Millions of people including reporters believed the evidence of Russian interference and Trump’s complicity, and made a big deal about it, before the elections. It was a big issue, including at the debates. So I think an honest accounting can’t lump everyone’s responses together.
To my mind the issue is not a generalized unbelief, or a media failure, but an effective politicization of facts. Republican leaders in Congress refused invitations to confront Russia on a bipartisan basis. The Trump campaign lied about the hacking and its ties to Russia.
In the absence of any R buy in, the executive branch grew wary of taking sides in what Rs had made a partisan dispute. Its efforts were limited—tough talk with Putin but in private on the sidelines of a conference, a watered down statement the FBI refused to join, & not much else
With the executive branch taking only tentative measures and making no effort to present a counterintelligence finding about the Trump campaign to the voting public, and with Rs proclaiming an entirely different set of facts, the field was pretty open for propaganda at the end...
But that’s not down to some generalized “we” not believing the facts or the media not reporting them, it’s the combination of a decision made by Republican leaders to, at best, not look a gift horse in the mouth and a calculation by others serving in govt to avoid battling w them
The fault, dear Robby, is not in our selves, but in our Rs.
