Sixty years ago, in 1956, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev stood before Western diplomats in Moscow and said something that would echo for decades: “We will bury you.” Americans heard it as a threat of nuclear war. Khrushchev later said he meant something different — that communism would outlast and outperform capitalism, burying it economically, not with bombs. The line became a symbol of Cold War rivalry, a promise that the Soviet Union would one day defeat the United States.
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. It looked like Khrushchev had lost, but the story didn’t end there.
Fast forward to 2016. Robert Mueller’s investigation found that Russia ran a sweeping, systematic campaign to help Donald Trump win the White House, including hacking and a disinformation push, plus repeated contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russian operatives. Mueller didn’t find enough evidence for a criminal conspiracy charge, but he was careful to say his report did not clear Trump of wrongdoing either. A later bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee investigation went further, describing campaign chairman Paul Manafort as a “grave counterintelligence threat” for sharing internal polling data with a Russian intelligence-linked associate. In 2018, Trump stood beside Vladimir Putin in Helsinki and publicly sided with Putin’s denials over his own intelligence agencies — an American president trusting Russia over his own country’s experts.
Trump’s second term has continued the pattern. In early 2025, his administration dismantled USAID, the agency that delivers humanitarian aid and promotes democracy abroad. Cutting it didn’t just hurt struggling countries — it opened the door for Russia and China to fill the gap. Around the same time, Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on allies and adversaries, straining relationships with countries America needs as partners in international affairs. Trade wars with allies made the West look divided, exactly what Moscow wants.
Then came Ukraine. Rather than standing firmly with Kyiv against Russia’s illegal invasion, Trump’s administration pushed Ukraine toward concessions — starting with a public Oval Office clash with President Volodymyr Zelensky, and continuing with a U.S.-drafted peace plan that reportedly asked Ukraine to hand over land Russia doesn’t even occupy, terms Ukraine and its allies said echoed Kremlin demands. Trump publicly declared “Russia has the upper hand” and pressed Zelensky to accept a deal Kyiv called unacceptable. At one point, a Kremlin official noted that the American and Russian positions on a ceasefire were closely aligned — the two sides, in effect, negotiating from the same side of the table.
Meanwhile, Iran pulled American attention elsewhere. In June 2025, the U.S. joined Israel’s military campaign against Iran, striking three nuclear sites in an operation Trump called a total success — though independent assessments later suggested the damage was less complete than claimed, and by early 2026 the conflict was still unresolved. Whether intentional or not, the effect was the same: American energy that might have gone toward Ukraine was pulled toward the Middle East instead. Each of these moves might have a defensible explanation on its own. Taken together, they form a pattern that has consistently strained America’s alliances and left Russia with more room to maneuver.
At home, the divisions have deepened too. Christian nationalism — the belief that America should be explicitly governed by a narrow version of Christian identity — has grown louder in mainstream politics. Trust in elections, courts, and the free press has eroded. Neighbors increasingly see each other as enemies rather than fellow citizens with different opinions.
Khrushchev was wrong about timing and the details. The Soviet Union did not bury the United States militarily or economically, and communism collapsed first. But if you measure “burying” differently, not as conquest, but as decay from within, the picture looks different. A democracy weakened by division, a shrinking number of allies, a government that sometimes seems to favor Moscow’s interests over its own citizens’, these are not signs of a nation being buried by an enemy’s army. They are signs of a nation that may be digging its own grave, one policy at a time.
None of this need be permanent. Democracies aren’t destroyed in a single election, and they aren’t saved in one either. But every election is a chance to change course. Voting is the tool citizens have to demand leaders who strengthen alliances, protect democratic institutions, and put the country’s long-term health above short-term wins. Protests and civil resistance are the tools if elections are corrupted. If Americans want to prove Khrushchev wrong, the work starts at the ballot box, in every election, starting now. As well it requires organizing with others, such as groups like Indivisible or MoveOn, to prepare for any threats to democracy.
Richard Brunswick is a retired primary care physician in Northampton.