The first line of the article:
> The Kremlin hacked our presidential election
Stopped reading at this point.
> The Kremlin hacked our presidential election
Stopped reading at this point.
Russia might have aided in smearing another unfit candidate in the court of public opinion - and that's social engineering not hacking. Social engineering which the US political parties (and indeed most democracies) are built on.
It may not have been a direct hack of the election either, more the use of Russian intelligence bot operations running an extremely effective social media campaign.
So a hack.
> there are a remarkable number of people around Trump with ties to shady Russian businessmen
There are remarkable number of people around anything in US politics with "ties to shady Russian businessmen". Ever heard, for example, of Podesta Group? Google who they are and who were among their clients. Check out who of the former presidents spoke at Russian Renaissance Capital bank for $500K. Hint: his initials are WJC.
The reason is simple - Russian oligarchy has tons of money and interests in the USA. So there would be a lot of people willing to take that money and be around people with influence to prove that they deserve that money.
That, however, has zero relation to "not yet proven" claim that somebody "hacked election". Because it... Did. Not. Happen.
> It may not have been a direct hack of the election either, more the use of Russian intelligence bot operations running an extremely effective social media campaign.
In other words, not a hack at all. Otherwise any troll band from 4chan is "hacking elections".
It's scary to challenge your beliefs isn't it
Yes. It's the lie. "Hacking" and "influencing" are completely different things. The first implies that election system was compromised, and, in the mind of 99.999% of common population, that election results were directly tampered with. Nothing of the sort happened.