(CNN) For months and months, liberals have insisted that Russia has something on Donald Trump -- some sort of compromising material ("Kompromat") that made the American President repeatedly call into question the idea that Russia meddled in the 2016 election and was likely to continue to do so in future campaigns.

And for all of that time, there was a resistance within the more establishment elements of the political world to give credence to what was widely regarded as a conspiracy theory. Sure, Trump ignored the unanimous conclusion of the intelligence community that Russia interfered in the election to help him and hurt Hillary Clinton. And sure, he seemed loath to say a negative word about Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But, the thinking went, this was simply the unorthodox approach of an unorthodox politicians -- not something more nefarious and more conspiratorial.

The past five days may well have changed that view for lots and lots of people -- inside and outside of politics.

Consider: