[vkou]

Putin wasn't who consolidated power in Russia, Yeltsin did, when he successfully carried out his coup. Russia stopped being a semi-functional democracy in ~1993, even if it wasn't yet clear to anyone living there at the time.

Putin just stepped into the nest of ~unlimited executive power that was already made for him.

[SpicyLemonZest]

If you put the end date of Russia's democracy 2 years after its start date, I'm not sure it's right to say it ever had one.

[vkou]

People certainly thought they were still living in one in 1996 and 2000, but there was no golden path out of it. The press was fully compromised, the security apparatus was in the hands of one man, and parliament was an irrelevant sideshow.

But you can't see any of this, when you're on the inside looking out - and you can't be certain of it when you're on the outside looking in.

[SpicyLemonZest]

You can't be certain of anything, I suppose. I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. Whether or not Trump has secretly ended American democracy, it's still the case that popular leaders have more power than unpopular leaders and criticizing unpopular decisions is a good way to try and stop them.