When Foreign Interference Elected an American President

It’s an election year, so Americans are fretting over foreign machinations influencing the vote – they should be concerned, because it’s nothing new

In a bitterly contested partisan election, Republican operatives concoct a dirty trick deception involving a less-than-friendly foreign government to smear the Democratic presidential candidate, thereby handing the White House to the Republicans.

The year is 1888.

Since 2016, Americans have discussed foreign interference, real and imagined, in our elections nonstop. This sudden concern has birthed an entire industry of experts, most of them fake. As this newsletter has addressed many times, Democrats have been excessively interested in Russian – but only Russian – shady electoral shenanigans, particularly when they benefit Republicans (Democratic interest in Chinese and other political influence operations does not chart). Similarly, Republicans, particularly those in thrall to Donald J. Trump, our once and perhaps future president, dismiss all talk of the Kremlin’s efforts to interfere in our elections as a Democrat smear, even though some of the “evidence” proffered by Hillary Clinton and her retinue in 2016 that Trump is a Russian pawn was itself Kremlin disinformation.

Therefore, we enter another election cycle with the specter of foreign interference looming uncomfortably over the process. Since the 2016 debacle, the Intelligence Community has made the issue a top priority, including the establishment of the Foreign Influence Task Force, with the FBI taking lead. “This election cycle, the U.S. will face more adversaries, moving at a faster pace, and enabled by new technology,” as FBI Director Christopher Wray recently warned. The Bureau is concerned that our adversaries who seek to swing American elections to their liking – in particular Russia, China, and Iran – are adapting fast. Our enemies employing artificial intelligence to conjure up convincing “deep fake” disinformation, as has already happened in other countries, ranks high on the list of FBI election worries as Nov. 5 approaches.

The irony regarding the moral panic that followed 2016 and allegations of foreign interference in our elections is that there was nothing new happening. Foreign governments have attempted to influence our elections for a very long time, even though the public is mostly unaware of this bygone history. Indeed, the most effective foreign “influence op” against an American presidential election, a “deep fake” that changed the outcome, happened well past a century ago and was executed by a country that’s since become one of our closest allies.