While most concerns about the US becoming like Putin's Russia focused on an authoritarian president, I'm starting to worry about an enfeebled Congress with extremist wings like Russia's: Nationalists and Communists!

Such extremes can push people toward a relatively reasonable sounding authoritarian. Putin had the nationalist ranting of Zhirinovsky and the Communist Zyuganov to make him look like the only sane choice.

As I wrote years ago about this radicalization trend, the "Spanish Civil War" model, this isolates the middle. But that presumes an eventual victory by one side. Instead, it can leave an opening for a opportunistic agnostic like Putin, who cares only for power.

Extremism isn't the only danger, dysfunction and stagnation are too. If Congress is increasingly seen as abdicating its powers as the first branch, people will continue to support the expansion of executive power when their party has power.

I wrote about the need for a "popular front" against Trump in Jan. The emphasis is usually on one extremist side winning the the winner-take-all prize. But discrediting the parliament and regular politics is a more subtle danger. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/01/28/a-popular-front-to-stop-trump/

Putin cares more about the type of person who wins than their politics, and he supports extremists on all sides in his interference campaigns. Not just for chaos, but to delegitimize the system and make an autocrat more likely to rise.