Russia's Putin to visit Vietnam, sparking US rebuke of Hanoi
Russia's Putin to visit Vietnam, sparking US rebuke of Hanoi
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Okay but why do journalists do this? "Russia's putin", "China's Xi" in a nearby post. Why? It sounds stupid. Why not "USA's Biden" then? "British Sunak"?
See, I'd understand this illustration if they were talking about idk "invaders" or "nationalists". But it's very specifically about the country leader. A country leader with a very particular name, that can't be mistaken for another
It's partially about names too, note how when talking about their own leaders they very often use their title, sometimes even just the title, but when speaking about who they percieve as enemy they do opposite, often omitting title and using just name - it's to create impression that "ours" is the fully legal democratic leader working within the democratic system, and "other" is rogue despot.
Next, it is to create impession that the "other" is (nearly) entirely responsible for whatever the "others" are doing. It's not the people, it's not the system, and certainly not if he got popular support (you can't ever said that), no, it's their wicked despot. Purpose of this is to avoid making materialist analysis of current conditions and politics, it's always Great (mad) Man at the helm. It also allows for smooth propaganda pass in case of the man got removed by the colour revolution - suddenly the country became good (good savages often) when it's getting subordinated to the west. It also allow to avoid chauvinist connotation for the western lib audience - "hate the leader not the people" (again elephant in the room is question what if said leader have wide popular support).
Now that sounds like a good explanation. Thanks!
Just in case you confuse him for all the other heads of state named Putin. There's hundreds of em /s