Endorsing a candidate is not "meddling in elections". Anyone trying to sell that line is not on the level.

There certainly have been plenty of instances of the US doing very bad things globally (your second link is very much legit), but I guess the stated goal of spreading democracy is better than whatever straight up authoritarian states like Russia are peddling, even if it can be frustrating when things fail to live up to the ideal.

I think you can certainly argue for less US involvement abroad and still view Russia's actions in a very, very poor light.