alt Hacker NewsPerhaps the winning formula of the Obama years was the absence of rampant social media use and the spread of propaganda / misinformation at the time. Not saying those things did not exist - but they did not have the ability to spread like wildfire compared to today.
You may not have noticed it, but intel and counterintelligence agencies used Twitter heavily in the Obama era. Arguably, Obama's presidency was the one that put the nail in the coffin of trusting intelligence agency reports over twitter, but I think you could make a case it started with Reagan and cable news.
Basically, our elected representatives picked social media news sources as preferred trusted sources, and the groups interested in getting information and misinformation to them followed suit.