A very unbiased headline
A very unbiased headline
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I'm so sick of this idea in the west that elections must always be really "close" or else they won't be legitimate somehow. They literally argue that actual popular support for a politician is somehow undemocratic.
(Not saying that Putin is just really popular and doesn't gerrymander and manipulate votes the same way every capitalist government does, I'm just so fucking sick of this idea that every vote needs to be "close" like a fucking sports game in a movie.)
Actually, democracy is only valid when the vote margin is 0.1% in favor of the loser who loses on an idiosyncratic technicality of how votes are divided up and counted, and both candidates are less popular than a police precinct being burned down by protesters.
Whenever the government has popular approval that's populism and is bad, actually. If ever you find yourself with too much public support you have to strategically triangulate towards your opponent and alienate your base to make the election fair and democratic.
Putin has an 86% approval rating in Russia
Yes, but I don't know if that is due to genuine popularity or a lack of decent opposition (though the two are usually directly related). I just don't know enough about Russian politics to really weigh in.
Every country's political imagination is shaped by what their country does and the conditions of it. Like in America, the only political battlefield is over manners and how to administer empire. The two American sides are domestic capital versus international finance capital. Politics in Taiwan are split between pro-status quo or anti-China. There's not always a clear framework of left/right.
Politics in Russia from my understanding mostly revolve around how to deal with the west. There's a pro-integration side and an assertive, independent Russia side. Putin's the head of the anti-west contingent, and that's been the more popular side among the Russian population for decades now. It's also why Trump is viewed positively by a lot of Russians, because Trump's platform back in 2016 sounded like he wanted to go more isolationist and stop toying around in foreign affairs (lmao)
domestic capital versus international finance capital
Honestly even this distinction isn't so clear cut, Republicans love to virtue signal about being more insular but they're all involved with the same bourgeoisie as the democrats.
i mean if that number is accurate it speaks for itself, literally no western politician could get such high approval even if they went door to door offering blowjobs
Maybe that's why they insist popularity is a sign of authoritarianism. Because they're jealous.
The direct opposition is the communist party of the Russian federation.
Yeah neither do I tbh. But I share your annoyance at this criticism especially when it’s leveled at aes states. “Democracy is when you hate the government, and the more you hate the government, the more democratic it is” - the state dept
No he doesn't. That's fake news. Made up numbers. Nobody in Russia likes Putin. They are all forced to like him, at gunpoint.
There's a case that constant 51/49 polls are a sign that American democracy is faltering on a nechanical level.
Good ideas in politics should be widely understood. One would hope to see 70/30 or more splits on most issues coming to a direct vote.
Without the FPTP electoral model, everyone would have to play the coalition card, which would likely lead to majorities larger than 51/49 for most legislation. Of course, it's also odd that even a two party systrm splits the country almost exactly evenly despite social shifts. It's like looking at a trench war that's been going on for 150 years. It's almost like business likes and supports a government prone to rictus.
If there wasn't so much cash floating in the system, it would be harder to coax the masses into voting against their own interests, again reducing the number of campaigns swung to a 51/49 outcome.
A lot of good points here. I would slightly differ in that the cause of electoral failure in the US is not a breakdown in messaging or debate. It is because American politics are essentially cynical. Political ideas expressed by politicians are merely a means to an end, a playing card carried for the sole purpose of placing it down at the expedient moment. That is part of why the margins are so slim, because no party or politician wants to “spend” more of their cards than they must.
There is no significant diversity of political ideology in the US. It all serves the interest of capital.
Putin is actually very popular, idk why people on the left can't simply accept this fact, but every time stumble on some platitudes, the western political upbringing is showing. Yes, people are capable of voting en masse for not ideal candidate.
Oh, I'm not calling the results into question, more just wondering if his popularity is a result solely of his policies or due to there not being any sort of major opposition party to him, though in the latter case, it's hard to be effective opposition against a popular party with popular policies.
Russia just don't have the split every capitalist core countries have, where the ruling class party need to split on two or more to continue the political theatre despite having the exact same class interests.
We do accept that. It's the libs that can't wrap their heads around it.
No, libs openly hate him and wish death to him. I meant i seen it all the time in places like deprogram, sometimes on hexbear, and more rarily even on lemmygrad.
I remember reading somewhere that winning ~80% of the vote was evidence of a rigged election. The anglo skull volume is too pressurized to fit the idea of "popular government with policies the people want" inside it.
It's so dumb, like if they were actually rigging elections, surely they would rig it so they win like...60% of the vote, so it looks close, so people suspect them. But no, it's got to be something so obvious a (western) child would notice, but not something the people actually living in the country in question would. Got to add a little bit of racism and western chauvinism to your "anti-authoritarianism" after all.