[drewmassey]

I compiled a works list of the composer Virgil Thomson, who wrote two operas with texts by Stein. I don’t think it is that hard to understand the politics of certain modernist artists given their impulses towards utopia, comparative naïveté in geopolitics, and, as mentioned in other comments, the prevailing structure of feeling at the time.

Yes, it would be strange to see a poet of Stein’s stature today staking out the positions that she does, but artists such as Dalí were also doing similarly puzzling political declarations at the time. That’s not an excuse for any of them, but history does not get written (merely) for us to stand in judgement of mistakes of the past.