Whats really sort of crazy to me is that now it's the Dems who are virulently anti-Russian ("Russian spy!" "working for Putin!") when before, for decades, it was the Republicans. For decades Dems would make fun of anyone who said anything negative about Russia or communism in general, and it was portrayed as a sort of laughable Republican paranoia and hysteria. Like when Romney said Russia was our "major geopolitical foe," Obama openly laughed at him and said, "The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years." That was a very Democrat response. THis was 2012. The idea was that it was ludicrous on its face to be worried about Russian policies.

It's more extreme now from Democrats than it was in the 1970s and 1980s from Republicans when Reagan talked about Russia being an 'evil empire.' It has more of a righteous zeal to it now and it's more personal (all of the hate is directed against the leader, Putin, as opposed to the government as a whole).

But it's also more collective, as in punishing Russian athletes just for being Russian (like at Wimbledon). That level of collective hate never happened back in the Cold War and reminds me of anti-Japanese hate during WWII.

To me, the level of hate is more like 1950s with McCarthyism, and in some ways worse-like the athletes barred from playing. To me, imo, that was off-the-charts hysteria-driven. So yeah, I find it's more extreme now. But I wasn't alive in the 1950s so maybe it was worse then.