[Bartweiss]

> I have little doubt that the CTR conspiracy theory was largely spread by the very real Russian astroturfers.

Could you source/clarify this?

I agree that the narrative around CTR as an astroturf source is either massively overstated and outright wrong, but that's a basically negative claim - there's no real evidence for it. The Russian astroturf part is a very specific positive claim, and across the identified Russian accounts (e.g. Reddit, Tumblr) I haven't seen any indication that they meaningfully drove the CTR rumors.

It's not like Americans have any trouble starting political conspiracy theories without outside help; why are we laughing at claims of "this idea came from an astroturf campaign" and then making comparable claims without strong evidence?