A flood of falsehoods, both domestic and foreign, has eroded the once-shared trust in the integrity of American democracy.
The Democratic Party’s vice-presidential nominee has been falsely accused of sexually abusing students, a claim spread by a former Florida deputy sheriff now working for Russia’s propaganda machine in Moscow. The accusations have been disseminated across multiple social media platforms and fake news outlets.
A fabricated video supposedly featuring one of the victims—part of a recurring Russian tactic of creating fake people—received over 5 million views on X, the platform owned by Elon Musk. Musk, who has thrown his support behind the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, has also used X to revive debunked claims about the election’s legitimacy.
Misinformation, smears, and dirty tricks have long been part of U.S. presidential elections, but the flood of lies and fabrications, both domestic and foreign, has reached unprecedented levels, according to officials and researchers tracking disinformation just two weeks before Election Day.
While the impact of this disinformation on the November 5 election remains uncertain, it has already degraded political debate between the major candidates, Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, and eroded public trust in the electoral process. Countries like Russia, Iran, and China have fanned the flames by promoting narratives that depict American democracy as broken and unreliable. Politicians and media figures have, in turn, exploited this divisiveness for political gain.
“They have different tactics, but the same goals,” said Jen Easterly, head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, referring to foreign adversaries. “They aim to undermine trust in American democratic institutions, especially the election, and sow discord.”
Multiple factors have fueled the surge in disinformation, which officials like Easterly warn will persist beyond Election Day. Social media has entrenched partisan echo chambers where facts contradicting preferred narratives are often ignored. Artificial intelligence has further accelerated the spread of fake content, requiring just a few keystrokes to create falsehoods that spread widely online.
Increasingly, emotions, rather than facts, drive political discourse, easily manipulated in the digital age. For instance, after two devastating hurricanes hit the Southeast, baseless conspiracy theories and violent threats against rescue workers proliferated. A fictitious image of a girl holding a puppy in a life raft moved Amy Kremer, a Republican National Committee chair in Georgia, so deeply that she defended it even after learning it was fake. “It doesn’t matter,” she wrote on X, where her post garnered over 3 million views. “It is seared into my mind forever.”
Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance, made a similar defense after amplifying a racist falsehood about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Ohio. He claimed he was reflecting local concerns, even if the facts were untrue. Trump, meanwhile, continues to assert that the 2020 election was fraudulent, despite repeated findings from election officials and courts to the contrary.
A coordinated conservative campaign, which reached the Supreme Court, has fueled these election fraud myths. The effort has weakened institutions once working to counter disinformation, like universities and government agencies, while social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter have shifted their approach to moderating false information.
Looking back, the chaotic attempts to dispute the 2020 election results pale in comparison to today’s organized and well-funded disinformation campaigns. What began as a farcical news conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia culminated in the violent January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Now, experts fear, this year’s efforts to undermine the election could do even more damage.
“Election denial is now more organized, strategic, and well-financed,” said Michael Waldman, head of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. “Tens of millions of people now believe and spread these lies.”
One major change in the disinformation landscape has been Musk’s purchase of Twitter, now rebranded as X. Under its former leadership, platforms like Twitter and Facebook faced pressure to limit harmful misinformation, especially during the 2020 election and the pandemic. But since Musk’s takeover, he has dismantled teams that monitored false content, reinstated banned users, and has himself amplified baseless claims about Democrats recruiting ineligible voters.
Last week, Musk even echoed debunked claims that Dominion Voting Systems rigged the 2020 election, despite Fox News paying a $787.5 million settlement over such falsehoods. He has also been linked to amplifying content from Tenet Media, an outlet the Justice Department recently accused of using laundered Russian funds to support right-wing media influencers.
Although Musk may not have known about Tenet’s Russian ties, he frequently engaged with its content. A study found that between September 2023 and September 2024, Musk interacted with Tenet and its influencers at least 70 times, often amplifying election-related posts.
As government agencies like the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency work to monitor foreign interference, critics argue that even their efforts to expose manipulation are being politicized.
Fact-checking initiatives, such as PolitiFact, have struggled to stem the tide of disinformation. Bill Adair, PolitiFact’s founder, admits that even calling out falsehoods has become seen as partisan. “It’s never been worse,” he said, noting that much of the blame for today’s disinformation lies with the Republican Party, which he argues has found political advantage in spreading lies.
John Mark Dougan, the former Florida deputy sheriff now in Moscow, continues to fuel Russia’s disinformation campaigns. In a recent video, he repeated unfounded accusations that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Harris’s running mate, had committed sexual abuse. He spread the claims across multiple platforms and news outlets from his Moscow apartment. Dougan angrily defended his actions when questioned, dismissing the accusations as no different from those made by E. Jean Carroll against Trump, even though a jury found Trump liable for defaming Carroll and ordered him to pay millions.
Dougan also linked to his own disinformation websites, which have been flagged by U.S. intelligence agencies as part of Russian operations.
(AI assisted article)