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Why Clinton lost: a good summary of the data

Here.  Short version:   African-Americans turned out in lower numbers than when Obama was running, and a number of less-educated whites who had previously voted for Obama switched to Trump.  

Is it possible that but for James Comey's misconduct and hackers releasing e-mails revealing the corruption of the Democratic establishment, enough other demographics would have turned out to vote, thus offsetting the lower African-American turnout and the white voters who flipped to Trump?  Yes, it is possible, but there is no evidence that supports thinking this to be true. 

Did Putin want Trump to win?  Presumably:  Trump's expressed views are less hostile to Russia than Clinton's, and, in any case, it must be obvious to Putin that Trump is an unstable ignoramus who is easy to manipulate.  Did Putin put hackers up to embarrassing the Democrats?  It's not implausible, but we simply don't know, unless there is still someone in America who takes the pronouncements of American intelligence agencies on faith.  Did the hackers embarrass the Democrats by publishing misinformation?  No, they simply put the spotlight on how high-ranking Democratic officials were actually behaving.  (Maybe the moral of the story is that Democratic officials shouldn't misbehave and show some respect for the democratic process?) 

Is it hypocritical for the U.S. to complain about possible meddling in its electoral process?  Obviously, but what else is new?

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