“…history and experience prove that foreign influence is often the most baneful foe of republican government.” That was George Washington. 1796.

Mr. Washington lived in a time when the sanctity of national sovereignty was unquestioned. Safety was seen as staying disconnected from outside influences, free from outside ambitions, and untouched by outside wars. Two oceans were our protective walls, and the limitless Western Territories were our future. George can be forgiven for not foreseeing the effects of jet travel, Internet-speed banking, and global-minded businessmen. In the world of 2017 republican government is dependent for its survival not on isolation from foreign influence but on closer and closer international cooperation to establish common rules of conduct and provide a dependable framework for safeguarding a common future. America lived successfully by his insight for over a hundred years. That success ended in 1914. Starting in 1920 and with increasing intensity after 1945 we have slowly embraced the exact opposite position — we have striven to thoroughly entangle our affairs with those of other nations in order to avoid either accidental or deliberate annihilation by our newly empowered technology.

“If there are men big enough in this country to own the government of the United States. they are going to own it.” That was Woodrow Wilson. 1920.

“The business of America is business.” That was President Calvin Coolidge. 1923.

So now we come to 2017. Of the 193 countries currently members of the UN almost all governments are overtly controlled by government-tolerated oligarchs (as for example by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard or China’s Communist Party) or covertly run by sycophantic businessmen dependent for their success on the favors of legislators, who are bought and sold like commodities, as in the United States. In authoritarian states dissenters are intimidated by threats of poisoned umbrella spears or lethal face creams, in republics like ours the intimidation takes the form of money — supplied to ensure re-election of incumbents or withheld to discourage challengers — but the result is the same.

Foreign entanglements, in the form of treaties, trade agreements, and cross-border investments have become so all-pervading that they are now the norm, not the “baneful foe” that the squire of Mount Vernon worried about. Indeed, the United Nations itself is no more than an expression of the desire of nations to become more and more entangled with each other all the while paying lip service to the fiction of sacred national sovereignty to keep super patriots at bay.

So, much as it pains me to find myself defending the Trump administration’s cavalier attitude toward national secrets, I am compelled to concede that the current hysterical efforts to portray the “Russian connection” as a form of betrayal of our national interests are overblown. This is a president who has stated flatly that he is less interested in government than he is in strengthening his “brand”. He has refused to cut the ties between his money-making machines and the legislation he hopes to push through to make them still more profitable. He has declined to reveal the details of his historical tax evasion and in effect replied to our requests for information with an upraised finger. For him his office is just another business win. He is the other side of the “Kremlin, Inc,” coin. We were warned before we elected him. We didn’t care. To complain now is like dreaming that Adolph Hitler would have renounced the ideas in Mein Kampf once he became Chancellor, or that Mao would have tossed away his Little Red Book once he gained entrance to the Palace of the People.

Reagan’s conniving to stall off a Carter deal with Iran to release our diplomatic hostages until he could take the credit for it, and Nixon’s maneuvering to prolong the Viet Nam disaster to ensure his own election victory chances do indeed qualify in my book as treason. They were unheard of transgressions against all humane norms, they cost thousands of lives and millions of dollars, and accomplished nothing but political advantage. Trump’s messages to Putin, to the extent that they may have actually happened, amounted to no more than insider trading tips, and we have seen that today’s laws against insider trading have essentially withered away under the onslaught of vastly improved technological methods of instantaneous and encrypted information exchange. Treason? Hardly. Just solid business tactics, like his avoidance of taxes or hyper litigiousness.

So let’s cool it. The indignation over the Russian connection is just a variation on the furor over the Benghazi and Clinton’s e-mails. Any form of political bludgeon is acceptable to some people. Like Stephen Bannon or Stephen Miller. Let’s leave that type of attack to their ilk and let’s hope that the American people, once having realized how badly The Donald has conned them with promises he has no way of keeping (and clearly no understanding of the risks involved) will come to their own conclusions as to the morality their methods, and whether they more are in the spirit of Washington or of Reagan and Nixon.