I don't think their goal was actually to sway the election. They know well enough that their work is pocket change compared to what both parties' campaigns and ordinary American activists on both sides already do. What they want to do is increase the divisions in our society. The more we fight each other, the less political "bandwidth" we have to project power internationally.

If both parties are unified in pursuit of one goal, then we may act vigorously on it over the long term through the course of multiple changes in which party controls what. If both parties can't stand each other enough to cooperate on anything, then foreign policy and behavior will be half-hearted pushes in constantly changing directions.

Russia can't and doesn't want to control us entirely. They do want us to not interfere effectively in their attempts to control the neighboring Eastern European states.

The ads were for Facebook groups, so once they built up a decent subscriber count, they had an audience to propagandize to without paying.

As for the pro-LGBT/liberal ads: One of the strategies the Russians used here was to infiltrate and divide. Only propagandizing to one side of the American political spectrum isn't as effective as playing both sides and turning them against each other.

These ads are just the tip of the iceberg. There were still countless bots and sockpuppet accounts used to sway people one way or the other - but typically against one another.

I don't believe the Russian goal was to sway the election. I think it was to try to exploit identity politics on both sides, to make the US less united, and hence to distract attention from Russia and what they've been doing. (For example, in Crimea - remember that?)

It's worked really well, and keeps working today.

Thinking that these Facebook ads influenced the election in any meaningful way is dumb, let alone swaying it in a desired direction.