Americans, from media figures to presidents, have been naive about Vladimir Putin

I'll never not be embarrassed at that image of two Ohioans proudly sporting "I'd Rather Be Russian Than a Democrat" T-shirts at a 2018 Trump rally near Columbus.

It's safe to say that in light of Ukraine, most Americans today wouldn't wash their dogs with such a thing, but the shirts still are available online.

After James Alicie and Richard Birchfield of Delaware were blasted for their T-shirts, they told Cleveland.com that they weren't traitors, but they did like that they were being tagged as "Russian hillbillies."

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I'm thankful for having grown up a Cold War kid. Before we could read, our cartoons taught us that the Russian government was never, ever to be trusted. Many of us were toddlers or barely in school during the Cuban missile crisis, which nearly ended the world as we know it, and were young adults when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.

Alicie and Birchfield should have known better. But it's not just been ordinary citizens and washed-up action stars like Steven Seagal who are drinking whatever passes for Kool-Aid in Moscow. It really has been astonishing how naive a parade of American media figures, presidents and politicians have been about Vladimir Putin and Russia.

Red Sparrow

While it remains true that “Politics is the art of the possible,” practically everyone tossed Ronald Reagan's admonition to “Trust, but verify,” out with the bath water, starting in 2001 when George W. Bush rhapsodized of Putin: “I looked into the man's eyes. … I was able to get a sense of his soul.”

That wasn't a soul Bush saw.

It was an abyss.

Joe Biden said he once told Putin, “I don't think you have a soul.” Putin replied, “I think we understand one another.”

Notice he didn't deny it.

Back in 2012, Barack Obama and the Democrats laughed when Sen. Mitt Romney warned that Russia was the world's biggest threat. As president, Obama actually thought Putin might be open to constructive dialogue. Obama all but conceded Syria to Russia, which allowed Putin to help crush all meaningful resistance to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, a war criminal who gassed his own people in 2017.

Perhaps the only person Putin hates more than Obama is former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose clunky attempt at a diplomatic reset cratered like a bad souffle.

Before she went to jail for being an unregistered agent, you couldn't count on two hands the grinning Republican men who posed for photos with Russian red sparrow Maria Butina, who was escorted around Washington like she was Betsy Ross, once again proving that women don't even have to think of anything new.

The truth is, we Americans are starting to find out just how intertwined we are with those whom we've deemed to be a danger to us. The Kentucky Teachers Retirement System, for instance, just lost $3 million after divesting its 863,000 shares of Sberbank, a Russian bank they invested $15 million in back in 2017.

Meanwhile, back in Columbus, Ohio State University just powered down its Russian-made robots, which delivered food on campus … which begs the obvious question: Who in the hell signed off on Russian robots trolling around an American university?

Mad for Vlad

Ordinary people rely on media to learn about geopolitics, which is deeply complicated. But there are talking heads such as Tucker Carlson misleading his viewers to the point that he's now showcased on Russian state TV for claiming that Putin only has Russia's sovereignty at heart, a position that only changes when such foolishness becomes indefensible.

As a result, we now have Americans wondering whether a strongman would indeed be better than the messiness and push-and-pull of a democratic republic.

But no one's naivete comes close to that of Donald Trump, president-for-life of the Mad for Vlad Fan Club.

Swooning like a preteen at a K-pop concert, Trump has tried to pal round with Putin for decades, repeatedly lauding him as smart and savvy, even a genius.

At the 2018 Helsinki Summit, Trump emerged from a private talk with Putin, stooped and shrunken like the Wicked Witch of the East, then proceeded to choose Putin's lies over his own intelligence community.

While president, he increased Russian oil imports by 39 percent after Obama had reduced them by 22 percent.

Because we've cut off Russian oil imports — and yes, because there's some price-gouging — everything is costing more. There's no denying it's difficult, but it could be much worse. We've already forgotten how cheaper gas in 2020 made it easier for the refrigerated trucks to keep all the bodies cool.

It's still better to dig deeper than to be a pro-Putin Russian.

Reach Charita at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @cgoshayREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: You can't be more wrong than to be a pro-Putin American