‘Democracy Hit Men for Hire’ — My Latest Hot Type Column in Byline
For this week’s Hot Type column in Byline, I investigate the dictators’ fixers responsible for pushing the remaining democratic world toward autocracy
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For this week’s Hot Type column in Byline Supplement, I focus on why we should not look away from the ‘democracy hit men for hire’...
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Below, is an excerpt from this week’s Hot Type column:
Hot Type: Democracy Hit Men For Hire
The US and the UK are both failing to learn the lessons of 2016 on both sides of the Atlantic, reports Heidi Siegmund Cuda
It benefited the pro-Russian factions of the US and UK right-wing political parties to not look too closely at the 2016 election results.
In the US, Donald Trump endlessly regurgitated “Russian hoax” propaganda, as if he were auditioning for a late-night slot on a Moscow network, in case things didn’t work out so good in the Oval Office.
In the UK, Boris Johnson’s Government refused to order an inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 EU referendum vote. The conclusion to a postmortem report from Parliament’s intelligence and security committee said Johnson’s Government “had not seen or sought evidence of successful interference in UK democratic processes”.
Meanwhile, independent investigative reporters relentlessly exposed ties between the three nations, data ties, financial ties, personal ties.
As reporter Carole Cadwalladr wrote on July 13, 2018:
“Polite reminder: Trump & Brexit are not 2 different things. They are the same thing. Same companies. Same data. Same Facebook. Same Russians. Same Cambridge Analytica. Same Robert Mercer. Same Steve Bannon. Same Breitbart. Same Alexander Nix. Same Donald Trump. Same Nigel Farage.”
As I wrote on June 6, 2019:
“If we want to save our country and be a beacon for global democracies, we’ve got to neutralize Putin. We have to stop Russia’s infiltration or we’ve stopped nothing at all. If we don’t beat ‘em back now, they may not topple us this time, but they’ll get us the next time.”
The next time came and went, and America is looking alarmingly like Russia in the ‘90s, when the oligarchs ran the politicians, resulting in a violent and grossly unequal society, designed to make citizens feel powerless about their future.
So I keep clawing my way back through the wreckage of 2016, trying to find something that will stick both in international courts and in the minds of those who were duped by the spectacle that obfuscated the election crimes.
And Cadwalladr does the same for her country, as she proved this week with her ongoing perseverance. In her Broligarchy substack, she describes approaching ‘a bunch of MPs and a team of crack human-rights lawyers’ five years ago to see if there was a case to force the truth about the Kremlin and the Brexit vote…
Using a small non-profit she co-founded, they crowd-funded their way to a decision this week.
Although the court did not find a breach of law, she tweeted that it upheld the core points that “foreign interference (inc disinfo) is a threat to fair elections (which UK had denied!). Lawyers say hugely significant judgment with far-reaching consequences. AND that an appeal should be considered… the ruling opens the door to many other potential cases.”
I, too, believe that not letting go of what transpired a decade ago is vital to getting out of the fascist sludge of today.
And that’s why it matters that Paul Manafort’s been in Albania.
Manafort is the former campaign manager of Trump’s 2016 election, who spent a decade in Ukraine on the payroll of pro-Russian oligarchs where he helped install the Putin puppet Viktor Yanukovych into power — failing the first time, succeeding in his second attempt. Yanukovych was forced to flee Ukraine during the Maidan Revolution and now lives in Russia.
Manafort, too, is a convicted felon, who went to prison for fraud and money laundering tied to his work in Ukraine. He is a veteran fixer for dictators around the world, known for running a lobbying firm nicknamed ‘the torturers’ lobby’. Included among his client roster was Angola’s Jonas Savimbi, who burned his opponents alive.
When Manafort's firm was trying to sign a contract with Somalia dictator Siad Barre, accused of human rights abuses, Manafort is quoted as saying: “We all know he's a bad guy; but he's our bad guy."
Author Alexandra Alvarova, who grew up under Soviet rule in Czechoslovakia, told Byline Supplement, the targeting of the US justice system opened doors for democracy hit men.
“Everything we see comes from this vector of attack,” she said. “If you work for transnational organized crime and your gig is to overthrow the US government, where do you start? You seek to dismantle the justice system.”
She said the erosion of justice over time enabled the unfettered rise of men unrestrained by moral limits to subvert Western democracies for cash…
So why does it matter that an ex-con who helped throw the election to Trump with ties to Russian gangsters was working in Albania… and who gains by his work? Vladimir Putin, who benefits from a weakened EU and a weakened NATO, who dreams of restoring the Iron Curtain.
Manafort, along with Trump 2024 campaign manager Chris LaCivita, was grooming a Trump-like politician whose own corruption trial began on Monday.
Along with LaCivita and Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio, Manafort took the gig of working for former Prime Minister and President Sali Berisha, the head of Albania’s right-wing Democratic Party, who challenged Prime Minister Edi Rama.
Berisha, who hoped Trump would reverse sanctions barring him from entering the US, also signed a six-million-dollar contract with the Republican consulting and lobbying firm, Continental Strategy, whose staff includes the daughter of White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles.
Berisha’s campaign included the promise to ‘Make Albania Great Again’…
As Vienna-based disinformation analyst Dietmar Pichler told Byline Supplement: “I personally find the involvement in these campaigns, whether in Ukraine during Yanukovich’s time or now in Albania, which is an EU membership applicant, questionable. The transatlantic partnership is very important, but for us Europeans the integrity of the European Union is vital. Politics is not only a business. There are several actors involved whose intentions…I doubt.”
It’s important to note, Berisha, his wife and children were barred from entering the US in May of 2021, when former Secretary of State Antony Blinken sanctioned Berisha for alleged ‘significant corruption’ and the UK subsequently followed.
During his 2005-2013 tenure as Prime Minister, Berisha was accused of misappropriation of public funds to enrich himself, his political cronies, and family.
Last year, Berisha was charged with corruption…
Few people are more identified with the decline of global democracies than Manafort, whose black magic failed Berisha… this time.
Socialist Prime Minister Rama beat Berisha comfortably thanks to the country’s pro-EU stance. Rama said Albania is hoping to join the EU bloc by 2030…
At the Byline Festival earlier this month, I was horrified to hear about the traction Reform UK’s Nigel Farage is gaining in the UK, using all the same anti-democratic, anti-immigrant tropes that helped put Trump back in power.
I recommend the citizens of the UK don’t look away from 2016.
After all, they can quite reasonably expect the same pattern to emerge in a homeland that — like the US — was once admired as a cradle of democracy.
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The above excerpt of my weekly Hot Type column was originally published Saturday, July 26, 2025, in Byline Supplement.
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