Why does the American left now eschew Russia after its 70+ year enamoration of it?

“People who hate Trump (all 898 of you on Fluther) and all the news media seethe with hate about Trump and his supposed ties with Russia.”
– No, it’s not about being favorable towards Russia overall. It’s about illegal and unwise entanglement with Putin, Russia’s role in the 2016 election, mafia ties, likely private negotiation for the Trump administration to cooperate with Putin, in exchange for who-knows-what secret personal deals with Putin. US sanctions against Russia over imperialism towards Ukraine and the oil profits at stake for people like Trump’s former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, etc.

“But here’s the deal: Obama sought to build relations with Cuba, Hillary and Obama LOVED Russia a decade ago (remember Russian Reset anyone? Obama’s ‘Open Mike” promise that he’d have more flexibility after the election and to pass that on to Putin?”
– Yeah, I would say that is because Hillary and Obama are also ultimately under the thumb of elements who see various opportunities in positive relations with Cuba and Russia, and also just generally sane things like preferring the Russian Republic to Soviet Russia.

“There has been plentiful Russian and Soviet influence in our educational system and entertainment industry.”
– So?

“The American Left was virtually married to the Soviets in the 1960s through the 2010’s.”
– They were? I missed that. Maybe it just seems that way in comparison to more hawkish views towards Russia?

“Mainstream America realized we were in a ‘cold war’ but the Left assured us that things were okay and all we needed was understanding and globalization and a New World Order, which raised red flags with conservatives.”
– That sounds like a hawkish/conservative version of the narrative, to me.

“The cold war was won, and the Soviet empire crumbled. Christians in prison were released. Soviet Bloc countries were liberated and dictators overthrown. But the left STILL supported communism. Even today, many young Democrats and Green Party supporters favor a form of Socialism that would have given conservatives pause.”
– “the left STILL supported communism”??? What are you talking about?
– The language around socialism and communism is nearly useless especially if you try to reconcile people from different perspectives. So I don’t know what you mean by “favor a form of socialism”, or what “conservatives” you mean. Seems to me nowadays Reagan could be a modern Democrat and Eisenhower’s words and policies could be thought communist by some modern Republicans.

“Yet now, you on the Left are saying Russia has been our enemy all along, and that Trump supporters are Pro-Russia Pro Putin (even though you were friends with them 10–15 years ago and we, even Romney, didn’t trust them but Obama ridiculed this). Russia is the new axis of evil. And Trump is the puppet.”
– No, we’re not. As in my first remark above, it’s about many hints that make it look like Trump and Putin and various associates worked a shady deal that involves using the presidency to make all of them richer.
– Russia is a complex field of study. Anyone who has or expects others to have a consistent and simple “for or against” relationship to Russia is being ridiculously simplistic.

Gee, as much as I would love to engage yet another asinine, absurdly reductionist argument, I’m not sure that I have the stomach for it at the moment.

Bernie Sanders is a Socialist, and was probably the best candidate for the Democratic party
Within the past week, Hillary Clinton has declared that one reason she lost the election was because she was ‘too capitalist”

It seems that Hillary was the one with shady deals with Russia and Russian propaganda in the election. Many of these were swept under the rug by Comey and McCabe

. I still have not seen any evidence to support the claims that Trump made deals with Russians or that Russians helped sway the election for Trump. For over a year, that bombshell was supposed to be dropped VERY SOON.

Most of what I hear as arguments are really just hate speech against conservatives and how mysoginist, racist, backward, bat-shit crazy they are—a basket of deplorables, rednecks, white trash, the worst they can think of. Why this isn’t banned as hate speech totally evades me.

I am glad you don’t hate Russia. I understand that you hate Donald Trump because he won the election, in spite of obvious rigging. I do NOT believe those of you who claim you hated Donald Trump before he represented conservative voices. Be honest: You hate the Conservatives.

The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula right now is at stake. Isis is all but a memory. There is greater stabilization in the world and the U.S. economy. The Inspector General report has not supported any claims that Trump colluded with Russia but has shown extreme corruption in the way Hillary and Obama protected Hillary and have attempted to frame Trump.

I know the Democrats are wanting to drag this thing out to effectively cripple and paralyze the Trump presidency and hope for a Blue Wave. But a return to a Reaganesque era in the American economy has arrived, and a lot is at stake on the world stage.

I hope you can eventually drop this on lack of evidence—and I am eagerly awaiting the unlikely event that SOME of the Clinton cartel will go to prison. But you don’t see me spewing hate and jokes or stretching the truth or innuendo as facts. A coup to unseat a duly elected president is treason.

70 years ago Joe Stalin was in charge of Russia, since then we’ve had Gorbachev and now we’ve got Putin. Very different Russias. But the point is we can approve of some things Russia does while disapproving others. For example deploying a military grade nerve agent in the streets of a UK city is unacceptable as is attempting to influence the results of a US presidential election.

You, like Trump, must be a Russian sympathizer.

You realize that neither Clinton nor Obama are leftists, right? They are members of the Democratic Party, which is a center-right party that is only considered to be to the left as a result of (1) being less to the right than the other major US political party (i.e., the Republican Party), and (2) decades of Republican propaganda conflating Democrats with actual leftists.

The type of leftists who were once enamored with Russia are not the same people who form either the leadership or the rank-and-file of the Democratic Party. They are the people who only vote for Democrats begrudgingly and prefer to vote for third party candidates who more closely represent their views. So all this question tells us is that you are a sucker for right-wing rhetoric.

“Bernie Sanders is a Socialist, ...”
– Well, only by the standards of current US politicians. He’d be a centrist in Europe.

”... and was probably the best candidate for the Democratic party”
– I totally agree. Sigh.

“Within the past week, Hillary Clinton has declared that one reason she lost the election was because she was ‘too capitalist””
– Glad to hear it. But she should add, because the DNC angered and disheartened so many people by having pre-determined she would be the D candidate regardless. And because she ran a spiritless campaign and many people think of her as a centrist or right-wing representative of the status quo of big party politicians under the thumb of corporations giving lip service to the public interest.
...
“Most of what I hear as arguments are really just hate speech against conservatives and how mysoginist, racist, backward, bat-shit crazy they are—a basket of deplorables, rednecks, white trash, the worst they can think of. Why this isn’t banned as hate speech totally evades me.”
– Because of all the examples of evidence that it’s more like objective observation.

“I understand that you hate Donald Trump because he won the election, in spite of obvious rigging.”
– I don’t know or hate Trump personally. I do hate misogyny (“grab ‘em by the pussy” – Trump), environmental destruction, selfishness, racism, bigotry, xenophobia, war, craziness, lies, corporate corruption, etc. Trump and most Republicans just openly show they align with most or all of those things.

“I do NOT believe those of you who claim you hated Donald Trump before he represented conservative voices.”
– Ok but you’re wrong. I hated him in almost everything I saw him in. I remember feeling dread and repulsion when I saw him on Oprah in the 1980’s being asked if he’d run for president some day. I remember being disgusted that anyone would think they’d want such a greedy money-oriented egotistical sleazebag to lead anything.

@Yellowdog – your numbers are WAY OFF.

The US remained a foe of Russia all the way to the Bush I years – say, late 1980s. when the Gorbachev era began. And even then, it wasn’t a love fest, it was the era of “Trust but verify”.

And Putin’s ascent to power has turned everybody off

So if there was a time when the US was enamored with Russia, it was maybe between 1989 and 2001. Only eleven years, not 70.

Utterly vales premise in your question.

Blind hatred of Trump perhaps causes people change their minds about Russia.

Most of you have given very good answers / responses.

Time will tell what will be revealed. But I would like to sincerely thank all of you for your responses. The main thing I am getting is that the Left in America is still largely centrist and not the Left of the former Soviet Union (I remember well the 1989–2001 era when Russia wasn’t the same Russia).

This still does not explain why so many of you think that the Right is in Kahoots with Russia when the Soviets and all things Russian have been closer to the Left.

Because when asked by the ultra right why we think Trump is lying all the time and our response is his lips are moving he must be lying !
Your idea of left is tainted by the fact you thing anyone not ultra right must be a “liberal and socialist lefty”

“This still does not explain why so many of you think that the Right is in Kahoots with Russia when the Soviets and all things Russian have been closer to the Left.”
– I also don’t think Russia or the Soviets are/were very much like anything I identify with in any way, and not in any meaningful way aligned with “left” politics in the USA at all. I wouldn’t even if I went in for “left vs. right” thinking anyway (which I also don’t).

I’ve studied Russian history and civilization. Soviet Russia was an empire which was a peculiar kind of oligarchy led by a group of (often paranoid) folks at the top, involving a lot of oppression and sending people to Siberian prisons or worse. It was NOT the way it was mostly because of Communism or Socialism, and even though the USSR was called a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, it wasn’t particularly socialist except in flavor and some twisted ideologies. You know what it WAS a lot like? Very remarkably like, in fact? It was a lot like Russia has been for centuries. A large number of people in an even larger country with a large number of ethnicities and cultural backgrounds, being run by various groups of people with systems authorizing them to dominate others and what they’re allowed to own and do, with some paranoid few at the top. Lots of self-centered behavior and corruption and nasty stuff of all sorts. Those aren’t new features caused by communism or socialism. And they haven’t gone away with the fall of the USSR, either. Putin is not all that different from a General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, or from a Tsar. He’s the ruler. He has cronies. He has supposed peers and rivals. He has people who can make people disappear. There are various rules and philosophies and policies supposedly legitimizing his position, but really it’s about him being in power.

I sort of see where you’re coming from talking about certain perspectives of “the left” seems to be “for Russia” but suddenly seems against it now Trump’s president, but that, it seems to me, is just about superficial generalizations in repeated public and media conversation patterns, which are all puffery and nonsense. As a matter of what’s really true, I think it’s ridiculously overly simplistic to the point of being just plain inaccurate and/or meaningless to try to label “Russia” as “left” or to try to assign approval or disapproval of “Russia” by “the right” or “the left” in the USA.

And it can be very dangerous and tricky to get involved in Russian politics.

I don’t think “the Right” in the USA is in kahoots with Russia. I think that Putin is a shady, dangerous and clever ruler of Russia with heavy mafia connections. I think pre-POTUS Trump was involved (and in debt) financially with Russians and the mafia. I think Trump and/or his people negotiated secretly with Putin and/or his people and/or the mafia about things that might be possible if he were president, probably involving Trump’s debt and other very wealthy people and organizations and their ability to make lots and lots of money for themselves. I think Putin approves Russian and/or Russian mafia programs to mess with the US political process, including computer hacking. I imagine there’s likely also overlap to the Clintons and other people involved in US politics and the pulling of strings of US politicians, some Americans and some other nationalities. I think there’s probably much more of that sort of undercover negotiation than there is official diplomatic negotiation, behind what national policies end up being. After all, most of the wealth on the planet is owned by a trans-national network of banks, as are the news media. The story about politics and left and right and nations is mostly a diversion.

Again I urge you to resist that conservative shibboleth of liberals seething with hatred for Russia, Trump or whatever. When it comes to Trump, you’re confusing disgust and contempt with hatred

Let me be clear. I believe that Putin has something(s) on Trump. He has Trump in his pocket. And Trump has relationships with Russian oligarchs. He is binded financially to them, and may be forced to do their bidding, in some cases. No doubt they have buyers remorse, but they have him.

That’s just what I gather from the facts, and Trump’s behavior. It’s easy to see, with him talking tough to every other country, and being an obstacle for Russian sanctions…

I would add that things have changed just a bit, in 70 years. The left has also changed in that time span.

The USSR spoke about the battle between capitalism and communism, and there were those on the left who bought into it. The current Russian government is a right wing oligarchy. Things have changed. One could just as easily ask why right wingers who thought that the USSR as the embodiment of evil are so enamored of Putin.

It is a mistake to paint the left as previously “enamored” with Russia, just as it is wrong to define skinheads as the definition of conservatism.

@stanleybmanly There was a significant portion of the American left (the actual American left, by which I don’t mean the Democrats) that was obsessed with Russia and the whole Soviet experiment in the mid-1900s. So at least a portion of the American left was previously enamored with Russia. What @Yellowdog fails to realize is that it was both a different left and a different Russia back then. It’s a mistake that he makes quite often, actually. For some reason, he never seems to take account of the ways in which time changes things, instead choosing to view people as static and hypocritical rather than as dynamic and evolving.

^GA

It can only be from a huge hole in his reference book regarding “the left”. But that’s what drives me crazy in these discussions with @Yellowdog and @seawulf575 The notion that Clinton, Obama, or Democrats in general are members of the “radical left”. It is a narrative commonly dished around by conservatives of all stripes to others as ignorant of history as themselves, and is alarmingly coming to be accepted as the working definition for what is shamefully allowed to pass as leftist politics in America. My answer above was gauged on that very assumption, that “left” today from either of the Trump champions here means LEFT OF TRUMP.

Yeah, the Clintons are about two inches to the left of the Bushes.

“I can’t wait for the liberals to make a comeback, and not because I am one of them. When the liberals went underground, it was left to the rejects of the Democratic party—the feminists, peace activists, rainbow coalitionists, socialists, union militants—to hold up the liberal banner. We were left to defend social programs, like welfare and Medicaid, that were never halfway adequate in the first place, and to argue—a little wearily—for the mild reforms that might make life marginally more secure for the average person. What else was there to do in such a desolate political landscape, with no one—except perhaps George Bush and a few neoliberals—occupying the long expanse between us, on the left, and the likes of Jimmy Swaggart on the far, far right? But if the Democrats find the courage to get back to their business—working for the slow and piecemeal reform of our far-from-perfect society—maybe we’ll be able to get back to ours. And that is, as it has always been, to insist that slow and piecemeal reform is just not good enough.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich

I think Republicans (obviously) and the Russians would just LOVE to see the US become a government by and for, exclusively, Republicans. It’s about as close to Communism we could ever get without Americans actually realizing it.

Republican and Communism are opposites. How old are you?

“Ah, there’s the rub!”

Both do have rather pronounced totalitarian streaks.

Obama had ties to communist Pan-African groups AND Islamic groups, idolized in his own autobiography—yet you think him the Prince of Peace.

But Reagan and Trump are Totalitarian

Don’t forget that Obama created cancer…

@Yellowdog Pan-Africanism is a movement that attempts to increase feelings of solidarity among all people of African descent, and Islam is a religion based on the belief that there is only one God (the God of Abraham). What, exactly, is wrong with having “ties” to either of these things (as opposed to specific iterations thereof)?

I’m especially curious because, strictly speaking, I have “ties” to both as well: one of my former grad school colleagues is a Pan-Africanist, and a student group I was in once teamed up with an Islamic student group to promote an event. But I don’t see how either of these “ties” implicates me in any way.

As for President Obama being the Prince of Peace, could you try not to conflate the jellies of Fluther with whatever straw man you’ve been fed by the propagandist news sources you seem to consume and regurgitate so intently? Several jellies, myself included, have been critical of Obama’s military decisions (particularly his use of drones).

And finally, no one said that Reagan and Trump are totalitarians. If you read carefully, you’ll see that what @Darth_Algar said is that the Republicans and the Communists both have “rather pronounced totalitarian streaks.” It was a claim about groups, not individuals. Perhaps @Darth_Algar would accuse those particular individuals of being totalitarians, but you don’t know that yet.

Yes. The drone strikes, were not OK. I hated everything about them, except that I was glad we weren’t putting more boots on foreign soil. I believe Obama thought of the strikes as a lesser of two evils. There’s no doubt that the strikes helped recruitment, for terrorist organizations. I don’t blame them.

I hated Hillary too. But I’ll forever be lumped into her camp by conservatives. That gets old…

@Yellowdog “Obama had ties to communist Pan-African groups AND Islamic groups, idolized in his own autobiography—yet you think him the Prince of Peace.”

My god, you do love your strawmen, don’t you?

@SavioirFaire “Perhaps @Darth_Algar would accuse those particular individuals of being totalitarians, but you don’t know that yet.”

Well when you start doing things like branding the free press an “enemy of the people”...

So, the African National Congress, with its “neclassing” (putting intertubes around people’s necks, filled with gasoline, and igniting them)—these are the good guys— and the Dutch and English in South Africa, the Zulus and Angoleans, are the bad guys?

Pan-Africanism is, by very definition, totalitarian. You may say its unity, but its one group controlling everyone.

What a warped perspective. The atrocities in the civil war were horrific on both sides, and the “good guys” won that war with the end of apartheid.

@Yellowdog The African National Congress isn’t a Pan-African group. It is a political party. And while necklacing was often done in its name, the ANC has condemned it and has distanced itself from those who have endorsed it. In any case, you’ll never see me call any political party the “good guys.” (Though I wouldn’t call the Dutch or the English colonists the “good guys” either.)

And if Pan-Africanism is totalitarian “by definition,” then I think you owe us an explanation of what you think the definition is (and maybe a source for that definition). Because no legitimate source I can find defines it as anything close to “one group controlling everyone.” (There are groups that think of Pan-Africanism in terms of political union, but political union is not the same as political control.)

@Darth_Algar Sure, but that’s Trump. As far as I can tell, you haven’t called Reagan a totalitarian. In fact, the only mention of Reagan that hasn’t come from @Yellowdog himself was when @Zaku mentioned that he could fit in well with the modern Democrats.

And the ANC is also a political party, the dominant political party in South Africa.