While I know the differences are considerable, I can’t help but think the Russian “opposition” sounds a LOT like the “Resist” movement in the US.
Again, every resource I have seen shows him very, very popular with the people.
Yes, there are POLITICAL factions that hate him. These people are usually motivated by the lure of power. But by and large, from what I can discern, the vast majority of the Russian people support him.
Hell, something like 40% would like to see a return to Soviet rule.
Mariner, you will see Trump MAGA caps at many of these protests. At the moment people who fall under the anti-Putin umbrella are everyone from Muslim regionalists to hyper-nationalists, to Saint Petersburg hipsters to Evangelical Christians.
The political culture in Russia is not very developed.
I honestly don’t understand the eagerness to embrace Putin. We are citizens of the country of George Washington, who time and time against REJECTED power and STEPPED DOWN. That alone should shape the prism of skepticism we view ANY authoritarian leader who stays in power for that long.
And the Russian mentality is complicated. It’s a very paternalistic culture!
They don’t have the same frames of reference we do and they have the trauma of history preventing them from putting up any real challenge to the status quo.