I agree; apathy and ignorance can be and usually are a deadly combination.

It's the 40+% apathetic voters which i believe are and were the problem. As for the "evil woman," you obviously bought into the propaganda about Hillary. I'm an outsider, and didn't think much of her, but the propaganda was outrageous, but it was more unbelievable that so many swallowed the pablum and still believe it despite reams of evidence that most of it, if not all of was BS. But we all believe what our brains tell us, even Donald Trump. LLOL

@josephr
I won't deny that I'm subject to intense propaganda. I'm also a member of the extreme military focused community. She is reviled for deserting those embassy and enbassy guards personnel. No one in uniform that I personally know, or those in the foreign services, or military contractor's community trust her. She is reviled much like "Hanoi Jane".

@bigpawbullets Yes, many bought into that story, even though the publicly disclosed evidence leaves no room for blaming her for that fiasco. And actually, i have seem many posts by ex-military who have actually changed their minds about Hillary after evaluating the publicly disclosed evidence from Republican controlled sources. It was nothing but an effective set-up. They don't support Hillary any more than they did then but they've now seen with THEIR eyes and ears that Trump is clearly a traitor and turn coat. No need for anyone to depend on the media to report is treason, we all saw it with our own eyes and heard his words. What was so sad for the rest of us outside the U.S. was how so many Americans were taken in by the Russians, the Trump team, Fox News, or whomever was involved in confusing American voters.

@josephr
It becomes more and more difficult to get to "reality". Primary data sources are not accessible by most of us in the prolitariat.

@bigpawbullets Excellent point. Whomever is responsible, they've managed to create distrust about almost everything. It's a killer for any democratic government since an effective and honest media is one of the cornerstones of democracy.

I have no doubt that this was also on Putin's KGB agenda, since both the KGB and CIA have used misinformation for years; that's also a matter of public record going back as far as the Nixon era when the GOP broke into Democratic National HQ to find dirt they could use to manipulate voters. Not much has changed. But now, with the internet, it's so much easier to confuse anyone. Yet without the protection of free and honest media sources we can never tell what's real and what's BS.

As you say, unless one is an experienced and competent researcher, the truth can easily hide from us. And even them.