The final decade of the Soviet Union showed how systemic corruption and elite self-enrichment destroy public faith in a governing system. The nomenklatura—the Communist Party’s privileged bosses—enjoyed dachas, special stores, and luxury while ordinary citizens faced shortages and endless propaganda about equality. Scandals like the Uzbek cotton embezzlement exposed billions diverted through falsified records and bribes. This hypocrisy sped up the CPSU’s moral and practical collapse in 1991.
Clear parallels exist today in certain U.S. Democratic-led states and federal programs. In California and Minnesota, and through initiatives benefiting politically connected figures, large-scale problems in daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, and green grants reveal a modern political elite behaving like the old Soviet bosses. They direct public resources to allies while outcomes for citizens worsen.
America has constitutional tools, but persistent graft, weak accountability, and manipulated safeguards erode trust and point to serious trouble ahead.
In the late Soviet era, Brezhnev-era stagnation locked in patronage networks. Party elites preached socialism but stole on a grand scale. Workers stole petty amounts from a state viewed as no one’s property. Gorbachev’s glasnost briefly exposed the rot, but the system soon imploded.
In the United States, federal health programs show massive improper payments—tens to hundreds of billions annually across Medicare and Medicaid. Over a decade, vulnerabilities and improper payments in these programs approach or exceed a trillion dollars. This includes overbilling, eligibility issues open to exploitation, and outright fraud.
California, under Governor Gavin Newsom, runs one of the largest Medi-Cal programs. It faces ongoing scrutiny for billing irregularities, inflated claims in home health and childcare, and eligibility failures. Daycare and childcare funding have seen allegations of ghost recipients and falsified records.
Billions poured into homelessness—over $24 billion in recent years—have delivered little visible progress amid spreading street crises, with questions about waste and insider contracts. Los Angeles, under Mayor Karen Bass, faces parallel concerns over resource allocation.
Minnesota, under Governor Tim Walz, saw extensive fraud schemes draw national attention. Federal probes hit nutrition programs like Feeding Our Future—where hundreds of millions were stolen—and Medicaid billing for services never provided, plus childcare.
Cumulative fraud estimates across programs reached into the billions, with concerns about inadequate oversight. While some prosecutions followed, the scale exposed vulnerabilities in handling large federal funding flows to connected networks. justice.gov
A notable federal example involved roughly $2 billion in EPA Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grants awarded to Power Forward Communities, a coalition with ties to Stacey Abrams. The group, newly formed with minimal prior revenue, received this massive sum for climate initiatives. Critics saw it as directing taxpayer dollars to politically aligned entities lacking strong track records.
These patterns mirror the Soviet nomenklatura. Democratic leaders in deep-blue states—Comrades Newsom, Walz, Bass, Abrams, and national figures like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—act as a modern Politburo. They oversee huge government operations where grants, contracts, and regulatory favors flow to allies, nonprofits, and donors.
High taxes and spending in California and Minnesota coincide with visible failures: homelessness, service breakdowns, business and resident exodus, and declining quality of life. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez push expansive national programs. Without strong controls, such systems risk repeating the predation and inefficiency that destroyed Soviet central planning. Citizens pay through higher taxes and worse services while elite’s benefit.
Legacy media frequently downplays or ignores corruption when it involves the left, protecting the preferred narrative. Independent voices must perform the necessary scrutiny. This one-sided coverage deepens cynicism. In the USSR, propaganda clashed with elite privilege. Here, talk of equity and compassion clashes with scandals draining resources meant for the vulnerable. Medicare and Medicaid fraud diverts care from those who need it. Daycare scams hurt working families. The trillion-dollar scale of vulnerabilities over years shows a system open to abuse.
Elections, intended as the people’s check on power, no longer function reliably in these strongholds. California’s legal ballot harvesting, extended voting windows, mail-in systems, and write-in processes—sold as increasing access—enable manipulation. I studied Political Science and Russian Studies prior to entering the CIA and focusing on Iran and Islamic extremism. My goal was to understand the Soviets, the great enemies of freedom. From that background, I state plainly: election theft is real and forms part of this overarching corruption.
The Los Angeles mayoral election proves the system has been gamed. Incumbent Karen Bass faced sharp criticism for her absence in Ghana when the devastating January 2025 Palisades Fire erupted. The fire destroyed thousands of homes, killed people, and caused massive damage. Critics highlighted incompetence, poor preparation, and her absence during the crisis. Yet she advanced strongly in the first round.
Late surges via mail-in and harvested ballots raised serious doubts, with irregularities, write-in vulnerabilities, and processing that favored insiders. Such dynamics show elections now entrench the ruling class rather than deliver accountability. Blatant election theft adds fuel to the coming reckoning.
The human cost breeds deep disillusionment. Working families endure high living costs and pay taxes for programs leaking funds, while visible results lag. This creates the same loss of belief that toppled the USSR. When “public service” visibly enriches a Politburo-like class—Newsom, Walz, Bass, Abrams, Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez—and captured electoral processes protect them, faith collapses.
The Soviet lesson remains urgent: corruption and elite theft destroy legitimacy faster than outside threats. In these blue strongholds, unchecked graft in entitlements, green funds, and state spending risks the same internal bankruptcy.
Without real accountability—beyond rigged mechanisms—an impending day of reckoning approaches for the left. Citizens see the gap between promises and pilfered outcomes. They may reject a system echoing the nomenklatura’s fatal greed. Any governing philosophy needs results and trust, not rhetoric and insulated power. History records what happens when leaders forfeit both.
About The Author
Gary Berntsen is a retired Senior Operations Officer and Chief of Station of the Central Intelligence Agency. He is the Author of the NYT Bestseller Jawbreaker, The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
