Institutional decay

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Already saying stuff like that has consequences, and there are other parties in the mix. Familiar parties, once again those Russians:

Singer contended that we've seen this type of thing play out in the past — Russia meddling in an election — with the intended goal not always being to change who wins, but instead to sow doubt in the electorate. In 2014, Russia-linked hackers attacked the computers of Ukraine's central election as votes were being cast. In one incident, they used a virus that would declare the far-right — and pro-Russian — candidate the victor, even though he got only 1% of the vote. Russian state TV almost immediately declared him the winner.

So perhaps the election won't be hacked, but the information surrounding it will seem tainted and untrustworthy to people. "That's where this latest Trump track of 'the polls are false, if I lose it's been stolen' — it's laying the groundwork for a narrative that we can see coming," Singer said. "The idea is to cast illegitimacy on an election." Singer said that it's in Trump's interest to tell supporters not to believe the polls, or cast doubt on the election in November, but it also plays right into Russia's goals. "It's the idea of sowing dissension, sowing doubt, and delegitimizing," he said. "This is classic information warfare operations that date back to the Stalin era. It feels new to Americans, but it actually fits a prior pattern."

Peter Singer talks about the DNC hack and its implications - Business Insider

This could be disastrous for the legitimacy of democracy. The Republican fringe has already eaten away at the legitimacy of the media ("biased"), universities ("PC liberal hotbeds"), government ("always the problem, never the solution"), parts of science which is doesn't like, etc. etc.

VERY worrying development.