It seems the mere sight of Cyrillic is enough to send Russiagate true believers into a tailspin. The innocuous tweet from the official IRS account, which was about a new tool to help people apply for the stimulus payment, unleashed an utterly dumbfounding stream of mind-meltingly stupid conspiracy theories.

Among the deranged replies were numerous xenophobic questions asking why the message was in Russian, jokes about US President Donald Trump outsourcing the IRS to Russian mobsters, and absurd claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin is running the US government “through encrypted communications.” 

Among those peddling the nonsense was Josh Marshall, the founder of the liberal Talking Points Memo website. Award-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald took Marshall to task over his message, describing it as “jingoistic,” “xenophobic,” and “McCarthyite”.