“only 27% of people age 65 and older had a positive reaction to the word that most of them still associate with the Red Scare.”
Uh, no. Not “the Red Scare”. Poverty, oppression, the gulag, lies, and mountains of corpses.
Why do you think that Hillary et al. selected Russia as the means to try to discredit Trump? The DemocRATs have always poo-pooed legitimate concerns about the USSR, and they know that we remain concerned about the policies the USSR practiced. Thus, when it came time to personally discredit Trump, and the usual tactic of dragging someone out to say he sexually assaulted her 40 years ago didn’t work, they came up with the idea of saying that Trump colluded with Russia. Why not... Hillary was already bought and paid for by Russia, it’s not like they had to use much imagination here.