The scandalous, fairly trivial non-fake news was obviously trivial and, well, pretty much non-fake.
People were manipulated by Russia not because Russia was so devious. Russia's deviousness lies not in superb falsification or convincing stories, but in knowing their marks. For a good con, first you make sure that the con will buy into your game, accept your narrative.
Many on the left had long assumed that the establishment in the US was evil, and any counter-narrative was likely true; that Obama was president put lipstick on a pig, but most of the country was corrupt and bad. Many on the right assumed that the Obama administration was corrupt and bad, as was the Clintons. Both narratives feed on hyper-partisanship and a deep sense of grievance and humiliation. It doesn't take a genius to recognize this, just somebody that can sit back and observe without being part of the game. Domestic enemies are worse than foreign ones.
The flood of irrelevant news played into those narratives. But the irrelevant news was obviously constantly recycled, fairly unimportant, and ultimately using it rested on the realization that the listeners would do 99% of the work of "self-hacking" and self-deceiving.
Dangle the bait before a mark and see if he'll bite isn't a big gamble. If you know the right kind of bait, there's no way you can lose. Russia wanted to trash Clinton. Getting Trump elected they thought a bit of additional gain. It's not working out that way. Remember the finding, which rings true: The first thing they want is to sow distrust and dissent, to make sure that the US political system can't be taken seriously.
A sucker isn't born every minute. Given the US population, and the general political views I've observed, it's more like 4-5 suckers are born every minute. And that's just in the US.
The first step on the road to not being a sucker is to admit it. What we have here are excuses for being suckered: The news was clever and all fake (it wasn't clever, and most was true); we were barraged and couldn't reject it when it was everywhere (sure, we could, just look at how easy it is to reject the barrage of Trumpiana flung at us like chimps throw poo).
Those who wanted to believe what was said did so without thinking deeply about it. Now they want excuses for why they failed to stop and think, because, well, they can't accept responsibility. Blame Russia, blame fake news, blame everybody else--and in addition, not only are you innocent and not guilty, but suddenly we're victims, taken advantage of by our foe most evil, the dreaded (R).
Pogo. Was. Right.
But we only say that when we can shove the words into somebody else's mouth. We've met the enemy and he is us. We are our own fifth column.
I say that because we continue to do exactly what Russia wanted to do last summer. Don't have a solution, because the bait they dangled was very, very good, and the only solution is reprehensible. Close ranks against the common enemy. We're so used to focusing on internal divisions there's no way to achieve unity--9/11 did that briefly, but it crumbled within a week in some quarters, a month in others, and was mostly gone within a year. (For which, of course, the other could be blamed because we're always innocent and, if possible, always the victim.)
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