I really don't get why they are doing these so called votes. Everyone knows this is a sham. Who do Putin and his bobbleheads think this is for?
For the benefit of certain US Senators, who can now say not only "Ukraine can't win, why are they even trying" to "They want Russia there, they had an election and everything!"
He needs to pretend to be elected to follow the narrative of "everybody loves me, everbody wants me to be your leader". It is a principle of Guided Democracies. He is a full blown dictator, but he needs to keep the slim offramp in his narrative that he is elected by the masses so they can argue in his favor: "We elected him!". Democracy - as flawed as it sometimes seemes - is the superior state form and what people want. Giving them the illusion is necessary for plausible deniability against the dictatorship-argument: "They elected me!". That nothing is real in russia and everything is a distraction and a deception is just the culture part of them. Churchill (apparently) said "Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." I think that is giving them too much credit. When you argue with russians, you mostly will fall on dead ears. The are not very flexible to form new views based on new informations. They tend to conserve their views early on and afterwards every argument is a distraction disguised as a conversation. You will never win an Argument with a russian because their goal is not to change your viewpoint, but to wear you down and move the goalpost as long as it takes before you give up and opened so many topics, that everything becomes opaque confusing. Elections are needed to give the illusion that behind the fog is an actual democratic system. Even though everyone knows there is none if the fog ever goes away. But in russia is never goes away.
Thanks for this. It makes it a bit easier to understand. It's such a messed up thing in the end. Sad we live in a world where this shit goes on.
Kraut does an excellent write-up of the ideology behind the Putin Regime, and these sham elections are around basically because Putin is a follower of more or less the original Christo-Fascist. Ivan Illin.
One of the psycho's writings declares that not only should democracy be abolished, but that a ritual should be made of pissing on its corpse on a yearly basis, where an election is held with only one candidate. This ritual exists only for the people to renew the surrender of their rights to the "moral" state they live under. Basically not only must democracy be destroyed, but the people must have it ritually illegitimized by force every year, not just to beat them down into submission, but also to act as a show of mockery to the remaining democracies of the world.
So all of their bullshit is basically psyops.
It’s just sending a message that those territories are Russian territory. Everyone knows it’s a sham, but they have to project strength, no matter how ludicrous it seems.
It worked when they did it in Crimea. Of course the votes were a sham, but they did it and nobody called their bluff. The next week official maps of record (notably Google's) proclaimed Crimea to be Russian territory.
Potemkin election.
No wait. They should elect Putin, then invite him for a celebration.
"ok great stand riiiiight there while I make this totally unrelated phone call from that hill over yonder brb kthxbye"
I think this Poutine guy is a real hoser
Fuck off with calling him a poutine. Poutines are good eating, unlike that cancerous shit.
I like the one with the gravy and the cheese curd, they do not understand this in soviet russia
Ooh! I wonder who is going to win?
Putin won two weeks ago.
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