On February 14, 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller brought indictments against thirteen Russian nationals for meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Could the Russian misinformation warfare have helped Donald Trump win the election? President Trump’s response was “NO!”
There are two reasons why many Americans, including some Democrats, hope President Trump is right. The first is that it would cast doubt on the legitimacy of his presidency, which would further split our nation into querulous factions. This reason, though, says nothing about whether the meddling actually changed the election.
Second, according to the Special Counsel, Russia spent $1.5 million a month in their attacks. In contrast, the two political parties spent roughly $1.8 billion on the election. Thus, the Russian effort is billed as too small to have had an impact.
But, chaos theory suggests that Russia’s meddling could have caused Trump’s victory. This important theory has explained phenomena in mathematics, physics, meteorology, psychology, economics, and even robotics. One of its dictum’s states that small changes to the initial state of a system can cause huge effects. An example is the old adage—a single straw can break a camel’s back. That is, adding a small amount to the camel’s load (i.e., a single straw) can result in the animal’s collapse.
How can chaos theory explain Donald Trump’s victory when the polls showed that Clinton would win by a large margin? In 2016, chaos ruled our political and social systems. Many Americans were still suffering economically from the effects of the Great Recession. Standards of morality were being challenged by the LGBTQ movement. America was becoming less “white.” A significant percentage of voters was dissatisfied with the direction the nation was going. In addition, the Clinton campaign had made serious mistakes. Thus, consistent with chaos theory, the initial conditions were set so that a small Russian misinformation effort acted as the straw that broke the back of Hillary Clinton’s presidential hopes.
So, what should we do? In the short-term, let Robert Mueller do his job and hope that our institutions are strong enough to endure his findings, whatever they are. My next essay identifies a longer-term solution to the information warfare crisis–a crisis no less dangerous than airplanes crashing into skyscrapers.