Trump has suggested that Hillary would not have been tough on Putin.  Let’s do a simple thought experiment.

It’s accepted now that Russia and Putin worked to influence the election.  Would they have wanted a result they saw as making the US stronger?  Or weaker?

There’s a high likelihood they would have gone with weaker.  And they chose Trump as the leader most likely to result in a weaker United States.

Furthermore, would they have bothered meddling if it was for a small perceived difference, say 10% weaker?  Probably not.  Too much downside.  We can posit they probably saw the US under Trump as very significantly weaker for it to be worth the risk.

Then they watched as Trump’s many ethical issues threatened his campaign.  While none of us thought anything as silly sounding as “fake news” could sway things, it is more accurately called by a different name: propaganda.  Sure enough, it worked.

And here we are.  Maybe they have more on him, maybe they have more leverage, who knows.  But they got what they wanted and we didn’t. We got a bizarro world conspiracy theorist with zero political experience.

It’s going to be a long four years.