Hasta La Gadget!

This article is written together with Cristian Rosu, a Romanian media expert who works for Kirchhoff Consult Romania, a corporation for Public Relations and Communications. Cristian has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Bucharest. More articles and social media analyses by Cristian can be found on his blog.

The faceless aggression

There is little doubt that we are witnessing an intense cyberwar against the US, carried by specialized organizations working for various governments. Of specific interest for the American public and US institutions are the actions attributed to the organizations working for the Chinese and Russian governments. The recent scandal regarding the hacked DNC emails and their leak to the public is a clear example of the strong potential impact of the cyberwar actions.

The nature of the computer network penetrations are complex and involve various targets. As a general trend, the Chinese cyberespionage focuses mainly on theft of technology, know-how and intellectual property. A report by the cyber security firm Fire Eye indicates that US government actions and exposure of the Chinese actions contribute, at the present time, to a somewhat diminished activity of the Chinese hackers, coinciding with a reorganization of Chinese hacker groups by the government.

From Russia, with love, however, comes not only the hacking of computer networks belonging to political and commercial organizations and vacuuming of information, data, know-how and technology, but in addition to that, another hugely important element: propaganda.

The importance of political propaganda was recognized from the early days of the Russian Revolution. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin created the Communist International organization also known as the Comintern, which used the Communist Organizations formed in the European countries under its direction as agents of influence for propaganda. During the late 1920’s and 1930’s, the Comintern had formed hundreds of front organizations in the countries of Western Europe, directing through them various clandestine operations and intense propaganda favorable to the newly formed USSR. The success of the propaganda actions went as far as having leading intellectual elites in France, Germany and the UK openly praising the USSR. More details about this intense period of Soviet propaganda can be found in Stephen Koch’s excellent book Double Lives

Fast forward to present times. A complex geopolitical situation exists in Europe, where the NATO alliance has received new country members previously belonging to the USSR or the Warsaw Pact: Poland, the Czech Republic, The Baltic States, Romania and Bulgaria among others. After the annexation of Crimea, in March 2014, followed by what is considered a covert war against Ukraine by Russian military, US and the EU have imposed economic sanctions against Russia. Among the Russian reactions to this conjecture there is a massive propaganda effort directed at weakening the government support by the population in the EU countries, and inducing cracks in their alliances. As Stephen Collinson writes in his CNN analysis article about the DNC email leaks: “The Russian president has made no secret of his desire to weaken the West, his belief that the U.S. and its European allies have conspired against Russian interests in Georgia, Ukraine, Libya and Syria, and sees a restoration of Russian global prestige at the expense of the West as paramount”.

Jakub Kalenski, a member of the European Commission’s External Action Service task force assigned with studying Russian propaganda, quoted by Georgi Botev in an article published on the Euractiv website, explained that Russian disinformation was active in every European country. According to Kalenski, the propaganda actions are tailored to each specific sub-Eurozone: in the Baltic states, Russian TV channels are targeting the Russian speaking population, while in Scandinavia the disinformation is spread via trolling on the existing online discussions. In the Visegrad countries – Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary – there are dozens or even hundreds of disinformation websites. “A Hungarian think tank counted some 100 of them, and there were some 70-80 in Czechia, and a similar number in Slovakia”.

In November 2014, Russia launched Sputnik Press, a communication channel to work alongside and deepen the penetration of the other two channels, The Voice of Russia and Russia Today which had a lower level of penetration due to a legacy level of suspicion within the Eastern European audience. Sputnik Press has three components: a news agency, a radio channel, and social media accounts with emphasis on Facebook and Youtube. The Sputnik Press radio channels and associated websites are broadcasting in 30 languages and target 130 cities worldwide.

Romania and Poland are the subjects of special focus of the Russian propaganda due to the presence of the NATO Missile Shield bases on their territories – a cause for intense Russian irritation. After the coup in Turkey and the potential realignment of Turkey with Russia, Romanian US bases are at the front line of NATO defenses, and therefore Romania constitutes an interesting case study.

Romanian public opinion – an adverse gradient towards Russia

Romanian historical experience with Russia has generated a legacy of mistrust, given the various manners in which Russia has occupied and deprived the country economically from the late 1800’s until the withdrawal of Russian troops in 1957. After the withdrawal, during communist times, Romania has attempted a more or less dissimulated dissidence towards the USSR, and was subjected to a large scale disinformation war by the USSR, meant to mask those dissident tendencies form the West. The topic is extensively documented in Larry Watts’ book: With Friends Like These: The Soviet Bloc’s Clandestine War Against Romania.

Given the historical mistrust towards Russia within the Romanian population, the Russian propaganda agents are aware that official information originating from Kremlin is mistrusted. On the streets of Bucharest, the mistrust is so intense that any critique addressed against the US or EU by a news anchor or blog writer will attract suspicion that the person is a supporter of Vladimir Putin. Given this context, the Russian propaganda in Romania is tailored in specific manners, coated in nationalistic ideas, or associated with and expressed in Christian Orthodox religion language and broadcasted via social media – a media in continuous expansion and lacking any control of information accuracy.

Online and Social Media in Romania – tools of deep social penetration

While in Romania the Voice of Russia was closed, and there is no official branch of the Sputnik Press, the propaganda actions are carried through the Sputnik Moldova branch, which has a special section, “Moldova – Romania”, broadcasting analyses and news.

However, the deepest and most effective social penetration is achieved by the online media, which has become the main channel of communication for both commercial and institutional communications. According to an assessment by the Romanian Office of Transmedia Audit (BRAT), within the next 10 years the internet usage will be extended to more than 90% of the urban and more than 70% or the rural populations. The rapid expansion of internet communication in the country is due to the aggressive growth of corporations offering mobile phone services and low cost subscription to smart phone devices. The process resulted in a 15% increase in the internet penetration in rural zones within the last 2 years. At this pace, within the next 5 years, the penetration of the online media communication will have exceeded the penetration of standard TV channels.

The social media networks recorded a significant growth beginning 2014. While Twitter has a limited number of subscribers in Romania, the number of Facebook accounts displayed explosive growth, with 5.5 million users in 2013, and 7 million in 2014. Facebook played a crucial role in Romanian presidential elections in 2014, where the young citizens were encouraged to vote via Facebook text messaging and have ensured the election of the current president Klaus Iohannis. From then on, Facebook Romania has become a main stream communication channel, where the prime minister, the president and other government officials and institutions are routinely issuing official statements via Facebook exclusively. At the present, Facebook Romania has close to 9 million users, which is, in fact, half of the country’s population.

Russian Propaganda, the Romanian flavor

While the euro-sceptic movements in Central and Eastern European countries (Hungary, Poland, Greece) have grown in strength, the polls in Romania continue to show strong support for further integration with the EU, and a strong tendency for adopting western values and culture. For this reason, Russian propaganda could not use in Romania the same approaches used in the Eurosceptic countries such as Hungary and Greece.

Given the pro-western context of Romanian population and observing the specific impact of social media in the country, the Russian propaganda has adopted tactics where a large number of websites, blogs and social media accounts have been initiated, under assumed or fictitious names or pseudonyms, which propagate ideas aligned with Russian interests and ideology. The target of this propaganda effort is the online reading public, and especially the Facebook accounts. Given the above-mentioned public susceptibility regarding information coming from Russia, the ideas and themes of the propaganda are served with wrappers consisting of themes of interests such as public security, terrorism, natural resources, illegal immigration, refugee crisis, and nationalism. The mix of information is first published on the hundreds of websites and online blogs, and then propagated through Facebook. Current social media studies indicate that the average Facebook user logs in several times per day and about 91% of these users are sharing third party content at least once a week. Specific comparative studies indicate more intense Facebook exchanges in Romania than other countries, and therefore the assumption is that sharing is better exploited, especially when the titles of the propaganda posts are using bombastic formulations meant to capture the attention of the browsing public. In this manner, the websites propagating the intended disinformation are recording a significant number of hits.

Although varied in format and language, four main themes can be identified in Russian propaganda directed at the Romanian public: i) anti-American ii) Euro-sceptic iii) Pan-Orthodox and iv) miscellaneous spins and fabrications:

i. The anti-American and anti-NATO theme promote the idea that having become a strategic partner of the US and NATO, Romania has placed itself into a direction towards significant political and economic loss. By hosting the Missile Defense Shield bases on its territory, the country’s relation with Russia has become antagonistic, and is likely to attract sure retaliation. In turn, the threat of Russian action will discourage outside investment in the country.

ii. The Eurosceptic postings present the EU as a strong threat to the Romanian industry and agriculture. The anti-EU texts produce references to the Romanian industry prior to 1989 and associate the disappearance of a large fraction of that industry – due in large part to inept and corrupt privatization processes – with the EU integration. This theme resonates strongly with the Romanian population of ages 50 and above, where some level of nostalgia for the “good old times” exists, and where participation to vote is significant.

iii. The Pan-Orthodox theme is largely inspired by the Russian and Kremlin ideologue, Aleksandr Dugin. The recurrent theme in Dughin’s ideology is that the western values are incompatible with Eastern Europe culture: the West is “ill”, and now the West is attempting to “contaminate” the healthy nations of Eastern Europe. The main topics, in Dughin’s speeches, are associated with the rights of the LGBT community, and the solution promoted is a “return” to the Orthodox tradition, and of course, in doing so, align with the Russian Orthodox Church.

iv. Every event suitable to interpretation is given an anti-US, anti-EU spin, and pro-Russian argumentation. For example the buzzing of the US Navy vessels by the Russian fighter-jets is presented as a lesson given to a nasty aggressor, whereby the military Russian technology is presented as hugely superior, leaving the US ships as helpless ducks in the middle of the Black or Baltic seas.

It is interesting to note that the Russian propaganda channels in Romania are not mainstream, but densely distributed within the media fringes, an approach meant to increase their credibility. Each article propagating one or a combinations of the themes listed above are recording tens or hundreds of shares, some out of the sincere conviction of the online user, others due to paid clandestine “spreaders” (postacs in local slang). Similar to Scandinavian tactics, intense trolling has been observed in the commentary sections for articles favorable to EU and the US. A nucleus of the commentary appears to target the initiation of extreme right parties similar to Jobbik in Hungary and Golden Dawn in Greece.

Countermeasures

The Romanian authorities have not yet reacted to this sort of propaganda. On one hand, they’re busy with an intense and difficult effort to fight corruption at all levels of government. On the other hand, the fluid nature of the propaganda described herein makes it difficult to formulate legislation and methods to counteract it.

However, one initial response comes from the EU where The Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) launched a new online portal dedicated to exposing Russian-influenced propaganda in North-Central Europe. According to the CEPA website “In launching the portal, CEPA has brought together leading journalists, civil society experts and media analysts from the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region. The portal is intended to serve as a resource for exposing and analyzing Russian information warfare directed against U.S. allies in the region. The platform will provide up-to-date information on the methods and techniques of Russian disinformation in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. It will fill a gap in the Western analytical community’s knowledge of what Russia’s nodes of disinformation are saying; and how its false narratives are being disseminated.”

We argue here that Romania and Bulgaria should be included in the CEPA list of countries where the public media is monitored, and specifically Romania, where the focus of the propaganda efforts is more intense due to the US bases hosting the Missile Shield installations. It is also recommended that the appropriate branches of the Romanian government approach CEPA and initiate closer ties and cooperation.

Beyond the efforts by the government organizations, local, EU or US based, it is the effort of the individual online user which may limit the penetration of propaganda: using judgment in sharing, fact-checking the information that captured one’s interest, and educating oneself on the issues of importance are efforts which could cut the teeth of disinformation and limit its penetration.

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Russia’s intelligence service said on Saturday that the computer networks of 20 organizations, including state agencies and defense companies, have been infected with spyware in what it described as a targeted and coordinated attack.

The Federal Security Service, the FSB, said the malware and the way the networks were infected were similar to those used in previous cases of cyber espionage found in Russia and other countries. The agency did not say who it suspected of being behind the attacks.

“Information technology resources of government agencies, scientific and military institutions, defense industry companies and other entities involved in crucial infrastructure have been infected,” the FSB said in a statement on its website.

The FSB’s announcement follows reports of cyber attacks on the U.S. Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the fundraising committee for Democratic candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Cyber security experts and U.S. officials have said there was evidence that Russia engineered the DNC hack to release sensitive party emails in order to influence the U.S. presidential election. The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the incident.

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Nerys Avery)

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In a shocking video released by several news outlets, Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida is caught verbally assaulting and getting physical with a Politico reporter. Although the Congressman accuses the reporter of assault, the video clearly shows that it was the Congressman who pushed the reporter first. What made the Congressman react so angrily? Questions asked by the reporter concerning the multiple allegations of domestic abuse against him ignited the Congressman with instant rage.

Congressman Grayson intended on running for Senate and denies all accusations, but progressive groups rescinded their endorsement of the representative last Tuesday, July 26th. This is the first time that Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America have ever revoked an endorsement. Both groups even requested that the representative donate all the contributions he has already received to an organization benefitting domestic violence victims.

Although the reaction from the various progressive groups seems positive, Lolita Grayson has called the police on her husband at least four times and in all four incidents, no files were charged. Two of the four times, Mrs. Grayson sought medical attention from the abuse. The representative not only denies the allegations, but further claims that his wife is a “disturbed woman”. Moreover, Grayson’s wife first reported the abuse over two decades ago, according to the documents she revealed to Politico, yet this is the first time the story has received dramatic media attention.

Lolita Grayson’s story proves that domestic abuse victims can’t just leave. While the reasons vary as to why, victims are often trapped in their abusive relationships. It is important that victims like Mrs. Grayson have access to services that can help to permanently remove her from the abusive situation and empower her. For some unexplained and unacceptable reason, her reports of abuse have been largely neglected until now. It is my hope that organizations like mine, Second Chance Employment Services, will provide abuse victims with the financial resources to leave abusive circumstances when the police and other governmental systems are unresponsive. To learn more about helping victims escape from abusive situations, purchase my book Ending Domestic Violence Captivity: A Guide To Economic Freedom here.

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For my entire adult life, the standard line from Christian conservatives has been for people to vote their conscience. Groups like the American Family Association, Family Research Council, and Focus on the Family have put out voter guides each year for as long as I can remember, encouraging people to vote for the candidate who best reflected where the morals of a Christian politician should be. They have always decried the accusations of partisanship, but rather strictly about voting for the candidate who lined up with what they believed were Christian values about abortion, marriage equality, and inexplicably to me at least, gun rights and tax breaks. Vote your conscience has been in every election I’ve seen since I was old enough to vote in 1992, always amped up every four years when it’s time to elect a president. The subtext has always been that Christians should vote Republican, but it has been a standard line.

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I watched last week’s Republican National Convention through the lens of late night talk show hosts and my Twitter and Facebook feeds. I did the same this week for much of the Democratic National Convention. I did watch Michelle Obama’s powerful speech, as well as the uplifting words from Senator Cory Booker, but for the most part political rah-rah’ing isn’t my idea of a good time. Catching up with America Ninja Warrior on Hulu after an evening hunting for Pokémon is far more my speed. Anger and dissension just wear me out.

There was a lot to take in at the RNC, but the one that rattled around in my mind the most was when Senator Ted Cruz was booed off of the stage as it became apparent he would not endorse Donald Trump, but rather said to the crowd, “Stand, and speak, and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution.” This was met with roars of disapproval from the crowd in attendance.

I do understand that part of the job of the convention is to rally around the party’s nominee. To come together and present a united front, and the lack of an official, strong endorsement from a prime time speaker is surprising (though the speech was available to the RNC ahead of time). So I can see that some at the convention would be upset that a speaker would neglect that aspect. But barring the lack of an endorsement, the content of Cruz’s speech was lifted straight from the Republican platform. Close the borders. Beware of ISIS. States’ rights. Gun rights. Small government.

I may disagree with most of the policies presented in Cruz’s speech, but there is nothing in them that should cause a group of Republicans to boo. Only the mention that they should vote their conscience incited that reaction. Only the idea that voting your conscience might not lead you to vote in the way that stays within party lines.

The truth is, I’m a single issue voter. When I vote my conscience, it looks like one thing.

Voting for a candidate with a strong pro-life ethic. Which has, for most of my adult life, looked like voting for a Democrat rather than a Republican.

Yes, in the area of abortion, the Democrats often fail. In order to prove the value of the woman who is pregnant, the value of the life inside of her is devalued. Too often we see life only if it is desired – if not, it becomes an embryo, fetal tissue, a parasite. Abortion is a complex issue, but when we speak of a potential human without respect, we cheapen the cry of equality, especially in the eyes of those who call themselves pro-life.

But a pro-life ethic has to mean more than just where a candidate stands on abortion (though Donald Trump’s stand on abortion is fairly unclear).

A pro-life ethic must respect women. Donald Trump’s views of women are abhorrent. If you’re unable to see women as people deserving even a modicum of respect, you can’t be pro-life.

A pro-life ethic must listen to the voices of black men and women. The chants of All Lives Matter when confronted with the assertion that Black Lives Matter must end. Of course all lives matter. But black men and women matter as well, and much of our country’s history has belied that. Even Michelle Obama’s statement that she lives in a home built by slaves was met with a statement from conservative Bill O’Reilly saying, Sure, they were slaves, but it wasn’t that bad. A pro-life ethic can affirm that all lives matter while also saying that yes, black lives matter. Not with comments about “black on black crime” or “more white people are in jail” or “just listen to the police.” Instead, those of use who are not black need to shut up and listen. And then see how we can begin to change the system to make things more equal for our black brothers and sisters.

A pro-life ethic must respect those with disabilities. Donald Trump has openly mocked a journalist with disabilities. I mother several children on the autism spectrum. My heart would be broken if a public leader were to deride them publicly. We cannot offer lip service to a pro-life ethic and sit by while the Republican nominee has shown contempt in his actions for those with disabilities.

A pro-life ethic must encourage adoption. One of the ways that we encourage a pro-life ethic is to encourage people to adopt. The GOP platform reaffirms opposition to gay and lesbian couples adopting. My friend Sean and his husband have adopted two gorgeous boys (Sean has written about it in his best-selling book, Which One of You is the Mother?). They adopted children who were older. Children from difficult birth families. They adopted them, they love them, they parent them. Children who, if left in foster care, would have had a 45% chance of ending up homeless. Children who, if left in foster care, would have had a 75% chance of ending up in prison. Children who, because of their adoption by a gay couple, now have the chance to experience family.

A pro-life ethic must look at the ways life is cut short beyond abortion. Yes, I’m talking about guns. I am not a gun owner and I didn’t grow up in a house with guns, so I tend to speak very little on this issue, because I don’t know much about gun laws or the way that guns even work. But when Republicans block even research about gun violence, it is difficult for me to see that as caring about life. When a group covers their ears, refusing to even have a conversation about ways we can make life safer in a world with guns, I cannot call that group pro-life.

A pro-life ethic must see people, even our enemies, as people first. During his campaign, Donald Trump advocated war crimes when he suggested that the United States not only hunt down terrorists, but also “take out their families.” He has lumped all Muslims into the category of radical, calling for a ban on all Muslims entering the United States. He has painted with the broad brush that Mexican immigrants are rapists and murderers. Donald Trump has called vast swaths of non-white ethnicities our enemies, and then challenged their humanity. If an unborn child is a person, surely even those who seek to do us harm is are people as well.

In November, I will be voting my conscience, and it will be based on a pro-life ethic.

I hope you will do the same.

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PHILADELPHIA ― The moment that most neatly encapsulated this year’s Democratic National Convention occurred Tuesday evening at the Facebook pavilion in the Wells Fargo Arena, directly across from three massive tents that had been erected to house the media.

Inside, delegates, lawmakers and an untold number of “operatives” nibbled on passed dishes, huddled over phones at charging stations, flagged down bartenders for free glasses of cheap sauvignon blanc and waited in line for complimentary makeovers courtesy of co-host Cosmopolitan.

Outside was altogether different: dozens of Bernie Sanders diehards had gathered just outside the press tents ― with dozens more inside ― to stage a sit-in in opposition to the day’s roll call vote codifying Hillary Clinton’s nomination. It was a confusing mixture of Selma and Bonnaroo, but without the former’s solemn purpose and the latter’s sense of fun. One attendee was frowning and sporting a “Cat in the Hat” stovepipe hat festooned with Sanders pins; another had gagged himself with a “BERNIE” necktie; a third had sworn silence to signify that her movement had been muzzled (she wasn’t taking questions). The massive press scrum all but obscured them from view ― the media will typically oblige you if you decide to make news, no matter how trivial ― and one attendee asked whether Sanders himself had deigned to visit.

However, inside the Facebook/Cosmo event, the revelers didn’t budge. The air conditioning provided blessed relief from the stifling heat that hung over Philadelphia all week and the charging stations let attendees upload their selfies from the convention floor. As always, a better job could arise from the next round of small talk. And this was the Democratic National Convention, mind you: a not-insignificant number of the revelers likely spent enough time at liberal arts colleges to learn how to ignore acts of civil disobedience while getting drunk.

This was, in short, this year’s Democratic Convention: a mostly standard Democratic gathering marked by moments of discord from the party’s left flank ― which is to say, a mostly standard Democratic gathering. It was an admittedly more raucous one than usual, likely the most dissonant since Senator Ted Kennedy’s failed attempt to snatch the nomination from Jimmy Carter in 1980. And the occasional disruption from the Bernie or Bust crowd certainly heralded a galvanized constituency that Clinton and the party will have to contend with.

But the Democratic establishment got its nominee, and far more attendees and delegates seemed to want to move on from the primary than didn’t. On the convention floor, most of these delegates seemed content to chant “Hillary! Hillary!” whenever Sanders supporters sought to interrupt the proceedings rather than engage too directly with them. 

Most of the attendees were too busy schmoozing, having fun and generally soaking in the convention to particularly care about the protesters.

When one Clinton-supporting delegate with a photograph of the candidate neatly perched atop a tiara on her head began to yell, “Bernie, go home!” other delegates sought to calm her down. When the Huffington Post approached the lady in the Hillary Hat for an interview, another delegate warned, “you’re going to spill our dirty secrets!” 

“Certainly there were some, you know, minor incidents between the Sanders delegates and the Clinton delegates,” said Floyd McKissick, a Democratic state senator from North Carolina, that day. “I do believe that after the vote has been taken tonight and they’ve been able to vent and get that out of their system, those same delegates, thirty days from now, 95 percent of them will be behind Secretary Clinton.”

Phil Giorno, a veteran and delegate from Florida, gave money to both Clinton and Sanders but ultimately decided to support Clinton for her foreign policy.

“I don’t have a problem with it,” Giorno said of the protesters. “Some of their issues I support, too. I don’t have a problem bringing them into the process.”

Contrast this with the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, which was defined by an unease with Donald Trump’s candidacy and the protests surrounding it, to say nothing of the bombast of the party’s unconventional nominee (best expressed by the words “OVER THE TOP” that flashed on a giant screen over the stage when Trump officially secure the nomination). Republican Party types aren’t accustomed to disarray at friendly events, and when hostility to Ted Cruz’s speech grew so fierce that his wife, Heidi, had to be escorted out by security, people were genuinely rattled.

The anger directed at the Democrats on stage was much more peaceable, and nothing most of the attendees hadn’t seen before ― whether they were White House staffers accosted by protesters in Lafayette Park north of the White House, or Hill staffers who, early in their careers, spent time as staff assistants dealing with protesters coming to congressional offices unannounced. No less quotidian was the anti-abortion protester outside a Planned Parenthood event Tuesday night cheerfully urging attendees to “wash the blood from your hands when you leave!”

Truth be told, most of the attendees were too busy schmoozing, having fun and generally soaking in the convention to particularly care about the protesters: they were scrambling to get tickets to the Diplo concert, making the most of taco day at the Twitter pavilion, shedding a tear at Khizr Khan’s moving address to the convention and wondering whether the neatly coiffed person who just walked by was, indeed, Lance Bass.

By Thursday evening, after the convention had officially wrapped up and convention attendees were dispersing to the final afterparties, the protests ― even the chants that cropped up during Clinton’s acceptance speech ― were mostly out of people’s minds.

At the “Democratic Unity” party hosted by Unity Convention 2016, a joint fundraising committee authorized in part by Democratic super PAC Priorities USA, thousands of revelers packed into the Electric Factory on North 7th street to watch Snoop Dogg perform. It was a singularly Democratic event: celebrities, a shared loathing for Donald Trump, a lot of guys named Zach in backpacks getting drunk and a not insignificant amount of corporate money. Everything seemed normal.

As Snoop Dogg took the stage, his famously gangly frame swaying back and forth to the music, the band launched into an infectious backbeat and began to chant “FUCK DONALD TRUMP!” The crowd quickly joined in.

Everything had come together quite nicely.

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