This is the fundamental genius of Putin’s entire enterprise: Unwinding his now considerable influence over the American government requires Americans - and the political right in particular - to admit that they got beat, and taking the L is almost constitutionally unamerican. 
And it is PARTICULARLY difficult for the right, much of whose political identity is founded on the idea of America as a perfect nation.
Those of us who know America’s imperfect history and have had to fight to participate in its full promise are far more dispositionally willing to acknowledge a national L when it happens and make changes so that it doesn’t happen again.
