The Russian trolls, secure from prosecution so long as they stay in Russia, went into overdrive during the weekend.

The twin triggers of 1. another mass shooting in an American school, and 2. indictments of their own actions by special prosecutor Robert Mueller, gave them plenty of material.

They seized the opportunity, and flooded social media outlets with divisive posts about the usual hot-button items: crime, illegal immigrants, gun control, Hillary Clinton, and election interference.  It’s far worse than the daily deluge.

Americans, wake up!

Our democratic system is too precious to be corrupted by such filth. Trolls succeed in corrupting our faith in that system. Divided, we question everything. We spread the lies. We are weakened from within.

Let us examine, in contrast, the pure, clean, spontaneous, anguished response of high school students who survived the Florida shooting. They are organizing their voices and their efforts to call for gun control to end to the violence, and they are getting the nation’s attention.

Already, they have struck a chord. President Trump reportedly will support better background checks and, if possible, a federal ban on bump stocks.

Their grassroots effort may pay off where others have failed. Last year’s Las Vegas massacre relied on bump stocks, which make a semi-automatic weapon function like an automatic firearm. There was a groundswell to ban these accessories, but then it died. The Virginia General Assembly was not even a week old this year when a House subcommittee killed such legislation.

This time around, the young people who escaped the carnage are raising their voices, demanding protection, expressing themselves as every American is entitled to do. 

We wish them well.

And we express the hope that the nation will not listen to the trolls and the conspiracy theorists who have already seized upon their message, twisting it, and trying to divide us against those survivors and their heartfelt pleas. The students deserve our attention.

Americans, please wake up and repudiate those who would destroy us. United we stand.