People assume that there's going to be some grand take-over event, a third-world coup d'état if you will.
In reality, modern democracies die slowly. Russia was once a democracy, now it's democracy on paper only. What will Americans do, when their courts are infringing their freedom?
Again, it happens slowly. Bit by bit, in the boring court rooms.
Russia was barely a functioning democracy in the 1990s and had no democratic tradition before that, just different flavors of authoritarianism for centuries.
At the time of founding the USA was probably still the most liberal and democratic government in history of the world.
I'm shocked that you would use Russia as an example of a slowly dying democracy.
The brief highly instable 1990s after the Soviet collapse that was followed by Putin’s rapid consolidation of power?