Russia did not interfere in the 2016 presidential election by hacking into vote-counting machines or manipulating lists of eligible voters. Instead, it used social media to exacerbate social divisions where they already existed, exploiting the Black Lives Matter Movement, gun rights, abortion and religion by inflaming activists on both sides of the issues.

Fractiousness in the U.S. is in Russia’s best interest. The more fissures Russia can exploit in American society — and the more turmoil it can generate anywhere in the world outside of Russia — the freer the hand it believes it has on the global stage. As author Robert Kagan put it, “The greatness Putin and many Russians seek cannot be achieved in a world that is secure and stable, in which the liberal order remains coherent and cohesive.”

Having already demonstrated that they are highly capable of dividing and confusing the American public, the Russians are once again using propaganda and misinformation to undermine public confidence in our system. As confirmed earlier this month by the director of National Counterintelligence, William Evanina, Russia is actively engaged in efforts to denigrate former Vice President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.

This is Moscow’s revenge on Mr. Biden for the Obama administration’s pro-Ukraine policies and its support for the anti-Putin opposition inside Russia. The Kremlin’s 2020 influence campaign consists of spreading claims about Mr. Biden’s corruption while boosting President Donald Trump’s presidency on social media.

The “mischiefs of faction” that James Madison warned us of do not have to be homegrown. Russian intelligence uses the freedoms that America offers — privacy, civil liberties and free speech — to poison the discourse further in the very large echo chamber of social media where the majority of Americans receive their news.

While there are no statistical models that show a causal connection between a tweet and a changed vote, social media users engage with misinformation the most, and once impressions are shared and reinforced, they become very hard to disabuse.

One way to disarm Russia is to stop treating our political opponents as domestic enemies. On social media, where Americans are vicious to one another, Russian trolls are simply following suit, simultaneously arming both sides of our culture war, further pitting Americans against one other.

In the age of internet-based communications, we will never be able to completely eradicate bad actors from spreading mischief during our elections; however, the relentless stream of unfiltered information on social media — most of it nonsense — creates a distracted public that is easier to divide and manipulate.

Americans can measurably improve the public conversation, and weaken Russia’s influence on our democracy, by looking away from their screens and by looking at each other instead.

First Published: August 24, 2020, 10:15 a.m.