Like a good book, this report has a solid structure: each section builds on the previous one, if you contemplate the stated facts.
We may think we already know most of the information in this report via the media, but reading the first section account of Russian interference in our elections by affecting our culture is a personal experience unlike hearing news. It is chilling to read about specific Russians masquerading as Americans, setting up organizations and rallies, and sowing lies that bloom and grow exponentially as they are repeated by the likes of Trump et al. as well as millions of ordinary citizens. If you read this blow by blow, you will experience the truth of the words "We were attacked."
Mueller reports facts, but I believe metaphor is the best way to convey the impact of those facts to anyone who doubts we were attacked or to anyone, like me, who accepts that we were attacked (and that it is ongoing), but who hasn't viscerally connected with what this means:
Imagine that alien beings infiltrated all of our communications grids. They became part of our phone conversations, the media we consume, and our culture. Imagine these aliens have studied our American culture and can mimic it, blending in so seamlessly that they can participate in our communities as any local does. They get to know people, learn their vulnerabilities, and craft just the right things to say to trigger their deepest fears and angers, thereby making these Americans unwitting alien surrogates, carrying the carefully crafted messages further into our culture to create maximum conflict (and—my opinion—eventually war, thereby changing the world stage because people will no longer wish for democracy if this is the result). Imagine these aliens infiltrate our voting mechanisms, knowing better than we do how they work and all kinds of statistics about the layout of our electoral college and what kind of pressure and persuasion will work best where. Read More