It is common knowledge that Russian bots were the driving factor behind Trump’s 2016 election victory. Millions (if not billions) of them flooded social media and spread alt-right lies, influencing a very large number of people. These victims then voted for Trump, which led to the United States electing a racist, xenophobic, bigoted, Islamophobic, illegitimate President.

These bots were not just responsible electing a sexual predator. They also destroyed a marriage… The following is one of those stories.

Their spread of lies reached a vast audience, sadly one of their targets happened to be my (ex) wife. Six wonderful loving, progressive years of protesting, virtue signalling, bashing fash, yelling at the sky, and shouting down veterans. It was pure bliss. Until it all came crashing down.

It started to go downhill after an argument about a CNN article titled “Trump wants to incarcerate all Mexicans”. She was literally challenging the validity of the article. This kind of behavior was very unordinary and appalling and as a huge fan of Don Lemon and Jake Tapper, I never expected she would disagree with anything CNN said. Why would anyone? I would find out later that she had been trolled online by Russian bots who blatantly lied to her and tricked her into thinking this was “fake news”.

As the months went by, she became more and more sympathetic to alt-right ideologies such as: “only two genders” and “communism is bad.” She always argued that I needed to gather more information before I formed such a severe political opinion. Being a very progressive democrat, this type of thinking and behavior was very concerning and shocking to me. I decided to do a thorough search through her social media to find out how deep this issue was. To my horror I discovered that she was following, liking, and even agreeing with many alt-right Russian bots online! I went into a state of shock. Not knowing what to do, I decided to seek immediate advice from some friends at WGA (White Guilt Anonymous). The overwhelming advice I received was that this type of behavior cannot be tolerated, and I would need to confront her if I wanted to do my part in saving the country from Trump.

The difficult, but progressive decision was to give her an ultimatum. Denounce all alt-right values and continue to resist against the president and his racist followers or I would file for divorce. Unfortunately, the Russian bot influence was too engrained in her and we divorced a couple of weeks later. I don’t blame my wife for everything that happened. I blame the Russian bots. We are both victims.

This article is a warning for anyone who may encounter Russian bots. They are still very much active on social media platforms and are spreading radical ideologies. If you come across a suspected bot, please, block, and report them to CNN.