American politics often attracts the worst sort of men and women our country can cough up, and they achieve power through the same dynamic Hayek described in the totalitarian states, welding together effective factions of the low-minded but like-minded. We have the testimony of no less a totalitarian than Adolf Hitler that the greatest strength of the totalitarian states is that they force those who fear them to imitate them, a principle that can be seen at work in the distinctly autocratic and centralizing tendency of the Franklin Roosevelt administration or in the desire of the Trump administration to become Beijing’s mirror image. What liberal societies have is not better men — it is independent courts, a free press, the rule of law, checks and balances, democratic accountability, competitive elections, powerful private institutions, and vibrant civic life. There have been some men of remarkably low character elected to the American presidency, but the American system has limited the damage they could do.

The Russian system does not limit the damage a man such as Putin can do. It amplifies the evil he can do. And that is why, the perfervid hopes of Senator Lindsey Graham and others notwithstanding, simply removing Vladimir Putin from the scene by means of a palace coup would not solve our problem. The Praetorian guard can depose Caligula, but that doesn’t restore the republic — it just gets you Claudius and then Nero. There wasn’t anything especially wrong with the Romans. There wasn’t anything especially wrong with the Germans. There isn’t anything especially wrong with the Russians. The world has a bottomless supply of men such as Putin. Russia is ruled by them because of the character of its political and social systems. Opening a McDonald’s in Pushkin Square wasn’t enough to change all that.