> From what I recall the 2016 election was frequently attributed to some vague accusation of hacking from Russia but the same standard was not applied at the time, nor is it applied today. The people espousing this view were eventually proven inconclusive in all the different inquiries into the matter, and they were far more influential than a man who sells pillows.

Your recollection seems at odds with reality. There has been a Senate inquiry with conclusions at odd with your recollections. The Mueller report came to conclusions at odd with your recollections. A reminder: that report, while not indicting the president or his team in anything in particular, found what it considered incontrovertible evidence of Russian interference designed to favor the election of Trump. The Senate report came to the same conclusions, even more strongly stated.

As for your claim that the people espousing this view being "far more influential than a man who sells pillows", I think you'd need to establish a metric for "influential", since it is far from clear precisely what you mean.

Furthermore, the sense that some people had regarding Russian interference in the 2016 elections never resulted in violence or death (certainly not directly). Nobody claimed that the election had been "stolen" (that's a direct quote from a large number of people regarding the 2020 elections). There was just a sense of unease and disquiet that the election may not have been fair but the result was accepted anyway.