Neil Godfrey of Vridar.org asks “Why does there seem to be so much, dare I say, “hysteria” over Russia in your country? (I could understand it, without agreeing with all of it, during the Cold War era. But now…?)” He then follows up with that explaining:

The reaction to Trump’s meeting and follow up announcements with Putin with calls of “treason” and such is what’s “really” on my mind. Sure Trump is no statesman and one can find much to criticize with his Putin meeting, just as one could with the North Korean leader. But the response to the Russian meeting appears to me to be stretching way beyond anything that was said of the Kim Jong-un meeting. Treason? Betrayal of his country? As if Russia is ravenous bear with jaws ever-threatening to devour the US and the world.

Even before the Trump meeting, the attention on the Russian “meddling” in the 2016 election strikes me as having bordered on farce. Of course other countries are known to attempt to sway elections in their rivals and neighbours. China, USA, Russia… It’s a serious issue but much of the attention seems to be disproportionate to other (domestic) problems with elections. — Unless the interference is coupled with massive support for local terrorist or other revolutionary forces.

Sam in WV replied to this saying: “This is a deep state campaign with deep roots in our corporate media. From time-to-time our American elites become worried that there is not sufficient support for the chronically profitable MIC (military-industrial complex), even from a new president with vast business connections. Even the Democratic party is recruited this time to push a narrative that only expands and entrenches the all pervasive MIC.”

Normally other countries do not attempt to penetrate the voter registration rolls to impose their will. Yes, the United States has done far worse in the past, like installing the Shah in Iran. But, you know, the Left are the only ones who ever bring that up. Why should the American Left put up with the Russian Right breaking American laws to help the American Right subvert the already-Right-leaning electoral college system because the American Right has done the same or worse to other countries in the past? Just as we on the Left sympathize with the countries who have had their Democratic rights stripped of them by our fellow citizens, we should expect that the Left in other countries would sympathize with our desire to prevent illegal conspiracies to subvert democracy here. The Neo-Conservatives relentlessly criticized Obama as being too soft on Putin, telling him he would have “more flexibility”, wanting a “reset”, and were highly critical he did not do more about Crimea. Now Trump wants to allow Russia back into the G7, and seems to be trying to cause conflict with NATO, essentially going left of the Democrats on Russia while keeping a Right-wing foreign policy agenda for Israel, Syria, and the Middle East in general. This all ties in with all his sons’ secret meeting with Russian officials and his son’s previous admission that all their money comes from Russia. Republicans like to keep talking about the “Deep State” as if it didn’t suddenly become common knowledge as soon as it was needed as an excuse for blaming FBI director that helped him win the election as secretly wanting Trump to lose all along. No Republican before Trump would have believed the CIA or FBI was controlled by Liberals but now it’s heresy to suggest otherwise. The toss-up has caused a weird fractioning among old alliances where many old Neo-Cons have joined the center-left Democrats while the far left like Noam Chomsky and Glenn Greenwald happen to be on the same side as Trump in regards to Russia (but nothing else) because they want NATO to be scaled back.