Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America

by Sarah Kendzior

In the early 2010s, Russia also practiced network authoritarianism. “Many have noted the curious absence of censorship on the Russian-speaking internet which largely remains a free-for-all zone, quite unlike traditional media which are kept on a tight leash,” wrote journalist Alexey Kovalev in an optimistic 2010 editorial called “Russia’s Blogging Revolution.”6 The rationale for the open internet became clear when Russian officials used it to publicize the arrests of popular dissidents like the blogger Alexey Navalny and the punk band Pussy Riot over the next few years. Instead of fearing the open internet, Kremlin officials embraced it, using social media to smear the opposition and to release a firehose of propaganda intended to overwhelm citizens’ faculty for critical thinking.7 The emergence of networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Russia’s VKontakte in the 2000s and 2010s made disinformation easier to spread. The arrival of memes allowed eye-catching lies to be delivered via mobile phone, meaning users who lacked home computers could circumvent the internet entirely. Before I left academia for good, networked authoritarianism was my focus—not only because of its danger to citizens of authoritarian states, but because I could see the utility of the model in Western states that were experiencing a similar erosion of institutional trust.