> The people of the USA really remind me of the people of Russia: totally depoliticized. I think in the USA many people are really focused on a pointless culture war yet aren't politically active at all.

If anything, the opposite is true. Citizens who've never protested in their lives are now in the streets. Off-year elections have had record turnouts.

154–155 million people voted in the 2024 presidential election; that's 63-65% of eligible voters, the second highest percentage in the past 100 years.

Most Americans took democracy for granted; the possibility of losing it has caused Americans to wake up.

I think it's not so much the people that have been Russified as the institutions themselves. The media, big law firms, big corporations, have all given in to bullying and handed their power over to the authoritarian. Universities are on the cusp of doing so too. Even the Democratic Party has leadership so weak that in the current environment they will only talk about affordability and healthcare.

The media the public consumes only gives them culture war BS to work with, though. It started with Fox News, and that eventually cowed the rest of the media to give in to Fox News framing on every topic, since Fox News was so successful at winning eyeballs.