Remember when calling someone a “communist” was a classic right-wing ad hominem attack on anyone who failed to conform to jingoistic American behavior and pro-capitalist attitudes?

For decades, the United States considered the Soviet Union its most formidable foe. Thankfully, we never engaged in a hot war with it, never fired a single shot–although for 13 days in 1962 we came dangerously close.

We did, however, lose scores of American soldiers in Korea and Vietnam trying to prevent communism’s spread. We inserted ourselves into myriad countries’ elections and civil wars because we wanted their governments to resemble ours. We gave Cuba the silent treatment for fifty years until former president Barack Obama resumed relations just before leaving office.

The U.S.S.R.–the Soviet Union–is, of course, no more.

But in its remnants, Russia remains an international antagonist, regardless of how sycophantic our current president is toward its leader, Vladimir Putin.

So, who would have imagined the party with a penchant for lodging the label “Communist” at anything challenging the Republican agenda would actually be engaged today in efforts to align itself with its atavistic boogie man?

The Alabama white supremacist hate group, “League of the South,” has launched a website to help forge an alliance between Russia and the American South to promote “Southern nationalism.”

Its website, launching a Russian-language page days after Donald Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin, points to “natural similarities” between Russian culture and conservative southerners.

The group’s leader, Michael Hill, stated in an online letter:

“As fellow Whites of northern European extraction, we come from the same general gene pool. As inheritors of the European cultural tradition, we share similar values, customs, and ways of life. And as Christians, we worship the same Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and our common faith binds us as brothers and sisters.” 

He added the Russian-language page would be “the first step toward building a firm and resolute understanding and commitment to cooperation between the Russian people and the people of the South that could indeed be the foundation for a better world in which our peoples thrive and prosper far into the future.”

The group calls for a second Southern secession, a “European American-dominated” society, and believes the “Anglo-Celtic elite” should govern the “godly ” nation.

While it would be unfair to stereotype all Republicans as racists, the GOP has not exactly been the party of inclusion since at least 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson “lost the South for a generation” upon signing the Civil Rights Act.

Now we have a president who demonizes minorities; calls undocumented immigrants from “shithole countries” “animals;” bans people from Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia entry into the United States; claimed Haitians “all have AIDS;” mocked a Muslim Gold Star family; accused a federal judge of being unable to impartially preside over the Trump University case because he is of Mexican descent; made a Native America slur at a ceremony for Navajo Code Talkers (below a portrait of Andrew Jackson); claimed there were “very fine people on both sides” of the Charlottesville, Va. white supremacist rally last August; called Mexicans “rapists” and “drug dealers” in his campaign announcement speech; and rose to power spearheading the

Don’t forget–he also has a genuine adoration for Russia.

Trump supporters have already warned of civil war if the president is impeached.

Republicans lionize former president Ronald Reagan, who spent two terms in office pushing back against the U.S.S.R.

Their idol is today rolling in his grave.

Image credit: Al Jazeera