in Berlin with the line "Make Earth Greta Again"

Members of the Fridays for Future Movement have often used slogans like "Make Earth Greta Again", referring to activist Greta Thunberg. In 2019, Grant Armour and Milene Larsson co-directed a documentary film named Make the World Greta Again.

In addition, the idea of a Golden Age is present in many cultures around the world. Golden Ages, however, tend to be from the distant past rather than from the 20th century.

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Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections was a matter of concern at the highest level of national security within the United States government, in addition to the computer and social media industries. In February and August 2020, United States Intelligence Community (USIC) experts warned members of Congress that Russia was interfering in the 2020 presidential election in then-President Donald Trump's favor. USIC analysis released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in March 2021 found that proxies of Russian intelligence promoted and laundered misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about Joe Biden "to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration." The New York Times reported in May 2021 that federal investigators in Brooklyn began a criminal investigation late in the Trump administration into possible efforts by several current and former Ukrainian officials to spread unsubstantiated allegations about corruption by Joe Biden, including whether they had used Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani as a channel.

Reports of attempted interference

Overview

In response to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, special counsel Robert Mueller conducted a two-year-long investigation. The resulting report concluded that Russia interfered in "sweeping and systematic fashion". In his July 2019 Congressional testimony, Mueller stated that the Russians continue to interfere in U.S. elections "as we sit here", and that "many more countries" have developed disinformation campaigns targeting U.S. elections, based partly on the Russian model.

Also in July 2019, the Senate Intelligence Committee released the first volume of a bipartisan report on Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, a report that included recommendations for securing the 2020 elections. The second volume of that report noted, based on social-media data from October 2018, that "Russian disinformation efforts may be focused on gathering information and data points in support of an active measures campaign targeted at the 2020 U.S. presidential election."

In a highly classified report, the Central Intelligence Agency stated: "We assess that President Vladimir Putin and the senior most Russian officials are aware of and probably directing Russia's influence operations aimed at denigrating the former U.S. Vice President, supporting the U.S. president and fueling public discord ahead of the U.S. election in November." The existence of this report, published at the end of August 2020, was made public knowledge on September 22 in reports from The Washington Post and The New York Times.

U.S. officials have accused Russia, China and Iran of trying to influence the 2020 elections. Between January and late July 2017, Twitter identified and shut down over 7,000 phony accounts created by Iranian influence operations. According to Christopher A. Wray, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Russia is attempting to interfere with the 2020 United States elections. Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in July 2019, Wray stated, "We are very much viewing 2018 as just kind of a dress rehearsal for the big show in 2020." Dan Coats, the former Director of National Intelligence, believes that Russia and China will both attempt to influence the elections. As of September 2020, intelligence officials point to Russia as the more "acute threat" to the election, saying that China has been expressing its preferences by public rhetoric rather than engaging in covert operations to denigrate a candidate or otherwise interfere in the election itself. Wray testified to the House Committee on Homeland Security on September 17, 2020 that Russian efforts to damage the Biden campaign were "very active".

According to United States intelligence officials interviewed by The New York Times, Russian "operations would be intended to help President Trump, potentially by exacerbating disputes around the results, especially if the race is too close to call." The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have stated that Russian cyberattacks have targeted "U.S. state, local, territorial, and tribal government networks, as well as aviation networks".

Social-media disinformation and voting infrastructure

Various disinformation campaigns on social media have targeted the Democratic Party candidates running in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries. This has prompted considerable concern regarding the ability of social media companies to cope with disinformation and manipulation. By August 2019, Facebook and Twitter had banned advertisements that use misinformation to attempt the suppression of voter turnout.

Microsoft developed an open source software called ElectionGuard to help safeguard the 2020 elections. In mid-July 2019, Microsoft announced that it had, over the prior year, "notified nearly 10,000 customers they've been targeted or compromised by nation-state attacks". Based on attacks that had targeted political organizations, and on experience from 2016 and 2018, Microsoft anticipated "attacks targeting U.S. election systems, political campaigns or NGOs that work closely with campaigns". Of the "nation-state attacks" that had originated from Russia, Microsoft claimed that they followed the "same pattern of engagement" as Russian operations in 2016 and 2018. On September 20, 2019, Microsoft announced that it would provide free security updates for Windows 7, which reached its end-of-life on January 14, 2020, on federally-certified voting machines through the 2020 United States elections. On October 4, 2019, Microsoft announced that "Phosphorus", a group of hackers linked to the Iranian government, had attempted to compromise e-mail accounts belonging to journalists, prominent Iranian expatriates, U.S. government officials and the campaign of a U.S. presidential candidate. While Microsoft did not disclose which campaign had been the target of the cyber attack, unnamed sources informed Reuters that it had been that of Donald Trump.

On October 21, 2019, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company has detected a "highly sophisticated" set of campaigns to interfere with the 2020 elections. These campaigns originated from Russia and from Iran. Fake accounts based in Russia posed as Americans of varied political backgrounds and worked to undermine the campaign of Joe Biden, aiming to sow discontent with Biden from both the left and the right.

A September 2019 report from The Washington Post demonstrated that due to bad default passwords and weak encryption, hackers with physical access can easily get into voting machines designed for use in the 2020 United States elections, and remote hacking was possible if the machines were accidentally misconfigured.

On February 21, 2020, The Washington Post reported that, according to unnamed US officials, Russia was interfering in the Democratic primary in an effort to support the nomination of Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders issued a statement after the news report, saying in part, "I don't care, frankly, who Putin wants to be president. My message to Putin is clear: stay out of American elections, and as president I will make sure that you do." Sanders acknowledged that his campaign was briefed about Russia's alleged efforts about a month prior. Sanders suggested that Russians were impersonating people claiming to be his supporters online in order to create an atmosphere of toxicity and give "Bernie Bros" a bad reputation, a suggestion that Twitter rejected. According to election-security expert Laura Rosenberger, "Russian attempts to sow discord in the Democratic primary would be consistent with its strategy of undermining Americans' faith in democratic institutions and processes."

In March 2020, the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Brennan Center for Justice published a report indicating that Russia-linked social media accounts have been spreading Instagram posts calculated to sow division among American voters. According to the report, Russian operatives were increasingly impersonating real political candidates and groups rather than creating fictional groups. According to Twitter's head of site integrity, Russian agents also attempted in 2018 to create the impression of more election interference than is actually happening to undermine confidence in the process. Shortly thereafter, the New York Times reported that according to American intelligence officials Russian operatives have been stoking via private Facebook groups anger among African Americans, emphasizing allegations of police brutality in the United States, highlighting racism in the United States against African Americans, and promoting and pressuring hate groups, including white and black extremist groups, in order to create strife within American society, though American intelligence officials provided few details about the alleged operations. A CNN investigation found that Russian efforts had partly been outsourced to troll farms in Ghana and Nigeria. In May 2020, Twitter suspended 44 accounts that exhibited behavior plausibly, but not definitively, indicative of Russian election interference tactics, including association with a Ghana troll farm.

Although government officials and American corporate security officers braced for a repeat of 2016's election infrastructure hacking and similar twenty-first century attacks, and in fact conducted what were characterized as pre-emptive counter-strikes on botnet infrastructure which might be used in large-scale coordination of hacking, and some incidents earlier in the year appeared to foreshadow such possibilities, after his dismissal, in a December 2020 interview Chris Krebs, the Trump administration's director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), described monitoring Election Day from CISA's joint command center along with representatives from the military's United States Cyber Command, the National Security Agency (NSA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the United States Secret Service (USSS), the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), representatives of vendors of voting machine equipment, and representatives of state and local governments, as well as his agency's analysis preceding and subsequent to that day, saying,

It was quiet. There was no indication or evidence that there was any sort of hacking or compromise of election systems on, before, or after November third.

Responding to spurious claims of foreign outsourcing of vote counting as a rationale behind litigation attempting to stop official vote counting in some areas, Krebs also affirmed that, "All votes in the United States of America are counted in the United States of America."

However, acts of foreign interference did include Russian state-directed application of computational propaganda approaches, more conventional state-sponsored Internet propaganda, smaller-scale disinformation efforts, "information laundering" and "trading up the chain" propaganda tactics employing some government officials, Trump affiliates, and US media outlets, as described below.

Briefings to Congress

On February 13, 2020, American intelligence officials advised members of the House Intelligence Committee that Russia was interfering in the 2020 election in an effort to get Trump re-elected. The briefing was delivered by Shelby Pierson, the intelligence community's top election security official and an aide to acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire. Trump allies on the committee challenged the findings, and Trump was angered to learn of the briefing as he believed Democrats might "weaponize" the information against him. He chastised Maguire for allowing the briefing to occur, and days later he appointed Richard Grenell to replace Maguire.

William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center told members of Congress during a classified briefing on July 31, 2020, that Russia was working to boost the campaign of Trump and undermine that of Biden. Details of Evanina's report were not made public. The Biden campaign confirmed to the Associated Press that they had "faced multiple related threats" but were "reluctant to reveal specifics for fear of giving adversaries useful intelligence". Evanina later stated in a press release, "We assess that Russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia 'establishment.'" On August 7, 2020, CNN reported that intelligence officials had provided senators, representatives and both the Biden and Trump campaigns with information "indicating Russia is behind an ongoing disinformation push targeting" Biden. That same day, Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, asserted that Republican senators investigating Biden and his son were "acting as Russian launderers of this information."

Johnson, Derkach, and Giuliani

In late 2019, the chairman of the Senate committee investigating the matter, Ron Johnson, was warned by American intelligence officials of a risk he could be playing into the hands of Russian intelligence to spread disinformation. During this period, Richard Burr (R-NC), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also warned Johnson that Johnson's investigation could aid Russian efforts to promote distrust in the United States' political system. Senators had also been briefed in late 2019 about Russian efforts to frame Ukraine for 2016 election interference. Johnson initially said he would release findings in spring 2020, as Democrats would be selecting their 2020 presidential nominee, but instead ramped up the investigation at Trump's urging in May 2020, after it became clear Biden would be the nominee. In March 2020, Johnson decided to postpone the issuing of a subpoena for former Ukrainian official and employee of a Democratic lobby firm Blue Star Strategies Andrii Telizhenko, a close ally of Rudy Giuliani who had made appearances on the pro-Trump cable channel One America News, after Senator Mitt Romney backed away on voting for Mr. Telizhenko, as the Senators from the Democratic Party pressured Senator Romney on Mr. Telizhenko's vote. Trump tweeted a press report about the investigations, later stating that he would make allegations of corruption by the Bidens a central theme of his re-election campaign. The State Department revoked Telizhenko's visa in October 2020, and CNN reported the American government was considering sanctioning him as a Russian agent.

In May 2020, Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Derkach, a Giuliani associate whom Evanina had named as a key participant in Russian interference, released snippets of alleged recordings of Joe Biden speaking with Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian president during the years Biden's son, Hunter, worked for Burisma Holdings. The Bidens had been accused without evidence of malfeasance relating to Burisma. The recordings, which were not verified as authentic and appeared heavily edited, depicted Biden linking loan guarantees for Ukraine to the ouster of the country's prosecutor general. The recordings did not provide evidence to support the ongoing conspiracy theory that Biden wanted the prosecutor fired to protect his son. Poroshenko denied In June 2020 that Joe Biden ever approached him about Burisma. In September 2020, the United States Department of the Treasury sanctioned Derkach, stating he "has been an active Russian agent for over a decade, maintaining close connections with the Russian Intelligence Services." The Treasury Department added Derkach "waged a covert influence campaign centered on cultivating false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning U.S. officials in the upcoming 2020 Presidential Election," including by the release of "edited audio tapes and other unsupported information with the intent to discredit U.S. officials."

Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney, had spent significant time working in Ukraine during 2019 to gather information about the Bidens, making frequent American television appearances to discuss it. Attorney general Bill Barr confirmed in February 2020 that the Justice Department had created an "intake process" to analyze Giuliani's information. This information included a September 2019 statement by former Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin falsely claiming he had been fired at Biden's insistence because Shokin was investigating Biden's son. The statement disclosed that it had been prepared at the request of attorneys for Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash, which since July 2019 included Joseph diGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing — both close associates of Trump and Giuliani. Firtash, fighting extradition to the United States where he was under federal indictment, is believed by the Justice Department to be connected to high levels of Russian organized crime, which allegedly installed him as a broker for Ukrainian imports of Russian natural gas. He is also reportedly close to the Kremlin to support Russian interests in Ukraine.

According to officials interviewed by The Daily Beast, then-National Security Advisor John Bolton told his staff not to meet with Giuliani, as did his successor Robert C. O'Brien, because Bolton had been informed that Giuliani was spreading conspiracy theories that aligned with Russian interests in disrupting the 2020 election. These officials were also concerned that Giuliani would be used as a conduit for disinformation, including "leaks" of emails that would mix genuine with forged material in order to implicate Hunter Biden in corrupt dealings.

The New York Times reported in November 2019 that Giuliani had directed associate Lev Parnas to approach Firtash about hiring the couple, with the proposition that Firtash could help to provide compromising information on Biden, which Parnas's attorney described was "part of any potential resolution to [Firtash's] extradition matter." Giuliani denied any association with Firtash, though he told CNN he met with a Firtash attorney for two hours in New York City at the time he was seeking information about the Bidens. As vice president, Biden had urged the Ukrainian government to eliminate brokers such as Firtash to reduce the country's reliance on Russian gas. After his October 2019 indictment, Parnas asserted that he, Giuliani, diGenova and Toensing had a deal with Firtash in which the oligarch would provide information to discredit Biden in exchange for Giuliani persuading the Justice Department to drop its efforts to extradite Firtash.

The Washington Post reported in October 2019 that after they began representing Firtash, Toensing and diGenova secured a rare face-to-face meeting with Barr to argue the Firtash charges should be dropped. Prior to that mid-August meeting, Barr had been briefed in detail on the initial Trump–Ukraine whistleblower complaint within the CIA that had been forwarded to the Justice Department, as well as on Giuliani's activities in Ukraine. Bloomberg News reported that its sources told them Giuliani's high-profile publicity of the Shokin statement had greatly reduced the chances of the Justice Department dropping the charges against Firtash, as it would appear to be a political quid pro quo. Barr declined to intervene in the Firtash case. Firtash denied involvement in collecting or financing damaging information on the Bidens.

According to Jane Mayer in October 2019, John Solomon, a contributor to Fox News, was pivotal for the dissemination of disinformation about Biden. She stated "No journalist played a bigger part in fueling the Biden corruption narrative than John Solomon."

Developments in summer and fall 2020

By the summer of 2020, Russian intelligence had advanced to "information laundering" in which divisive propaganda was reported on Russia-affiliated news websites with the expectation the stories would be picked-up and spread by more legitimate news outlets. In August 2020, The New York Times reported that a video published by RT's Ruptly video platform, of Black Lives Matter protesters apparently burning a bible in Portland, Oregon, edited in a misleading way, "went viral" after it being shared with an inaccurate caption on social media by a far-right personality and then conservative politicians. The Times said the clip "appear[ed] to be one of the first viral Russian disinformation hits of the 2020 presidential campaign”. An NBC report in the wake of this incident found that Ruptly edited user-generated protest videos to highlight violence over peaceful protest.

In September 2020, Facebook and Twitter announced that they had been alerted to the existence of Peace Data, a website set up by Russia's Internet Research Agency to interfere with the 2020 election. The social-media companies deleted accounts that had been used in an operation to recruit American journalists to write articles critical of Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris. On September 3, the intelligence branch of the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning to state and federal law enforcement that Russia was "amplifying" concerns about postal voting and other measures taken to protect voters during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to DHS analysts, "Russian malign influence actors" had been spreading misinformation since at least March. Trump had repeatedly asserted without evidence that voting by mail would result in widespread fraud.

ABC News reported in September 2020 that the Homeland Security Department had withheld the July release of an intelligence bulletin to law enforcement that warned of Russian efforts to promote “allegations about the poor mental health” of Joe Biden. DHS chief of staff John Gountanis halted the release pending review by secretary Chad Wolf. The bulletin stated that analysts had “high confidence” of the Russian efforts, which were similar to efforts by Trump and his campaign to depict Biden as mentally unfit. A DHS spokesperson said the bulletin was “delayed” because it did not meet the department's standards. The bulletin had not been released as of the date of the ABC News report. Later in September, Brian Murphy — a former DHS undersecretary for intelligence and analysis — asserted in a whistleblower complaint that Wolf told him “the intelligence notification should be ‘held’ because it ‘made the President look bad.’” Murphy also claimed Wolf told him to "cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference in the US, and instead start reporting on interference activities by China and Iran.” Murphy said Wolf told him this directive came from White House national security advisor Robert O'Brien.

On September 10, 2020, Reuters reported that hackers had tried and failed to breach the systems of SKDKnickerbocker, a political consulting firm that specializes in working for Democratic Party politicians and that had been working with the Biden campaign for two months. Microsoft, who detected the cyberattack, informed SKDKnickerbocker that Russian state-backed hackers were the likely perpetrators.

Analysts and officials interviewed by The New York Times in September 2020 indicated that a primary tactic of Russian disinformation campaigns was to amplify misleading statements from Trump, chiefly about postal voting. Russia's Internet Research Agency also created a fictitious press organization, the "Newsroom for American and European Based Citizens", in order to feed propaganda to right-wing social media users. NAEBC accounts were blocked or suspended by Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, but their content "got more traction" on Gab and Parler, according to a Reuters report.

H.R. McMaster, Trump's former national security advisor, said on October 1 that Trump was "aiding and abetting Putin’s efforts by not being direct about this. This sustained campaign of disruption, disinformation and denial is aided by any leader who doesn’t acknowledge it."

On October 5, The Washington Post reported that the State Department had revoked the travel visa of Giuliani associate Andrii Telizhenko.

On October 21, threatening emails were sent to Democrats in at least four states. The emails warned that "You will vote for Trump on Election Day or we will come after you." Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe announced that evening that the emails, using a spoofed return address, had been sent by Iran. He added that both Iran and Russia are known to have obtained American voter registration data, possibly from publicly available information, and that "This data can be used by foreign actors to attempt to communicate false information to registered voters that they hope will cause confusion, sow chaos and undermine your confidence in American democracy." A spokesman for Iran denied the allegation. In his announcement Ratcliffe said that Iran's intent had been "to intimidate voters, incite social unrest, and damage President Trump", raising questions as to how ordering Democrats to vote for Trump would be damaging to Trump. It was later reported that the reference to Trump had not been in Ratcliffe's prepared remarks as signed off by the other officials on the stage, but that he added it on his own.

New York Post story

In October 2020, the FBI reportedly launched an investigation into whether a story published in the tabloid journal New York Post on October 14 might be part of a Russian disinformation effort targeting Biden. The story, titled "Biden Secret Emails", displayed an email supposedly showing that Hunter Biden had arranged for his father, then-vice-president Joe Biden, to meet with a top advisor to Burisma. The Biden campaign said that no such meeting ever happened. The Post's source for the data was Giuliani, who says he got it from the hard drive of a laptop that was allegedly dropped off at a Delaware repair shop in April 2019 and never picked up. The shop owner told reporters that he thought the person who dropped it off was Hunter Biden but wasn't sure. He said he eventually gave the laptop to the FBI, keeping a copy of the hard drive for himself that he later gave to Giuliani. A year and a half earlier, in early 2019, White House officials had been warned that the Russians were planning to leak forged emails in the weeks before the election, and that Giuliani could be the conduit for such a leak.

Most of the New York Post story was written by a staff reporter who did not allow his name to be used on it because he doubted the story's credibility. According to an investigation by The New York Times, editors at the New York Post "pressed staff members to add their bylines to the story", and at least one refused, in addition to the original author. Of the two writers eventually credited on the article, the second did not know her name was attached to it until after it was published. Giuliani was later quoted as saying he had given the hard drive to the New York Post because "either nobody else would take it, or if they took it, they would spend all the time they could to try to contradict it before they put it out." Several days after the story was published, more than 50 former senior intelligence officials signed a letter saying that while they have no evidence, the story "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation." The New York Times reported that no solid evidence has emerged that the laptop contained Russian disinformation.

Hall County, Georgia

On October 7, 2020, the government of Hall County, Georgia had all its election-related information released by Russian hackers using DoppelPaymer ransomware.

The 2021 DNI report

The unclassified intelligence report: "INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT ON FOREIGN THREATS TO THE 2020 U.S. FEDERAL ELECTIONS".

According to a declassified DNI report released on March 16, 2021, there was evidence of broad efforts by both Russia and Iran to shape the election's outcome. However, there was no evidence that any votes, ballots, or voter registrations were directly changed. While Iran sought to undermine confidence in the vote and harm Trump's reelection prospects, the report found that Russia's efforts had been aimed at "denigrating President Biden's candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US", central to Moscow's interference effort having been reliance on Russian intelligence agencies′ proxies “to launder influence narratives” by using media organizations, U.S. officials and people close to Trump to push “misleading or unsubstantiated” allegations against Biden. As an example of such activity by Russia the report cited a documentary aired on One America News Network in January 2020, which was identified by news media as The Ukraine Hoax: Impeachment, Biden Cash, and Mass Murder.

The report specifically identified individuals controlled by the Russian government as having been involved in Russia's interference efforts, such as Konstantin Kilimnik and Andrii Derkach. The report said that Putin was likely to have had "purview" over the activities of Andrii Derkach. According to the report, Putin had authorized the Russian influence operations. Following the publication of the DNI report, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff issued a statement that said, "Through proxies, Russia ran a successful intelligence operation that penetrated the former president’s inner circle."

Government reaction

Dan Coats appointed Shelby Pierson as the U.S. election security czar in July 2019, creating a new position in a move seen as an acknowledgment that foreign influence operations against U.S. elections will be ongoing indefinitely. Election-security task forces established before the 2018 midterm elections at the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Security Agency and the United States Cyber Command have been expanded and "made permanent". The Department of Homeland Security indicated that the threat of ransomware attacks upon voter registration databases was a particular concern.

Prior to resigning as U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen attempted to organize a meeting of the U.S. Cabinet to discuss how to address potential foreign interference in the 2020 elections. Mick Mulvaney, the White House Chief of Staff, reportedly warned her to keep the subject away from Trump, who views the discussion as questioning the legitimacy of his victory in 2016. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, has blocked various bills intended to improve election security from being considered, including some measures that have had bipartisan support. Election-security legislation remains stalled in the Senate as of February 2020. However, various states have implemented changes, such as paper ballots. Florida has expanded its paper-ballot backup system since 2016, but experts warn that its voting systems are still vulnerable to manipulation, a particular concern being the electronic poll books that store lists of registered voters. All 67 election supervisors in Florida have been required to sign nondisclosure agreements, and consequently, information such as the identity of which four counties had been hacked by Russian intelligence in 2016 remains unknown to the public. Democratic members of Congress cited the lack of effort to secure U.S. elections against foreign interference, particularly from Russia, as among grounds to begin an impeachment inquiry.

On September 30, 2019, the United States issued economic sanctions against seven Russians affiliated with the Internet Research Agency, an organization that manipulates social media for misinformation purposes. The sanctions were described as a warning against foreign interference in United States elections.

On December 9, 2019, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray told ABC News: "as far as the [2020] election itself goes, we think Russia represents the most significant threat." According to William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, Russia is "using social media and many other tools to inflame social divisions, promote conspiracy theories and sow distrust in our democracy and elections."

Bloomberg News reported in January 2020 that American intelligence and law enforcement were examining whether Russia was involved in promoting disinformation to undermine Joe Biden as part of a campaign to disrupt the 2020 election. The following month, the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service warned that Russia would attempt to interfere in the Georgian parliamentary election in October 2020 as well as the US election in November.

On July 13, 2020, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote to FBI Director Wray, requesting a briefing on a "concerted foreign interference campaign" targeting the United States Congress. The request for an all-Congress briefing, also signed by Rep. Adam Schiff and Sen. Mark Warner, was made public one week later, save for a classified addendum that was not released to the media.

Trump administration reaction

The Trump administration reacted to the briefing by American intelligence officials to the House Intelligence Committee that Russia was interfering in the 2020 election in an effort to get Trump re-elected by rejecting the efforts were in favor of Trump and by firing Joseph Maguire, who was involved in those reports.

By contrast, Trump and his national security adviser Robert O'Brien accepted reports the Russians were supporting the nomination of Bernie Sanders.

Three weeks after Trump loyalist Richard Grenell was appointed acting Director of National Intelligence, intelligence officials briefed members of Congress behind closed doors that they had "not concluded that the Kremlin is directly aiding any candidate’s re-election or any other candidates’ election," which differed from testimony they had provided the previous month indicating that Russia was working to aid Trump's candidacy. Two intelligence officials pushed back on suggestions the new testimony was politically motivated. One intelligence official asserted the earlier testimony had overreached and that Democrats had mischaracterized it. Kash Patel, a former aide to congressman Devin Nunes who joined Grenell at the ODNI, imposed limits on what intelligence officials could tell Congress about foreign influence operations. The briefers reportedly did not intend to contradict their previous testimony, though they avoided repeating it.

Trump and his surrogates asserted that China, rather than Russia, posed the greater risk to election security and was trying to help Biden win. In August 2020, Trump tweeted that "Chinese State Media and Leaders of CHINA want Biden to win ‘the U.S. Election."” Donald Trump Jr. asserted at the August Republican convention that "Beijing Biden is so weak on China that the intelligence community recently assessed that the Chinese Communist Party favors Biden.” Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe stated during an August Fox News appearance, "China is using a massive and sophisticated influence campaign that dwarfs anything that any other country is doing." Attorney general Bill Barr and national security advisor Robert O'Brien made similar assertions. Intelligence community officials have publicly and privately said that the underlying intelligence indicates that while China would prefer Trump not be reelected, the nation had not been actively interfering and that Russia remained the far greater threat, working to undermine Biden. Trump also asserted that China was trying to stoke race protests in an effort to help Biden, which was also not supported by the intelligence community's assessment. The United States intelligence community released analysis in March 2021 finding that China had considered interfering with the election but decided against it on concerns it would fail or backfire.

Following Joe Biden's apparent win—which Trump was actively disputing through numerous lawsuits—Chris Krebs, the director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, issued a statement on November 12: "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised." Trump tweeted on November 17 that he had fired Krebs as a result of this statement.

Reaction of the Putin administration

Russian officials denied that it had interfered in the 2016 election or that it was interfering in the 2020 election. On September 25, 2020, Putin released a formal statement seeking mutual "guarantees of non-interference" in U.S. and Russian elections and asking the United States "to approve a comprehensive program of practical measures to reset our relations in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT)."

Presidency of Donald Trump

In a June 2019 interview with George Stephanopoulos, Donald Trump said that he would accept information from other nations about his opponents in the 2020 United States presidential election.

According to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The New York Times, Trump and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani repeatedly pressed the Ukrainian government to investigate Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden, leading to the ongoing Trump–Ukraine scandal. Biden is a potentially strong Trump challenger in the 2020 presidential election. The purpose of the requested investigation was alleged to be to damage Biden's election campaign for president. Reports suggested that Trump threatened to withhold military aid from Ukraine unless they investigate Biden. The controversy triggered the commencement of the formal process of impeachment inquiries against Trump on September 24, with House speaker Nancy Pelosi directing six House committee chairmen to proceed "under that umbrella of impeachment inquiry".

On October 3, 2019, Trump said that "China should start an investigation" into presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Moments before, while discussing negotiations on a possible agreement in the ongoing China–United States trade war, he said that "if they [China] don't do what we want, we have tremendous power." Chair of the Federal Election Commission Ellen Weintraub then retweeted a June statement explaining that "it is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election".

As of early October 2019, there is evidence President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, U.S. Attorney General William Barr, as well as Trump's personal attorney Giuliani have solicited help from Ukraine and China for assistance in discrediting Trump's political opponents. Trump also dispatched Barr to meet with Italian officials as part of Trump's efforts to discredit the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump also pressed Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia to give Barr information that Trump hoped would discredit the Mueller inquiry, in a call that (like Trump's earlier call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky), used diplomatic contacts to advance Trump's "personal political interests." According to a report in the Times of London, Trump also personally contacted British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to seek help to discredit the Mueller investigation.

A Department of Homeland Security intelligence bulletin, warning about Russian interference in the 2020 election, was planned for release on July 9 but was blocked by acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf's chief of staff. The bulletin, intended to be distributed among law-enforcement agencies, indicated that Russian disinformation operations would denigrate the mental health of Joe Biden.

Aftermath

Russian interference in the 2020 election was significantly less severe than it had been in 2016. Experts suggested a variety of possible explanations, not mutually exclusive. These include a hardening of American cyber defenses, reluctance on Russia's part to risk reprisals, and the fact that misinformation intended to delegitimize the election was already prevalent within the United States thanks to unfounded claims by Trump and others.

On April 15, 2021 the Biden administration expelled 10 Russian diplomats and sanctioned six Russian companies that support Russia's cyber activities, in addition to 32 individuals and entities for its role in the interference and the 2020 United States federal government data breach.

The New York Times reported in May 2021 that federal investigators in Brooklyn began a criminal investigation late in the Trump administration into possible efforts by several current and former Ukrainian officials to spread unsubstantiated allegations about corruption by Joe Biden. Investigators were examining whether the Ukrainians used Giuliani as a channel for the allegations, though he was not a specific subject of the investigation, in contrast to a long-running investigation of Giuliani by the US attorney's office in Manhattan.

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