Former President Joe Biden used the powers of the federal government to expand aid and assistance to Americans. His administration focused on advancing racial equity and helping underserved communities. This January, President Donald Trump assumed unfettered presidential power and took a drastically different approach. Trump’s moves to gut federal programs extend beyond diversity, equity and inclusion. His actions thus far have taken aim at nonpartisan experts and independent bodies, as well as increasing oversight of agencies like the Department of Justice and Department of Education. In doing so, it appears that Trump is taking a page from Vladimir Putin’s handbook on autocracy.
A Colgate University, Assistant Professor of Political Science Masha Hedberg’s fascinating class, “Power in Russia from Gorbachev to Putin,” tracks Russia’s transition from a nascent democracy to an electoral autocracy. Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Soviet Union, launched a reform movement in 1986 centered around openness and democratization. Gorbachev’s reforms loosened political and economic controls and (unintentionally) swept away the one-party system.
In Hedberg’s class, we learned how entire political systems can change in a mere decade. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 initiated a dual transition to democracy and a market economy. After Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian Federation, used decree powers to implement immediate economic reforms. Price liberalization resulted in high inflation, low employment and a deadlocked parliament. Losing taste for democracy, Yeltsin turned to heavy-handed maneuvers. He used military force to dissolve parliament and expand presidential powers. But powerful horizontal constraints remained to prevent presidential overreach. Governors in the Federation Council exercised direct influence over federal policy. Oligarchs came to control the most valuable resources and television networks. Enter Vladimir Putin.
Putin removed guardrails and strengthened the vertical of power. Putin dismantled electoral institutions in 2004, which reduced the status and resources of governors. In the following years, Putin appointed loyal technocrats from Moscow to head regions. Putin’s centralization prioritized loyalty over responsiveness to local needs. Putin’s administration also reasserted control over media and resource-based firms. Putin warned the oligarchs to stay out of politics. When some oligarchs called the bluff and funded opposition parties, Putin launched a series of criminal investigations against them. Putin put former KGB and FSB associates in charge of re-nationalized companies. Proximity to Putin determines access to personal enrichment. After stamping out checks and balances, Putin promoted “moderate” conservatism for electoral support. The Kremlin rewards pro-family, pro-monarchy and orthodox groups with official positions, financial resources and visibility in state-run media. The homophobic and sexist rhetoric serves to unite citizens against internal so-called enemies. Moreover, Putin removed horizontal barriers on presidential power, used the law to instill fear in independent actors and targeted minorities with conservative rhetoric to win popularity.
Following in Putin’s footsteps, Trump cemented power by sowing mistrust in democracy and surrounding himself with loyalists. Trump’s repeated claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election undermine our electoral system. Fox News, Trump’s favorite media outlet, spread and promoted false information about the election results. The 2020 election reveals Trump’s broader political strategy. First, Trump rewarded Republicans on the “stop the steal” bandwagon with positions in key governmental posts. Republicans confirmed Trump’s choice of Pete Hegseth, a Fox News firebrand, to run the Department of Defense. Trump tried to nominate the hard-right, accused sexual predator and unaccomplished legislator Matt Gaetz for attorney general. The common denominator between Hegseth and Gaetz — negligent experience and MAGA loyalty. Second, Trump promises to weaponize the law to prosecute perceived internal enemies. Specifically, Trump wants members of the Jan. 6 investigative committee to be imprisoned. As Putin rewrites the history of World War II to amass a loyal base, Trump pardoned hundreds of violent Jan. 6 rioters to rewrite the biggest threat to American democracy as a “day of love.” Trump’s plans to dismantle electoral institutions do not stop there. According to the ACLU, Trump, now in office, seeks to “intimidate and disenfranchise marginalized voters” and use federal agencies to launch “bad-faith investigations” into citizens that “rigged” the 2020 Election.
It seems that Russia went from a nascent democracy to an electoral autocracy overnight. Putin co-opted governors and oligarchs to pass his agenda. He turned toward internal enemies to redirect attention from a stagnating economy and a deadly war. I fear that Trump skips down the same yellow brick road. With no majorities in the House, Senate and a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, Democrats seem powerless. Republicans in Congress appear to pass Trump’s loyalty test with flying colors. Employing the same strategies, Trump distracts Americans with assaults on Trans people while subtly chipping away at democratic norms. Hearing the inflammatory rhetoric, my impulse is to turn off the TV, not take to the streets. I feel like the exhaustion of a decade under Trump’s thumb succeeded in pacifying resistance. While we might feel defeated and hopeless, Kamala Harris conceded the race with the perfect message: “This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves.”
