I can so relate to her description of the feeling in the early post Cold War days that free enterprise would bring democracy to the former Soviet bloc. And yes there was progress but it certainly did crash and burn in Russia. (Not entirely, there is the Navalny movement, but Putin is firmly in control.) Not just private capital but Western government loans also vanished into the black hole Ruskie corruption. But there were some successes. Although certainly not perfect or smooth, a number of former Soviet client states established true democracies and still maintain them. Not entirely a failed project.

But to your point, the corrpution that breeds authoritarianism is real. When you think about it happening here, that is what project 2025 is all about. America has long been described as a pluralistic society, with so many different concentrations and clusters of power that almost everyone's viewpoints and issues are represented somewhere. Project 2025 wants to concentrate so much power in one place that it can control everything. I'm skeptical that authoritarianism can set root in America simply because our federalist system giving so much power to the states makes it too difficult. But there's no doubt that is what the MAGAts and their 2025 plan want.