@marathon I really don't think it's that puzzling. It's part of the cognitively lazy pattern of simplifying things down to a single icon instead of having to grapple with a complex world.
Keep in mind, also, that major figures in US media these days have backgrounds in sports reporting, for some reason, so they basically promote that sort of pattern, giving people permission to reduce a complex world into the personal icons.
People will be lazy if you allow them, and at this point the culture is actually pushing them to be lazy.
The Western obsession with Russia's president comes out of lazy people trying to make sense of a complex world.
PS, It's also interesting to notice conservative speakers repeating the conclusion that Putin has gone crazy, literally.
So many conservatives conclude that his actions reflect mental illness because they don't make sense, when really that's a symptom of their understanding of the world being wrong. But instead of considering that Russia might be more complicated than Putin, they conclude that it is indeed all about Putin, but he's the crazy one when the news doesn't align with the Putin-centric worldview.
