Then, around 2007, I started recognizing something.
The same patterns. The same techniques. The same promises. The same trajectory. Appearing in America.
At first, I doubted myself. Maybe I was seeing ghosts. Perhaps I was paranoid. But the pattern kept emerging — more clearly each year. By 2020, I could no longer deny it.
Pattern recognition is what survivors develop. We learn to see the early signs because we have lived through the later stages. Most Americans have never experienced what I experienced. They cannot recognize the pattern because they have never seen it complete. I have. The words are different. The language is English, not Russian. But the melody is the same. And I know how the song ends.