08/09/2025                                                                            
                                    
                                    
                                                                        
                                        If you want to know what America's future could look like under continued MAGA rule, just look at Russia.
Russia should be one of the wealthiest, most developed, and significant countries in the world. Instead, it's a kleptocratic pariah state where 1 in 5 homes don't have indoor plumbing.
Russia has the largest reserves of natural gas in the world. Vast oil, coal, and mineral deposits, and natural capital valued at hundreds of billions of dollars.
It has the world’s largest diamond reserves, and is the leading global producer of nickel, palladium, platinum, gold, titanium, and bauxite
Despite its cold climate, Russia has some of the most fertile land in the world, and is the world’s largest wheat exporter, even under sanctions.
It is strategically located between Asia and Europe, and could be a global logistics hub, especially as the Arctic becomes easier to navigate.
It inherited well developed heavy industry from its Soviet past, and is a world leader in space, nuclear, and military technology.
Yet the GDP per capita in Russia is less than a quarter of Germany’s. The life expectancy for the average Russian is the same as it is for Palestinians or Hondurans, a full 11 years shorter than that of Australians.
So where has the money gone?
This is a society where the President runs the world's largest organised crime syndicate, masquerading as a government. In the 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index, it scored just 22 points, placing it 154th out of 180 countries. A 2021 study noted that corrupt officials steal nearly a trillion rubles annually through public procurement schemes.
But the real corruption can be found in the small group of loyal oligarchs who control the nation's largest companies. Each of them owe their wealth to Putin, and understand he can, at any stage, take that wealth away.
According to the World Inequality Lab, the richest 1% of Russians control approximately 56.4% of the nation's total wealth. This makes Russia one of the most wealth-concentrated countries in the world.
The Global Wealth Report revealed that just 110 billionaires own nearly 35% of Russia’s total wealth, a truly astonishing level of concentration.
Loyalty to the regime is rewarded with influential positions and lucrative government contracts. Putin's childhood friends, Soviet era colleagues, and the Godfather to his children, have all become billionaires by obediently loitering in the Kremlin's inner circle. It has been posited that Putin himself might actually be the richest man in the world, despite spending his life as a civil servant.
The regime weaponises nationalism and religion to define a collective identity. While brutality is celebrated as masculinity, embodied in the cultivated "strong man" who comes to personify the state itself. Tolerance is derided as depravity, and empathy dismissed as weakness, and the regime presented as a necessary bulwark against civilisational collapse.
The narratives are controlled by a compliant media, dissent is denounced as treason... and anyone who dares discuss the state sanctioned criminal racketeering that everyone can see, will inevitably meet a predictable dissident's fate.
This is what Trump wants the USA to be... and he's already begun it's devolution.
We know this, because he's told us:
"Look at Putin – what he's doing with Russia … this guy has done … he's doing a great job in rebuilding the image of Russia and also rebuilding Russia period.” 
“Putin is running his country and at least he's a leader, unlike what we have in this country.” 
“Putin is fierce—they’re smart … he rules with an iron fist … I’d say he’s smart.”