In October 2016, just days before the election, the Bloomberg news agency noted: “Parscale is one of the few within Trump’s crew entrusted to tweet on his behalf.”
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“I have no hobbies,” he said. “My hobbies are watching Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, reading the news and putting on my suit. I do try to read books but that’s mainly for work too. I’ve been reading about every election since 1896 and working my way through. I’ve skipped some years, some of the elections don’t matter as much. I think I’m on my fifth election book right now.”
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Democrats are taking note. The Axios website reported: “Trump’s re-election campaign has deployed Facebook in a bigger way than any campaign in history, outspending all the Democrats combined.”
While for two years after the 2016 election Trump was regularly portrayed as a tool of Putin, put into office by Russian social media manipulation, and articles, cartoons of Trump very regularly included references to Putin, Russia, sometimes communism, Putin now seems absent from electoral coverage. Is the danger to American Democracy posed by Russian Meddling™ now past? Where did it go? How have The Russians been vanquished? Will the foe resurface at some future time Democrats feel is opportune? Is it possible for American media consumers to recall the constant deluge of media about the perils of the enemy? Were those dangers real? If so, where is the evidence? If not, do we consider re-evaluating our trust in the same American media organs today?
