It has been argued that Trump, Musk, and the Project 2025 people all want the US to become more like Russia — an authoritarian state that ruthlessly suppresses dissent.
Naively, I thought that if Russia had free and fair elections they would toss Putin out. But seeing the US embrace the wannabe dictators makes me reevaluate. There is obviously a large segment of the voting population that is onboard with the vision of an authoritarian state.
Which leads me to the question about Russia. Putin obviously commits election tampering — but does he need to?
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It has been argued that Trump, Musk, and the Project 2025 people all want the US to become more like Russia — an authoritarian state that ruthlessly suppresses dissent.
Naively, I thought that if Russia had free and fair elections they would toss Putin out. But seeing the US embrace the wannabe dictators makes me reevaluate. There is obviously a large segment of the voting population that is onboard with the vision of an authoritarian state.
Which leads me to the question about Russia. Putin obviously commits election tampering — but does he need to?
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He might. Propaganda is mighty strong there.
No. They would elect a much worse guy.
Likely so. Many Russians support the motherfucker.
You ask yourself “how?” And then remember 77 million support Donald Trump. Propaganda is a helluva drug.
Im not sure. He won with 88% of the vote last time and his opposition basically said to vote for Putin.
So 12% of the population at least is anti Putin, probably a much higher number.
I am guessing it would be close but it would depend on his opposition. If the opposition was Putin Lite, no.
As Putin controls the media, if you hear all day, every day how Putin in a hero, he is saving Russia from the Nazis in Ukraine, things may not be great but if it wasn’t for Putin, they would be controlled by Nazis.
Never mind the fact that anyone who ran against him would be trashed by the media, portrayed as anti Russia.
Years of brainwashing say yes. Look at the Trump cult.
Probably. Russians seem to prefer autocracy.
It does, however, seem that midnight is approaching…
At this point no. The government has passed some rather draconian laws against criticizing the government or the war in Ukraine, which is not something you would do if your policies were popular. It’s really hard to hide the costs of such a war.
No. I know people who lived in Russia. Remember all of the things Trump accused democrats of in 2020? He got every single accusation from what Putin actually does. Ballot dumps. Machine tampering. Bussing in foreign voters… Russia does all of that openly to make the point to the population that they are being strong armed and there is absolutely nothing they can do about it.
As a political science professor used to say, only an amateur rigs elections on election day. In Russia, the entire political system is configured to deliver a win for Putin without actually having to fix the vote, including:
-Either state control or state-friendly (I.e., owned by people friendly to the Kremlin) control over the news;
-Transferring many regional governing powers from elected governors to presidentially-appointed super governors;
-Ending judicial independence so the judicial system can be used to punish political opponents;
-Encouraging ubiquitous corruption so that anybody can be punished under the guise of an anti corruption crackdown;
-Funding Kremlin-friendly “release valve” parties at the far left and far right extremes to take votes from more moderate parties.
-Introducing prohibitively difficult administrative obstacles for people who want to register independent candidates or new parties
As a result, it is extremely difficult for a potential competitor to even grow popular enough to represent a threat to Putin. Russia could have free, UN-monitored elections and they would still deliver the same results.
Putin murders his opposition.
Probably, yes.
Putin thinks Putin would lose or he wouldn’t have spent 30 years corrupting elections and killing his opposition.
Probably.
Something I think is relevant is what is meant by "free and fair elections." Like the top comment currently talks about propaganda, and several others all focus on Putin’s control of the media.
That….doesn’t sound particularly free or fair to me. If there’s de jour free and fair elections but de facto unjust and unfair elections, then it doesn’t seem particularly honest to call it "free and fair."
Yeah. They would.
Americans don’t understand that the core of what makes Russia is the propaganda. The same propaganda that decided the 2024 election.
Suddenly cutting bait on Trump
Would do exactly nothing to solve our problem. The problem is the information infection. Nothing will improve until we understand that we’re on the losing end of an information war we haven’t woken up to yet.
How would we know?