In addition to the other replies, I think one aspect people are ignoring is the "bias" of timing. The previous election occurred ~6 months prior to Edward Snowd

In addition to the other replies, I think one aspect people are ignoring is the "bias" of timing. The previous election occurred ~6 months prior to Edward Snowden's leaks. I think that was an inflection point in the US for the public and their perception of online data collection efforts. The Cambridge Analytica story is coming after 5 years of increasingly worsening public perception of personal data collection, privacy invasion, and digital surveillance. Prior to Snowden I don't think the majority of Americans understood the scope of the amount of data being collected on them, and what could be done with it. The field of "data science" hadn't become quite as mainstream in 2012. These days you can't take 2 steps without tripping over articles about analytics, artificial intelligence, or machine learning. Public perception of Silicon Valley has soured quite a bit during that time as well. Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. were all probably at the apex of their positive public images. I suspect that the average article regarding Silicon Valley from 2012 was much more positive than what you see these days. In short, I don't think the contrasting narratives are as much do to with media bias regarding Obama vs. Trump as they do with major shifts in society from 2012 to 2018.