How to Save America From the Authoritarians

In Russia’s public museums today, antiquarian statuary depicting naked Roman or Greek figures is condemned by the Kremlin as violating the country’s “deep moral traditions.” Sharing unauthorized information about Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine war is punishable by up to 15 years’ imprisonment. All things Western are cancelled.

Russia is a tyranny, which makes some of us feel naive. Three decades ago, we fooled ourselves all that was over. When meeting Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin — leaders of their country during its democratic false dawn — I, like many people, supposed them to represent the future.