The documents show that the campaign’s masterminds used racist stereotypes and far-right conspiracies to target supporters of former President Donald Trump and exploit existing divisions in US society.
“They fear losing the American way of life and the ‘American Dream,'” Ganbashidze wrote in a document outlining his “guerilla media” plans. “It is these emotions that should be exploited in the course of an information campaign in and towards the United States.”
The document is packed with racist and conspiratorial claims, including that Republicans are “victims of racial discrimination against people of color,” and that high inflation and rising prices discriminate against white middle-class people, “leading to the end of unemployed people of color becoming a privileged segment of the nation.”
And the campaign’s goal was very clear from the start: “To ensure[Donald Trump’s]victory,” Ganbashidze wrote in a plan for the Good Old USA Project.
The “Good Old USA” plan openly acknowledges that “no leading American politician can be described as pro-Russian or pro-Putin” and calls for promoting the idea that instead of focusing on convincing people that Russia is great, the United States should spend less on Ukraine and more on domestic problems like rising inflation and high gas prices.
“It makes sense for Russia to make every effort to ensure that Republican views (first and foremost those of Trump supporters) prevail in American public opinion,” a planning document from the Good Old USA Project reads. “This includes promises of peace in Ukraine in exchange for territory, the need to focus on problems in the U.S. economy, and bringing troops home from around the world.”
In addition to getting Trump elected, secondary goals of the campaign included increasing the percentage of Americans who think the U.S. is putting too much effort into helping Ukraine to 51 percent and reducing the percentage of Americans who trust President Joe Biden to 29 percent.
The plan lists various demographics the campaign would like to specifically target, including residents of battleground states, American Jews, “Hispanic U.S. citizens,” and “American gamer communities and users of imageboards such as Reddit and 4chan.”
The document describes this category of gamers and chat room users as “the backbone of right-wing trends in the US Internet sphere.” In recent months, the Trump campaign has embraced many of the most influential figures within these communities, including many who routinely make deeply misogynistic statements.
The plan called for creating a YouTube channel to share pro-Trump content and other viral videos (including “music, humor, beautiful women, etc.” according to the document) to spread their message, and to appear at the top of search results for “US elections.”
Meanwhile, Ganbashidze and his colleagues used Facebook, Twitter and Reddit to create pro-Trump community groups, with a sample group name being “Alabama for a Great America.” The document also reveals that Russia planned to use Reddit as a medium to spread propaganda, as it is a “democratic and censorship-free” platform.
