The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America

Moscow won This argument about negative-sum games was made by Volodomyr Yermolenko, “Russia, zoopolitics, and information bombs,” Euromaidan Press, May 26, 2015.

Such a turn away Firsts: Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die, 61–64. The two instances when Trump suggested Clinton should be shot: Wilmington, North Carolina, Aug. 9, 2016: “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is.” Miami, Sept. 16, 2016: “I think that her bodyguards should drop all of their weapons. They should disarm them, right? I think they should disarm them immediately. What do you think? Yes? Yeah. Take their guns away. She doesn’t want guns. Take their…Let’s see what happens to her.” Dictators: “Trump’s ‘Very Friendly’ Talks with Duterte,” NYT, April 30, 2017; Lauren Gambino, “Trump congratulates Erdoğan,” TG, April 18, 2017. Trump refferred to President Xi of China as “a friend of mine”: “Excerpts from Trump’s Interview with the Times,” NYT, Dec. 28, 2017. Dead souls: PK, Nov. 1, 2016.

The electoral logic The voter suppression commission operated for a year within the White House, and then was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security in order to dodge legal challenges. Michael Tackett and Michael Wines, “Trump Disbands Commission on Voter Fraud,” NYT, Jan. 3, 2018. “Major event”: Eric Levitz, “The President Seems to Think a Second 9/11 Would Have Its Upsides,” NY, Jan. 30, 2018; Yamiche Alcindor, “Trump says it will be hard to unify the country without a ‘major event,’ ” PBS, Jan. 30, 2018. See also Mark Edele and Michael Geyer, “States of Exception,” in Michael Geyer and Sheila Fitzpatrick, eds., Beyond Totalitarianism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2009), 345–95.

The temptation Russia offered I focus here on the immediate risks for the United States. On the possibility of a global return to mass killing, see the conclusion of Snyder, Black Earth.