Reducing We the Peoples self-government to a private corporations cash cow is hardly a "leftist" principle (just the opposite.) The problem is not that the US has universal public health insurance but that it DOES NOT. Actual universal public health insurance is working fine everywhere from "emerging" economies like South Americas and Russias to leading economies like the EUs (and whatever happens with Greece and Brexit, right now, today, EU GDP is slightly behind or even slightly AHEAD of US GDP, depending on whether we ask the IMF or UN.)

At some point we must face the reality that burying our heads in the sand while the rest of the world ensures ALL their citizens are healthy and college educated without going bankrupt is not exactly a "prescription" for Making America Great Again: It is a recipe for making America a second-rate world "power" incapable of competing with the vast and powerful human resources of genuine world powers.

Not really; South Park had to revise its election episode on the fly when the actual elections results shocked the writers as much as they did Trump and everyone else. Art imitates life, man, but do not put the cart before the horse. The good news for you is that Putin shares your old-fascioned worldview: Keep your malcontent mouth shut and the new regime may not murder you and everyone you love.

Self-government and civil liberties are an exclusively Western phenomenon, hence Russias current KGB leader is as dedicated to eradicating that obstacle as its previous KGB leaders were. While the US may be primary target, it is hardly alone in a target rich environment. Russia is attempting the same thing in France through Le Pen as in the US through Trump and Ukraine through Yanukovych (though Paul Manafort himself is seems too busy dodging treason investigations for Putin to loan him out to Le Pen or Wilders as he did for Yanukovych and Trump.)

Acknowledging Putins aggression in Central Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and right here at home in the US is not "war-mongering;" not in the 1930s, nor in the 2010s. The irony is that Manafort had less success imprisoning Yulia Tymoshenko and installing Yanukovychs puppet government than he did imprisoning Hillary Clinton and installing Trumps puppet government (then again, Trump has not deployed Russian special forces snipers to murder unarmed protesters as Yanykovych did.) That is the problem with Putins fifth columns: Passive resistance and civil disobedience are only viable in liberal democracies who lack the luxury of a genocidal response with no risk of electoral consequences. So when liberal democracies are THEMSELVES eradicated, so is all that Gandhi crap.