The proper US response to the 2016 meddling would have been a NATSEC law that said no US based social media company could allow for 5 years any Russian IP address to connect to their services, or they would suffer massive fines. Facebook and Twitter for their role in the attack would be fined $5 Billion Dollars each and forced to provide policies within 1 year to prevent this from happening again, or face the threat of becoming regulated by the US government. All user accounts that belonged to Russian citizens as well as the Russian oligarchs and politicians were to be frozen for 5 years. US and EU Banks would be required to sanction Russians Oligarchs and Putin's interests.
Basically you would have instantly made Russian life a living digital hellscape for 5 years, at which point things could be lifted provided there were signed binding treaties and assurances that the type of attack in 2016 would never happen again. If attacks resumed the next round would last 10 years and be twice as severe.
If we're going to destroy net neutrality and impart government fascism, or have bizzaro government rulings that get throw out in court, this is how we should have done it, and this is the cause we should have done it for.