By Oliver Kornetzke
I’m not a historian. I’m not a Kremlinologist or a credentialed scholar on authoritarian regimes. I’m not a behavioral psychologist, and I don’t hold a PhD in fascism or kleptocracy—though frankly, given the state of the world, I’m starting to wonder if we all should. But I’ve lived in Russia for some time. I’ve spent time in Eastern Europe. I’ve read obsessively, listened carefully, and paid attention like my life depended on it—because, in a very real sense, it does. And while I’ll leave academic dissection to the ivory tower, what I can tell you from the ground is this:
What’s happening in this country isn’t just cruel—it’s methodical, strategic, and deeply familiar to anyone who’s studied or survived under regimes built on repression and rot.
We’re watching a script play out—one that was written in the blood and bureaucracy of Putin’s Russia, refined in the dungeons of Chechnya, perfected through decades of oligarchic decay, secret police intimidation, and mafia-state theatrics. And now it’s being re-staged here in America, rebranded with flags and lapel pins and the tired language of “law and order.”
The Trump regime—this carnival of third-rate strongmen, grifters, sycophants, and sadists—isn’t innovating anything. It’s copying. It’s importing the authoritarian model wholesale. They’ve read the Putin playbook, dog-eared the best parts, and now they’re running it in real time. And the cruelty? That’s not a flaw in the system. That is the system.
Because cruelty serves a dual purpose: it distracts and it paralyzes. It shocks the conscience just long enough to make you forget about the theft happening in broad daylight. It freezes resistance by making you wonder who’s next. It’s not just about dehumanizing the target—it’s about disarming the observer. You see a 52-year-old seamstress abducted by masked agents in broad daylight, and your mind stops. That’s the point. While you’re frozen, they’re looting the vault.
Putin’s critics—brave dissidents like Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and Alexei Navalny—laid it out plainly: behind the thuggish repression, there’s no grand ideology. There’s only theft. Power is just a means to steal more, protect the stolen, and destroy anyone who threatens the racket. Navalny made that crystal clear. Putin’s state isn’t built on belief—it’s built on plunder. And everything else—beatings, censorship, propaganda, disappearances—is just set dressing for the heist.
Trump, a failed businessman and serial conman, didn’t stumble into power because he had a vision. He stumbled into it like a raccoon into a jewelry store: overwhelmed, opportunistic, and desperate to grab everything shiny before the lights come on. He brought with him a gang of similarly hollow, self-serving goons—parasites in flag pins—who recognized that brute force and spectacle could serve as a perfect cover for mass-scale corruption. All they needed was enough boots, enough masks, and enough Americans too scared or too exhausted to resist.
That’s what ICE is now—a terror squad designed not just to punish the “other,” but to frighten the rest into submission. They don’t need to knock on your door. They just need you to see what happens when they knock on hers. They want you disoriented, enraged, heartbroken, and above all—silent.
It’s not about immigration. It’s about domination.
But here’s the part they never count on: you can only keep people paralyzed for so long. Fear calcifies. Shock fades. And eventually, rage focuses.
So let’s speak plainly: this is not normal, it’s not American, and it’s not sustainable. It’s a kleptocratic death cult wearing the face of democracy. It’s an authoritarian racket hiding behind courtrooms and uniforms. And it will fall—just like every regime before it that mistook violence for invincibility and corruption for competence.
What can we do? First, resist the paralysis. Rage, yes—but don’t retreat. Pay attention. Speak out. If something feels wrong, say it’s wrong. Refuse to play along with their language, their framing, their euphemisms. They are not “removing undocumented immigrants.” They are disappearing people. They are not “restoring law and order.” They are weaponizing the state.
And just as importantly: take care of yourself. Joy, community, love, rest—these are not luxuries in a time of repression. They are acts of defiance. They are the fuel for the long fight ahead. Because this will be a long fight. There will be distractions, casualties, betrayals. But there will also be courage. And solidarity. And moments that remind us exactly why we fight.
Because we don’t do it for the flag. We don’t do it for politicians. We do it for every seamstress dragged from her car. Every family torn apart. Every dissident silenced. Every protestor jailed. We do it to honor the civil rights marchers, the freedom riders, the Stonewall rebels, the water protectors, the labor organizers—the defiant, the bold, the brave.
And we do it for the Americans who laid down their lives to crush fascism in Europe. For the soldiers who stormed beaches to fight against tyranny, not wave it in through the front door. For those who fought in the jungles and the deserts and the streets—not for conquest, but for freedom. For those who knew that authoritarianism doesn’t need to speak a foreign language to be a threat.
And we do it because we must. Because history is watching. And this time, it’s our names on the line.
Let’s make sure they’re remembered for the right reasons.
Please re-post this great piece on Facebook while people are talking about the terrible, horrible Alaska debacle. I wanted to, but honestly don’t know how.
Thank you.
Dear Oliver Kornetzke:
I read a lot. A lot. This column by you is the best thing I have read. You inform, you instill hope for better days, you remind us who we were, and who we can still be, if we recognize what is happening before our eyes. Please, let it happen in my lifetime. You are a phenomenal writer, and inspirer. How can I keep reading you? I will share this column with all my friends. Thank you.
**A Hilarious Expedition into Oliver Kornetzke’s World of Historical Hallucinations**
In the enchanted world of self-appointed political commentators, few give us more comedic material than Oliver Kornetzke. A man who seems to fancy himself a self-aware oracle, sounding the alarm on a dystopian future that only he can discern. His detractors, rather aptly, have ascribed his worldview to an acute case of TDS—Trump Derangement Syndrome—for which, sadly, there seems to be no cure.
Oliver draws laughably hyperbolic comparisons between the current American political landscape and the darkest chapters of history. According to his prophecies, Trump’s America is a reincarnation of 1930s Germany. One can only chuckle at this armchair historian who seems to have slept through History 101, yet remained awake just long enough to make flashy but misguided comparisons.
Our dear Oliver appears to live in a universe where the real threats of authoritarianism and kleptocracy are not global or historical issues to be studied with nuance, but rather personal nightmares of his own creation, presumably fuelled by an overconsumption of dystopian novels and anti-dry humor.
Kornetzke wants us to quiver at the “cult of personality” surrounding Trump, painting it as the harbinger of doom. But let’s pause for a moment and salute his incredible talent for conjuring entire narratives from the ether. Perhaps if Oliver stepped out of his echo chamber, he’d find that the world is a tad more complex than his fever dreams suggest.
And then, there’s his prophetic zeal. Ah, Oliver, who believes he’s guarding the gates of democracy with his typewriter! By all means, Oliver, man your post! It’s just that your tower is built on dunes of sand, your arsenal of metaphors a mere frivolity.
Let us rejoice in Oliver’s intellectual theatrics—an exhibition of erudition untethered from reality. While he rails against imagined tyrannies, those of us rooted in the present, equipped with practical reasoning, will step forward to engage with the complex, nuanced dialogue that democracy demands.
So, dear readers, raise a glass to Oliver Kornetzke! May he forever play the fool in the grand theater of political discourse, reminding us that history is best construed with substance, not with the theatrics of paranoia.
I CHUCLE at You, Mark T. You refuse to SEE what’s happening right in front of you.
It’s people like you, who follow the likes of Trump, that’s tearing our Country Apart, destroying “Freedom” of the people, make life Miserable for people in need of help & support by taking away health support for those who need Drs & medications, etc.. Causing families to lose their homes, putting FAMILIES out on the streets (homeless), driving up unemployment, cutting Social Security that the elderly worked all their lives, paid into, to help support them in old age (when they can’t work or too old to be hired).
And, rather than support those who need & deserve it….you support the Billionaire’s who have everything they want, so much more than they need, “live their lives in Luxury” & never have enough. Good for them, their happy & secure. Tho not content…they need to destroy our National Forrests, for their greedy selfish way of life….the almighty buck…That the people Driven out of their jobs no longer have, because the jobs have been ELIMINATED, can’t return to it…& are losing their homes, can hardly afford the most simple foods to feed their families…& HEALTH CARE? No longer have insurance to help with that…..IMAGINE THAT!!
There’s so much more!!
THIS IS WHAT YOU SUPPORT…FOLLOWING THIS REPUBLICANS ADMINISTATION.
OPEN YOUR EYES TO THE TRUTH OF THE DESTRUCTION OF OUR COUNTRY & PEOPLE
IT’S KILLING US!!!!
I love what you say. But what troubles me is that what I see in America is not massive resistance that massive compliance. Big law firms, huge media conglomerates, prestigious universities just roll over and do his bidding. There are no strikes and few demonstrations. The Democrats in Congress seemed to have died in their sleep. The constitution turns out to be pretty irrelevant. Not so much ‘live free or die” as “ok,where do I sign?”
I don’t understand it. I don’t much respect the UK nowadays but I don’t think we would go under quite as easy as this.
What it makes me think is that we have always misunderstood America. It was never like us never shared our values. All that stuff about liberty was just performance. All that ever really mattered was money and power and perhaps race.
I hope to god I’m wrong. Because if I’m right then America has gone under forever, and if America goes then we go too, I’m under no illusions about that.
So please people convinced me that I’m wrong!
What you see is the massive compliance of the “oligarch-controlled” segment of America, and unfortunately, that segment is large and powerful. And, as was made obviously apparent in the 2024 election, a large and unhealthy segment (almost half) of our population voted to usher in fascist authoritarianism. Why?
Anger at being left behind? But too ignorant to understand that they have been left behind due to the policies successfully implemented by the fascist authoritarians they voted for – that America’s greatly expanded income inequality is due to successful GOP/oligarch policy enactment during the last 50 years. There’s a reason for why the GOP withholds funding for public and higher education: ignorant people are easier to propagandize and control.
Skillfully propagandized fear of the other and labeled as the hated “libs” (who are educated and oppose fascist authoritarianism)?
Oliver Kornetzke explains it well.
I won’t try to convince you that the greater than half of the American population who are alarmed, appalled, and resisting this destruction of our democratic republic, are going to prevail in this fight. We are demonstrating. Although you’d never know it from the media coverage. But the odds of our ability to quickly turn this around are dismal. The Project 2025 cohort have diabolically laid the groundwork for this coup for decades. A big one was the buyout and stacking of the Supreme Court. The Robert’s Court proceeded to legalize buying elections, gutting the Voting Rights Act, and legalizing gerrymandering. Couple that with the weaknesses in our 250-year-old Constitution, and the anti-democratic structural obstacles contained therein: the Electoral College, and the 2 Senators per state regardless of population, and you leave The People with limited power and options.
This Administration’s current assault on the rule of law has been viciously aggressive. And while, the lower courts are ruling per Constitutional precedent, the Supreme Court is ignoring precedent (often without oral/written explanation of their decisions) and in almost 100 percent of cases, is siding with Trump in his Presidential over-reach – a polite wording for his lawlessness.
I am an 82 year-old woman with a former career in USAID-funded International Development. Despite our warts and shortcomings, I care deeply about my country and always believed that our trajectory would continue on the path toward freedom and justice. Although I have been aware of the dangerous slide toward GOP oligarchy since Reagan, I never thought I would live to see our 250-year experiment in democratic rule collapse in ruin.
You, Great Britain, may once again have to stand alone, so get busy and undo BREXIT, and unite and lead.