I put "Socialists" and "Communists" in quotation marks to point out that the logic that sees Democrats as "Socialists" is the same faulty logic that could be used to declare contemporary Russians "Communists."
Clearly Russia has not been a communist state since the fall of the Iron Curtain fell in 1991.
Since 1991, Russia has become a murderous kleptocracy headed by an autocrat who opposes Democracy.
Putin schemes to destroy American Democracy in a number of ways, foremost among them hacking away at American institutions, the collapsing integrity of our electoral process being the most visible.
Meanwhile American "conservatives" applaud Putin who learned all his dirty tricks as head of the communist KGB, a guy who still operates from that essentially repressive frame of mind.
"You can take Putin out of communism, but you can't take "communism" -- as an overarching form of oppression -- out of Putin.
The fact that American conservatives don't "get this" is yet another self-deluded component in a system of thought that believes Trump is "making America great again."
Consider this report from "The Washington Examiner," the only conservative daily newspaper in D.C.
“We believe the European Union countries are our friends, and the Russians are not,” Mitch McConnell said. (He then) listed an array of malign Russian activities such as the annexation of Crimea and “the indisputable evidence that they tried to impact the 2016 election... I would say to our friends in Europe, we understand the Russian threat, and I think that is the widespread view here in the United States Senate among members of both parties,” the GOP Senate leader concluded.
If interested in reading the full article, here's the link: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/mcconnell-russia-is-not-our-friend
As for the assertion that Democrats are "socialists," you can actually learn something at:
Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders Quotes
https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/03/socialist-senator-bernie-sanders-quotes.html
