The opposition to Donald Trump has portrayed him as a master showman, capable of diverting attention away from real issues through his daily antics.

We would contend his opponents are as guilty of the same sort of tactics, evidenced of late by the near-constant narrative about how Russian e-mail hacking and leaks through WikiLeaks swayed votes away from Hillary Clinton.

It’s a different narrative than it appeared at the start, when the word “manipulated” seemed aimed to evince suspicions of actual tampering with vote counting swinging the election toward Trump. When recounts and vague notions of vote fraud didn’t send a groundswell away from the president elect, the narrative switched to that of leaking specific e-mails that changed voters minds.

Well, yes, the contents of the Democratic National Committee e-mails and those of Hillary’s chief, John Podesta, indeed swayed the minds of some voters.

How would they have missed, insulting Catholics, showing how the rich were involved in the machinations of the Democratic campaign, and how to manage the ongoing scandal over Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server.

Yes, there are questions of timing of some of the dumps of the campaign e-mails coming after Trump said something or another that was heinous, but the content of the e-mails has not been denied by Podesta, by Clinton or by the Democratic Party.

In the end, the crass way the Democrats were looking down their noses toward the masses of voters had to contribute to the swaying of some votes, given that even as recently as late October many Americans were still on the fence about either candidate.

Did the Russians control the leaks? We respond by asking, what if they did?

Because in the end, the light shone on the malevolence in the heart of the power-mad, get elected-at-any-cost, Clinton campaign.

While the national media was overwhelmed with covering Donald Trump’s tweets, the light was being shined by someone, Russian or American or whomever, into the dark recesses of the Clinton campaign.

And that light wasn’t responsible for the thought processes so many wanted to reject. The Clinton campaign was.

An investigation may reveal someone did get involved with the Russians somehow.

But election manipulation? No more than if anyone else from anywhere else had leaked those documents.

The damage wasn’t of Russian origin. The damage was in the hearts and minds of the Clinton campaign.