The analogy has merit ... The difference between USA now and USSR then is the aircraft themselves.
The Big Media are currently waving in our face apparent maintenance failures on fundamentally high-quality aircraft. I suspect them of being less than honest, though.
Back in the USSR, it was crap maintenance on crap aircraft and everybody knew it. Aeroflot very quickly ditched all its Soviet Ilyushins and Tupolevs for Boeing and Airbus products after the USSR collapsed.
I think they sold them off to North Korea - you can still see TU-154’s in Air Koryo livery at Beijing airport to this day.