Russian Hackers Largely Skipped the Midterms, and No One Really Knows Why

Let me put out a theory filled with tinfoil hats, based on what I read on social media (Reddit&#x2F;HN): (Disclaimer: I am not an American and I do not live in the USA. I have no horse in this rat race)<p>Amount of Russian Hacking in US Elections is directly proportional to the amount the elections go to the favor of the Republicans&#x2F;Others.<p>Democrats won the house, so no Russian meddling happened. Had the republicans somehow managed to win the house, the democrats would have declared war on Russia by now.<p>It&#x27;s both funny and sad to see USA behaving like the entire country is on LSD.

Does anyone have any real, solid proof that Russian hacking has had significant impact in a US election?

How about giving credit to tech companies, maybe they fixed whatever was broken the last time and reduced the amount of misinformation and propaganda that was being spread? I recall seeing something like Twitter banning 20k accounts that were discouraging people from voting.

So... HN&#x27;s consensus is that The Media Lies and there was no Russian hacking of the election last time?<p>Am I reading that right?<p>I mean, it&#x27;s not an indefensible position. But it seems weird that we default to this. There&#x27;s an awful lot of smoke to just assume there&#x27;s no fire.

Because the whole point of the 2016 operation (which involved support for lots of different, often diametrically opposed, positions and candidates) was to set up a situation where the US was even more politically divided against itself, weakened and ineffectual in foreign affairs, and set on a course to continue inflicting self-harm, and it obviously succeeded beyond Putin&#x27;s wildest dreams, and there was no apparent need to interfere to change course evident in the run-up to the midterm. Plus, everyone was looking for it&#x27;s so better to keep powder dry this cycle and leave 2016 seen as either a one time thing (or even, for the truly gullible, a thing that didn&#x27;t happen) so next time there is a need, there isn&#x27;t as much guard.

There was nothing to be gained, this time.<p>Interference would only reinforce and strengthen Trump&#x27;s critics and doubt about Trump. (And by naming &quot;Trump&quot;, I include all in that camp, that is promulgating policies&#x2F;initiatives favorable to Russia -- in outcome, when not in stated goal.)<p>As it is, Trump has been saying &quot;no collusion&quot;, &quot;no effect on the outcome&quot;, etc. And now in his rhetoric he can point to the 2018 elections and say, &quot;See!&quot;<p>I mean, this one isn&#x27;t exactly rocket science, as they say.

Here are a couple of hypotheses -<p>1) Russian hackers, as an influencing factor in US elections, never existed; 2) Russian hackers grew disillusioned with Trump when he failed to go full Quisling and surrender the USA to Putin.