Today's US Parallels the former Soviet Union and Putin's Russia
By Tom Kagy | 23 Oct, 2025

Trump's systematic erosion of bedrock institutions puts the US on the path of the former Soviet Union and Putin's Russia.

The bolt-from-the-blue tariff war against the world and mass deportations of migrant workers essential for US industry has disrupted the US economy.  

What worries Americans even more is Trump's apparent determination to weaken institutions like Congress, federal agencies, leading universities and state governments by either usurping key functions or imposing rigid MAGA guidelines.  He's even reshaped the Justice Department into his personal enforcer by using it to prosecute his enemies, real or perceived, for real or imaginary crimes.

An artist's depiction of Trump making good on his campaign pledge about the Constitution.  (Image by Grok)

An estimated seven million Americans felt strongly enough about Trump's power grab and abuses to participate in last Saturday's No Kings protests across the US in over 2,600 cities big and small.  This turnout, as well as the latest polls, suggest that their concerns are shared by 30 times that number or nearly two-thirds of American adults.

The same concern is also shared by political scientists and historians who see strong parallels with what happened in Germany during the Nazi rise to power in the 1920s.  And we all know how that ended for Germany and the rest of the world.

Like Hitler and the Nazis, Trump and his MAGA following have essentially declared war on democracy itself, as well as an insane war against world.  Of course we're only nine months into Trump's regime, so for the US time remains before the we reach the point of no return from the doom loop of destroyed institutions and economic and social chaos.

Yet it's worth seeing the parallels with what happened in the 1970s and 80s to send the former Soviet Union toward irreversible decline, and the downward spiral now emerging for Putin's Russia.  Putin insists he's winning his war with Ukraine — the way Trump keeps insisting he's winning his unilateral trade war with the world — but Russians, and foreign observers, see signs of impending economic collapse and the resulting political upheaval and demise of both Putin and Russia.  

Of course Putin could come to his senses in time to end the war and try to salvage the Russian economy before he's ousted or worse.  But like Trump blinded by his sheer lack of insight into the source of US strength, Putin suffers from the peculiar delusion of a shrewd cold-war KGB chief convinced that his cunning can manipulate the likes of Trump, Zelensky and EU leaders to his ends, especially with China providing considerable economic and geopolitical cover.

But economics and history are absolutely unforgiving.  The precise delusions of tyrants matter little.  It's only a matter of time before economic, geopolitical and social realities create a powerful backlash to bring about their inevitable demise in today's human civilization.

To detail parallels between today's US, the collapsed USSR, and Putin's declining Russia, we enlisted an AI analyst without political biases using the prompt:

Compare what is happening in the US currently under Trump with what happened in the Soviet Union to precipitate its collapse and what is happening today in Russia to precipitate its decline.

ChatGPT:

That’s a deep and important comparison — and one many political scientists, historians, and economists have begun drawing implicitly.
Let’s examine it carefully and factually, focusing on institutional patterns, not partisan judgments.

🇷🇺 Historical context: The Soviet collapse (1980s)

Key institutional failure:
The Soviet Union decayed because its institutions stopped processing reality — information, accountability, and innovation were systematically suppressed.

Mechanism of declineSoviet exampleInformation distortionBureaucrats falsified data to meet quotas → leaders lost real feedback.Elite captureThe Communist Party became a self-preserving ruling class.Suppression of dissentEliminated early warnings and constructive criticism.Ideological rigidity“Scientific socialism” became unquestionable dogma, blocking adaptation.Economic stagnationNo incentive for innovation or efficiency; oil dependence worsened vulnerability.

The USSR collapsed when these extractive institutions could no longer maintain legitimacy or basic economic performance.

🇷🇺 Contemporary Russia (Putin era)

Continuity of institutional decay:

• Power centralization: Checks and balances dismantled; all major institutions subordinated to the executive.

• Information control: State media dominance and legal repression of independent journalism recreate the Soviet information bubble.

• Corruption and crony capitalism: Resource rents (oil, gas) feed patronage networks instead of diversified growth.

• Isolation from feedback: Suppression of opposition and civil society leads to poor strategic decisions (e.g., war in Ukraine).

• Brain drain: Educated citizens, scientists, and entrepreneurs emigrate — a classic late-imperial symptom.

Result:
Russia’s system, like late Soviet institutions, exhibits the same traits of institutional brittleness — strong on coercion, weak on adaptability.

🇺🇸 The United States under Trump (institutional analysis)

Here we need nuance: the U.S. remains a pluralistic democracy with strong independent institutions.
But certain trends — especially under Trump and parts of the MAGA movement — resemble early-stage institutional decay patterns familiar from the Soviet and Putin experiences.

Institutional stressorSoviet/Russian analogueU.S. trend under TrumpInformation distortionParty propaganda replaced truth; leaders got false reports.Systematic discrediting of independent media, labeling unfavorable information as “fake news.”Elite capture of institutionsParty elites controlled courts, economy, and media.Efforts to politicize DOJ, loyalty tests for civil servants, and attacks on independent agencies.Erosion of rule of lawLegal system served political ends.Pressure on courts, promises of retribution against opponents, and attempts to ignore norms.Delegitimization of electionsSoviet elections were ritualized; Putin’s are tightly managed.Repeated false claims of election fraud undermine faith in electoral legitimacy.Polarization & cult of personalityLenin → Stalin → later leaders elevated as infallible.Personal loyalty to Trump often outweighs institutional or constitutional norms within his faction.Use of nationalism as glue“Great Patriotic” rhetoric covered material stagnation.“America First” rhetoric mobilizes grievance and tribal identity rather than institutional renewal.

The common denominator: weakening the feedback loops — free press, impartial institutions, electoral legitimacy — that allow a democracy to self-correct.

⚖️ Key difference

• The U.S. still has strong, decentralized, competitive institutions (federal courts, state governments, independent media).

• The Soviet system lacked them entirely — the Party was the state.

• The danger is that if democratic norms and trust continue to erode, the U.S. could replicate aspects of Soviet-style institutional rot: governing by loyalty rather than law, information bubbles, and suppression of dissent through social or economic pressure.

🧩 Structural parallels (institutional decay logic)

StageUSSR 1980sRussia 2020sU.S. 2020s (MAGA influence)Information breakdownFalse data from ministriesPropaganda & censorshipDisinformation & polarizationInstitutional captureParty monopolized stateKremlin monopolizes powerAttempted politicization of key institutionsIdeological rigidityMarxism-Leninism dogmaMilitarized nationalism“America First” grievance ideologyEconomic myopiaOil dependenceSameProtectionism + economic isolationism rhetoricLegitimacy crisisCollapse of belief in systemGrowing emigration & isolationDeclining trust in elections & institutions

The pattern is less about ideology (right or left) and more about the erosion of truth, accountability, and institutional checks — the same decay dynamic that felled the USSR.

🧭 Summary insight

The fall of the Soviet Union and Russia’s current stagnation show what happens when institutions serve power instead of truth.
The U.S. faces a test of whether it can resist that drift by preserving its pluralistic, self-correcting institutions — independent courts, a free press, professional bureaucracy, and trust in elections.