“If this had happened during the Cold War, it would be cut, dry, and treason.”

That is demonstrably false.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for providing top-secret military designs to the Soviet Union as part of a broader campaign of espionage during the height of the Cold War. They were conspicuously *NOT* charged with treason b/c the US was not engaged in a hot war with the USSR:

“Judge Irving R. Kaufman presides over the espionage prosecution of the couple accused of selling nuclear secrets to the Russians (treason could not be charged because the United States was not at war with the Soviet Union).”

Or are you arguing a willingness to accept dirt on Hillary Clinton in 2016 is worse than handing over nuclear weapon designs in the middle of the Cold War?

You can argue Trump Jr. shouldn’t have taken the meeting, that doing so proves Team Trump welcomed help from Russia, that it was unethical, etc. What you cannot argue until more damning proof emerges—say of a quid-pro-quo relationship between the Trumpkins and Russia or their involvement in an effort to perpetrate a legal fraud during the election—is that the Trump campaign has violated a law or done anything particularly unique.

Yes, yes, Putin is a bad guy and we shouldn’t want anything to do with him. The same can be said about many of our allies e.g. Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Algeria, Kuwait, the UAE, the Ukraine (and not just the part held by pro-Russian/Russian forces), etc.

Consequently, all the hysteria is hard to take seriously, especially when the steadiest drumbeats come from Clintonites who have such an obvious agenda that has nothing to do with national security (i.e. distracting from one of the worst campaigns and most humiliating defeats in American electoral history).