It is true that immediately after the election, there was a "Russia hacked the election" narrative that many partisans were latching on to to explain an unexpec

It is true that immediately after the election, there was a "Russia hacked the election" narrative that many partisans were latching on to to explain an unexpected Trump victory. I think the primary distinction is that democratic politicians and "thought-leaders" (or wtv term is better suited for influential partisans) quickly dismissed the fact that the actual democratic institutions were compromised (that is to say, the integrity of the vote was compromised, or that ballots didn't represent vote intention), but rather the claim quite quickly became that an influence campaign was supported by foreign powers, and the Trump campaign was happy to profit from it, if not colluding with said nation-state actors. So, you're entirely correct that we have a tendency to seek out the narrative that best affirms our priors, but whether that tendency is legitimised depends on our institutions and the people we put in places of authority.