How precisely are the Russians more successful with election meddling than they were during the Cold War?
Even by your standard of attention paid to the event. At no point in time has there been more spurging out over Russian involvement than now. Not even when Kruschev made it his favorite hobby in the 50's and 60's or when Ted Kennedy went on his little miss-adventure.
I'm willing to believe just about any bad thing concerning a national leader, but I fail to see any special relationship between Trump and Putin. Especially in comparison to Obama and W. who were each more openly conciliatory. Heck, our own military just wiped out more Russian soldiers in one day than at any point during the Cold War.
If the best we can come up with is 13 fake news trolls, then Tommy has it right- our own nation has done its own fair share of interfering with free elections in the last decade alone. We shouldn't shy from tossing stones at Russia, but not while we sit atop a glass house. It's untenable.
It's not new. It has been going on for decades. What's new is that they are being more succesful at what they do now.
The strange thing is that their intelligence doesn't even bother to change their methods. What's even more strange is that they don't even have to. People don't recognize it.
One major problem is that the foreign power problem is being exclusively connected with Trump. That is a cul-de-sac.
Both the Democrats and the Republicans are being played. At this point the Democrats are spending their energy on tying Trump to said foreign power, but they are unable to comprehend that they are doing exatcly what said foreign power wants them to.
It's so simple, yet extremely effective.