The Russians Are Coming–For Paul Ryan (TWEET)


This past weekend, House Speaker Paul Ryan got a rather rude surprise. Twitter started lighting up with a hashtag campaign calling for him to resign. As difficult as it is to say considering what we know about Ryan and his past history, this is one campaign in which we shouldn’t take part. It’s actually part of the latest attempt by Vladimir Putin and friends to muscle in on our politics.

On Monday, the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan project of the German Marshall Fund dedicated to turning the hot lights on Russian efforts to “undermine democracy and democratic institutions,” discovered that a number of Russia-linked Twitter bots and trolls were tweeting the hashtag “#ResignPaulRyan.” Early Monday morning, Hamilton 68, a dashboard that monitors pro-Kremlin agitprop in real time on Twitter, noticed a considerable spike in the hashtag’s use on Monday morning.

(Screenshot courtesy Hamilton 68/Alliance for Securing Democracy via Newsweek)
(Screenshot courtesy Hamilton 68/Alliance for Securing Democracy via Newsweek)

This latest bit of Kremlin-flavored astroturf started trending along with a number of other pro-Trump hashtags, such as “#TrumpTV” and “#Fake.”


Business Insider’s Natasha Bertrand looked into just how much the Russian bots were driving the growing hostility in the Twitterverse toward Ryan. The result?

In other words–this is the equivalent of a hammer coming down.

As it turns out, Ryan is actually the second Republican to draw the ire of these bots. Last week, hashtag calls for Trump to cashier National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster attracted considerable support from Russian bots. The campaign even got picked up by Breitbart.

Before then, Daily Kos’ Karen Wehrstein noticed that the hashtag “#civilwar” had made Hamilton 68’s list. This hashtag has become very common among deplorables who are vowing to melt the country down if Trump is removed from office. However, the fact that Russian bots have joined in should make us wonder–has the Kremlin given up on kompromat, and moved to simply destabilizing the country?

By Monday night, the hashtag had dropped off Hamilton 68’s list of heavily trending hashtags. It’s likely because many of the bots and trolls who pushed them have been ixnayed by Twitter.

We never thought we’d find ourselves defending Lyin’ Ryan. However, this appears to be yet another ham-handed attempt by a hostile foreign government to interfere in our politics. The closest parallel is to how Trump fired James Comey. Many of us–including yours truly–were critical of how Comey handled matters related to the campaign. I, for one, believed his behavior was incompetent at best. But no fair-minded American can sit idly by if it is even remotely possible that a president firing an FBI director to throw off an investigation that is getting close to the president’s aides. If that were the case with Comey, it would be outrageously criminal regardless of whether a Democrat or Republican did it.


This is no different. When a foreign government effectively tries to astroturf its way into our politics in this manner, it should be strongly condemned–whether a Democrat or a Republican holds the gavel. Standing up for basic democratic norms is not partisan, and should never be partisan. Ever.

(featured image courtesy Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.