What started as an effort to hurt the candidacy of Donald Trump by claiming he was a Russian “puppet” or “agent’ in 2016 has turned into an all-out campaign of hate against America’s former cold war adversary.  This is a country, that despite being relatively impoverished by Western standards, and having zero ability to attack the United States without committing instant suicide, is still a significant power in the world.  They can have a major impact on their region of the globe in both Europe and Asia through their control of resources and a military presence in their near abroad.

The effort on the part of the media, Democrat Party, and the Neocon wing of the GOP to turn Russia into a pariah state like they have with Iran, Cuba, North Korea, etc. could be a disaster.  Remember, while those regimes have survived despite the hardships imposed on their citizens by US sanctions, efforts to demonize Mao’s China lead to the Korean War, and efforts to demonize Saddam Hussein lead to two disastrous wars in the Middle East in recent decades.  Muammar Gaddafi in Lybia and  Manuel Noriega in Panama both lead to full scale wars and the overthrow or their governments.  Attemps at overthrowing Bashar al-Assad in Syria has lead to the rise of ISIS.

Try isolating and overthrowing Putin and see what happens.  It won’t be pretty.