Why I Fear a Moderate Democratic Nominee
Posts kept coming from Black Matters US, from its accounts stationed at seemingly every corner of the internet in 2016. Twitter. Instagram. YouTube. Facebook. Tumblr. Google+. A news site. Google Ads. PayPal for donations. A podcast offering “strong Black voices.”
Black Matters US posted a steady diet of images, of sayings, of articles, of videos that made black people feel good about being black and feel angry about being black in America. As trust built, posts also whispered, “Our Votes Don’t Matter” and “Don’t Vote for Hillary Clinton” and “A Vote for Jill Stein Is Not a Wasted Vote.”
These whispers came from Russian operatives, screaming into history the true mission of Black Matters US accounts—to troll black people into not voting for Clinton in the 2016 election. Clinton already had a “problem with young black Americans,” especially those reeling from her video calling them “super-predators” in 1996. But her problem exploded into a crisis as Russian trolls relentlessly bonded her to racism and police brutality, the two most important problems facing the country, according to young black Americans in 2016. Russian operatives portrayed her as the devilish ward of the hell Donald Trump said black people were living and dying in. Weeks before the vote, a Black Matters US account posted doctored pictures of Clinton captioned “Satan’s daughter” and “The root of all evil.”
A two-year into Russian interference by the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in 2018 that “no single group than African Americans. Russian operatives knew—even if many Americans did not—that young black voters can swing presidential elections. Young voters and voters of color—and especially young black voters—are more likely than older voters and white voters to swing between voting Democrat and not voting (or voting ). They are America’s —distinct from white swing voters shifting between voting Republican and Democrat (or Republican and not voting), distinct from nonvoters of all races who never vote.
