Something I don't think enough Americans understand is the extent to which the coronavirus pandemic is being utilized by foreign adversaries to compromise the long-term stability of the United States...

Brief thread:

Obviously, foreign adversaries are studying the abjectly dysfunctional response of the U.S. to the pandemic—lack of coordination between the federal government and states. Lack of preparedness with respect to healthcare/resources. Lack of contingency plan for economic shutdown
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But, more immediately, I don't think most Americans understand the extent to which domestic debates on Facebook and public protests over reopening, civil liberties, and government policies are being actively facilitated by foreign operatives from countries like Russia.
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It has been a primary objective of Russia to sew widespread division in the U.S. along racial, class, and political lines. We've already seen how effectively this orchestrated polarization has succeeded, but the pandemic provided an opportunity for further infection.
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It is legitimately unnerving to me to see how many folks on Facebook are suddenly sharing links or copy + pasting statuses that are pretty clearly the work of active foreign disinformation campaigns, meant to stoke further protests and conflict between citizens and government
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The Pentagon has wargamed the scenario of a pandemic leading to long-term shutdowns and—it's not good. There is the very real possibility of protests leading to riots leading to deployment of the National Guard, leading to ugly showdowns in U.S. cities involving armed citizens
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The United States of America has encoded into our collective DNA the belief that the proper application of guns and violence can solve any problem. (When wielded by the right kind of people, i.e. white men.) During a pandemic, that tendency could have nightmarish implications
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