Why do Democrats Suddenly Hate Russia?

By David Kamioner | January 25, 2020

There was a time, it feels like centuries ago, when the Democratic Party fought America’s enemies all over the globe. During a good part of that time the main adversary was the communist Soviet Union.

After unsuccessfully ridding itself of communist influence in the 40s and 50s, Dems like Harry Truman fought the communists in Korea, John Kennedy fought them very badly in Cuba, and Lyndon Johnson fought them in Vietnam. We know how that turned out.

But after the Johnson era in the Dem party it was taken over by appeasers and blatant communist sympathizers like George McGovern, Frank Church, and Ted Kennedy.

For two decades starting in the 1970s the Dems urged patience and caution with the Soviets. They championed every Soviet “peace” initiative that came down the pike. They openly sided with communist forces in the field in Vietnam, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. At the very least they wanted “peaceful coexistence.” At the most, a Soviet parity then superiority to American influence around the world.

But in the 1980s President Ronald Reagan seemed to use the Dems as a reverse barometer. He executed everything they despised from labeling the Soviets an “evil empire” to confronting them behind their own lines. It worked and the Soviets bit the dust on Christmas Day of 1991.

And soon, the Dems fell out of love with Russia.

True, during the Boris Yeltsin era of the 90s the Clinton administration was close to them. But when Putin took over in 1999 the Dems began actively opposing the country. Why?

I would stipulate, because the Russians were no longer communist.

When the Russians were powerful geopolitical rivals they were just fine to Dems. When they were Marxist Leninists, no problem. But have Putin wrap Russia in the Greek Orthodox faith and go bonkers for wild west capitalism and the Dems lose their long term crush on the nation.

This is not an apology for Putin’s Russia. I would not want to live there. But then, I’m not Russian.

What has happened is that the long dormant, then influential, and now dominant authoritarian socialist faction of the Dems, as evidenced in the popularity in that party of Bernie Sanders and AOC, hates Russia for turning its back on communism.

And worse for the Dems, the Russian people like America, Americans, and Donald Trump.

Enough to drive the Dems to barking madness.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

Why Do Democrats Suddenly Hate Russia?

When the nation was under communist rule modern Dems always favored appeasing them.