That’s why he partially picked right now for attack. Navalny outta the picture. There is none to disturb the crowds. Sorry but Joe Biden coming to Russia and urging Russians to fight for their democracy is not gona work, like it worked in Maidan.. Ukraine can enjoy their “democratic explosions “ together with Biden themselves. Russia will pass and stick to drama free order.
Also the major difference between the west(e.g the states Canada and Western Europe. You have something that most of the former ussr including Russia don’t have. You have stability and the future here is pretty much set regardless who is in power it’s hard to majorly wreck it regardless of who is in power and if somewhere something that’s working and not broken no need to change it to accommodate other countries. The truth is I am scared of what’s gona happen to Russia after he is gone. There hasn’t been any good leaders Other than him
Ok. I think there is some very important things that neither I or others have considered enough. Despite vocal people in politics or on the political fringes, most us us have pretty good faith in most western countries that no matter who is in power, things will be stable. And that is right. To be honest, if you looked at budgets and spending, laws passed etc and you didn’t know which party was in power when it happens, you’d often struggle to identify them, except for more social oriented policy. With very few exceptions, in the west, nobody fears that their society will collapse if one person gets voted out. In fact periodic change is expected, and in the US, required by law, with term limits.
So i definitely agree with you that our opinions on Putin, or many other dictators, come from a place of that privilege. It could easily be argued that Iraq was way better off to the average Iraqi (as long as you weren’t Kurdish and being gassed) with Saddam. He was a bloodthirsty dictator, but that was “stable”.
But the problem with this is that stability comes at the cost of killing off (figurativelyand often literally) any development of a credible opposition. The government is never forced to evolve. So you have a situation where any opponents are seen as a radical, inexperienced and with little capability to assume an orderly transition of power. They are all “Horvaths” as you suggested earlier. The only thing they can do is “oppose”, they don’t have to plan for what they would do if in power, because that is not allowed to happen. So yes there is stability, at a cost. The cost is, not being able to call the leader to account when they do something wrong. Not having access to information to make your own informed decisions. And the cost, if you dissent, of being labeled a traitor, or being arrested, or worse in some cases. We joke about Russians poisoning opponents or “defenestration “ but there is a reason for that, it’s because it has happened. Numerous times. Dictators know that, they convince the population that nobody can take over, whereas we know here in
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that whoever takes over, not a lot will change for most of us, and that changes in approach to government from time to time, drive society forward. Leaders know that they are in power only till the next election, and then it’s up in the air. They have to change and move forward or they get voted out. Dictators depend on maintaining status quo.
