Russian-American relations have worsened not because of russophobia, but rather because of several high profile and geopolitically relevant events. The first of these was the invasion of Crimea and the funneling of arms to Ukrainian Separatists engaging in a civil war. These actions are a direct violation of the Budapest Memorandum signed by Russia and the US. Essentially, Ukraine agreed to destroy the nuclear weapons leftover from the USSR in exchange for total respect in regards to territorial integrity.[1] Furthermore, a Russian BUK system, staffed by these separatists downed the civilian airliner Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, killing 298 innocent people.[2]. Furthermore, Russian hackers hacked the emails of both major political parties, and has, literally, a 3 story office complex staffed with internet trolls intent on misleading the American public via social media for the last several years[4]. Finally, you have the most recent incident where Russia attempted to murder not only a former spy in the U.K., but also his daughter, and about twenty other bar patrons, neighbors and first responders. The poisoned used was a nerve gas developed in Russia and exclusively available in Russia.[5]

Clearly, these are meaningful events in the context of American-Russia relations as well as NATO-Russia relations, you can't just handwave them away by saying it's one parties political problem.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit... [3]https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/comey-republicans-ha... [4]https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/03/15/594062887/... [5]https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/14/europe/theresa-may-reprisals-...