They should have seen the signs. Following years of economic upheaval, public pessimism reigned supreme. The population lost faith in its government. Their leaders seemed old and out of touch. As their political system began to fracture, citizens despaired at the possibility of real social change. Anxiety, depression, and substance abuse soared. Life expectancy at birth began to decline, an unprecedented occurrence in an industrialized country in peacetime.

To cope, Soviet citizens enduring the daily stresses of a failing state turned inward. They called it “internal emigration,” a metaphor for the imagined inner world to which ordinary people could retreat to find solace. This mental relocation took many forms, but for most Soviets, cultivating a fierce spiritual autonomy—through music, literature, poetry, art, foreign language learning, private gardening, or immersing themselves in nature—provided the only respite from the grinding indignities of an aging political bureaucracy insensitive to the needs of the populace.

Today, people in the United States find themselves in a similar position. At ages 81 and 78, the candidates for the 2024 presidential election are the oldest in U.S. history. The insider machinations—like those of a secretive Politburo—that allowed both men to lock up their party’s nominations without true democratic vetting have fueled widespread dissatisfaction.

Trump is currently ahead in the polls. Mark Esper, Trump’s secretary of defense, has openly stated that the former president represents “a threat to democracy, democracy as we know it, our institutions, our political culture, all those things that make America great and have defined us as, you know, the oldest democracy on this planet.” After Joe Biden’s lackluster first debate performance, and the recent Supreme Court decision granting Trump immunity for official actions taken as president, a resigned ennui permeates online discourse.

The nihilism seeping into American culture today resembles that which marked the last decade of the Soviet bloc countries. After the 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl, it took 18 full days before then–Premier Mikhail Gorbachev delivered a national address to explain the disturbing rumors. At the start........

© New Republic