Gay rights, Olympic doping, Magnitsky, poisoning journalists, invading the Ukraine, illiberal government and kompromat come to mind...

If you're American, aren't you supposed to be for democracy? I understand your point about kompromat... But shoudn't the Russian people be the ones dealing with gay rights, poisoning journalists, illiberal government, and shouldn't the Europeans be the ones dealing with Ukraine? Why do you go around giving your opinion about other people's countries? Mind your business!

Hard to have a democracy when journalists are poisoned, their companies leaned on/threated/had their licenses revoked by the state, and the main election opponent to the Prime Minister thrown in jail.

Still none of your business. You get upset when someone interferes with you, but think it's ok interefering? Such hypocrisy.

I don't get it. The original question asked "why don't Americans like Russia" and I replied with reasons why I / other Americans don't like Russia. I didn't say anything about interfering.

If you asked me why I didn't like, say, the movie "Dunkirk", and then I told you why I didn't like it, it would be really odd to reply that it's not my business.

It goes back a little farther than that. Cold War. I know, I was there, man!

I see nothing wrong with the people of Russia. However, the Russian state and Putin himself work very hard to undermine the USA and occasionally harm its people, and at other times, the people of other sovereign nations.

Truthfully I would hope Russians feel the same way about the USA. While United States citizens might seem amicable to Russians, the US government is not meant to be their friend.

Essentially, I don't get a vote in Russia's government, so I don't want it affecting my life

Okay I think this is the answer I was looking for, thank you. It also helped me understand why my question was a little off the mark/why I got downvoted so much.

I mean how can anyone not like a gentleman like Putin, right?