From the end of WWII until about 2014, Republicans were anti-communist, anti-authoritarian, anti-despot. America had only one enemy, communism, during the Cold War. When the Soviet government collapsed, America retained its wariness of Russia until Sept. 11, 2001, when we turned away from Russia and to the newly recognized enemies elsewhere. Over the 2000s, those tinder box countries erupted in violence, and America was pulled in many directions, not paying much attention to Russia.
By 2012, Mitt Romney was the only presidential primary candidate to recognize or even mention the Russian threat during the campaign. In April 2005, Putin said, “the collapse of the Soviet empire was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the century.” Putin spent the following years working to correct that mistake. America became vividly aware of the new Russian threat during the 2016 election cycle and the four years of the Trump administration, during which Republican politicians and some conservative Americans flipped 180 degrees from anti- to pro-Russian and pro- to anti-American policies and beliefs.
Can a political party that supports aggression against its neighbors and suppression of dissent at home win American elections in 2022 and 2024? We will know soon which side the majority of Republicans are on.
