Alexander Vindman lost to Angie Nixon in the Florida Democratic senatorial primary on Tuesday, marking a long-overdue end to one of the worst liberal mass delusions of the Trump era: Russiagate.

Over the past decade, these conservative Democrats and “Never Trump” Republicans relied on liberal fears of Russian election interference and shadowy Moscow kompromat over the president to leverage influence in the party.

From the beginning, Russiagate was used by a shellshocked liberal establishment to explain away Trump’s victory in a way that didn’t implicate the Democrats. Rather than address what it was about Hillary Clinton’s political platform — and the preceding eight years of President Barack Obama — that opened the door to MAGA, many Democrats and their allies in the media fully bought into the idea that only a nefarious, Kremlin-driven plot could have led to America electing Trump.

This was an attractive proposal, and it found an enthusiastic, if niche, audience. Democratic voters responded well, notably to commentators at MSNBC like Rachel Maddow, who went all in on the conspiracy and pushed it far beyond what was plausible.

As MSNBC and, to a lesser extent, CNN, found ratings success with the largely fabricated scandal, the infection spread across legacy media. The New York Times published Louise Mensch, a serial fabulist whose Twitter feed was a laundry list of delusions, in the opinion section. The Washington Post reported an implausible story that Russians were targeting the Vermont energy grid. ___