Readers of American Thinker are well aware of the changes Vladimir Putin has instituted in the Russian Federation as he seeks to pull his country out from the spiritual, cultural and economic devastation of 70 plus years of communism.

The short list here should warm the heart of any conservative: restoring the standing of the Russian Orthodox Church, vigorously supporting traditional values- as to gender role models and the family- and finally taking a very hard line against Islamic radicalism as the "defender of the faith".  All of this was encapsulated in a cartoon featuring a picture of Obama and Putin, the caption beneath reading: “One of these men no longer believes in Marxism”.

The joke hits home, for sadly the American Progressive left is ominously retracing the path of the communists. Embracing a totalitarian political ideology that flies in the face of human nature, moving to strongly discourage and even criminalize dissent through political correctness, exiling Christianity from the public realm and actively seeking to undermine our nation's security and moral foundations by serving as apologists and human shields for the infiltration of Sharia Supremacists into our homeland.

Of all of places, these thoughts came flooding into my mind as I, like so many Americans, was engrossed in watching the Summer Olympics. The ancient paradigm of USA versus the Russians was still with me as I evaluated the competition, but with an intriguing twist. Unlike the old stereotype, one couldn’t help but notice that several of the Russian female athletes were stunningly beautiful, significantly more so than their American counterparts: a random Google search of two such athletes, Yulia Efimova and Darya Klishina, showcased their beauty in very classy and traditionally feminine romantic portraits. I noticed no such comparable efforts for the Americans.

So the question is: has feminism seeped sufficiently into the soul and substance of American women as to tip the balance of feminine beauty toward the now more traditionally oriented Russians? And is this not more important to the long-term survival of our nation than the erstwhile “missile gap” of the Cold War? Where to turn for such answers?

Anticipating so much of what we would be arguing about today, Friedrich Nietzsche some 130 years ago proclaimed, with his trademark delicacy, that feminism was a fanatical effort by masculinized and/or unattractive females and their collaborators to obliterate that which is feminine in women. A bit over the top, mais oui? And yet, do we not see more than trace elements of this in the American women of today? I think to a measurable extent, we do and cite for evidence the aforementioned cases of Efimova and Klishina. The point to keep in mind here is that these are two young women who make a concerted effort to present themselves to the public not merely as accomplished world class athletes, but as classy, traditionally feminine and romantically beautiful women.

With some exceptions -- notably Allyson Felix -- I did not see comparable efforts on the part of female American Olympians.

In fact, I see little effort of this kind in any of the iconic women who populate the increasingly vulgar realms of our popular culture. I think the reason for this has to do with the antinomian attitudes inculcated by feminism, where even attractive females are taught to belittle any notions of appealing to the romantic, protective instincts of a man by dressing or acting in a traditionally feminine manner. Miley Cyrus twerking, J Lo hitting the runway at an awards show with significant portions of her private parts exposed, Angelina Jolie emptying a 45 revolver into a designated male victim or kicking him in the groin, Kim Khardashian popping a champagne bottle and having it pour over her head into a glass perched on her ample nude backside are the polar opposites of the kind of classy, traditionally romantic imagery embraced by Efimova and Klishinka.

The Progressive left is hollowing out the American soul at large, and American women in particular. All women, no; but enough of them to make a notable difference in the quality of our lives and civilization. But take heart! The demise of the Soviet Union put the lie to the pretenses of the progressive left that the arc of history bends in their direction. The “Utopian Dreams Living Nightmare” reality show that played to its last house in Moscow in 1989 will end here in America as well. As its epitaph, I recall an ad slogan for margarine from my childhood: “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature”.