Bulletin: The Expressive Function of the Russia Freakout
Like the Tea Party in the Obama years, liberals lament a country they no longer recognize — and go hunting for foreign culprits to blame.

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin arrive to waiting media during a joint press conference after their summit on Monday in Helsinki, Finland. Chris McGrath / Getty
Bulletin is a chronicle of socialist comment and analysis from Jacobin’s Seth Ackerman.
The other day I saw a friend and comrade I respect arguing that, however distasteful some of the liberal rhetoric swirling around the Russia issue may be, the Left should nevertheless “resist Russian meddling.” Putin, after all, runs an oligarchical gangster state whose political values are diametrically opposed to the Left’s, and Trump wallows in the same noxious waters.
That actually makes sense to me. So where do we start?