THE AMERICAN POSEIDON ADVENTURE

Viewing Trump walking around China was reminiscent of the first Russian president after Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin. Not only does Trump physically resemble Yeltsin in his later years, when Yeltsin increasingly appeared as a diminished, almost cartoonish caricature of a leader steering his country into a democratic ditch, but Trump has displayed many of the same traits, instincts, and governing impulses. In many ways, he appears to be a Yeltsin “mini-me.”

Yeltsin promised to dismantle the Soviet system, open Russia’s economy, and usher in freer elections. In the process, he tore through long-standing institutional norms while battling entrenched government and political interests. Russia was opened to Western business and state industries were privatized. But that privatization concentrated immense wealth and power into the hands of a privileged class of oligarchs who continue to dominate Russia today.

Initially, Yeltsin was celebrated as a democratic reformer. That image changed once serious opposition emerged. His behavior became increasingly erratic, emotional, fact-detached, and undisciplined. When resistance to his policies intensified, he responded with political force, and eventually military force, ordering troops to fire on the Russian “White House” during the 1993 constitutional crisis.

As Yeltsin aged, his health visibly deteriorated and his stamina declined, weakening both his authority and Russia’s stability. Ultimately, he paved the way for the rise of Vladimir Putin.

Yeltsin’s presidency left behind economic collapse, corruption, oligarchic rule, and a weakened, internationally diminished Russian state.

Look at the pictures. The resemblance is striking, isn’t it?

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