Original post by AlexanderHamIt's said to see an otherwise intelligent person having been completely taken in by propaganda, as you have been. President Obama, when he came to office, tried really hard to improve relations with the Russians, with his "reset" policy. President Obama believed relations were bad with Russia because of the evil neocons and President Bush, and if only there was a rational, friendly person in the White House then relations would improve.
What he found out was that relations are bad because the Russian government finds it impossible to behave like a civilised nation-state. The annexation of Crimea is the first such non-treaty change of nation-state borders in Europe since Hitler. Russia's attacks on the LGBT population are utterly revolting, as are his dictatorial tendencies and his kleptomaniac style of government. And after 2012 there was a distinct shift in the tone of Russian state propaganda organs and media shills, as Putin started going in really hard on the, "We, poor little Russia, are under siege from the evil Illuminati west. We are a bastion of goodness, under siege from the forces of darkness" to frighten the Russian people.
Russia has become more and more aggressive each year (flying nuclear bombers right up to the British and American air borders, moving nuclear weapons into the Kaliningrad Oblast, etc etc), it has acted more and more outrageously each year (the murder of 298 innocent people, Dutch, Malaysians and Australians, on flight MH17, by weapons provided by the Russians to terrorists). And, of course, we see in the 2016 election the Russians not only hacking the DNC (which by itself woudl be a legitimate espionage operation) but brazenly and openly trying to interfere in the outcome of the US election, which comes close to being an act of war.
But I suppose when you live in the conspiracist / Alex Jones / Breitbart sort of world, it's very easy to be pro-Putin because you're inculcated with the idea that all Western governments are evil and that Putin is the only world leader who is "fighting the Illuminati". And thus any lie and outrage perpetrated by, or in faovur of, the Russians becomes acceptable. And one witnesses the most pathetic emotional investment of the hard left and far right into Russia and Putin personally, such that they will justify anything and deny even indisputable facts.
I think most ordinary people are getting tired of this crap, tired of the butt-kissing of Vlad Putin, the incessant justifying of Russian aggression.