I'm nowhere near alt-left. A lot of people probably have me on ignore.
I've also watched Russia since the mid-70s and the US since at least the late '90s.
Here's my take.
You put an especially foul-spelling turd in front of a sophisticated diner and label it "coq de vin" and the diner will sputter, be incensed, and leave--possibly trespassing into the kitchen to shove it into the chef's face.
You put the news equivalent in front of some Americans you get the same reaction. But if it's politically flavored, they'll devour it gusto. It doesn't matter if it's some anti-Bush-II "truthy" news or some anti-Obama racist news" or anti-HRC "fake news" or anti-Trump "resistance news." Some of what's said, some of what's alleged and immediately taken as fact, is so outrageous it's like having an especially large cowpie put in front of you with salsa and sour cream and have it called "torta de res" or "Texas burger" and immediately downed as the others at the table say, "Damn, I could have ordered that!" You just have to stare at the mental train wreck. Understanding the psychology doesn't help.
So most blatantly fake news was picked up by people who already wanted that kind of news. It affected virtually nobody.
The DNC hacks? Meh. Really, I couldn't care less what some podunk idjit working in the DNC did. Do they share a brainstem with HRC? Feed her her ideas second by second? No. What happened in the DNC is as relevant to HRC as what happened in the RNC was to Trump. Less important than fake news.
What's left? "Real" news that we don't like but which, in the grand, medium-sized, and small scheme of things wasn't so very important. "Ooh, new emails on a server." Meh. Sanders voters ate it up: She's unelectable, vote our guy. HRC supporters fumed. (R) voters were like, "the f-ing b-----!" But the (R) voters *before* that were already saying, "the f-ing b----!" and had since 1993. Same-old, same-old, why posit a new cause. If you know that every since you were 1 that if you drop something it falls, and if in 3rd grade the said "gravity!", why now that you're 40 or 50 and you drop something you suddenly have to say, "Ah, there must be a foreign electromagnetic impulsion system that's been installed under my portion of the US using supersecret nanobots and superconducting technology!" Seriously.
So the Russians used fake news, hacking, and ramped up fake interest in trivial news. Who forced Americans to swallow it? Did you swallow any of it? (Probably--the parts that said really bad things but which are false about Trump. The parts that were bad and false about one of the two (D) primary candidates you dismissed out of hand. The parts that were bad about the *other* primary candidate, I'm not going to make a prediction. But fake HRC-news in September? You wouldn't fall for it. Why? Because your guy (or gal) gets the benefit of the doubt. The other guy last fall? He's as evil as they come, nothing bad about him can be false.
The HRC emails probably depressed turnout, definitely among BS voters. DT's presence probably increased (D) turnout. Now, (D) turnout was lower in 2016 than in 2008. But really, that's a surprise? Stop and think about it. Then there are interesting dichomotomies: So the Sanders/Clinton row was a good thing/bad thing for the party. Good, because it raised issues. Bad, because it led some who feel entitled to always be told how special they are that they weren't, because their guy lost to "the establishment." Not an alt-left view. Just what happened. It was PUMA tacitly reprised. They came in for one man, and when that man left, PUMA! Because that candidate wasn't truly a member of the P and those he brought in were loosely attached to the P. There wasn't any U to say "MA" to. (PUMA: Party Unity My Ass, the 2008 ardent HRC-voter rallying cry after their candidate didn't become the (D) candidate.)
The polarization of the country doesn't help. You get heavily (D) states to have a huge turnout and you know what? Doesn't matter. You need (D) in lesser blue states to turn out. We like the limitations on democracy when they're Democratic; we really hate them when they maintain the rights and views of a wrong minority and encourage the wrong sort of diversity.
Many of those (D) are told, time and again, that they're not pure enough. They're not good enough. They live in fly-over country. They're not *real* Democrats. They're rustic, rural bumpkins and if they had a brain they'd move to where they didn't have to associate with their friends, lovers, family. Yeah, works for me--people I don't know who are condescending versus people I may not agree with but have been there most of my life and *are* most of my life. Again, stop and think about it.
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