Maybe it's headline-grabbing drama? > There is lasting resentment over Brexit (in the US), but nobody cared about Croatian ascension. One factor (of many) is

Maybe it's headline-grabbing drama? > There is lasting resentment over Brexit (in the US), but nobody cared about Croatian ascension. One factor (of many) is language: I'd imagine any domestic happening in an English-speaking country will loom much larger in the minds of of Americans than anything happening in a non-English-speaking one. I'd also image that leads to a lot more convergence. So a US Democrat would in fact have more alignment with a UK Labor party supporter that a lot of other foreign factions. > Ukraine is a US political battleground, but the loss of Crimea was greeted with indifference. I recall Russia's 2014 actions in Ukraine as being confusing (little green men) and being accepted with a whimper. Russia's 2022 actions had high drama: unprovoked invasion, columns of tanks, videos of fighting, big losses followed by big gains, etc. But to your point about "political and cultural moments," that's definitely at play too. The Russian attempts at election interference and the Trump presidency made Russia into an enemy in the minds of liberals, and sometimes I feel like they feel the Ukraine war is almost a front in the anti-Trump "resistance." One other interesting example is Falun Gong. Before Trump, my impression was that Americans were generally sympathetic. But once Trump started taking a more antagonistic stance against China, and Falun Gong then aligned with him because of that, I noticed Liberals echoing CCP talking points about Falun Gong pretty frequently.