Opposition Kuomintang (KMT) chair-elect Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said on Friday that she hopes Taiwan can "make as many friends as possible," when asked to elaborate on her recent remarks that "Vladimir Putin is not a dictator" because he was elected, during an interview with Deutsche Welle (DW).
Incoming KMT chair doubles down on ‘grass was green’ remarks - Focus Taiwan
Yeah, this is a key point that a lot of Western libs completely miss because they’re so caught up in their own moral grandstanding. Before the whole war kicked off, Putin actually had to deal with real internal opposition. A significant number of people, especially in the bigger cities, genuinely wanted more integration with Europe and the West in general.
But then the war started, and the mask came off. The West’s response wasn’t just sanctions on oligarchs or the government. It immediately devolved into this insane, open season on anything and everything Russian. We’re talking about regular people getting banned from sports and arts, calls for collective punishment, and just a flood of the most vile, racist garbage directed at Russians as an ethnic group. It went from “we hate Putin’s regime” to “we hate you people” in about five seconds flat.
And that was a gift from heaven for the Kremlin. They’ve been saying for years that the West secretly despises all Russians and wants to see Russia broken up and erased as a culture. Suddenly, they could just point to the news and say see? we told you so.
This completely nuked the domestic pro Western opposition. What were they supposed to argue for? Hey, let’s be friends with these people who are calling for us to be shoved back into the stone age? Their entire platform was instantly irrelevant.
So instead of turning on Putin, a huge chunk of the population, including many who didn’t even like him, circled the wagons. When you’re being told by the entire “international community” that you’re subhuman orc because of your leader’s actions, you tend to rally around the flag as a form of self defense. The West’s blatant chauvinism and racism ended up solidifying Putin’s power in a way he could never have managed on his own.
They’ve been saying for years that the West secretly despises all Russians and wants to see Russia broken up and erased as a culture.
Certainly helps the Kremlin’s messaging land with Russians that EU politicians are openly holding conferences explicitly discussing how they want to balkanize Russia and steal its resources.
Putin doesn’t need to rig elections (though his party very likely does do it against the communists in local and regional elections), the West’s idiotic anti-Russian crusade has been the best electoral campaign he could have ever asked for. It is absolutely unsurprising to me that he has a solid 80% support now.
It also helps that things are going much better in Russia than they are in Europe at the moment. Much as i’d prefer the communists to be in charge instead, it doesn’t help to delude onesself about the current mood in Russia which is overall quite optimistic.
Yeah, this is a key point that a lot of Western libs completely miss because they’re so caught up in their own moral grandstanding. Before the whole war kicked off, Putin actually had to deal with real internal opposition. A significant number of people, especially in the bigger cities, genuinely wanted more integration with Europe and the West in general.
But then the war started, and the mask came off. The West’s response wasn’t just sanctions on oligarchs or the government. It immediately devolved into this insane, open season on anything and everything Russian. We’re talking about regular people getting banned from sports and arts, calls for collective punishment, and just a flood of the most vile, racist garbage directed at Russians as an ethnic group. It went from “we hate Putin’s regime” to “we hate you people” in about five seconds flat.
And that was a gift from heaven for the Kremlin. They’ve been saying for years that the West secretly despises all Russians and wants to see Russia broken up and erased as a culture. Suddenly, they could just point to the news and say see? we told you so.
This completely nuked the domestic pro Western opposition. What were they supposed to argue for? Hey, let’s be friends with these people who are calling for us to be shoved back into the stone age? Their entire platform was instantly irrelevant.
So instead of turning on Putin, a huge chunk of the population, including many who didn’t even like him, circled the wagons. When you’re being told by the entire “international community” that you’re subhuman orc because of your leader’s actions, you tend to rally around the flag as a form of self defense. The West’s blatant chauvinism and racism ended up solidifying Putin’s power in a way he could never have managed on his own.
Certainly helps the Kremlin’s messaging land with Russians that EU politicians are openly holding conferences explicitly discussing how they want to balkanize Russia and steal its resources.
Putin doesn’t need to rig elections (though his party very likely does do it against the communists in local and regional elections), the West’s idiotic anti-Russian crusade has been the best electoral campaign he could have ever asked for. It is absolutely unsurprising to me that he has a solid 80% support now.
It also helps that things are going much better in Russia than they are in Europe at the moment. Much as i’d prefer the communists to be in charge instead, it doesn’t help to delude onesself about the current mood in Russia which is overall quite optimistic.
Exactly