Putin and Trump, True Americans: Russia, Fake News and the Founding Fathers

The "failing" New York Times published yet another article in their enlightening and extensive series on "Russian Hacking and Influence in the U.S. Election." This article, entitled "The Fake Americans Russia Created to Influence the Election," goes into detail on how Russia used fake social media accounts to add credibility to Russian operated propaganda websites, how we as a nation let this happen, how the involved social media companies let that happen, and how they plan on combatting something like this in the future.

As I'm sure everyone in this class knows, this isn't the first time in United States' history that it was in a foreign country's best interest to discredit a group of United States' politicians. What was stopping the British from publishing an almanac under an American guise claiming the members of the continental congress did not have the regular man's interests at heart? With a printing press, surely it would have been easy to flood the streets with a pamphlet who's real origins could not be traced. With the impact of the various anti-British works, it would make sense that an anti-Continental Congress pamphlet could cause some distrust and confusion among the public.

However, in my admittedly short search for evidence of the former, I found nothing. I probably missed something, so if you do find evidence that the British used fake pamphlet writers to discredit the Founding Fathers, please let me know. I'm guessing that the British simply did not take the Continental Congress serious enough at first to even attempt something like that, similar to how Hillary's camp treated Donald Trump in the early months of, and maybe even the night of, the presidential election.

My search was not a total loss though, I did find evidence that "fake news" did play a part in the Revolutionary War, leading this blog post to be much longer. A new book by Robert Parkinson, assistant professor of history at Binghamton University, claims the Founding Fathers used fake news and racial fear-mongering to unite the colonies during the American Revolution. 

"Fifteen years in the making, The Common Cause: Creating Race and Nation in the American Revolution (University of North Carolina Press) argues that political leaders, with an assist from newspaper printers, connected British aggression to the stereotypes and fears of Native Americans and blacks in an effort to unite the colonies. Following the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the patriots needed more than “the British are coming” to unify colonists up and down the coast and keep the war momentum going, said Parkinson. So they targeted black slaves, Indians and (for a short time) Hessian mercenaries as “proxies” of the British who were just as much a violent threat."

For Parkinson, the targeting of black slaves and Native Americans came as somewhat of a shock.

“I would drive home and be astounded about how much news [in the colonial newspapers] was about African Americans and the potential threats of Native Americans, especially early in the war,” said Parkinson. The fear tactics against blacks and Indians came when thousands of the minorities were fighting with the colonists. Six to 10 percent of the Continental Army was comprised of African Americans. Nevertheless, “blacks were always seen in the press as helping the British,” Parkinson said. “They were portrayed constantly as aiding and abetting the enemy.”

Could the Founding Fathers, trying to unite the colonists through racism, helped fuel the racial tensions that would exist in the United States for centuries after? 

Parkinson thinks so. According to the professor, "Hamilton, Jefferson and all of the (founders)—despite all of their qualms about slavery—participated in the hardening and deepening of it.”

Furthermore, the founding fathers were not above fabricating a story. 

 "In 1782, Benjamin Franklin—concerned about a potential reconciliation with Britain—reported that American forces had discovered packages containing the scalps of women and children taken by Seneca Indians. Franklin then wrote a fake letter from naval great John Paul Jones urging the importance of independence because the king 'engages savages to murder their defenseless farmers, women and children.'”

 Parkinson believes this "common cause" that helped unite the colonists back then is "still resonating today more than 230 years after the end of the Revolutionary War."

“'At the very heart of the republic is the idea of exclusion,' said Parkinson. 'It’s the idea that some people are Americans and some people just don’t belong. Those notions persist today. There are people who are automatically seen as outsiders. It is so deeply interwoven into the history of the United States. In many ways, it’s what originally united the states.'

"When somebody is always seen as a threat or suspicious, that’s something that has evolved over the 19th and 20th centuries. But it is right there at the founding of the republic, and these are the men who buried those notions there.”

Like Putin, the Founding Fathers put out fake news aiming to divide the colonists and push them towards a singular goal. For Putin and Trump that goal was defeating Hillary, for the Founding Fathers it was defeating the British. And, like Trump, the Founding Fathers aimed to unite their base by defining who was a true American and who wasn't. Like Trump and Putin, the Founding Fathers' shady methods lead them to complete their goals, to emerge from the scuffle victorious. Maybe Putin and Trump do embody American ideals after all.

Do you agree with what Parkinson has said about this contributing greatly to racism in America? Do you disagree? Do you have any examples of the British engaging in similar acts of "fake news"? Does this change your personal opinion at all on the founding fathers, or do you think what they did was justified? Does all of this just disgust you and you can't believe anyone would even write such things? Any mistakes in the writing? Please, let me know.