Frankly, it’s because the real truth is hard to admit:

Russia didn’t cost Clinton the election and give it to Trump.

It’s possible you did.

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What did Russia do? They stole information — true information — and leaked it to the voters. They did so at the most effective moment and in the most damaging way. They did it less to sway voters than to create hatred and division between the parties. Looking out there today, you can see they were successful.

We want to blame the Russians; we want to blame Trump. Some of us want to also blame the DNC for fixing their primaries to choose a candidate so universally disliked — but that’s missing the point too; I mean, seriously: Bernie was never going to win, and we all know the process is fixed; it’s always been fixed and we’ve never minded before, so why are we all so upset now?

A lot of it’s because of the memes.

Forget “Fake News” and the Network-esque news-as-entertainment model of 24-hour crisis reporting for just a moment, and consider: A truly distressing number of Americans get their news from their Facebook feeds, from Snapchat and that little Pocket selection under the Google search bar. Whatever’s trending, that’s what we get; that’s all we get. If it’s a wittily insulting meme, so much the better.

And Russia paid for meme factories on both sides of every question.  Why?  To divide us.

Remember this fact while going into the 2020 election season. Try not to get your news from propaganda sites; try to avoid spreading egregious misinformation. Don’t troll on serious topics.

Because people will read what you post and be swayed by it.

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“But the Russians did this!” you say, and they did. But — imagine for a moment that what they stole was your TV. What happens there is, a burglar comes in, picks up the TV, and walks out with it.

If Russia tells you to steal my TV, and you steal my TV, that doesn’t make Russia a burglar. It makes you Russia’s bitch.

So yes, Russia’s part in this is important. We should remember it going forward, and we need to do our best to secure our elections; that only makes sense.

Thing is, we’re not likely to forget Russia any time soon. We turn on the TV and it’s Russia and Manafort and Trump Sucks, which is fair enough because he does. But we’re so caught up in the what, I think we’ve forgotten about the how.

Fact is, Russia took advantage of the fact that American voters are credulous idiots.

All the security in the world can’t fix that.