this actually isn't the first time this has happened, either.

the reality is that this kind of paranoia is baked into the structure of the american right. it's not just trump. and, the nixon=trump comparison is apt, but it's not just that, either.

check the annals of history: due to his opposition to star wars, and general reluctance to partition the world into two parts, reagan actually honestly believed that the elder trudeau was a communist spy. like, that he was working for the kremlin. taking orders. a useful idiot. maybe he could have helped them write a constitution? but, it's not a joke, it's a historical fact. and, there's good evidence that it's the actual reason he stepped down.

it's also widely believed in canada that jean chretien was pushed out under heavy republican pressure for his refusal to go into iraq.

then, there was the time that lyndon johnson beat up lester pearson (who had years earlier won a nobel peace prize) for criticizing the american role in vietnam.

nobody remembers that igor guy anymore.

so republicans (and some democrats.) have had a hard time dealing with canadian liberals, and have often tended to view them as suspicious, as foreign agents, as communist sympathizers. trump is cartoonish, but he's not an isolated example.