Some Thoughts on Trumpism and Soviet Communism on a Visit to Prague
With Trump’s tariffs and immigration police, there are echoes of Eastern Europe’s authoritarian past
Wandering through the insightful but grim Museum of Communism in Prague, my thoughts repeatedly returned to what has been happening in America over the past six months. We do not yet live in an authoritarian dictatorship, nor is our economic system moving toward communism. But there are far too many unsettling parallels between Soviet-era Czechoslovakia and the early months of the second Trump administration. The warning signs are abundant.
State Control of the Economy
Display after display in the Museum of Communism detailed how the Soviet state captured every aspect of economic life behind the Iron Curtain. Private enterprise was eliminated. Jobs were allocated based on Communist Party rank. All economic decisions were made according to the Soviet Union’s five-year plans.
This system was ruinous. Though intended to promote equality among workers and temper the harshness of capitalism, it crushed individuality and snuffed the drive to create, innovate, and modernize.
It is stunning to be reminded of this system in a former Soviet satellite state while reading stories from home about the arbitrary, undemocratic tariff system imposed by Donald Trump, which, though a far cry from Soviet-style communism, is still a heavy-handed form of state-controlled economic decision-making. Most of the criticism of these tariffs has been about how they impose costs to American consumers and contribute to inflation. But what disturbs me even more is that we are allowing one man – the president – to make decisions altering fundamental aspects of the American economy that supersede what the free market dictates, a mistake the Soviet Communist Party made every minute it governed. It is Trump who decides if the cost of Brazilian coffee or Japanese Nintendo consoles goes up or down, and he alone retains the authority to make exceptions, extensions, or carve-outs from these price-manipulating tariffs.
Not only is the free market being undermined by these tariffs, but they are opening up our economy to the worst forms of corruption imaginable—mirroring the deep corruption of the Soviet state. When every aspect of business is controlled by the state—who to hire, what to pay an employee, the price of goods, who is the supplier, what equipment can be bought and so on—bribery of the officials in charge becomes an integral part of doing business. The so-called “deals” being offered by foreign governments are payoffs to Trump and his associates to influence the way they exercise arbitrary power, by imposing tariffs on some countries and not others, and some goods and not others. The American people and our representatives have no idea whether the decisions regarding imposition, modification, or cancellation of tariffs are being made for valid economic purposes, or based on personal whim, political retribution, or favor-seeking. And when you have a president and his family selling a global cryptocurrency, running an international hedge fund, and continuing their large-scale international real estate ventures, there is no telling how much self-dealing is influencing tariff and tariff-exception policy.
The same is true with every domestic industry and individual business all trying to protect themselves from tariffs and cutting whatever “deals” they can with Trump. Of course, it would be correct to point out that domestic efforts to influence tariffs are no different from companies lobbying for federal subsidies or to influence regulatory decisions. But tariffs add to these other forms of influence-peddling and potential for corruption. Moreover, there is at least some transparency when public funds are spent or when the government regulates. Regulatory decisions are all published in the Federal Register, and interested parties have an opportunity to comment on regulatory proposals and suggest revisions. Final regulations are subject to judicial review. But with the tariffs—which may be raised, lowered, eliminated, or modified on a day-to-day basis based merely on a presidential say-so—the potential for arbitrary decision-making and rank corruption is orders of magnitude greater.
An American Secret Police
The second aspect of the Prague Museum of Communism that provided a disturbing echo of what is happening at home was its detailing of the corrosive impacts of the secret police. A full room in the museum illustrated how the Czech communist regime used its central police force to terrorize its own people through the use of arbitrary arrests, mass surveillance, and torture. Nothing suppresses freedom more than the fear generated by an anonymous police force with the power to detain anyone, anytime, for any reason, with absolutely no recourse for the targets of this arbitrary power.
One cannot help but see parallels between authoritarian policing behind the Iron Curtain and the conduct of the federal immigration police (that is, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents or “ICE”) over the past six months. I have written previously that I do not object to every aspect of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, but I am appalled at how ICE has been taking on the characteristics of a federal secret police force and exercising power in an arbitrary and unaccountable fashion. The most grotesque abuse is the conduct of immigration raids with unmarked vans and masked agents without badges or name tags. This anonymity grants agents an aura of immunity from accountability and empowers them to use excessive force and violate fundamental human rights. ICE’s refusal to disclose detainees’ identities and locations is also reminiscent of the worst abuses behind the Iron Curtain. No one, including undocumented alleged felons, should be able to be “disappeared” in America.
Citizens should not take comfort in the fact that these practices are being adopted exclusively for immigration enforcement. There have already been numerous “mistakes” in which citizens and citizen-children of migrants have been sucked into the vortex of Trump’s Kafkaesque deportation machine. Note also that this administration is quick to label virtually any group or individual who protests or stands in its way as “criminal,” a labeling that in their minds justifies arrest, detention, and punishment without due process. Abusive behavior established in the immigration context will set a precedent for transferring these practices to other law enforcement contexts that most certainly will affect citizens.
Prague’s Symbol of Determination Against Authoritarianism
Finally, I want to share a powerful symbol that stands on an escarpment overlooking Prague. It is on the exact site where in the 1950s the Czech communist regime erected a massive sculpture of Stalin at great expense to Czech taxpayers. The sculpture was dynamited when Stalin fell out of favor with the Soviets during the Khrushchev era. After communism ended in 1989, the government erected a giant metal metronome. The inscription on its frame reads: “In time, all things pass.”
We need to keep this in mind as we suffer the daily indignities of Trumpism. True, it is discouraging how Trump has been able to impose his will on not only the federal government, but states, localities, businesses, and our universities. But the Prague metronome reminds us that this is a long game. And there are signs that the worm can, and will, turn against Trumpism. The rupture of the Trump-Musk alliance is a positive development. The Epstein controversy is noteworthy because it shows the difficulty of managing Trump’s base, which has been fueled by mistruths and conspiracy theories for years. MAGA is insatiable and capable of eating its own. Trump has also committed a grave error by jamming legislation through Congress that will economically punish key voters in his coalition—the working-class voters who supported Trump because he gave them economic hope. The massive cuts to Medicaid, student loans, and other government programs upon which these voters rely was an unforced error that cannot be swept under the rug, even by the Trump propaganda apparatus. The “Big, Beautiful Bill,” though horrible, is a political gift that will keep on giving in the effort to undermine the evils of Trumpism.