The more hysterical liberals become about Russia, the more your antennae should go up.

Their selective misgivings with Russia are just like their selective alarm with (our ally) Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the nationalist Chinese government, and (our ally) Ngo Dinh Diem, president of South Vietnam.

As explained in lavish detail in Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, liberals instinctively lunge toward treason.

They say Putin is a “thug” and a “bully” who kills journalists. Liberals never used to mind Russian leaders killing journalists. Nor millions of scientists, writers, Christians, Jews, kulaks, Ukrainians and the entire 1980 Soviet Olympic hockey team.

Have you guys heard of the Evil Empire? Now Democrats are hypersensitive to a Russian leader’s flaws?

Liberals were cool with the show trials, the alliance with Hitler, the gulags, the forced starvations, the shooting down of American planes and goose-stepping through Eastern Europe.

But that was when the Russian leader was Joseph Stalin or Nikita Khrushchev — not the beast Putin!

Back then, liberals were spying for Stalin (Julius Rosenberg’s code name: “Liberal”), the U.S. president was calling the bloodthirsty dictator “Uncle Joe,” and The New York Times was covering up Stalin’s infamous crimes. In the storied history of fake news, the Times’ Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize for his false reports denying the Ukrainian famine, in which more than 7 million people were deliberately starved to death.

As far as the Times is concerned, those were Russia’s halcyon days!

Back when Russia was actually threatening America with nuclear annihilation, Jimmy Carter warned Americans about their “inordinate fear of communism.” Sting sang that “the Russians love their children, too.”

But now liberals are hopping mad with Putin. They could never forgive Russia for giving up communism.

To add insult to injury, Putin embraced the Russian Orthodox Church! This was deeply offensive to fiercely Christophobic liberals.

Russia’s descent into insanity and madness was clear when Putin refused to allow LGBTQ marches through Red Square. For having the same position on gays as Obama did, circa 2008, Russkies were walking on the fighting side of liberals!

Trump’s election victory was the capstone of the left’s rage with Putin. To explain the inexplicable, Putin was made the center of liberals’ axis of evil, the mastermind of a malevolent plot to steal the election from Hillary Clinton.

That’s how liberals became born-again John Birchers, seeing Russians under every bed. Now, no fear of Russia is inordinate. The Russians do NOT love their children, too.

We really could have used some of this fighting spirit about 50 years ago when the Soviet Union sought total world domination and Stalin’s spies were crawling through the U.S. government. But back then, liberals were blackening the names of Whittaker Chambers, Richard Nixon and Sen. Joe McCarthy. (Later proved 100 percent correct by the top-secret Venona Project.)

Russia’s loss of the left’s esteem happened very quickly. In 2008, The New York Times editorial page demanded that Obama “signal to the Russians that he wants better relations,” and complained of the “alarming” deterioration of “Russian-American relations” under Bush.

It was considered the height of statesmanship when Obama was caught on a hot-mic in 2012, telling Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility. I understand you.”

To hoots of laughter at the Democratic National Convention, Obama said: “You don’t call Russia our number one enemy — not Al-Qaida, Russia — unless you’re still stuck in a Cold War mind warp.”

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow couldn’t contain her hilarity over the GOP offering “an extra bonus of threatening Russia.”

But today, Democrats (and two especially showboating Republicans) are horrified that Trump wants to get along with Russia. Tonight, the threatening evil of Vladimir Putin will be the top issue on Rachel Maddow’s show, assuming she still has a show. (Maybe she can get a copy of Putin’s tax returns!)

When the same people who hailed Stalin as a beloved American ally are happy to threaten Putin with thermonuclear war, we may deduce that the left’s newfound Russia-phobia has some seditious objective.

Historically, liberals show their manliness by demanding war with our friends and allies, while methodically undermining America’s ability to fight the wars it’s already in.

The No. 1 enemy of Western civilization today isn’t non-communist Russia. It’s Islam.

And who is a key ally in that fight? Russia has been dealing with these troublesome Muslims for centuries. It was Russian officials who tried in vain to warn our blind, incompetent government about the Boston Marathon bombers.

The left’s hysteria about Russia isn’t just an attempt to delegitimize Trump. It’s the usual Christophobic fifth column rooting for the Islamization of the West.