Trump as America's Misguided Gorbachev

The top-down campaign to restore and reclaim greatness backfires

Trump as America’s Gorbachev … it’s not a unique idea, by any means. A quick search indicates plenty of analysts have made the comparison, and yet, I find it irresistible and thus worthy of a post. I mean, my God! Even the Russians today compare Trump to Gorbachev — and not as a compliment.

Donald Trump's efforts to reshape the US government, economy, and society share some notable parallels with Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms with glasnost (transparency) and perestroika (restructuring). Gorby likewise sought to reshape — for the better — the Soviet political system and its economy, while triggering some new cultural fervor for resumed greatness.

The comparisons to Mao’s Cultural Revolution write themselves, but here, perhaps, a bit more effort is required.

The particular intrigue for me?

I spent a summer in Leningrad in 1985 (the year before Gorby launched his new model), ostensibly brushing up my Russian at Leningrad State University but really just hanging out with a ton of ideological drop-outs: mainly, a high-end black marketer called “Big Al” and the parade of customers who came through his fantastically stocked apartment every night for his latest clothing, electronics, and entertainment offerings from the West.

I basically got smashed every night and engaged all these customers in boozy conversation. They came from all walks of life and all levels of power — to my amazement.

What I learned: the very young and middle-aged workers that Gorby hoped to light a new fire under were already completely checked out from the Soviet system and would never be talked back into supporting his efforts to make the USSR great again. That horse had left the barn.

Instead, these targeted populations had all successfully fashioned their own nalevo approach (“on the left” but better translated as “on the side”) to satisficing their personal needs while — as young Americans today might say — “quietly quitting” their jobs.

The standard line was: We pretend to work, and the government pretends us to pay us.

Rings some bells, does it not? Referencing both private-sector employment today in America (where everybody’s told they’re like “family” and then routinely screwed over … just like family) as well as our entitlement relationship with the US Government (we pay into Social Security and they pretend it will be there when we actually need it).

Gorbachev’s reliance on technocrats (most of them hard-science types) was something I extensively researched at Harvard as a grad student working under the MIT giant in the “history of science” professor Loren Graham (one could take classes at MIT and Tufts in my program, and I took advantage). I ended up writing a research note that I couldn’t get published anywhere, to Loren’s amazement. He later did me the great honor of citing my unpublished paper in his own published works — the first time anybody ever cited me on anything. It was a huge boost to my fragile ego while at Harvard.

Professor Graham died this January, age 91.

What I discovered when examining the make-up of Gorby’s “cabinet” (aka, Politburo) was this: by Soviet historical standards, his leadership team was unusually full of these industrial technocrats with PhDs in hard sciences.

One might even call them the Soviet version of “tech bros.”

Does that mean I imply they were on par with Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk?

No, it does not.

But they were the best the Soviets could produce with that sort of access to top-level decision-making, so the effects were similar: a very bold and somewhat arrogant take on how technocrats could fix everything if those idiot politicians and brain-dead bureaucrats just got out of the way.

Again, what they misjudged was the vibe of the twenty-/thirty-/forty-something citizen workers they were hoping to mobilize in support of this “re-great-ened” Soviet system. The back-to-the-future ideological mores they sought to rekindle just could not be rekindled, as the subsequent generations no longer had any faith in either the system or the life-style it sought to promote. These people were tuned out and dropped out from that value system, and nothing was going to get them back into it.

Think about that harsh reality when judging the work ethic of Millennials and Gen Zs today. Seriously, think about it.

So, when Gorby and his technocrats started tinkering with the system, no great surprise to me … it crashed all around them.

So, let’s engage in the comparison with Trump.

Both Trump and Gorbachev were ambitious for structural overhaul. Both sought market liberalization and the deconstruction of the stultified bureaucracy, unleashing potential that presumably had been squashed by that godawful Deep State.

In both instances, the campaigns for change represented a radical departure from established political/ruling norms. Just like with Trump and all that “Can he actually do that?” analysis from experts, Gorby met similar incredulous bureaucratic resistance.

Here’s what happens when you suddenly transform your national brand from what it was to the complete opposite: nobody in the world takes you seriously at that point because you seem to be committing career suicide. Communists around the world saw Gorby as a traitor to the cause, just like capitalists and free traders and globalists around the world now see Trump as some traitor to the very same globalization that brought them power and wealth that they have no intention of surrendering just because America has somehow lost faith.

In short, Gorby’s reforms cost the Soviet Union its global standing, just like Trump’s tariffs are collapsing America’s global standing.

Naturally, in both instances, the entrenched bureaucracy became the “bad guy.” Trump’s fierce efforts to reduce regulatory oversight and privatize certain government functions mirror Gorbachev’s attempts to overcome the inertia of the Soviet command economy by encouraging public participation and loosening state control.

In both instances, this was radical, radical stuff that triggered an entirely polarized response from the masses, who either hated it or loved it.

Moreover, the delayed gratification problem exists in both instances: Gorbachev encounted significant domestic angst as his reforms disrupted the Soviet system without delivering immediate economic benefits, leading to shortages and widespread discontent.

Again, sound familiar to today? With Trump and the markets freaking out and consumer sentiment cratering?

Gorby’s opponents feared his policies would so weaken the federal institutions as to lead to the Soviet Union’s dissolution — maybe even civil war. In time, they actually did on various levels.

Similarly, Trump’s policies have been incredibly polarizing here in the US, with critics rightfully warning of long-term damage to federal institutions and governance capacity and people speaking openly of the possibility of vast civil strife when push comes to shove — and there’s a lot of shoving going on right now.

Both Trump and Gorbachev wanted to modernize their respective systems while invoking old-school morals — a deadly combination for the checked-out young and middle-aged masses who’ve already made their peace with diminished expectations.

Again, think about Gen Xers finding themselves as lost economic souls in their 50s. Think about Millennials radically downsizing their expectations for families and houses and vacations, etc. Think about the Gen Zs discovering that, for the most part, their incredibly costly educations buy them nothing in an economy where their skills are being replicated by AI across the dial.

Both Trump and Gorby saw economic stagnation and “losing” in their nation’s trade relations with allies who were, in effect, deemed to be “ripping them off.” Gorby turned on the Warsaw Pact and Comecon (those trapped Eastern European socialist regimes) just like Trump now turns on NATO and the European Union, in both instances triggering messy divorces full of recriminations and the efforts of those states — now disavowed by the retreating superpower — to “stand on their own.”

This is what happens when the hegemon suddenly re-imagines itself as the victim of its own imperial responsibilities.

Gorby’s reforms coincided with, or were preceded by, a vast load-shedding of international security obligations. Gorby basically ended Soviet support to all those client states, known as Countries of Socialist Orientation, across the Third World (e.g., Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Guinea, Algeria, Ghana, Libya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Vietnam, India, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Cuba, Nicaragua, etc.) …these states that were suddenly viewed, upon Gorby’s stunning rise to the top of the Soviet leadership, as unrealistic obligations that were draining the Soviet state.

Compare that to Trump killing USAID and our foreign aid programs.

Also ask yourself, does not Trump seek the same load-shedding right now across the Eastern Hemisphere? End Ukraine, end Iran, end Gaza and get our troops the hell back home where they should be guarding the border or controlling the high seas now known the Gulf of America?

So, yeah, both Trump and Gorby sought to bring the boys home and reduce the nation’s superpower military footprint across the globe. When Gorby did that, America and Europe totally took advantage of that unipolar moment to expand NATO and the EU while America played policeman to the world. We should expect the rest of the world to do the same this time around, creating all sorts of instabilities and angst throughout the system.

We are reminded that Gorbachev operated in a one-party state with a centrally planned economy nearing collapse. His reforms were an attempt to stave off systemic failure.

Not our story, right?

Or is it?

Trump’s efforts, I can argue, occur within a defunct democratic system where the ruling party controls the Executive, who totally dominates the puppet legislature and is backed up by a largely compliant judiciary — particularly at its apex — the Supreme Court. Trump also sees himself saving America from systemic failure.

Gorbachev’s reforms, we are reminded, inadvertently accelerated the dissolution of the Soviet Union as glasnost exposed systemic flaws and perestroika failed to deliver economic stability.

Trump’s changes, while still unfolding, are reshaping US governance by hollowing out institutional capacity and cratering the state’s role in society, while simultaneously triggering a recession and bear market.

Doesn’t that sound like a system-collapsing recipe?

This is why so much of the world now sees in Trump a repeat of Gorbachev’s disastrous efforts to make the Soviet Union great again.

And yes, in the end, we might easily be looking at a profound re-ordering of the world system stemming from Trump’s misguided reform efforts — just like Gorby’s essentially ended the Cold War and set the post-Cold War era in motion.

The key difference to keep in mind — to keep your sanity in the days ahead: the fiscal bankruptcy of our system is treatable, whereas the moral bankruptcy of the Soviet system was never truly reformable.

I know, I know, that’s not a whole lot to hang your hat on as we collectively seek to survive the next 19 months. But there it is.

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