The US is extremely ramping up the rhetoric against Russia because the US is insane. Hillary Clinton and her people especially, they are recklessly accusing Russia of hacking our elections (without evidence) and engaging in extensive scare-mongering about Trump being cozy with Putin (without evidence), but no Americans see it this way because the entire media is in the tank against Russia.
It mostly all traces back to geopolitics and trying to remove countries that are in Russia's sphere of influence. For example, what precipitated the unconstitutional coup in Ukraine? Well, the democratically elected Yanukovych had just previously decided not to join the EU, but rather enter the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union. So Yanukovych was removed and replaced by an unelected pro-western government. And what is the reason for the even more increasing tensions between Russia and the US today? Well, Assad is allied to Iran and Russia, and had just refused a pipeline agreement with Qatar that would have bypassed Russia, and instead made an agreement with Iran. Russia is helping defeat al Qaeda and other jihadist militants in Syria that the US and allies like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan are funding to help topple the Assad government. Therefore Russia is working against US interests, and therefore we are getting from our officials and media a new red scare.