Twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, one thing is increasingly clear: Boy, do the Republicans miss communism.
For Republicans, being anti-communist didn’t merely mean opposition to the Soviets and their ideology. That kind of anti-communism was all but universal in the United States, from the Republican right to the small, democratic socialist left (and encompassing European socialists as well). For the 45 years after World War II, however, anti-communism was also the Republicans’ ultimate wedge issue in U.S. politics.
In September, 2009 Atlantic Monthly named 
