As a far left person, I'm firmly on the camp that believes that hyping up Cambridge Analytica's run of the mill operations (they were for Cruz, and he lost, lol) mainly benefits Clinton fans who want to believe that she lost for reasons beyond her control and that these are some geniuses.

Seeing Clinton lose, and hearing all these stories about grassroots campaigners being turned away, about Bill Clinton being told that his rural votes were gone forever, about "the Mook Mafia", about the "Ada algorithm", about Nate Silver being brutally wrong in the primaries and the NYT being brutally wrong about the chances of winning on the day of the election, and betting markets being wrong on Brexit... part of me thought this is where we draw the line. We need to go back to basics, start reacting to our circumstances, realize that something has gone very wrong, and stop blindly trusting "the data".

Instead this narrative cropped up that said "actually, we need even more even better data". And people seem to find it more palatable.