Foreign trolls hit record levels and we laid off the cyber lifeguards

Record foreign election interference in 2024, and the U.S. response was basically: “Damn that’s crazy… anyway, budget cuts.”

China, Russia, and Iran allegedly cranked the influence-machine to max settings—fake accounts, hacked leaks, AI slop, the whole “your aunt just became a propaganda relay tower” starter pack.

And right as officials are waving their arms like airport marshals in a wildfire, federal cyber support for state and local election offices gets reduced. Yes, the same local clerks running democracy on Windows 7 and vibes.

The really deranged part is this isn’t even a mystery. The feds have been telling everyone the threat level is up, attempts are peaking, and the playbook is getting cheaper and faster thanks to AI.

Meanwhile, the people who benefit from chaos don’t even have to win. They just have to make you hate your neighbors enough that you stop trusting the count, the courts, and eventually the concept of “we.” That’s the ROI.

And you—the normal person—get to pay for it twice: first with your taxes when cleanup and lawsuits hit, and then with your rights when “security concerns” become the excuse to make voting harder.