th<\/sup> 2020<\/i><\/p>\nOn a day when Trump was suggesting people try treating themselves with bleach and disinfectants to avoid coronavirus, one self-purported Democratic activist showed up on my web page with a long article about how Tara Reade, the woman who has accused Joe Biden of digital rape, just had her allegations supported by a claim that her mother called in to some talk show in 1997 to discuss it. Now, you can have an honest difference of opinion on the veracity of Reade\u2019s story. And if you believe her, then you can reasonably be expected to not want to support Biden.<\/p>\n
But this post took a strange turn. \u201cVoting Biden would just be replacing one rapist with another.\u201d Well, neither Biden nor Trump have actually been convicted of rape. And that\u2019s about all they have in common at this point. In Trump\u2019s case, there are at least a dozen women accusing him of sexual misconduct, his lawyer went to jail for paying off women he sexually predated, and there\u2019s that issue with his association with Jeffrey Epstein, child rapist and pimp. Equating the two just doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n
I clicked the link on the Reade story, and found myself at World News Daily. Given that WND is one of the trashiest right wing sites on the web, just about at the same level of Breitbart, it seemed a strange place for a Democratic Activist to be getting her information.<\/p>\n
OK, so this one was a troll. The only question was whether this was a Republican Troll or a Russian Troll. It\u2019s not a very important question, but it\u2019s one where figuring out the answer can be amusing.<\/p>\n
A Republican troll won\u2019t respond to any post that points out that Trump is far worse than Biden. They\u2019ll obsessively post that Biden is mentally impaired (\u201cdemented\u201d is the meme this week), overly handsy toward women, and \u201ca rapist\u201d (not just \u201caccused of rape\u201d). But if you point out that the same pertains to Trump, 20 times that of Biden, you won\u2019t get a response.<\/p>\n
A Russian troll knows that Trump as a patsy for Putin has outlived his shelf life. But exacerbating the divisions Trump has created in the United States works out fine for Moscow, which wants the US to remain weak and divided. So he\u2019ll cheerfully agree that Trump is just as bad, and suggest voting for some hopeless third party candidate.<\/p>\n
But both sets of trolls are going to be resolutely focused on Biden, and specifically on smearing him any way they can. Team Trump, the PAC arm of the Trump election campaign, ran a series of \u201cI\u2019m With Joe\u201d ads, purporting to be from a group supporting Biden. The \u201csupporters\u201d in those ads were luridly tatooed street gang members, scary-looking Black Panther types, and other racist and sexist memes.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s dishonest and racist and deeply vile, and it captures the spirit of Trump and his underlings perfectly.<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t care how stupid their memes actually are. One I came across this week was feigned outrage over the cancellation of the New York State primary. Fake Sanders supporters howled that \u201cit was his only chance at winning!\u201d One hilarious poster ignored my point, made three times, that in fact Sanders wasn\u2019t running in that primary, having already suspended his campaign. I then asked if they supported Wisconsin making voters risk their health to defeat a fascist running for the state supreme court. The reply was \u201cthe guy was running for the federal court\u201d which left me wondering what part of Russia he lived in.<\/p>\n
The primary campaign is over, and Biden is the presumptive nominee. Between a \u201ccircle the wagons\u201d approach by timid centrist Dems, and the bad luck of having a pandemic strike at just the wrong time which influenced voters to vote safe, Bernie lost, but he lost fairly. He has endorsed Biden, and Biden has graciously accepted. Hopefully Dems will keep the pressure on Biden to adopt more leftist policies and nominate a progressive for VP.<\/p>\n
At this time, anyone claiming to be a Dem launching a vicious personal attack on either is almost certainly a troll, there only to disrupt and disorganize. We\u2019re not talking about Biden\u2019s poor stance on health care, or that he favored the death penalty until very recently. Those are very legitimate criticisms, and need to be aired. If Biden can\u2019t attract leftist and progressive voters, he risks losing the most important election since 1860, and with capitalism on the ropes, he can\u2019t afford to be seen as just another centrist corporate stooge. People will abandon him for more revolutionary forms of reform.<\/p>\n
But watch the trolls. They are going to do and say anything: the best of them are willing to lie for the cause, the worst are just vicious prostitutes.<\/p>\n
And from now until election day, they are going to be carpet bombing social media with their filth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Spring Trolls Empty calories on the web April 28th 2020 On a day when Trump was suggesting people try treating themselves with bleach and disinfectants to avoid coronavirus, one self-purported Democratic activist showed up on my web page with a long article about how Tara Reade, the woman who has accused Joe Biden of digital … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Spring Trolls – Empty calories on the web”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,60,799],"tags":[794,964,963],"class_list":["post-847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-psyche","category-politics","category-technology","tag-propaganda","tag-smear-artists","tag-trolls"],"yoast_head":"\nSpring Trolls - 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