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The Biden years: when America started to resemble the late-stage USSR

By Vitaly Ryumshin - posted Wednesday, 11 June 2025


And now, as Americans look back on the Biden years, they are forced to reckon with the consequences of their denial. Power didn't disappear, it simply drifted into backrooms and family circles. Decision-making was outsourced to unaccountable figures behind the scenes. And the public was kept in the dark. Even Biden himself, we now know, was shielded from bad polling numbers.

But the deeper lesson is more uncomfortable. Change comes whether you want it to or not. The US establishment tried to shut out the new generation. It only worked temporarily. Trump is back in power. Yes, he is old. But unlike Biden, he has surrounded himself with younger, dynamic figures who are already shaping the Republican Party's future.

The Democrats, by contrast, have learned nothing. Despite their crushing defeat in 2024, the old leadership continues to resist renewal. And now it's costing them. Just recently, the Republicans passed Trump's major tax bill in the House of Representatives by a single vote. That vote was lost because Democratic Congressman Gerry Connolly, aged 75, had passed away just before the session.

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He was the third Democrat to die in office this year.

This morbid pattern hasn't gone unnoticed. Americans have begun to joke grimly that the Democratic Party is literally dying. And the punchlines, as dark as they may be, contain more truth than fiction.

Washington is starting to resemble Brezhnev's Moscow – not just in age, but in inertia. In the end, the lesson isn't about personalities. It's about systems that refuse to adapt. Systems that cling to the past until the present falls apart.

The 'Washington Obkom' may have seemed like a Russian jest once. It's not a joke anymore.

 

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This article was first published on Murray Hunter.



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About the Author

Vitaly Ryumshin is a Russian journalist and political analyst affiliated with Gazeta.ru, a prominent Russian online newspaper.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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