Who Was the Biggest Villain of the 2016 Election?

We can now say for certain: Donald Trump will replace Barack Obama as the next President of the United States. That might be the saddest thing I've ever written, but it's reality. As we begin to look forward, we have lots of time ahead to think about what's next. It's important that we look back though, and figure out how this happen. Who are the chief people responsible for the 2016 election?

My criteria is simple: 1. Sovereign power to do something, 2. Damage done to cause Trump, 3. A plausible alternative course of action for the individual. This is not in final order (since I'll run a poll on Twitter about it), but here's my list:

1. Vladimir Putin- His hacking operation and fake news actually seems to have impacted perceptions about Hillary Clinton in the U.S. People believed things like she was going to be indicted, or worse, because they read it on the internet. Putin very clearly is a powerful foreign leader, and could have chosen to stay out. He didn't.
2. James Comey- Whether you agree or disagree with his letter in late October, it clearly had some impact in a race decided by 78,000 votes in three states. His initial decision to not seek indictments, followed by his blistering press conference of attacks on Hillary, and then finally his letter and second letter at the end of the election clearing Hillary all had tremendous impacts on the race. Comey runs a fairly independent bureau within the government, and could have adhered to norms and not released info so close to an election.
3. Donald Trump- His decision to ignore all norms in our electoral process may have destroyed elections forever. The President-elect lost the popular vote by a record margin for the winner of an election, and in the process brought thousands of white nationalists and ultra-nationalists out of the shadows and into the political process. His coalition of "Deplorables"- largely made up of non-college educated, Rust Belt working class voters, reject things such as Climate Change, global trade policy, and immigration. He was the Republican nominee for President, and clearly could have done things differently.
4. Hillary Clinton- I hate to put someone I admire so much on this list, but she has to be by the criteria I set out. Hillary's decision to use a private e-mail server derailed her campaign from the start, as did her senior hiring decisions, and personal management style, both of her campaign and the press. She was cautious in a year where caution was rejected, and didn't feel the political winds changing around her. She was the Democratic nominee, and had nearly unanimous establishment support to do what she wanted. 
5. Julian Assange- The Wikileaks leader, an accused rapist that is held up in an embassy in London, hacked the emails of leaders, especially Democrats, and used them (possibly even doctored them) selectively to sew distrust, dislike, and paranoia in the American left. He didn't have to do this, nor did his organization need to work with the Russians to do it.
6. Paul Ryan- The House Speaker was the leader of the Republican Party before Trump came along, and was the one person (as a non-candidate) who could have stood up to him early on, or even later in this process. He chose to not use his stature in such way, even though the Alt-Right had already tried and failed to unseat him in his primary during the Summer.
7. Bernie Sanders- The Vermont Socialist was Hillary's primary opponent to the bitter end in 2016, staying in months after he had no mathematical shot, and insisting to his supporters that the super-delegates were both bad for endorsing Clinton from the start, but might also switch over to support his candidacy that they had rejected out of hand, despite the fact he was behind in both elected delegates and the popular vote. He campaigned against Hillary and the DNC for raising the necessary funding to try and win the general election, and assaulted some of President Obama's achievements as President, including the ACA and Dodd-Frank. He could have dropped out when he was too far behind, he could have not ran negatively after that point, and he could have not sewed the seeds in his supporters minds of the corruptness of both the DNC and it's chairman. 
8. HFA Leadership- Whether it was adherence to "the model," not visiting Wisconsin after the primary, or any of the other strategic blunders of this campaign, it's clear that they blew a winnable election. They could have tried a little bit harder to win some more votes in the Upper-Midwest, they could adjusted their model as they went, they could have listened to intel on the ground instead of just their model, and they could have allowed information to flow upward more easily. They didn't do any of that, and instead ran a top-heavy, "we know best" campaign, and blew it.
9. The Alt-Right- Out of the shadows came David Duke, Breitbart News, and other right-wing radicals. Actual KKK members voiced their belief in Trump, and helped normalize bigoted views of the world. Obviously they were empowered by the Trump campaign, but their emergence was a voluntary act.
10. The Press- How big of a failure were these guys? Whether it was "Morning Joe" and NBC being a microphone for Trump, Fox airing untrue reports of an indictment of the Clinton Foundation, or CNN employing paid Trump staffers, this was a disaster. Wikileaks and e-mail servers got lots of press- Trump's conflicts of interest did not. They could have reported facts, and not bent-over backwards for "balance," but they didn't. It mattered.
11. Nigel Farage and Brexit- It's important not to see our election in a vacuum. The UKIP Leader was the test run, in his opposition to the UK being in the EU, and his victory in the referendum this year to get out of it. All the tactics of the anti-globalist, pro-Russia right-wing were tested in England, and they worked there, setting the stage here. For good measure, Farage even came here and campaigned with Trump near the end. Obviously, Farage could have not done any of this.
12. Jared Kushner and Kellyanne Conway- None of this would be complete without the puppeteers that made Trump become functional, just in time. Whether it was Kushner blacklisting Chris Christie out of the VP race, or Conway convincing Trump to lay low late in the game and let the spotlight rest on Clinton, they managed to get a danger to the Republic elected as President. It's scary.

Vote now for your favorites in the preliminary round on Twitter. Group A. Group B. Group C.