November 3rd, 2020 has come and gone. The ballots were cast and counted. Joe Biden is the President Elect (as far as I can tell) and the predictions of massive electoral meddling perpetrated by foreign actors appears to have been avoided.
By all accounts the newly created Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency led by inaugural Director Chris Krebs managed to fend of all manner of nefarious attempts on the structural integrity of our 2020 election. The agency, created by President Trump to prevent foreign intrusions, prevented foreign intrusions. Now, unfortunately, Director Krebs made the mistake of confirming that the election was indeed secure and was summarily fired by President Trump. But has the manipulation truly been averted? Or has the manipulation simply been moved onshore, no longer outsourced? Made in U.S.A.
The actions of the Russian government in 2016 were not new, the actions themselves were old school. Obfuscate, confuse, mislead. Sow division and mistrust. Enlarge existing social fault lines. None of these actions are novel approaches to geopolitical meddling. This was just the leveraging of a new medium to bring these techniques into the 21st century on a grand scale, and we appear to have made adjustments to counter them. That is a positive development.
It appears, however, that the damage has been done. The spectacular use of social media to fan the flames of social discord in America succeeded in a spectacular way. Our political environment no exists in a purgatory of partisan propaganda. The gentle push from Putin’s troll farm has sent us into a cycle of increasing polarization, any given event is an opportunity for posturing. Social media, with it’s algorithms set to prioritize engagement over all else, feeds us content tailor made to outrage. We are being shuffled into silos of thought and seem all too happy to be with our team, lashing out at “the other.” Shooting snarky tweets off with no thought to actual debate, just to debase those we disagree with.
We have proven we can keep the enemy from breaching the gates, but can we stop ourselves from burning down the city?