Term 2 Trump looking like mid-late period Yeltsin in so many ways: an individual with visibly diminished physical and mental capabilities inhabiting an extremely powerful presidency, with no clarity over who is wielding actual decision-making power, presiding over a wildly corrupt system...

April 10, 2026 - 12:01 UTC

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I recall the late Sir Chris Meyer, who served in both Washington and Moscow, saying that US and Soviet bureaucracies had more in common than was generally realised. However, I believe he was thinking about the process to get car licence plates ('tags') from the DC Department of Motor Vehicles...
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Maybe it will end the same way, with the breakup of the USA. Some states will leave and join Canada, maybe a couple will join Greenland! California could secede. Florida will be underwater soon so erm whatever.
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...that benefits the family and those willing to prop up the president, turbo-charging an oligarchy and leaving everyone else behind; starting catastrophic wars that show a total disregard for humanitarian law; fixated on international status and respect while tanking both and blaming everyone else.
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That ended well…
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Yeltsin selected Putin, a man with a preternatural fixation on loyalty *in both directions*, to keep his daughter safe and rich in exchange for selling out russia

Trump has the same fixation, but only in one direction. Therefore, he will not and cannot find his own Putin

Not that it’d work
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Does that mean there's an American Putin waiting in the wings to replace him? 😬
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Absolutely fully agree

And no guarantee this rot will end with Trump.
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And who would know the period of Yeltsin's & his collapse better than...
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