All through the cold war you would have had to search far and wide to find any American politician of any ilk publicly accusing the Russians of dastardly deeds. For the most part, Russia and Russian leaders were treated in public as sane, responsible men, even when they were psychotic killers. The reason? Russia is a nuclear power.
But the Left has discounted the fact that Putin has a big red button because using that big red button is simply not possible in their world view. Thus, Russia can be presented as the Left’s whipping boy and mistreated in any way imaginable if it gives a scintilla of cover or excuse for whatever needs cover or excuses. I think that if Hillary had been elected president there would have been an escalating series of American provocations against Russia that very well could have led to direct war. Here we avoided a world war because cold, sober American politicians from both parties handled Russia and China with deliberate and calculated diplomacy that kept the wars as proxy ones rather than direct confrontation. It would be hard for any elected Democrat to back away from their rhetoric because their appearance to their domestic audience is sooo much more important than stopping global annihilation.
Looking at the present bunch of clowns the Dems have put forward, it will be a long time before an honest press calls a Democrat a “statesman.”
The American branch of the International Comintern has decreed, in the advancement of the New Soviet Man, it was OK to attack the Menshevik Putin in the favor of protecting the Bolsheviki Chinese Party.
The sleight of hand trick is necessary to destroy the evil running dog, capitalist pig Trump.
I think part of the Dems’ obsession with “Russia” is that, deep down, they feel that *they* should have won the Cold War, given their “superior” intellect and statesmanship...not some two-bit B-movie actor that simply pushed the Soviet Union until it collapsed.