My point is, it's not so much a propaganda campaign as an obvious juicy news story to be written about and it's predictably not reported on lately because nothings happening out in the open right now, but watch by October 2020 it'll be a thing again, because it'll be politically expedient again.
And it was proven that the campaign received help from Russians. But the help appears to have been one-directional; no proof that it was requested or directed explicitly by Trump. He just let it happen, which is apparently fine.
(Ironically - if that's the word - Trump has been far better at creating the latter than Obama was.)
A lot of people actually believed the Hope and Change slogans. But it turned out there was no real cause for hope, and very little significant change.
And that's marketing for you - illusion over substance.
I find it hard to believe that this important first step is not to be celebrated as something to be a part of. Results are not instant.
Political campaigns are usually comparable in scope.
Obama, for example, beat Nike and Apple to win the "marketer of the year" award https://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-marke...
I remember being so excited and enthusiastic. People were banging pots and pans in the streets and celebrating. But looking back, I am not sure what happened. I don't even know why I was excited. And that's the power of propaganda and marketing, it presents a fuzzy abstract canvas and allows everyone to imbue their own, private hopes and dream onto it.
In the more recent history, the "Russian collusion" is probably another campaign where so much effort was spent on, families were torn apparent, a lot of mental energy put into it, and then it kind of fizzled out. All of the sudden everyone stopped talking about it. It went from "it was a sure road to impeachment" to everyone at the same time deciding to ignore it.