qtasep 💛💙

4. Oversight in government agencies - prosecutors, auditors, inspector generals - was initially touted as a bulwark against corruption. Yet, after a series of well-publicized scandals, many of those who investigated top-level wrongdoing disappeared from their posts. Some were relocated to remote regions; others simply quit under pressure.

I recall feeling uneasy as the Kremlin would spin these forced resignations as "cleaning up bureaucracy." In reality, it eliminated genuine checks on executive power. People I talked to said, "Well, maybe they were corrupt too," but that was just a convenient narrative. A few years later, no serious corruption probes touched anyone high up, because that entire oversight apparatus had been defanged.

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5. Independent television was one of the few remaining spaces for honest debate in Russia during the late 1990s. Then, around 2000–2001, these networks - particularly one that criticized the war in Chechnya - were taken over by entities aligned with the Kremlin. Producers and anchors who refused to fall in line were either pushed out or replaced.

I can't overstate how dramatically the tone of public discourse changed once the most-watched TV channels started echoing the same official line. Local papers and smaller stations could still criticize, but they reached a fraction of the audience. Within a couple of years, alternative viewpoints simply fell off the radar for most Russians, moving to the Internet, which was still a niche medium at the time. Even well-educated friends of mine ended up with a one-sided perspective, almost without realizing it.

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6. The war in Chechnya was Putin's rallying cry, and nightly newscasts beamed stark images of terrorism threats into every household. In that climate, people accepted extreme countermeasures far more readily. Protest became "supporting terrorists," calling for accountability meant "undermining national security." There was this suffocating sense that if you dared to question the government's approach, you were basically an enemy of the state.

That experience taught me how a real crisis - especially one involving national security - provides fertile ground for sweeping "emergency" laws. And once those laws are on the books, they rarely disappear when the crisis ends.

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I moved to the United States in 2011, hoping to leave behind that sense of creeping control. I never expected to recognize so many of the same tactics: painting career civil servants as part of a "deep state," isolating judges who rule "the wrong way," firing inspectors who dare to question executive decisions, or using the budget to reward loyalists while punishing dissenters. In Russia in the early 2000s, we also thought these changes would be blocked by existing laws, democratic norms, and the next elections - until it was too late. "Let's wait and see" was our national mantra, and it got us nowhere.

The U.S. is obviously different from Russia in countless ways. But no democracy, however well established, is immune to an erosion of checks and balances. That's the scariest part: the process can be so incremental that by the time people realize what's happening, the foundations have already shifted.

I'm sharing these specifics not to say all hope is lost, but to emphasize how important it is to notice the little moves before they accumulate. If I had a chance to talk to my younger self in Russia, I'd say: "Don't shrug off small changes - push back while you can." And if I have one piece of advice for fellow Americans, it's the same: pay close attention, stay engaged, and don't assume it can't happen here.

www.tgoop.com/qtasep/3000

561 viewsFeb 14 at 11:10

4. Oversight in government agencies - prosecutors, auditors, inspector generals - was initially touted as a bulwark against corruption. Yet, after a series of well-publicized scandals, many of those who investigated top-level wrongdoing disappeared from their posts. Some were relocated to remote regions; others simply quit under pressure.

I recall feeling uneasy as the Kremlin would spin these forced resignations as "cleaning up bureaucracy." In reality, it eliminated genuine checks on executive power. People I talked to said, "Well, maybe they were corrupt too," but that was just a convenient narrative. A few years later, no serious corruption probes touched anyone high up, because that entire oversight apparatus had been defanged.

---

5. Independent television was one of the few remaining spaces for honest debate in Russia during the late 1990s. Then, around 2000–2001, these networks - particularly one that criticized the war in Chechnya - were taken over by entities aligned with the Kremlin. Producers and anchors who refused to fall in line were either pushed out or replaced.

I can't overstate how dramatically the tone of public discourse changed once the most-watched TV channels started echoing the same official line. Local papers and smaller stations could still criticize, but they reached a fraction of the audience. Within a couple of years, alternative viewpoints simply fell off the radar for most Russians, moving to the Internet, which was still a niche medium at the time. Even well-educated friends of mine ended up with a one-sided perspective, almost without realizing it.

---

6. The war in Chechnya was Putin's rallying cry, and nightly newscasts beamed stark images of terrorism threats into every household. In that climate, people accepted extreme countermeasures far more readily. Protest became "supporting terrorists," calling for accountability meant "undermining national security." There was this suffocating sense that if you dared to question the government's approach, you were basically an enemy of the state.

That experience taught me how a real crisis - especially one involving national security - provides fertile ground for sweeping "emergency" laws. And once those laws are on the books, they rarely disappear when the crisis ends.

---

I moved to the United States in 2011, hoping to leave behind that sense of creeping control. I never expected to recognize so many of the same tactics: painting career civil servants as part of a "deep state," isolating judges who rule "the wrong way," firing inspectors who dare to question executive decisions, or using the budget to reward loyalists while punishing dissenters. In Russia in the early 2000s, we also thought these changes would be blocked by existing laws, democratic norms, and the next elections - until it was too late. "Let's wait and see" was our national mantra, and it got us nowhere.

The U.S. is obviously different from Russia in countless ways. But no democracy, however well established, is immune to an erosion of checks and balances. That's the scariest part: the process can be so incremental that by the time people realize what's happening, the foundations have already shifted.

I'm sharing these specifics not to say all hope is lost, but to emphasize how important it is to notice the little moves before they accumulate. If I had a chance to talk to my younger self in Russia, I'd say: "Don't shrug off small changes - push back while you can." And if I have one piece of advice for fellow Americans, it's the same: pay close attention, stay engaged, and don't assume it can't happen here.

BY qtasep 💛💙