David A. Love is a writer and commentator based in Philadelphia. He contributes to a number of publications, including Atlanta Black Star, theGrio.com, WHYY and Al Jazeera. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidALove . The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author. View more opinion articles on CNN.

(CNN) The recent announcement that 12 Russian nationals have been indicted by Robert Mueller for hacking the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election is another reminder of how vulnerable our democracy is to such breaches.

The indictments charge that via hacking, phishing attacks, money laundering and interference on multiple other fronts, Russian officials worked to sabotage Hillary Clinton's campaign. This arguably helped conservative efforts to usher Donald Trump into the presidency.

During the US-Russia summit Monday in Helsinki, Trump sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin and accepted his denial that Russia interfered with the election.

Now, in this 2018-midterm election season, as some predict a blue wave of resistance to Trump , his policies and alarming authoritarianism, Republicans want to split up the Democratic political opposition and divide black and Latino voters. And Russia looks like it wants to help here, too. But this time it won't work.

The most recent example of this strategy is the #WalkAway hashtag, which is presented as a grassroots effort by former Democrats who are critical of the party's alleged intimidation, confrontation and lack of civility and want people to walk away from the party.

However, #WalkAway has also now been connected to Kremlin-linked Russian bots, and it is now the seventh most popular Russia-influenced hashtag as of this writing, according to the website Hamilton 68, which tracks Russian influence on Twitter as part of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, an initiative of the nonpartisan German Marshall Fund. The purpose of this now-astroturf campaign is to manipulate public opinion by creating the illusion that this is a popular movement. In reality, #WalkAway has become pure propaganda, a psychological operation.

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Attempting to peel off votes by dividing black and Latino voters over the issue of immigration, and suggesting the Democrats favor "illegal" immigrants over African-Americans misses the forest for the trees, and that is the whole point.

When Therese Patricia Okoumou, a naturalized US citizen of Congolese origin, climbed the Statue of Liberty earlier this month to protest the separation of migrant children from their families, she reminded us that black people are immigrants, are fighting for immigrant rights, and are among those undocumented immigrants and noncitizens who face detention and deportation.

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While conservatives may predict a massive black defection from the Democratic Party over immigration and other issues, there is — to put it mildly -- no evidence of such an exodus, much less a switch to the Republican Party, whose policies are often hostile to people of color and include support of an administration bent on eliminating civil rights and comfortable with separating migrant children from their families.

Like all other voters, African-Americans vote their interests. Black women's civic participation groups are bringing their A game and are energizing black voters in the South, leveraging the power of one of the Democrats' most important constituencies.

And there are other demographics that will put a damper on the strategy of conservatives and Russia Twitter bots.

As Republicans manage a shrinking base of angry white voters, Democrats, with lessons learned from 2016, can overcome conservatives and Twitter bots and claim victory with hard work and organization, a strong message and authentic, dynamic candidates.

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But clearly the Democrats must do more, particularly if they want to take advantage of the current political environment and leverage the widespread resistance to GOP policies. The party has faced criticism for failing to support black women candidates, and nearly 200 black female leaders sent a letter to Democratic leadership, putting them on notice for failing to protect Rep. Maxine Waters from attacks from the White House and criticism from some members of the Democratic Party.