You're confusing two statements:
- Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
- Clinton lost the 2016 election primarily due to Russian interference.
- Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
- Clinton lost the 2016 election primarily due to Russian interference.
Now from there, you could take that single statement and try to interpret the impact of the Russian interference two ways:
- The election was so close it was nearly a toss-up, and the Russian interference probably had very little effect on most voters.
- Alternately, because the election was so close, Russian interference would have only had to influence a few people in some key districts, and therefore a very small amount of influence could have had a large outsized effect.
I'm not necessarily vying for either of these arguments, however I am trying to make a point about how both sides of this problem are talking past each other with regards to a pretty simple point.
I'm only half-joking here, but if these Russians were able to undermine the 2016 election's integrity, spending that pittance, either Trump or Biden would have hired these political science geniuses for 2020.
My understand is that their efforts were mainly meant to sow political discord. If you ask me, what they learned is that we don't need their help with that.
Yes, exactly. It was the Same in 2017 in France, they did "interfere", but the goal was not to elect one or the other candidate. probably.