People compare Trump to Hitler or to Putin. But for us the closest historical comparison is Boris Yeltsin.

So today we talk to Jacob Silverman about Trump’s shitcoins and other crypto schemes because they remind us so much of 1990s Russia and Yeltsin’s family corrupt deals.

Back then in Russia, like with America today, corruption and looting happened right out in the open, with regular people scammed in all sorts of ways — ponzi schemes, illegal privatization of public property, looting of institutions, pensions devalued. The scammers at the top did it brazenly and without a care, and enriched Yeltsin’s family in the process. It bred a deep nihilism among regular people and it caused a total collapse of their belief in democracy, which they associated with ruin and corruption. Dermokratiya people called it — shitocracy. Kinda like what’s happening here in America today. Like Evgenia says, we are from your future.

—Yasha

PS: Don’t forget to preorder Jacob’s book Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley.

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