Meeting in Alaska, summit in China, Russian drones in Poland… Meanwhile, the United States under its Forty-Seventh President is steadily self-dismantling its democratic system – until recently a model for many countries. A closed, enchanted circle is forming, and Ukraine finds itself at its center.
Two murders as signs of a new era
Alongside these emblematic political events, the present era is marked by two high-profile murders in the United States that occurred almost back-to-back. In late August – early September, the media exploded with news of the horrific death of a refugee from Ukraine, Iryna Zarutska. Twenty-three-year-old Iryna, a resident of Charlotte, North Carolina, was returning home after an ordinary workday on a tram. In a half-empty car at that late hour, she sat in a seat in front of a young Black man. Suddenly, he plunged a pocketknife into her neck. She died almost immediately.
The exact date of her death is unknown, because the media “explosion” occurred only about three weeks after the tragedy, when the young man’s identity emerged and certain political forces perceived a “convenient” political subtext for themselves. Iryna’s killer is a maniac, a repeat offender, and, in addition, diagnosed with schizophrenia; his “record” includes armed robberies and other serious felonies for which, one would think, prison doors should not have opened. The media seized on this very point: why is the American justice system so indulgent toward such people? Why are the mentally ill who are dangerous to society not receiving appropriate treatment and left at liberty? The President, Donald Trump, appeared to make use of the sad occasion and offered condolences to Iryna’s loved ones.
And on 10 September, a new high-profile murder completely eclipsed the reports and debates about the killing of Iryna Zarutska. In the state of Utah, at a university, in broad daylight, Charlie Kirk – a young activist of the pro-Trump movement and a close friend of Vice President J. D. Vance – was cold-bloodedly shot. In the heat of the moment, without even waiting for the arrest of the murderer, President Trump delivered a speech in which he immediately “pointed” where to look for the trail: these were the deeds of “left-wing radicals.” “We will get to everyone who was involved in the murder of Kirk and in other acts of violence!” – the President of the United States declared.
Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff of the White House, said“The final message that Charlie Kirk gave me before he joined his Creator in heaven was that he said we must eradicate and confront the left-radical organization in this country that is stoking violence. That was the final message he sent me… we are going to do this at any cost” (this quotation was reprinted by several outlets, from the conservative Washington Examiner to the more centrist Newsweek, citing Miller’s conversation with a Fox News host).
The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kash Patel, announced that he would “investigate and interrogate” everyone suspected of involvement in the murder.
These statements by high-ranking officials can mean only one thing: the murder of Kirk will become a signal for the start of repressions against everyone who is labeled “left-wing radicals.” President Trump has counted among them, in particular, judges who restrained his orders regarding immigrants, the dismissal of civil servants, tariffs, and so forth. Somewhat reminiscent of the McCarthy era?
After thirty-three hours – the length of the search for the alleged murderer – it turned out that the suspect, Taylor Robinson, comes from a conservative family and is himself a supporter of President Trump. True, as reported by the media and by the prosecutor who officially charged Robinson on 14 September, he had “romantic relations” with a transgender woman. It also came to light that, on his last day, Kirk had been conversing with university students and said, among other things, that transgender people are criminals. In general, Robinson noted that Kirk “sowed too much hatred.”
These two murders have become symbols of American present-day reality. On the one hand, there is indulgence toward genuine criminals and a real lack of an effective system of assistance and treatment for the mentally ill, who are left alone with their morbid fantasies. On the other hand, there is aggression toward everyone and anyone who is in some way different. Hatred between races (perhaps Iryna was killed simply because, as a white woman, she “dared” to sit in front of a Black man?), between political forces, hatred of immigrants – in truth, in the United States all, except Indigenous peoples, were immigrants at some point; they have simply forgotten this.
Against the background of these tragedies, many bloggers recalled the tragic days following the horrific terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. At that time Americans united as never before; even incidents against Muslims were surprisingly few. President George W. Bush made strenuous efforts to foster such unity. I remember numerous meetings, gatherings, and discussions in churches, mosques, and synagogues; remarkably frequent encounters among representatives of different religions; joint events – everything was directed toward uniting society.
At present, President Trump does not even attempt to work for the sake of societal cohesion. On the contrary, he and his officials fan the flames of hatred – toward immigrants, toward “the left,” into which all political opponents are lumped – while from the right flank of the political spectrum President Trump not only fails to see aggressiveness and destructive attitudes, but emphasizes that these individuals are, as it were, the true patriots! (Let us recall: the first step of his second term was the mass pardoning of participants in the January 6, 2021 riot. Now Congress will reconsider all its own decisions concerning those events.)
In reality, the escalation of aggressiveness and hatred within the United States comes from both extreme ends of the political spectrum – tearing society ever more deeply from within. Public-opinion surveys attest to this. That said, the murder of Kirk seems to have sobered society somewhat.
“In April, the Network Contagion Research Institute, together with Rutgers University, found that fifty-five percent of respondents who identified themselves as center-left said that the murder of President Trump would be at least somewhat justified. Forty-eight percent said the same about Elon Musk, and forty percent of respondents, including fifty-nine point six percent of center-left respondents, said that destroying a Tesla dealership in protest was at least somewhat acceptable,” notes Jonathan Draeger, RealClearPolling.
“And in a survey conducted in the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s murder, on 10 September, political violence was deemed acceptable by fourteen percent of Democrats, thirteen percent of independents, and only six percent of Republicans. On the other hand, eighty-one percent of Republicans stated that violence is never justified, compared with seventy-two percent of Democrats and sixty-five percent of independents,” Draeger observes.
Those who justify political violence constitute ten to forty percent of American society, Draeger concludes.
After Kirk’s murder, the Governor of Utah, as well as former President Joe Biden and the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, expressed condolences to his family and called for lowering the temperature of confrontation. However, will American society hear the voices of the moderate and the responsible in the atmosphere of the current White House?
Consistently, gradually – away from democracy
From the first days of his second presidency, President Trump has been consistently dismantling the foundations of the country’s democratic system, the Constitution of which he swore to protect. The dismantling is systemic and gradual along all foundational lines: the expansion of the executive branch at the expense of the legislative and judicial branches – which are increasingly subordinated to the White House; mass dismissals of dissenters, especially in the national-security apparatus; an ever harsher “war” against immigrants for the slightest violations of immigration law; the redrawing of electoral districts to benefit future candidates who are supporters of President Trump; a chaotic foreign policy oscillating between open and covert sympathies for the world’s dictators.
The gradual, almost imperceptible daily advance of these “reforms” disarms American society – it simply does not notice how destructive they are, notes Mike Lofgren, Salon.
The author attempts to show the impact of President Trump’s policies on the life of the average American: an almost imperceptible rise in prices due to tariff and trade wars unleashed by President Trump (however, the market will not endure this for long and will be forced to raise prices sharply as a result of higher duties); broader-than-before access by government agencies to private information and personal data (which enables the collection of compromising material against political opponents); the arbitrariness of immigration enforcement, which has been given a green light; a significant deterioration in the condition of parks and preserves resulting from the dismissal of twenty-four percent of employees in that field; political control over education; a decline in medical care through manipulations involving vaccines and medicines, the dismissal of specialists, and reductions in the admission of foreign students to medical schools – and so forth.
“There is a comprehensive attack on cognitive intelligence as such and a coordinated effort aimed at undermining the very foundation of a modern developed society: education, health care, disaster relief, objective statistical research, any public services (the National Guard is now picking up trash at the Mall, given staffing cuts at the Park Service) and even such things as weather forecasting.
They literally want to push the country backward and cause destruction; otherwise why would government institutions be dismantling cybersecurity? (Hint: the latest cut came a few days after President Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Anchorage),” writes Mike Lofgren.
As for cybersecurity – and not only that – there have already been several sweeping “purges” of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other security organs of specialists, including in the realm of intelligence regarding the Russian threat.
“Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard recently confirmed that the Trump administration revoked security clearances from thirty-seven current and former national-security officials. Gabbard even publicly disseminated the names of these officials, mindlessly exposing at least one CIA employee in the process, and baselessly accused them of ‘politicizing and manipulating intelligence, leaking classified information without authorization, and/or deliberately committing gross violations of industry rules and standards.’
These steps, combined with purges of counterintelligence specialists and intelligence officials across the federal government, constitute an obvious and immediate threat to the national security of the United States. The result may be damage to America’s foreign intelligence and domestic security services, making the country vulnerable in future armed conflicts with its adversaries,” writes Kevin Carroll, The Dispatch.
To a large degree this is driven by President Trump’s desire to purge everyone who was involved in investigating Russian influence on the 2016 elections, in the first impeachment, and in everything his political opponents, in his deep conviction, hold against him concerning his sympathies for the Russian dictator. However – not that alone.
“Many of the officials whose clearances Gabbard revoked came into the sights of right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, because they had earlier signed a public letter that questioned President Donald Trump’s failed attempt to demand that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy investigate Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election. Others were persecuted for accurately warning about Russia’s attempts to covertly influence the 2016 election in Trump’s favor. Meanwhile, career national-security personnel were dismissed for various reasons, ranging from investigating and prosecuting participants in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot to disputing President Trump’s claim that United States strikes in June resulted in the ‘complete destruction’ of Iran’s nuclear facilities,” the author notes.
“Much of what the administration is doing now is illegal and will likely be struck down by the courts in time. There are strong grounds to believe that public and politically motivated purges violate a number of federal laws, including the Administrative Procedure Act, the Privacy Act, and the Fifth Amendment due-process provisions. But, as a former Army and CIA officer, I fear that interference from the White House will in the meantime inflict lasting harm on the intelligence community’s ability to defend the homeland,” Kevin Carroll concludes.
The further, sequential dismantling of checks and balances
From the first days in the White House, President Trump and his team set about subduing the legislative and judicial branches, which, according to the Constitution, are not only independent but are obliged to oversee the executive and to counteract it when it exceeds its delineated bounds.
In the first months, the Supreme Court – including the three justices appointed by President Trump in his first term – tried to act in just that way. President Trump publicly scolded them, writing on his social network Truth Social that by their decisions they were “destroying the country.”
A few months later, the Supreme Court became unrecognizable. It now upholds even the most arbitrary presidential directives. For example, the revocation of Temporary Protected Status from… Afghans who worked for Americans during the war in Afghanistan; from refugees from Nicolás Maduro’s regime (Venezuela) – and so on.
It turns out that a “loophole” was found. The semi-officially proclaimed “state of emergency” by President Trump gave the Supreme Court an opportunity to employ the so-called shadow docket – a procedure by which cases in the Court are handled in an expedited fashion and judicial decisions do not require detailed explanation.
“In such cases, public oral arguments before the justices are not held, and the decisions are usually brief and unsigned,” note Jen Wolf and Nate Raymond, Reuters.
Such decisions by the Supreme Court reduce to nothing the last bastions of the system of checks and balances – the rulings of independent federal courts, in which those aggrieved by presidential directives tried to achieve the restoration of their rights.
At the same time, the influence of the minority in both houses of Congress is being flattened. Within the ranks of the Republican majority there is no longer dissent – all unanimously support President Trump’s initiatives, even the clearly unpopular “Great Beautiful Bill,” which contains significant cuts to medical insurance for poorer strata. And in the minority (although the caucuses in both chambers are divided almost evenly) there are fewer and fewer possibilities to influence the legislative process. Thus, Republicans in the House of Representatives, by a simple majority, approved the White House’s proposal (in truth, command) to rescind funds previously approved by Congress for public broadcasting and for humanitarian aid to other countries in crisis situations. They themselves approved them – they themselves rescinded them; what is so surprising here? The funds are more needed for renaming the Department of Defense as the Department of War, for a military parade (which took place in June), for remodeling the very building of the White House – and, of course, for expanding the “immigration police.”
And even that is not enough. There is also a redrawing of electoral districts so that Democrats cannot win in the 2026 midterm elections. By law, the map of electoral districts is drawn up in each state separately based on the results of a nationwide census conducted every ten years. Districts are to be delineated so as to allow voters to vote independently.
However, now in some states, in defiance of the rules, districts are being redrawn so as to encompass predominantly Republican supporters. Thus, in Texas, the size of three districts has been increased – which may yield more votes for three Republican candidates. The district maps are approved by state legislatures, again by a simple majority.
In response to this arbitrariness, the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, proposed to redraw the district map of the largest state as well – in favor of Democrats, to preserve balance. This initiative has been placed before the state’s voters – it now depends on them whether California will follow in the footsteps of Texas, which would further undermine the rules and foundations of the democratic system of the United States, although, in such a situation, it might also balance Texas’s distortion.
As a result of all these processes – the flattening of the Supreme Court, of Congress, and of the independence of electoral districts – the executive power of the President is expanding and strengthening each time, encountering ever less resistance. These are already evident steps along the path of transforming the United States into an autocracy.
In its inner substance, this autocracy is directed backward, despite all the novelties of artificial intelligence and the like. President Trump is striving to nullify the achievements of, above all, the second half of the twentieth century, when American society, having undergone cardinal reforms, came closest to its idealized image – relative interracial equality, the stability of the middle class (approach to the “American Dream”), relative stability of the economy, free space for development in all fields, relative stability among social strata, and so forth.
Such an idyll could not last – gradually, crises and social problems mounted. Above all, over the last thirty years, the gap between the poor and the very richest has markedly grown; the middle class – the backbone of society – has diminished substantially. Other problems have also intensified (their consideration is a separate topic).
However, President Trump’s policy not only fails to facilitate the resolution of complex problems, it sharpens them, deepens social division, and increases society’s overall aggressiveness. The old, good America is disappearing before our eyes, acquiring more and more traits that are more characteristic of Putin’s Russian Federation or of China.
Similar tendencies are gaining strength in Europe as well.
Of course, the United States is still far from the Russian Federation, yet the trends point in that very direction. Thus, Ukraine finds itself in a terrible enchanted circle: the democratic world is shrinking rapidly, moving toward autocracy with a regressive, reactionary content. The less democratic foundations a country has, the closer it becomes to the world’s dictators – the Russian and the Chinese. (An exception is Poland: at present right-conservative forces have won there, who also do not favour democracy, yet with the Russian Federation they will most likely not draw closer – the threat from it is too great.)
Will Ukraine’s victory in the war – or at least the cessation of its hot phase – occur before autocratic tendencies encompass the entire world? And will the democratic countries come to this realization at all? Such difficult questions arise amid the whirl of present events, which, it seems, are accelerating ever more.
About Author:
