When you think of history’s great couples like Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Martin and Lewis, you would be remiss if you left out the one that bristled with the most passion and love. The one that started, stopped, and started again for decades. The one that made the world hold its breath on several occasions. That’s right: the Democrats and Russia.
You wouldn’t know it from Biden’s empty butch talk in Geneva, but not too long ago the Russians could do no wrong in Democrat eyes. They wanted to geopolitically snuggle with them, desired “peaceful coexistence” with Soviet tyranny, and one of them actually went to Moscow to ask the Russians to intervene in an American presidential election.
But that was when the Russians were communists, hated America, and were a direct threat to American national security. These were things the Democrats liked and in the 1940s, when the fate of Eastern Europe was in the balance, then again from 1972 to 1991, when the Soviets gave up the ghost, Democrats could do nothing but sing their praises. Not only that, but Soviet Intelligence, during the F.D. Roosevelt and Truman administrations, had thoroughly infiltrated those Democrat governments to the highest levels. But hey, no big deal. Every romantic relationship has its ups and downs.
That’s why it’s so funny to hear Democrats turn on Russia these past several years. What you’re really hearing is a scorned lover crying out in desperation over their lost romance. But alas, even though Vladimir Putin is a former KGB Colonel, it is unlikely the Russians will return to their red ways. They left that legacy to American Democrats.
What’s the timeline of the romance? A senile FDR cuddles with Stalin at Yalta and Eastern Europe is lost for almost 50 years. Soviet spies inside the Democrat Party like Alger Hiss, Elizabeth Bentley, and Harry Dexter White have a lot to do with this attitude under FDR and inside the Truman administration. The Democrats and Soviets then a take a long break, as Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson see other countries. But when the Left takes over the Democrats in 1972 all is forgiven and the two adorable red kids stage a public reconciliation. In 1976 Jimmy Carter tells us to get over our “inordinate fear of communism.” The Soviets reward him by invading Afghanistan. Gee, guess who was wearing the pants in that relationship?
But no matter how badly they were treated the Democrats kept coming back for more. They backed Soviet initiatives around the world, opposed American defense expenditures, and followed the Moscow line in international affairs. So much so that Ted Kennedy actually went to the Kremlin in 1984 and asked them for help in beating Republican President Ronald Reagan in the November election.
Until the Soviets fell in 1991, the modern Democrats clung tight to their geopolitical paramour. So if and when any Democrat goes off on how Trump was a Russian puppet and how Democrats are brave adversaries of Moscow, remind them of the couple’s history. They’d still be together today, but only one of them is still Marxist. And it’s not the Russians.