Yes, it’s not new to manipulate people, the low cost for high efficiency is new. Clinton had almost 3M more votes than Trump.
It would be much more expensive to manipulate 3M (1% us population, 1.2% voters), rather than 70k (0.02% pop, 0.028% voters).
If winning the election is about properly manipulating 0.04% of the voters, that’s very scary and not working as initially designed.
Really, whether or not it's new or old is a complete red herring. As is whether or not it has historically helped on candidate or another. The issue is whether or not it's a vunlerability.
Complaining that "it's always been that way" is like saying, "We've been pwned that way for a decade. Why should we fix that security hole?"
I find it incredible that people don't look at elections with the same critical eye that they do software security systems. The other cool thing is that all of your candidates for president are chosen by proxy vote! So as long as you can subvert the people who have all the proxy votes, you can choose who can even enter the election! Heck, you can stuff up both sides just for giggles. How much is the POTUS worth? Surely billions.
in some states electors are legally bound to vote for the popular majority from the state. I thought I had read this was true almost universally though it appears some states don't have this rule.
Maybe if Clinton had bothered to campaign in the Rust Belt, she would have won. Trump's politics was aimed at industrial workers, and Clinton thought she didn't need them to win. She bet wrong.
Edit:math