James Dowson, an extremist in Britain, ran a pro-Trump, anti-Hillary website, spreading fake news and conspiracy theories.
The Patriot News Agency website popped up in July, soon after it became clear that Donald J. Trump would win the Republican presidential nomination, bearing a logo of a red, white and blue eagle and the motto “Built by patriots, for patriots.”
Tucked away on a corner of the site, next to links for Twitter and YouTube, is a link to another social media platform that most Americans have never heard of: VKontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook. It is a clue that Patriot News, like many sites that appeared out of nowhere and pumped out pro-Trump hoaxes tying his opponent Hillary Clinton to Satanism, pedophilia and other conspiracies, is actually run by foreigners based overseas.
But while most of those others seem be the work of young, apolitical opportunists cashing in on a conservative appetite for viral nonsense, operators of Patriot News had an explicitly partisan motivation: getting Mr. Trump elected.
Patriot News — whose postings were viewed and shared tens of thousands of times in the United States — is among a constellation of websites run out of the United Kingdom that are linked to James Dowson, a far-right political activist who advocated Britain’s exit from the European Union and is a fan of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. A vocal proponent of Christian nationalist, anti-immigrant movements in Europe, Mr. Dowson, 52, has spoken at a conference of far-right leaders in Russia and makes no secret of his hope that Mr. Trump will usher in an era of rapprochement with Mr. Putin.
His dabbling in the American presidential election adds an ideological element that has been largely missing from the still-emerging landscape of websites and Facebook pages that bombarded American voters with misinformation and propaganda. Far from the much-reported Macedonian teenagers running fake news factories solely for profit, Mr. Dowson made it his mission, according to messages posted on one of his sites, to “spread devastating anti-Clinton, pro-Trump memes and sound bites into sections of the population too disillusioned with politics to have taken any notice of conventional campaigning.”
He said his mission was to “spread devastating anti-Clinton, pro-Trump memes and sound bites.”
“Together, people like us helped change the course of history,” one message said, adding in another: “Every single one of you who forwarded even just one of our posts on social media contributed to the stunning victory for Trump, America and God.”
In a recent email interview from Belgrade, where he has met with Serbian nationalists, Mr. Dowson explained how his decision to establish an American social media presence was similar to the move into European markets by Breitbart News, the conservative provocateur media operation run by Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief strategist.
“Simple truth is that after 40 years of the right having no voice because the media was owned by the enemy, we were FORCED to become incredibly good at alternative media in a way the left simply can’t grasp or handle,” Mr. Dowson said. “Bottom line is: BREXIT, TRUMP and much more to follow.”
While it is easy to overstate the influence of fringe elements whose overall numbers remain very small, the explosion of fake news and propaganda sites and their possible impact on the presidential election have ignited alarm across the American political spectrum. A recent study found that most people who read fabricated stories on Facebook — such as a widely circulated hoax about Pope Francis endorsing Mr. Trump — were inclined to believe them.
Then there is the added element of Russian meddling. The Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that Moscow put its thumb on the scale for Mr. Trump through the release of hacked Democratic emails, which provided fodder for many of the most pernicious false attacks on Mrs. Clinton on social media.
Some of those attacks found a home on Russian websites such as the one for Katehon, a right-wing Christian think tank aligned with Mr. Putin. Katehon recirculated anti-Clinton conspiracies under headlines like “Bloody Hillary: 5 Mysterious Murders Linked to Clinton.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So very scary that people believe this nonsense.
LikeLike
Why not believe it? If one has a very weak grasp of how the world works (thanks in part to schools’ abandoning the task of teaching knowledge in lieu of “skills”), how can one discern the plausible from the implausible? We’ve spent the last few decades claiming we’re teaching the much more valuable “critical thinking skills” in lieu of “stuffing brains with facts”. See how well that’s turned out? I’ve heard some of my students, who know nothing of the world, spreading the word that Hillary was hiding emails from ISIS and that she has murdered dozens of people. Their parents are equally ignorant. They have such skimpy knowledge-bases that they are very gullible and prone to believe simplistic and false explanations for what afflicts them. Since 1994 California has been attempting to teach about Islam in 7th grade –a start at piercing the ignorance. But it’s a feeble effort since most educators have been brainwashed in ed school to believe that education is not about transmitting essential knowledge, an attitude that is reinforced by Common Core which is all about skills, not knowledge. If it’s not already too late, we must make a concerted effort to teach the evils of authoritarianism and the facts that enable us to view Muslims, Chinese and the rest of humanity as humans, not demons. Look at where the “skills” curriculum has gotten us.
LikeLike
People simply believe what they want to believe regardless if it’s true or not. When they act upon said information, then it affects us all.
LikeLike
I don’t buy this defeatist perspective. People can change their minds when the facts are presented compellingly (provided their brains have been prepared for the facts by installation of requisite background knowledge. If too much new information is presented at once, comprehension collapses.) Do you agree that our schools could do a lot more to stock kids brains with essential information?
LikeLike
We’ve had extreme right wing, hate wing spewing, vomitous talk radio for about 30 years. 99% of talk radio is rabid right wing nuts in the style of Limbaugh, Hannity, Mike Savage, etc., ad nauseam. From sea to shining sea, these lizards and their multitudes of clones have been propagating their filth for decades. Fox News is dedicated to the right wing ideology which has now taken over the reins of government. Not to mention the vast array of libertarian right wing so called think tanks, that pose as independent non-partisan pseudo-scholarly glop meisters. They are corporate funded propaganda mills, there’s no thinking going on, only scheming and conniving against the American people. Funny how Republicans seem to gravitate towards these so called non-partisan “think” tanks. Representatives of these libertarian think tanks pop up all over the media as if they are authorities on the economy or foreign affairs.
LikeLike
Joe, yes. But don’t you think an empty brain is a more fertile petri dish for this killer bacteria than one that’s been stocked with, say, Orwell, good literature and a serious ethics education (including a focus on Christ’s ethics –COMPLETELY IGNORED by many “Christian” ministers –and Confucius)?
LikeLike
Empty-headedness certainly helps but so does lack of empathy, greed and selfishness. I have been keeping track of the C-SPAN stations and these libertarian think tanks. They get enormous non stop exposure on the C-SPAN stations, it seems almost every day. I’m talking about Cato, Heritage and AEI, especially but not confined to them. I think that Brian Lamb is probably a libertarian but I really don’t know for sure.
LikeLike
I think we’re reaping the harvest of content-agnosticism in schools. Humans crave content, but schools give them “guide at the side” and skills practice (e.g. writing workshop) with no MEAT, no content. So schools leave people intellectually hungry. Then they get their hands on some cracked “sages on the stage” like Ayn Rand or Rush Limbaugh and they say, “Ah, at last, someone who tells me what the world is!”. By ceding the stage to these demented “sages”, teachers have opened the door to this catastrophe.
LikeLike
The Koch’s Mercatus Center and people from Waltons’ University of Arkansas, are back out, retreading the false image of pensions.
The media completely abdicates its responsibility, when it fails to identify funders of and, the agenda of stink tanks and professors. As an example, almost every article about charter schools, published in Ohio newspapers, quotes Fordham. Never once does the media print that Fordham is funded by the Walton’s.
LikeLike
I’m curious if the number of people foolish and/or bigoted enough, to believe in the type of tripe from AM radio and Fox, has increased, as a percentage of the population. (Tangentially, are a higher number, than in years past, acting on their hatred.)
For the Democratic Party, which has moved substantially to the right on economic issues,
and subsequently, lost the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and with only 34% of the governorships, the problem breaks down to one of three issues. (1) Their message is not heard or, discounted as false. (2) Their message is not liked or, it is viewed as impractical rhetoric or, (3) Their message is not compelling enough to distinguish from the opposition.
LikeLike