When I was living in the US (this was a while ago), I often got the impression that there were a lot of subtle but important similarities to russia (happened to have lived there for some time too, we left as soon we had the option to, this was before they invaded Georgia). The superpower exceptionalism, the fake-religiousity, the support for corruption among the plebs.
That being said I have always been pro-America in a pragmatic, “we deal with what we have” sense.
But the US really is becoming like russia. Putin didn’t just appear out of nowhere, it was very much with the support of russian society and russian genocidal imperialism was a thing under Yeltsin too.
Russia escaped 60 years of communist dictatorship. They already had bowing to authoritarians as part of their culture. The US should be better than that. Perhaps it’s naivety about what authoritarianism looks like or how it turns on you if you only support it because it is stomping on perceived enemies.
Russia didn’t escape anything. The breakup of the USSR started due to pressure from occupied countries that were forced to be part of the USSR. In under 10 years, they were back to supporting a KGB dictatorship. 2000 and 2004 victories by putin are generally considered to be legitimate and analysis of subsequent elections do not show falsification/pressure as being a matter for going above 50% support.
But I digress. I would argue even when I was living in the US (Bush II, Obama), there were clear early seeds of support for a “managed democracy” approach. The one that came to mind immediately was lack of voting franchise in Washington DC and another one that I later figured out was regional geographic disenfranchisement.
But I do agree that American polemics about freedom are unconvincing and only serve to enable limitation of freedom.
yup. im sorta old. over 50. My world has turned into what I was told about russia to highlight how bad it is when I was a kid. I really don’t get why every last american is not up in arms about masked, unmarked, paramilitary that is exactly what everyone visualizes about when thinking about life in a fucked up country.
Especially the gubment overreach 2A guys. Like I know they’re mostly conservatives that don’t think non white people have rights, but some of them really seemed like they believed. Every once in a while there’s an overstep that gets some of the more libertarian minded conservatives to buck the movement a little, but they’ve been shockingly quiet about all this really egregious implementation of everything they say they fear.
When I was living in the US (this was a while ago), I often got the impression that there were a lot of subtle but important similarities to russia (happened to have lived there for some time too, we left as soon we had the option to, this was before they invaded Georgia). The superpower exceptionalism, the fake-religiousity, the support for corruption among the plebs.
That being said I have always been pro-America in a pragmatic, “we deal with what we have” sense.
But the US really is becoming like russia. Putin didn’t just appear out of nowhere, it was very much with the support of russian society and russian genocidal imperialism was a thing under Yeltsin too.
Russia escaped 60 years of communist dictatorship. They already had bowing to authoritarians as part of their culture. The US should be better than that. Perhaps it’s naivety about what authoritarianism looks like or how it turns on you if you only support it because it is stomping on perceived enemies.
Russia didn’t escape anything. The breakup of the USSR started due to pressure from occupied countries that were forced to be part of the USSR. In under 10 years, they were back to supporting a KGB dictatorship. 2000 and 2004 victories by putin are generally considered to be legitimate and analysis of subsequent elections do not show falsification/pressure as being a matter for going above 50% support.
But I digress. I would argue even when I was living in the US (Bush II, Obama), there were clear early seeds of support for a “managed democracy” approach. The one that came to mind immediately was lack of voting franchise in Washington DC and another one that I later figured out was regional geographic disenfranchisement.
But I do agree that American polemics about freedom are unconvincing and only serve to enable limitation of freedom.
yup. im sorta old. over 50. My world has turned into what I was told about russia to highlight how bad it is when I was a kid. I really don’t get why every last american is not up in arms about masked, unmarked, paramilitary that is exactly what everyone visualizes about when thinking about life in a fucked up country.
Especially the gubment overreach 2A guys. Like I know they’re mostly conservatives that don’t think non white people have rights, but some of them really seemed like they believed. Every once in a while there’s an overstep that gets some of the more libertarian minded conservatives to buck the movement a little, but they’ve been shockingly quiet about all this really egregious implementation of everything they say they fear.