Analytica, and CA used back end data mining via Facebook APIs under the guise of research to acquire a level of information that nobody has access to.

What you're suggesting is that anyone can run a Facebook targeted ads campaign, which is correct.

What the Trump campaign did is microtarget an influence campaign to the level of precision that isn't available to anyone that doesn't work at Facebook.

It's the difference between targeting everyone from okayplayer with banner ads versus having access to the ip address of every poster here, then specifically influencing them personally. Not just based on their collective posting, but ALL of the other factors that would be available to having access to their locations, friends, habits, posting history ... etc.