Cambridge Analytica targeted Sanders Supporters to dissuade them from voting for Clinton

[emulatorloo]

https://www.channel4.com/news/exposed-undercover-secrets-of-donald-trump-data-firm-cambridge-analytica

See ten minutes mark.

This echoed rhetoric from Trump campaign. Head of Cambridge Analytica claims they wrote Trump’s speeches in another episode of Channel 4’s expose.

[bettyellen]

1. And seeded them w stories and memes to spread their lies organically.

[babylonsister]

2. I am so damned confused.

I read about the tapes but haven't watched them yet.

I was a Sanders supporter who voted for Clinton.

Maybe I'm not subject to bullshit.

[emulatorloo]

5. You should watch them. They are only 16 mins each

It is creepy as hell

Link here:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017484983

[bettyellen]

6. I think what you saw on FB and Twitter depended much on how much woo you also consume-

The people I know who saw and spread the worst stuff about Hillary were also haters of “big government” and prone to conspiracy therories on things like chem trails and he Clinton hit list. I don’t know anyone really level headed who was targeted.

[mythology]

47. It's not like they literally brainwashed people

But if somebody were on the edge, it could have tipped them in favor of not voting. The problem being, how to prove what the actual impact was? Not just as a matter of determining the impact to the election, but this is a guy trying to sell somebody on his product. He's certainly not going to say "oh we had little impact, but give us your money anyway".

The vast majority of Sanders supporters voted for Clinton the general election. My guess is that the people most likely to be influenced to not vote/vote for Trump would turn out to be more moderate independents and it probably helped motivate far right voters by pumping out bullshit feeding into their paranoia that somebody somewhere is out to get them, whether it's the pedophile ring in the pizza shop or Democrats busing in non-citizens to vote etc.

[emulatorloo]

3. Guardian: Donald Trump appeals to 'crazy Bernie' backers while batting away Russia ties

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/25/donald-trump-bernie-sanders-supporters-russia-putin

Donald Trump appeals to 'crazy Bernie' backers while batting away Russia ties
Republican nominee claims Sanders’ supporters will migrate to him over trade and says of campaign’s ties to Russia: ‘It’s one of the weirdest conspiracy theories’

Mon 25 Jul 2016 22.48 EDT

Donald Trump made a heavy-handed attempt to appeal to supporters of former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in a rally in North Carolina, while dismissing criticism of his campaign’s ties to Russia as “a weird conspiracy theory”.

Alternately praising Sanders on trade and slamming the Vermont senator as “crazy Bernie”, the Republican nominee continued to vacillate, often within the same sentence, about the importance of appealing to former Sanders supporters, many of whom have been vocal at the Democratic convention about their continuing dismay that Hillary Clinton beat him to their party’s nomination.

Trump said sadly that “Bernie’s given up” and proclaimed: “I bet you a lot of their people will come to us and the reason they’ll want come is trade.” But on the same night that diehard Sanders supporters booed speakers at the Democratic national convention, he also referred to the progressive icon as “crazy Bernie”.

The Republican nominee tried to use Clinton’s selection of Virginia senator Tim Kaine as a wedge, bemoaning that she did not pick a candidate perceived as more palatable to progressives. “Half of the party is like crazy Bernie Sanders, so you have to give them a bone,” he said. He then went on to describe Kaine “a guy from the other side nobody likes”. Kaine is considered to be one of the most collegial members of the Senate and is even friends with Ted Cruz.

More at link

[mythology]

48. Trump also claims to be a very stable genius

Just because somebody claims a statement to be true doesn't mean it is.

[emulatorloo]

56. The truthfulness is irrelevant. All that mattered is if some believed it.

And used it as an excuse to vote Trump, Aleppo, or Stein in those three states.

[MelissaB]

4. I'm sure I was targeted.

[mr_lebowski]

7. Exactly what I posted yesterday ... if we ever find out the details we'll find the BIGGEST effort ..

Was spent on convincing Bernie lovers to either not vote, or vote for Trump over Hillary.

Hacking teh DNC and catching DWS was no accident, somebody at DNC TOLD whoever stole that data ... that there were documents showing Hill favoritism. Our corporate media happily complied by catapulting that story for a few days. Then the bots and FB ads kicked in.

Bernie lovers were THE big target of this propaganda campaign, guaranteed.

[emulatorloo]

9. Bernie 2016 supporter here. Was really creeped out when Trump adopted Bernie-or-Bust rhetoric

[peggysue2]

12. Was just going to mention that

Convincing Bernie supporters to stay home was just as helpful to Trump as getting their vote or flipping them to Jill Stein. The basic motivation of all the bs stories was to smear again and again and again until the doubt penetrated and the vote/attitude shifted. Nix said it himself. Facts made no difference; they were irrelevant. The only important thing was that people believed what was being repeated endlessly while never perceiving the lies or fictional narrative as propaganda. Facts/truth took a back seat to raw emotion.

It's very creepy. Right too, I think, that there must have been inside 'helpers' working within the legitimate campaigns. In fact, the Clinton breach during the primary might have been a test for the larger DNC breach and the Wassermann Schultz fiasco.

Sophisticated, creepy and we all ended up caught like deer in the headlights. Only to wake up to the abomination that is the Trumpster.

[lindysalsagal]

37. It also explains the mixed messaging. He didn't have "A" platform: His statements were contradictory

so that as many voters as possible heard what they wanted ot hear.

The masterminds counted on people's ability and willingness to ignore or discount anything that was in opposition to their wishes.

"He didn't mean it" was the loophole, every time. "He's just bragging." "He's just playing the clown." "It's just his style to not care what others think and say what comes to him first."

That WAS all strategy.

[yardwork]

8. I saw this happen. Unfriended some people because of it.

[Johnny2X2X]

10. Nevada

Do people now realize the hoopla around the Nevada primary was fake news? So many fell for it.

[ucrdem]

11. There was fake news, but what happened at the Nevada caucus was a major breach

of political protocol. The fake news was that the Clinton caucus goers did anything underhanded or nefarious. They didn't. They won the caucus and the losing side behaved horribly, intimidating a Democratic Senator (Boxer) for supporting the freaking Dem candidate. That was the real news and it was horrifying.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

15. Uh huh...

[emulatorloo]

24. Uh-huh, there were no death threats from Bernie supporters who didnt understand the rules.

<sarcasm>

We lived thru this. Gaslighting won’t work here. Since I know you aren’t a Bernie or Buster, I know there is no need for you to be so defensive about the facts.

[SunSeeker]

31. Yes, the way civil rights hero Dolores Huerta was treated was unconscionable.

[Leith]

30. I Still Won't Watch John Ralston

He said that a Bernie supporter threw a chair. I watched the clip where it supposedly happened - and it did not happen.

I also did not see any dirty tricks or anything of the sort from the Clinton side.

I believe my own eyes over what others tell me to think.

[CentralMass]

13. The numbers seem to show that it was not effective.

Sanders primary voters voted for Hillary by a 2:1 margin after Bernie lost versus the precentage of Hillary primary voters in 2008 who voted for Senator Obama after Hillary lost.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/24/did-enough-bernie-sanders-supporters-vote-for-trump-to-cost-clinton-the-election/?sw_bypass=true&utm_term=.62f06b837207

The executive summary is that by at least a 2:1 margin Hillary voters voted for McCain in 2008 vs the Sanders voters who voted for Trump in 2016. It also cited that "Perhaps the most important feature of Sanders-Trump voters is this: They weren’t really Democrats to begin with."


"How many Sanders voters voted for Donald Trump?

Two surveys estimate that 12 percent of Sanders voters voted for Trump. A third survey suggests it was 6 percent.

First, the political scientist Brian Schaffner analyzed the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, which was conducted by YouGov and interviewed 64,600 Americans in October-November 2016. In that survey, Schaffner found that 12 percent of people who voted in the primary and reported voting for Sanders also voted in November and reported voting for Trump."


Schaffner examined only voters whose turnout in the primary and general election could be validated using voter file data. This excludes people who said they voted but actually did not — although it also excludes people who voted in caucuses or party-run primaries, for which validated turnout data are not as readily available.

Hillary Voters in 2008
"Another useful comparison is to 2008, when the question was whether Clinton supporters would vote for Barack Obama or John McCain (R-Ariz.) Based on data from the 2008 Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project, a YouGov survey that also interviewed respondents multiple times during the campaign, 24 percent of people who supported Clinton in the primary as of March 2008 then reported voting for McCain in the general election.

An analysis of a different 2008 survey by the political scientists Michael Henderson, Sunshine Hillygus and Trevor Thompson produced a similar estimate: 25 percent. (Unsurprisingly, Clinton voters who supported McCain were more likely to have negative views of African Americans, relative to those who supported Obama.)

Thus, the 6 percent or 12 percent of Sanders supporters who may have supported Trump does not look especially large in comparison with these otherhybrid examples."

"What kinds of Sanders voters supported Trump?

Perhaps the most important feature of Sanders-Trump voters is this: They weren’t really Democrats to begin with.

Of course, we know that many Sanders voters did not readily identify with the Democratic Party as of 2016, and Schaffner found that Sanders-Trump voters were even less likely to identify as Democrats. Sanders-Trump voters didn’t much approve of Obama either.

In fact, this was true well before 2016. In the VOTER Survey, we know how Sanders-Trump voters voted in 2012, based on an earlier interview in November 2012. Only 35 percent of them reported voting for Obama, compared with 95 percent of Sanders-Clinton voters. In other words, Sanders-Trump voters were predisposed to support Republicans in presidential general elections well before Trump’s candidacy."

[SammyWinstonJack]

20. Perhaps the most important feature of the Sanders-tRump voters is this: they weren't really

Democrats to begin with. Duh!

[mr_lebowski]

26. Surely many of the 12% who voted Bernie in the Primary did so cause they're GOPpers IRL

... believing that Hillary was a more formidable candidate than Bernie, therefore, they went and voted for Bernie in primaries.

Be keen to know how many of those '12%' were voters in states with totally open primaries and/or how many changed affiliations from R to D just to vote in those primaries.

[CentralMass]

28. Well. Bernie was very popular with many Denocrats as well.

Well Hillary won the primary and the Sanders primary voters voted four her at a relatively high percentage.

[emulatorloo]

22. See the narrow margins in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan

Those three states elected Trump.

Also note McCain was not elected, Obama won the presidency in 2008.

[Johnny2X2X]

25. Exactly.

This was an election decided by about 60,000 votes in those states. They probably convinced about half that in Bernie voters to stay home in those 3 states.

And McCain has zero to do with this.

[progressoid]

49. Which makes this election even that much more worse.

There were substantially more defectors to the GOP side in 2008 and yet we still won. While in 2016, with arguably the worst GOP candidate in generations, we lost.

[emulatorloo]

51. Putin. Cambridge Analytica. Yet she still won the popular vote

And she won people most concerned about jobs and the economy, despite the stupid hot takes after the election.

[TheSmarterDog]

62. The body of your post doesn't match your title.

Seems the Russian interference WAS, in fact, effective, if it caused 30% of Sanders supporters to refuse to back Clinton after he lost. And that 6% thought Trump was an acceptable alternative to Sanders is even more damning.

[Cha]

14. Is that ever easy to believe.

Thanks for the report, emulatorloo

[onecaliberal]

16. It was so fucking obvious

[winstars]

17. Glad that we had no issues like this on DU after the primaries ended. Oh wait, WE DID!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[CentralMass]

19. The Bernie bashing never stopped.

[winstars]

21. I sorta meant the HRC bashing here

[emulatorloo]

23. Russians and Cambridge Analytica supported all candidates other than HRC

It is revisionist history and gaslighting to claim otherwise. We deal in facts here at DU, even if they are uncomfortable.

You didnt vote for Trump so there is no need for you to be defensive about Bernie to Trump voters in those states. I was a Sanders supporter in 2016 and I certainly don’t feel defensive about them.

[Demsrule86]

43. I voted for Sanders in Ohio...my millennia kids went down the list of what he believed...and he

was the sort of candidate we had been waiting for...I liked both candidates, but the kids, their Dad and I went out as a family and voted for him. I think that was why I was so angry later...it was disappointment. I will just say I expected better from Sen. Sanders than what I saw later in the general and afterwards. Now I just want to put 16 behind us and toss the GOP and their sicko leader Trump out of the government...unfit to govern.

[brush]

27. The Hillary bashers just about took over DU during the campaign.

Last edited Wed Mar 21, 2018, 08:00 PM - Edit history (1)

People weren't going to just let that go, especially when they felt the Hillary bashers helped trump "win".

[Squinch]

41. God, that was awful. And when the admins made rules against Hillary bashing, those in question

created JPR.

And THAT site looks like they have been freebasing Cambridge Analytica stories.

[Demsrule86]

44. Oh yeah...amazing how much they whine about Hillary to this day.

[arthritisR_US]

53. Oh I am certain that site is half+ Russian bots.

[obamanut2012]

68. hahahahahhahahhahahhahahha

[SidDithers]

18. DU rec...

Sid

[Skittles]

29. you would have to be very, VERY stupid to fall for that

or a fucking misogynist

[stevenleser]

34. They had the data and psychologists and talented spies to craft the best possible message

To try to peel away as many votes from Hillary as possible. Hitler and his henchmen has much less than that and managed to get Germany’s most progressive and educated centers, like Hamburg, to support him.

I’m not completely disagreeing with you, by the way, a lot of people harbor latent misogyny and biases of all kinds. If you have those, then all the Russian intelligence and psychiatrists/psychologists need to do is use the data from your personal profile to figure out how to weaponize those biases.

[BaronChocula]

32. NFS!

Every article shared on Facebook by friends about how Clinton was CHEATING in her quest for delegates was a clear mark. I had one friend tell me the Dem nomination process was unconstitutional. I knew then. Oh, and I thought my friends were smarter.

[Squinch]

42. And the boos at the freaking convention. I wanted to strangle someone.

[emulatorloo]

52. +1. But our revisionist historians want to pretend that never happened

[arthritisR_US]

54. Yep and Bernie and his campaign people

believed it hook line and sinker😡

[TygrBright]

33. NO!! REALLY?!?!?! Oh, QUELLE surprise... ::fans, clutches pearls:: n/t

[Bernardo de La Paz]

36. Go ahead: laugh & minimalize. The rest of us know Electoral College stolen by 40K targeted votes. nt

[DoctorJoJo]

35. This Was A HUGE problem!

I'll hate Susan Sarandon and Nina Turner forever for this crap! Sarah Silverman recognized this issue and sounded the warning, but to no avail. Women were particularly susceptible to this "Bernie or Bust," crappola, and I have several female friends whom I will forever blame for this travesty.

[Demsrule86]

45. Me too...

[betsuni]

38. I'm worried it will happen again.

I wonder if enough people have woken up and smelled the coffee.

[TheSmarterDog]

63. It never stopped.

[LexVegas]

39. It was effective. nt

[progressoid]

40. Thankfully most of them voted for Clinton regardless.

12 % of Sanders supporters voted for Trump. Compare that with 2008 when 17 % of Clinton supporters voted for McCain.

Even after all the hoopla, it was a better support than the previous open election.

[Demsrule86]

46. You have to remember that operation chaos was in play...thus some who voted for Hillary were

Republicans who were making mischief...completely different election...and there was much more bitterness in 16.

[progressoid]

50. So, which is it?

Either Rush Limbaugh's operation chaos was more effective than Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, Russian bots, Jill Stein and Susan Sarandon. Or the Bernie supporters didn't really fall for the bullshit since more of them supported the Democratic nominee than Hillary supporters did in '08.

[Demsrule86]

61. I think Cambridge was more effective...and Limbaugh helped us inadvertantly as the primary went

longer than usual and increased Obama campaign infrastructure in most states...which helped us turn Virginia blue a couple of election cycles earlier than would have happened without 16. But my point is that we can't really take data and extrapolate it because we don't have good data on voters. I take no lesson from 16 other than we need to watch the Republicans and the Russians...and I wonder was the election stolen? But as for candidates and messages, I just don't see that we will ever know how effective a candidate was...to many data points. And the evidence for that is the big rallies that often did not translate into votes. Perhaps in time, we will know the truth.

[emulatorloo]

55. Ill remind you Obama won in 2008, so PUMA is a red herring

Please re-examine the narrow vote margins in Wisconsin, Michigan, and PA. Had some Aleppo. Stein and Bernie to Trump voters voted Clinton in those states, Clinton would be president.

Again, Sanders 2016 supporter. I feel no defensiveness over Bernie to Trump voters in those states. Or Bernie to Aleppo or Stein. Neither should you. We are discussing facts here, not feelings.

[progressoid]

57. Those tight margins in WI, MI, and PA are also explained by lots of other groups voting for Trump

who should have been voting for our side.

42% of Union Members voted for trump.
What about the LGBT voters? 14% voted for trump.
Let's not forget the Latino voters: 28% for trump.
Asian voters: 27% for trump.
Etc.

Those are fact too. But they won't get as much attention. Try posting an OP that blames Latinos for Trump's win. Doubt it would get many recs (assuming it wouldn't be alerted and removed).

If PUMA is a red herring, then Cambridge Analytica's effect on Sanders supporters is also.

[emulatorloo]

58. Got it, CA falsehood and Russian lies had zero influence over Bernie or Busters and Bernie to Trumps

In Wisconsin, Michigan, and PA . Nor did they reinforce their paranoia, fears, thoughts or feed into their conspiracy theories and prejudices. Thanks!

[Cha]

60. lol.. Yeah, who are you gonna believe..

the reports coming out of what CA did and your own experience.. or some online person who's denying it ever happened?

[progressoid]

65. Not at all what I said.

I don't doubt that some Bernie voters were swayed by CA, Facebook Russian bots etc. Just as some non-Bernie voters were.

Earlier you said we were talking about facts, not feelings. The facts are that a higher percentage of Bernie voters still came through and voted for the Democratic nominee notwithstanding the work of Cambridge Analytica, than Hillary supporters did for Obama in '08.

[EffieBlack]

59. It sure worked on some of my friends

I couldn't figure out why some of my friends, most of whom were strong Obama supporters who were also big Hillary fans, not only turned on her but did so with a vengeance. I spent a lot of time trying to debunk the crap they posted accusing her of everything from murder to running a secret international cabal - but no matter what I told them or how solid my refutation, they stuck to their guns. And God forbid I say anything less than slobberingly worshipful of Bernie.

It was bizarre and confounding.

But now it all makes sense.

[betsuni]

64. My experience too.

Spent a lot of time debunking and was offended they trusted the online fake news crap rather than me, who they knew, what the hell was that.

[EffieBlack]

66. I felt the same way

They told me I was "biased" so nothing I told them was reliable.

[R B Garr]

67. Kick for exposure. I am seeing a new false universe meme

that Bernie is the victim of Russian attacks. Hillary Clinton was the victim of Russian attacks. Those are the facts.

[oberliner]

69. Things got weird on DU

It seemed like you couldn't be pro-Hillary and pro-Bernie at the same time.