These questions need answers.

Members of his staff collaborating with Russian agents to try to dig up dirt on Clinton, & whatever else. There was no cheating as in fake votes, but he did benefit from a Russian misinformation campaign that the red hats sucked up. The difference in 2020? People were informed about the lies pushed on social media, and had 4 years of proof that trump is an idiot.

So you're saying that there was no fraud, but Trump got in in 2016 unfairly due to lies that Russia helped spread... I think that's definitely a possibility, but higher-ups like Mueller and Pelosi still hold that the election was stolen via Putin in 2016.
Good explanation on your part; good job.

There was definitely worry about Russia hacking the voting system (which was totally understandable IMO), but none was found that I know of.

Ok, and thanks for your insight.

You're conflating two separate ideas.

You're combining the idea of cheating at a campaign level and voter fraud/election rigging.

Those are not the same thing.

First, did Trump cheat in the 2016 election? If you consider enlisting or allowing Russian help in his 2016 campaign to be cheating, then yeah. He cheated. (yes, allowing an outside country to interfere with the election is illegal, unethical, and a whole lot of other things). And he did do that.

However, the 2016 election wasn't rigged or stolen or whatever. No one has credibly accused Trump of having the voting rigged or that rampant voter fraud happened in 2016. To my knowledge, only one blogger accused Trump of having rigged the vote, but he wasn't able to bring any sort of evidence that it happened.

Did Trump cheat in 2016? Yes. Did he "rig" the election with voter fraud? No.

But did he cheat in 2020? Yeah. He did. He wasn't stopped. At all. All of that Ukrainian stuff with Biden and the phone call? That was him cheating. All of that Hunter Biden stuff? Very very likely the Russians via the Ukranians. That laptop left at the repair shop? Trump cheating.

Was the election rigged? No. It wasn't.

Both the 2016 and 2020 elections were free and fair. There wasn't any cheating at the voter or vote count level.

The sad part is all this is too complicated to understand for anyone who hasn’t followed in detail (critically, from credible sources) every minute subplot of U.S. election-related drama over the past 5 years

So you are saying this raises an important question about both elections?

There are questions you could ask about either 2016 or 2020 or any election — frankly 2000 is still the most disputed and uncertain election in modern history. Decided by a 5-4 SCOTUS decision over a few hundred votes in one state. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

2020 wasn’t a landslide but it was a decisive win for Joe Biden, and it’s easily been the most litigated and certified election thanks to Trump’s nonsense claims — way more litigated than 2000, which ended in a Bush victory simply because Al Gore decided to stop pressing his claims (he could have continued to challenge aspects of the election even after the SCOTUS decision).

The most unprecedented thing about the 2020 election is Trump’s refusal to concede. That’s never happened before, but his basis for denying the results is nonexistent at this point.

I see.

Thank you for clarifying the confusion of terms...