One big difference is that the US has been led by four different people since 2000 instead of one. Another big difference is that it's legal for Americans to insult political leaders, wish bad things upon them, or demand an end to their stupid wars.
If you weren't aware of these differences, I'd encourage you to radically change your media diet; there are unfortunately many outlets which find it advantageous to exaggerate how bad the US is and deemphasize how bad dictatorships are. (Some are paid Russian propaganda, I've seen a shocking number of people send me RT links as though they're a legitimate news source.)
What do you mean by "manufactured consent for each other the whole time"? I'm familiar with the Noam Chomsky book Manufacturing Consent, but this book was about the dynamics that shape coverage decisions in mass media, not some concrete process which Person X could perform "for" Person Y.
I also struggle to see how it can be that different Presidents with often directly contradictory policies could both be serving the same ruling class interests. If the funding rules for scientific grants are changing, and defenders of the old rules argue that this is a terrible change that will cause huge problems, how can it be that both the old rules and the new rules serve the same interests?
> What do you mean by "manufactured consent for each other the whole time"?
> I also struggle to see how it can be that different Presidents with often directly contradictory policies could both be serving the same ruling class interests.
Using the polarizing topic of COVID (whose risks remain in 2026) as an example, we can answer both of your questions:
This can be applied to virtually any topic. The party of "good cop" and the party of "bad cop" promise no change from the status quo. Of course, anybody easily distracted by the culture wars will not see the commonality between both corporate parties, by design. These people see a close election and use that as "proof" we still have a functioning democracy.
Covid is a great example, because outside of hyperpartisan spaces, it was not a polarizing topic at the time these pieces were written. As the second link details, by 2022, the American people strongly felt that there were more important problems to tackle and we would have to eventually accept Covid as a fact of life. Ms. Doubleday perceives her problem to be with "the press" because she's out of touch, and doesn't realize that they're simply reporting what most Americans want and how most Americans feel.
People who are concerned about "corporatism" have the same problem. I often see them get confused and frustrated when the news presents "big government" as a scary thing that people are worried about - doesn't everyone know big business is the more important concern? Most Americans don't agree with them (https://news.gallup.com/poll/701054/perceived-threat-big-bus...), but if all your friends think big business sucks and government programs are great, it's hard to know that this is something you should check.
Captain Obvious here, but the number of defenestrations (or generally mysterious "suicides" of people not agreeing enough with the government) is much higher in Russia than in the US.
In the US you might get your funds cancelled, in Russia you'll get your life cancelled instead - and not in the metaphorical sense.
Also as incompetent as the current US government is, the incompetence of the Russian government is on a whole different level (the "3 days to Kyiv" are taking longer than the whole "Great Patriotic War").
> Russia is a de-jure democracy
As is North Korea, it must be even more democratic than the rest of the world because it calls itself "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" ;)
They have a head start on you, but you're catching up quickly! Worth remembering they have been shooting peaceful protestors recently in the US too.
Trump and Hegseth are explicit in their admiration for Putin and Xi. So being technically right here is largely to miss the point. The trajectory the US is on is pretty clear.
I'm not from the US and neither do I try to defend the current US government.
Just pointing out that Putin has systematically turned Russia into a full-blown fascist autocracy, but even in Russia this took nearly two decades until all opposition was crushed.
MAGA has the same goal (turning the US into a fascist autocracy), but I bet it will be much harder and would take much longer to dismantle the checks-and-balances system in the US as completely as Putin did in Russia.
Russia at this point has no functioning democratic institutions, and even political institutions - for example at this point no document inherited or signed by the regime is worth anything.
That's why they're considered a rogue state at the moment.
So at best you can say the Russian regime claims Russia is a democratic, that's not de jure, because for it to be de jure you'd need institutions to make sure it was in fact de jure.
There's none, just signs with the name on the wall, and people roleplaying.
USA has had 3 different presidents from opposing parties just in the last 15 years. Putin hasn't allowed a challenger in nearly 30 years and he actively bans them, imprisons them, or kills them. It's a big difference.
> I'm not sure what difference there is between them.
If you weren't aware of these differences, I'd encourage you to radically change your media diet; there are unfortunately many outlets which find it advantageous to exaggerate how bad the US is and deemphasize how bad dictatorships are. (Some are paid Russian propaganda, I've seen a shocking number of people send me RT links as though they're a legitimate news source.)