On the recordMarch 28, 2017
I rise to comment briefly on Russian interference in the electoral processes in this country and across the West and governments of many of Russia's own neighbors. We are in the middle of a civilization warfare crisis of public trust in this country. This isn't about the last 2 months. This isn't just about the last Presidential election. This is fundamentally about the last few decades of declining public trust in a broad range of our institutions: the press, political parties, executive branch agencies, the Congress, and beyond. Russia is not unaware of our own distrust of each other. Russia is not unaware of our own increasing self-doubt about our shared values. Russia is today very self-consciously working to further erode confidence in our self-government by pulling at the threads of our public and civic life. Moscow's influence campaigns don't start by creating wholly new problems out of thin air, but rather by exploiting fissures that already exist in our civilization. The simplest way for Russia to try to weaken us is by trying to exploit the places where we are already weak, the places where we are already distrustful, and the places where we are failing to pass along a shared understanding of American values to the next generation. The sad state of modern politics and the explosion of digital media are proving to be ripe targets for many of our own internal doubts and our own discord.…
