Mona Chalabi Instagram – Whatever the outcome of tomorrow’s election, we’re probably going to hear a lot about “foreign interference” (especially from the losing party). I thought it was worth posting up a little reminder that the US has a loooong history of trying to change electoral outcomes abroad.
The US meddled in 128 foreign elections in the period 1946-2014, twice as many as Russia according to a new study by Dr Dov H. Levin. The strategies for influencing elections include using campaign funding, giving or taking aid and using “dirty tricks” (e.g. spreading scandalous exposés/lies about rival candidates, bribing people to stay out of the race or even physically harming rivals).
In the post Cold War era, the top US targets for election interference have been Serbia/Yugoslavia (7 intervention attempts), followed by Israel and Venezuela (4 attempts each). This data is separate from coup attempts. In 2022, when asked if Trump’s attempt to stay in power was a coup, his former national security adviser John Bolton said that wouldn’t be an accurate description, adding, “as somebody who has helped plan coups d’état – not here, but, you know, other places – it takes a lot of work.” Bolton has been linked to at least 131 coup attempts according to a separate dataset from the Cline Center at the University of Illinois. | Posted on 04/Nov/2024 23:01:20
