Is US democracy dead? Russia sure thinks so

There was perhaps no more gleeful response to the U.S. Capitol insurrection than the one from official Russia.

One top legislator proclaimed “the end of the celebration of democracy.” A broadcast host on state-controlled media said “the U.S. is falling apart.”

Lena Surzhko Harned, a scholar of post-Soviet politics at Penn State, describes the events of Jan. 6 as an irresistible opportunity for Russian leadership to trash the U.S. “The storming of the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump rioters has allowed Russian media outlets to … depict the siege as the final collapse of the U.S. political system and democracy itself,” she writes.

Also today:

• How far-right extremists use apps like Telegram to recruit, organize and plan
• Why the attorney general is never really independent
• Chronic domestic terrorism could simmer for years following Capitol riot