I first thought of it as an act of war.
It was aggressive.
It was designed to bring down a president.
It was operated to make Americans lose faith in their government. (But the progressives have been successfully doing that for years.)
Consider it a Russian attack on America, approved by Putin.
Just posted this in another board:
Russian trolls have been at this since 2014, before Trump announced. Their goal was not to get a certain person elected, but to capitalize on vulnerabilities within our society and electoral process to stir what little chaos they can. Even our arguments between each other on this board are reflective of their goals...
If you choose to spend a meaningful amount of time in Russia, you will witness the circus-nature of their elections and the dysfunctional “democracy” they’ve failed to forge following the collapse of the USSR. Think Blue State/Red State divide is bad? Modern Russia is verydivided: they have outright Islamic republic outposts like Chechnya within their own territory that they have to keep happy and stable lest there be civil war...
In 2014, we were at our weakest as a nation under Obama, but they were aggressively doping their way through Sochi Olympics, annexing Crimea and invading East Ukraine, and preparing for Syria...
Yet even all those actions can’t hide make up for their lingering insecurities...so this is their outlet: sabotage stronger countries they envy and resent however they can.