Russian Trolls Learned About American Politics From Frank And Claire Underwood
Americans are always down for some Netflix and fucking chill, which is probably why Russian internet trolls got their schooling on American Politics 101 from House Of Cards. Reporter Michael Isikoff of Yahoo! reports that Russians in a St. Petersburg “troll factory” (is that where they make those doll inside a doll inside a doll inside a…yeah, you get the point) watched hours of Robin Wright in a fierce pencil skirts and Kevin Spacey dig deep and channel a swarthy, sexually ambiguous asshole to write messages to make us all hate the government. Silly Russians, they could have just written reminders about Tax Day to do that.
An ex-member of the troll factory (who went by “Maksim” for Yahoo!’s story) claims they were instructed to basically shit on Hillary Clinton, write about guns and gays, and never mention ties to Russia or Vladimir Putin, who was pushing the whole campaign. Sounds like this factory could have been run by anyone in the White House these days.
“Every comma was reviewed by (Maksim’s) bosses to make sure it was in the right place so it sounded like an American posting by Americans. Primarily what he was doing was placing comments on the websites of major news organizations, The Washington Post, The New York Times and others.”
Maksim added in the Netflix dish:
“At first, we were forced to watch the ‘House of Cards’ in English. It was necessary to know all the main problems of the United States of America. Tax problems, the problem of gays, sexual minorities, weapons.”
Poor Maksim. That heinous third season probably felt like a prison sentence instead of honorable troll factory employment! Michael said this was pretty interesting since House Of Cards is more like Russian politics than American politics, but I’d point out that Melania Trump certainly works an icy stare and steel-toed pump a la Claire far more closely than Michelle Obama ever did. When Melania (SPOILER ALERT) knocks her ring on the Oval Office desk after kicking her husband off the throne and ascending power, we’ll see who has the last laugh.
Pic: Wenn.com