In 2014 our officials began to be briefed that Russia was attacking the elections of several western democracies in NATO countries and that they may have been headed for ours.
By the end of 2016 several public figures had attempted to warn us of hostile foreign election interference. The first of these was Obama in a January 8th 2016 interview, letting us know that some pundits and Republicans were softening on Russia and Putin, who had been attacking western elections since 2014. Our next warnings came from Diane Feinstein and Adam Schiff, Feinstein’s statement begins: “Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election... Next was Hillary in her debate with Trump where she explained that not only was Russia attacking us but what the role of Wikileaks was in espionage against our nation. The next, in october 2017 was the Office of Director of National intelligence which warned in official further detail that Russia was targeting our election Trump was also notified personally two weeks before he took office that Russia was attacking our country, though he continued to deny that they had anything to do with any aggression towards us then or going forward.
Then in January and June respectively James Comey testified that the Russian Government had acted on behalf of the Trump campaign and had hacked DNC servers.
Jack Posobiec and Mike Cernovich and Wohl and Burkman and Michael Flynn’s “Digital Soldier’s” and about 130 other people I’ve a list of worked to call the ensuing special counsel investigation a “witch hunt” as their counterparts on the false left, such as Mike Rothschild, Jimmy Dore, and Kaitlin Johnstone, pretend to be too intellectually skeptic (though some at the time have the gall to outright say they are antidemocratic) to follow the literal actual indictments of 13 Russians for interfering in the 2016 election
The Special Counsel under Robert Mueller assessed more than 90 points of contact between the Trump Campaign and Russian state representatives or officials. Jeff Sessions at the time failed to disclose his contacts with Russian ambassadors while Mike Flynn and KT Macfarlane were both caught giving false testimony to the FBI about Flynn promising Kislyak that he would help reverse sanctions on them if Trump won, KT noting in an email after winning that Russia had just “thrown” Trump’s staff the election.
During this time the entire right either ignored this news completely or onboarded with literal fascism while the far left worked overtime to suppress this type of information, the latter’s actions apparently due to orgs like “CodePink” working with Russian state disinformation agents like Ionov
In 2018 FBI director Christopher Wray told us that Russia was still attacking our elections, and again in 2020.
In August of 2020 The Senate Intel Committee put out a report (volume 4 also stated Russia attacked us but volume 5 specifically) saying that Russia did attack our prior elections on behalf of Trump and was currently attacking our elections and that the president’s (Trump’s) associates were “amplifying that effort”.
In 2021 ODNI Released the Intelligence Community Assessment of Foreign Threats to the 2020 U.S. Elections which outlines that Putin himself attacked our elections and how. The Treasury also released sanctions against Konstantin Kilimnik, the Russian agent that Paul Manafort provided with polling data on behalf of the Trump Campaign.
The point is, we all knew. Anyone following any actual politics had access to the information from the very beginning, barring all the deep dives on connections with Russian government components, state companies, and propaganda funnel orgs that GOP and Green Party and DSA and so many other pro-Putin entities had been hiding, we all knew. We knew because of unbiased Security professionals and Democrats with a capital D warning us. We knew because of the contrary behavior and inaction of the Republicans that the right was embracing the attacks on us and fascism itself. We knew from the hammer-sickle emoji and lauding of dictators that “aggressive progressives” caucus with the enemies of our democracy. Neither of these is part of any party or “revolution” I would be a part of.
Due to the disinformation campaigns of both of these sorts of groups, that benefitted from anti democratic propaganda, we have lost the Supreme Court and decades of decisive victories for human rights, people were deported, emergencies mismanaged and people died.
Due to the violent rhetorical mirror that these co-benefactors of Russian election interference portray all day on social media we have had a bloody coup at our nation’s capitol.
This is a big reason I will not suspend disbelief for people attempting to destroy the most vulnerable in our society under the guise that wikileaks defenders are activists for anything. I will not make separate judgements on individual “anons” based on them calling themselves “collective” while caucusing with literal Nazis. Reasonably, if they want to caucus with Nazis they aren’t a “revolution” worth joining.
Bottom line, we still know. We have the information necessary to know that our country was attacked by people who wish to subjugate and destroy us and if you don’t after being given the information and tools, from here forward, that should be considered your own fault. Naivety is no longer on the table. Light has been repetitively shone on this topic. The attack on our country, and those of our allies, is ongoing and unwelcome with anyone who gives an actual shit about human rights or democracy. We all have the same facts.