The political climate remains to be very tense, especially as we are months away from the general elections in November. In the midst of the rallies and campaigns, an FBI official has warned that Russia is deliberately sowing discord among the American people.
FBI Foreign Influence Task Force assistant section chief David Porter claimed, during an election security conference on Capitol Hill, that the Russians were deliberately trying to sow discord in the country leading up to the elections. Porter’s statement follows reports that suggest that intelligence officials had briefed members of Congress that Russia was going to rig the 2020 elections to make sure Trump is reelected and on the other end of the spectrum, make Bernie Sanders his final rival for the presidential position.
“To put it simply, in this space, Russia wants to watch us tear ourselves apart, while it seems that China would rather manage our gradual economic decline over the course of the generations,” said Porter.
Although Porter addressed the possible efforts by the Russians to manipulate the elections, he did not drop names as to the foreign nation was pushing for. He also said that Russia was mainly engaging in an “information confrontation” which focuses on giving misleading information as well as weakening the confidence of Americans towards generally Democratic institutions. “The primary objective is not to create a particular version of the truth but rather to cloud the truth and erode our ability to find it, creating a sentiment that no narrative or news source can be trusted at all,” explained Porter.
Meanwhile, aside from possible foreign interference, there is also the threat of the coronavirus or Covid-19, which is slowly increasing over time, with health authorities in the United States also having trouble to contain. Despite the cases being relatively low, a very small fraction of the cases in several countries like Japan and South Korea, the chances of an American outbreak are rising.
By November, it can be predicted that a lot of people would choose to abstain from voting in fear of getting infected. At the most, those who are still determined to vote would end up wearing protective face masks, disposable gloves and may be asked to bring their own writing implements when they write the names of their picks on the ballots.