Old men chasing status and power can’t help themselves as they run out of relevance runway, dragging the rest of us along for the unpleasant ride.
Both share the same core goal too: to drag their countries back to the mid 20th century. Putin wants the Soviet Union back, and Trump wants 50’s America back. China is immune to this because that time period was uniquely terrible for them.
I like that term, 'relevance runway'.
It is a core component of my mental model. Everything has a time horizon: people, institutions, investments, etc. To understand influence potential/runway, time horizon * influence.