General Discussion

YES. When you see obvious right-wing talking points parroted in comments that are clearly intended to discourage and/or create fear in American voters who may be reading -- I've seen numerous low-key "it's not really safe to vote" thrown in now -- do two, maybe three things.

One, check the account age, and the time of the comment compared to your time zone. Not every bogus comment comes out of Eastern Europe, but a number of them do, they start and stop commenting at odd hours, and it's something that you'll note as you look deeper into suspect comments.

Two, point them out. Take the time to throw out a sentence or two that stops the next reader. You can look at my account history if you'd like to see how I do it. I often write long ones if I'm in the mood, but short ones are even more effective. All you need is a simple "Two day old doomer account. Blocked." It gets the message across.

Three, if you don't feel like arguing with bullshit artists who come back with lies pulled out of their ass in the fraction of the time and real effort it takes you to craft a simple truth, then block. If you really piss them off they'll come back with alts, and of course prepare to be downvoted, but usually it shuts them up.

For as many of us voting Americans who deeply care about our country and are still brave enough to be online right now, you will be doing us all a service, as well as pointing out the form for those whose country the firehose of oligarch propaganda gets aimed at next.

Have you seen a rabid coyote desperately trying to fight with itself? Is there anything you can do to help?

That would be election interference unfortunately.

But you can still make sure the right-wing populist disease is contained to the US and doesn't spread to your country