Trolling
What do you know about the phenomena known as internet trolling?  Most define it as “someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.” or so Wikipedia tells me.

Others see trolling as even more nasty
Trolls are "mean, nasty individuals who use online anonymity to be cruel, spread their own brand of hate, destroy reputations and products, and generally try to upset and crush as many people and companies as they possibly can.  [They] agitate to start fights between friends or strangers; They disrupt forums with off-topic comments, brag nonstop about themselves, ridicule the thoughts of others or insert controversial comments to disrupt conversations. [Some] spread lies, deceive and cause damage , and they enjoy every minute they can make someone else miserable."

And Yet, Consider This...
While I am no expert on internet trolling and do not disagree with the above, yet I would add that there seems like there is an even more insidious form of trolling to pay attention to...

A troll's objective is to disrupt the conversation and this does not require nasty language.  In fact, it might be more effective to do so politely, to politely repeat claims that have been thoroughly discredited, for instance, like the president is an alien, Muslim, socialist.

This is one way to disrupt a conversation, to troll, and it is particularly effective when the conversation is already very complex and emotionally charged...like electoral deliberations.

Is our best response to challenge a troll's motive: to expose them as simply seeking to make conversation more difficult through pointless, but polite, distraction?

One fairly thoughtful blog noted the following in bold, and this seems to highlight the more sophisticated (and more common place) type of trolling I am concerned about here.

"A troll is not angry or otherwise emotional about the topic.... They will say whatever gets the biggest reaction."

The blog sees this sophisticated troll as 'without a horse in the race,' and that would be one type, but it is certainly possible to imagine a high paid troll of this type seeing an advantage to her or his candidate or party in a more disrupted conversation about this or that topic.

This is why I think we should learn to powerfully but with civility challenge the motives of these types of trolls. We are, of course, interested in the random individual who goes off and is uncivil, as in the wikipedia internet troll. But ought we not be more concerned about the forms of incivility mobilized by the most powerful, trolling our communication channels with resources beyond our imagination?