Joe Biden is the American Leonid Brezhnev

Leonid Brezhnev was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982, and Chairman of the Presidium of Supreme Soviet (head of state) from 1960 to 1964 and again from 1977 to 1982. His 18-years as General Secretary was second only to Joseph Stalin's in duration. While a lot of things , both good and bad, occurred during those 18-years- he is most remembered for being the leader of USSR as it entered its terminal phase of economic stagnation starting 1973. More relevantly, neither he, the people around him or system as it existed in USSR could find a way out of this stagnation or reform itself- resulting in the now infamous political volatility of late 1980s- ending with dissolution of USSR in 1991.

While Brezhnev passed away in late-1982, and was not therefore not around to see the end of USSR- he has, for better or worse, become a symbol of economic, cultural and social stagnation in post-1970 USSR. It also helped that the next two leaders who followed him, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, did not last long in office. About four years ago, on a previous blog, I made the point that USA was looking a lot like post-1973 USSR because of serious and consistent declines in many areas of life for the average person in addition to having a sclerotic system run by people (both government and corporate) who have no interest or ability to change this trajectory. There is also the issue of rapidly declining competence in many areas of technology and engineering, in many instances, far more severe than USSR in the 1980s.

One very public part of this national decline were the numerous health issues faced by Brezhnev in the last few years of his life. Between his dependence on sleeping pills and tranquilizers, serious heart issues, possible strokes and general physical and mental deterioration in those final years, he unintentionally became a symbol for the decline in USSR. It is noteworthy that by that time, the system had become too sclerotic and driven by insiders to replace him. Given how much the overall trajectory of USA in the past decade has come to resemble USSR after 1973, it is very fitting that the current president of this country, Joe Biden, has a lot in common with Brezhnev. Both were once mediocre but otherwise acceptable political leaders who ended up leading dying empires in visible decline. Both experienced serious physical and mental deterioration in their final years and became symbolic figureheads for groups of insiders who were unwilling and unable to reform a sclerotic and deeply malfunctional system.

I should add that Brezhnev, even as late as 1981, was in noticeably better shape during most of his public appearances than Biden is right now. To recap, the guy running for a second term as president of USA later this year is in visibly worse mental shape than somebody with a far more lengthy medical history was a year before his death. While some of you might see this as a tragedy, I see it as yet another sign of terminal decline in this country. The parallels between USSR in the early-1980s and USA in the early-2020s are just too hard to ignore. It would not be surprising if the end is also similar.

What do you think? Comments?