"Why is America so afraid of getting along with Putin."

Good question.

Because America has moved beyond the Cold War, and Putin hasn't. He's a reformed Cold War spy, an ex-Communist--and, like ex-smokers, we know what they turn into: oligarchical capitalists with strong totalitarian tendencies.

Capitalism in Russia has, well, Russian characteristics.

"What's happened their own form of capitalism in the image of what was portrayed to them as the reality of the West by the old Soviet Union's propaganda machine. They were informed there was nothing but gangsterism, gross and endemic corruption, naked profiteering, as vast, starving, utterly exploited underclass and a tiny number of rapacious, vicious capitalist crooks who were entirely above the law. Of course, even at its most laissez-faire the West was never like that, but that's what the Russians have created for themselves."