Putin, Russia and the Return of Cold War Liberals

In the days and weeks before Donald John Trump was sworn in as the 45th president, there was a lot of attention focused on a 55-year-old film, The Manchurian Candidate. Given Russian interference in the U.S. election, naturally gravitated to the 1962 Frank Sinatra film about a Soviet-Chinese plot to install a puppet in the Oval Office. (Everyone ignored the much-maligned Jonathan Demme 2004 remake.) In January, The New York Times asked if Trump was a modern Manchurian candidate. In December, Saturday Night Live spoofed a shirtless Vladimir Putin telling Trump: “We think you’re the best candidate, the smartest candidate, the Manchurian candidate.” (“I don’t know what that means, but it sounds tremendous,” Alec Baldwin replied in perfect Trump form.)

The film was an exemplary example of what historians call Cold War liberalism, a post–World War II