Why do Americans tolerate Russian President Vladimir Putin's influence in their election? Credit:AP No, Russian apparatchiks can't use America's media to preach international law as Russian planes bomb civilians in Syria, or back the insurrection in a sovereign country. Right-wing icon William F. Buckley once defined a "conservative" as someone "who stands athwart history, yelling stop". It became the mission statement of the long-running magazine National Review. It's a quotation that's haunted me the last several months as Donald Trump continues to build a cabinet of appointees with some connections to the Russian president, even after the FBI and CIA concluded the Russians interfered in the 2016 US presidential election. Yelling "stop" to these forces, which proclaim history is on their side, isn't just the business of conservatives but of any citizen-loving democracy.

Just say 'stop!': Britt Roberston in Disney's Tomorrowland. Credit:Disney The passivity with which the US - its media, government and citizenry - has reacted to the Russians interfering in our affairs, to Trumpism, to the nauseating new lows to which activists on the left and the right have brought discourse on social media and the eroding of moral norms and civic society are cause for alarm. Trump's core support was purely economic – white and middle-working class in the rust belt. But this was also the core of anti-Soviet support in the Reagan coalition, which stretched across parties from evangelical Conservatives to blue dog Democrats. Given Trump's supporters were heavily Republican to begin with, why aren't they more concerned over Russia interfering in the US election? Much of it is the damage of 30 years of conservative talk radio and internet "media" which painted the Democrats as a bigger threat to the country than any outside force. Obama has been equated with al-Qaeda before, conspiracy theorists have tied people in his administration to the Muslim Brotherhood, the birthers (where Trump's first true political foray began) were emboldened by this and continued to push Obama as illegitimate. When the Arab Spring occurred, the US backed democracy movements across the Middle East, including then secretary of state Hillary Clinton vocally supporting democracy marches in Russia. This made her a top enemy to Putin and the Russian government, especially after the US voiced support for protesters during the Ukrainian revolution. The fact that press statements from the US secretary of state set this path shows how shaky the ground is that Putin stands on in Russia. It also shows how Putin portraying himself as an enemy to Clinton made him friendly to a percentage of Republicans.

All politics are local, as the saying goes, but it does little to explain how gutless leaders in both American parties have been in dealing with Putin. Obama's language was strong at times, but action was weak. He expelled 35 Russians from the US but did little else. The Russians declared Clinton's embrace of liberal international relations a precursor to nuclear war during the election and not one politician decried this as ridiculous, or pointed the finger at Putin's responsibility for the hostility. Fyodor Lukyanov, who writes about foreign policy from Moscow, went on CNN to say the post-Cold War global order is based on the falsehood that the US won the Cold War, which went mostly unchallenged, as well as the assertion that Russia is simply taking its rightful place in deciding how things work in the world. Americans are shrugging their shoulders at this nonsense, and it's nauseating. Even during the Cold War, for all the influencing of elections by both superpowers, neither actively tried to change the leadership of the other. That's how huge the Russian interference story is. Maybe this apathy is the result of too many movies and television shows where the CIA and FBI are up to no good. With so few who can stand up to American hegemony, we had to make ourselves into our own bad guys. Middle Americans have taken this literally. When was the last movie where the CIA was the good guy?

For certain, Russia isn't the good guy. That this hasn't been plainly spoken is in itself an American tragedy that goes further than the Obama administration. It's a fraying of our moral fibre and our willingness to confront collective challenges. To those Americans whose grandparents and parents lived through and fought the Cold War and won it without a global conflict, it's a slap in the face. Any country that counts itself as part of the West, of the world of democracy and individual liberty should put forth a vigorous defiance to Putin and a call on Trump and Congress to denounce Russia, its international provocations and its war on democracy worldwide. One dummy Twitter account from Russia posting misinformation is one too many, and if Putin doesn't back off, his country's newfound power in cyberwarfare should meet a quick end. Establishing a new detente, as Stephen Cohen at The Nation suggests, is not acceptable. Russia made tentative steps towards political liberalisation early on in its post-Soviet existence.

Now its government kills political opposition, rigs its elections, imprisons and murders journalists and pursues subterfuge in the US and Europe. There was no place for Russia in deciding the post-Cold War order because it lost, and willingly let its satellites form their own governments. The Russians quit without a bullet, without a fight, because they lost the Cold War on moral grounds and because their economy was a failure. That is not a position from which to wield power. This should never be forgotten. Words are powerful. They have won and lost wars, cause love and hate, and one word can halt Putinism in its tracks before it can further damage Western democracy. Tomorrow is ours, but first we must say "stop" to this moral and political outrage. B.J. Bethel is a journalist living in Ohio. He has written frequently about sports, politics and pop culture and is a specialist in digital media.