Democrats’ Abrupt Reversal on Russian Menace

When Russia was crossing red lines, expanding its military capacity, meddling in the Middle East, and invading its neighbors, Democrats largely yawned.

Throw in allegations that Russia tried to hurt their party’s nominee for president, though, and it’s amazing how fast attitudes change. It is not just Democratic politicians, whose party historically has had a large dovish wing when it comes to Russia, and the Soviet Union before that. Rank-and-file Democrats also are suddenly troubled by Russia.

“It’s a much broader threat than was described during the campaign, and I hope the Trump administration realizes that.”

Some 67 percent of Democrats and voters who lean Democrat say Russia’s “power and influence” is a major threat to the United States, according to a Pew Research Center survey published this week. That is up 30 points from a similar question asked in April. Among Republicans and Republican-leaners, that figure has declined 5 points, to 41 percent.

Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst who now serves as senior vice president for policy and programs at the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, said the dramatic change is likely the result of allegations that Russia hacked the computers of Democratic Party officials in an effort to hurt Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.

But Fleitz said the problem is hardly new.

“The threat from Russia is far more severe and far more pervasive than Americans realize,” he said. “It’s a much broader threat than was described during the campaign, and I hope the Trump administration realizes that.”

Fleitz said Russia under President Vladimir Putin has raced to build up its army and navy and has aggressively negotiated basing rights all over the world. It also has invested heavily in cyberwarfare capabilities and is upgrading its nuclear arsenal.

All this has coincided with aggressive actions outside its borders, Fleitz said. Russia invaded Ukraine on President Obama’s watch, putting an abrupt end to the administration’s “reset” policy. Fleitz noted that Russia violated a cease-fire agreement involving Syria within weeks of its negotiation, and Secretary of State John Kerry’s response was a lame warning that the United States would pull out of talks.

[lz_table title=”Changing Views on Russia” source=”Pew Research Center”]Percentage Calling Russia a Major Threat
|,2016,2017
Republicans,46%,41%
Democrats,37%,67%
All voters,42%,54%
[/lz_table]

“The Obama administration has never had any credibility with the Russians,” he said. “The Russians have been laughing at the Obama administration for eight years.”

Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan said Friday on “The Laura Ingraham Show” that concern about Russia on the Left stands in stark contrast to the view of liberals during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was a far more dangerous threat.

“There’s an element of absurdity here,” he said.

Buchanan said the Soviet Union had a worldwide empire, with naval bases all over the world, puppet governments in Eastern Europe, and clients states elsewhere.

“All that’s gone away,” he said. “It’s all disappeared and suddenly, it is now the Left that’s saying Russia is some mighty great threat to us. It simply is not the threat it was in the Cold War.”

Putin, according to the Pew report, remains an unpopular figure across the ideological spectrum in the United States. The survey, conducted from Jan. 4-9, found that Americans hold unfavorable views of the Russian leader, ranging from 58 percent of conservative Republicans to 84 percent of liberal Democrats.

The Pew survey also found the largest partisan division in views toward the Middle East since 1978. Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, 74 percent of Republicans — but just 33 percent of Democrats — said they sympathize more with Israel. The gap of 51 percentage points has increased dramatically since 1978, when it was just 5 points.

Almost as many Democrats, 31 percent, said they sympathize with the Palestinians more than Israel. Among self-described liberal Democrats, sympathy for the Palestinians exceeds sympathy for Israel by a margin of 38 percent to 26 percent.

To Daniel Pipes, founder of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum, the results are not surprising. He said they are in line with a long-running trend that he has studied for years.

“Liberals increasingly have started seeing Israel in terms of colonialism,” he said.

Pipes said there have been three distinct eras in American views toward Israel. From 1948 to 1970, he said, Democrats were more supportive. They saw it has a destination for victims of oppression, while Republicans saw it as an impediment to building Cold War alliances in the region, he said.

From 1970 to about 1990, Pipes said, the views of Republicans and Democrats about Israel were in sync. The current era coincided with the breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, he said. And the gap keeps getting bigger, he added.

“Certainly it has grown,” he said. “But it’s been there.”

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Part of the divergence in views stems from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has a 50 percent favorability rating among Republicans, versus a 22 percent unfavorable rating. A plurality of Democrats — 45 percent to 21 percent — view him unfavorably.

Pipes said the U.S.-Israeli relationship tends to be smoothest when the leaders of both countries are either conservative or liberal. But he said even when relations between governments are better, it does not change underlying views of the American people a great deal.

“It has less to do with internal Israeli politics than with the evolution of American political attitudes,” he said.