The poll was conducted by the Levada Center, which has been around for 30 years and which the Russian government has categorized as a stand in for "foreign agents." So it sounds like you and Putin are on the same page here for opposite reasons. In any case I think you are wishcasting. Westerners do that all the time. They think everybo…
The poll was conducted by the Levada Center, which has been around for 30 years and which the Russian government has categorized as a stand in for "foreign agents." So it sounds like you and Putin are on the same page here for opposite reasons. In any case I think you are wishcasting. Westerners do that all the time. They think everybody on earth wants the same thing. You'd think that after the 20th Century experience with totalitarianism they'd have learned something about that.
Not wishcasting (as in we hope the Russians do not support Putin) but healthy skepticism. I expect that in an honest poll a majority off Russians would indeed express support, just 72% of Americans expressed support for the War in Iraq at the time. Besides Levada's history is a little checkered. The Russian government shut them down at one point allegedly because of polling showing public disapproval of the Chechen war. In 2016, Russia designated Levada as foreign agents when polling showed disapproval of Putin's party.
The end of your comment looks like a dubious conclusion based on an inaccurate premise. Westerners do not think everybody on earth wants the same thing. How does totalitarianism relate?
I'm not sure what your point is if you're agreeing that Levada's polling is accurate. As for totalitarianism, it could not have survived for long without substantial popular support. The resistance to Hitler in Germany was miniscule, and Stalin has lots of fans in Russia to this day. (Need I add the number of Americans who love Trump?)
The Iraq War (and that in Afghanistan) was a textbook example of the Western romantic conceit that everybody wants liberal democracy. But you can go back to Woodrow Wilson for comparable illusions. Wilson's idea of self-determination didn't engender the "end of history" either, but helped to legitimize tribalism of the worst kind.
I am not agreeing that the polling is accurate. I am saying given Levada's history, skepticism is in order. Why would they want to provoke the government's ire again.? It is possible that Russian approval is of the same dynamic as Iraq war approval. Or perhaps Russian are opposed, but Levada knows what happens when they publish opposition.
Your assertion about Westerners is an overgeneralization. 28% of Americans (like me) opposing the Iraq war is a lot of Westerners not necessarily believing everybody in the world wants the same thing. Two examples does not make a valid generalization.
Things are more complicated than that. It is well-known for example, that lots of Chinese people (privately) oppose their authoritarian government, but on the other hand, they were pretty happy their authoritarian government minimized Covid deaths in their country while still believing the government figures are way understated. They suggest multiplying by 2 or 3, but you would have to multiply by 1000 to equal the US's per capital death rate.
They are willing to provoke their government's ire because they are an independent organization. That's why I credited their polling in the first place. There is no particular reason to believe they have suddenly become subservient to the Kremlin.
The notion that people the world over share a common desire for liberal democracy was a core tenet of Bush-43's rationale for foreign interventionism, and it is arguably implicit in similar arguments about Russia today. I simply think it's naive. As to whether people who opposed the Bush interventions did so because they thought liberal democracy was not universally popular or for some other reason, you'd have to ask them. There's little doubt, however, that, as I said, Westerners regularly fall into that trap.
Not that independent as their history shows. I certainly did not mean to imply that those who opposed the Iraq war did so because they thought liberal democracy was not universally popular. However, commentary at the time questioned war supporters' presumption that bringing liberal democracy to a country was a proper reason for ever going to war. At the time, opposers of the Iraq war did indeed vociferously give their reasons. We do not have to wonder what those reasons were. Remember too "liberal democracy" was reason #9734, the fall-back reason, when all the other Bush administration rationales failed, and the one they stuck to even though it failed to sway the opposition because it looked like a cynical emotional appeal. Still one example of a largely universal ideal does not warrant the broad generalization you made.
Yeah, I heard a 538 podcast on the issue of the accuracy of Russian polls, and they were surprisingly positive about their accuracy. And they are the ultimate skeptics when it comes to polling methodology.
The poll was conducted by the Levada Center, which has been around for 30 years and which the Russian government has categorized as a stand in for "foreign agents." So it sounds like you and Putin are on the same page here for opposite reasons. In any case I think you are wishcasting. Westerners do that all the time. They think everybody on earth wants the same thing. You'd think that after the 20th Century experience with totalitarianism they'd have learned something about that.
Not wishcasting (as in we hope the Russians do not support Putin) but healthy skepticism. I expect that in an honest poll a majority off Russians would indeed express support, just 72% of Americans expressed support for the War in Iraq at the time. Besides Levada's history is a little checkered. The Russian government shut them down at one point allegedly because of polling showing public disapproval of the Chechen war. In 2016, Russia designated Levada as foreign agents when polling showed disapproval of Putin's party.
The end of your comment looks like a dubious conclusion based on an inaccurate premise. Westerners do not think everybody on earth wants the same thing. How does totalitarianism relate?
I'm not sure what your point is if you're agreeing that Levada's polling is accurate. As for totalitarianism, it could not have survived for long without substantial popular support. The resistance to Hitler in Germany was miniscule, and Stalin has lots of fans in Russia to this day. (Need I add the number of Americans who love Trump?)
The Iraq War (and that in Afghanistan) was a textbook example of the Western romantic conceit that everybody wants liberal democracy. But you can go back to Woodrow Wilson for comparable illusions. Wilson's idea of self-determination didn't engender the "end of history" either, but helped to legitimize tribalism of the worst kind.
I am not agreeing that the polling is accurate. I am saying given Levada's history, skepticism is in order. Why would they want to provoke the government's ire again.? It is possible that Russian approval is of the same dynamic as Iraq war approval. Or perhaps Russian are opposed, but Levada knows what happens when they publish opposition.
Your assertion about Westerners is an overgeneralization. 28% of Americans (like me) opposing the Iraq war is a lot of Westerners not necessarily believing everybody in the world wants the same thing. Two examples does not make a valid generalization.
Things are more complicated than that. It is well-known for example, that lots of Chinese people (privately) oppose their authoritarian government, but on the other hand, they were pretty happy their authoritarian government minimized Covid deaths in their country while still believing the government figures are way understated. They suggest multiplying by 2 or 3, but you would have to multiply by 1000 to equal the US's per capital death rate.
They are willing to provoke their government's ire because they are an independent organization. That's why I credited their polling in the first place. There is no particular reason to believe they have suddenly become subservient to the Kremlin.
The notion that people the world over share a common desire for liberal democracy was a core tenet of Bush-43's rationale for foreign interventionism, and it is arguably implicit in similar arguments about Russia today. I simply think it's naive. As to whether people who opposed the Bush interventions did so because they thought liberal democracy was not universally popular or for some other reason, you'd have to ask them. There's little doubt, however, that, as I said, Westerners regularly fall into that trap.
Not that independent as their history shows. I certainly did not mean to imply that those who opposed the Iraq war did so because they thought liberal democracy was not universally popular. However, commentary at the time questioned war supporters' presumption that bringing liberal democracy to a country was a proper reason for ever going to war. At the time, opposers of the Iraq war did indeed vociferously give their reasons. We do not have to wonder what those reasons were. Remember too "liberal democracy" was reason #9734, the fall-back reason, when all the other Bush administration rationales failed, and the one they stuck to even though it failed to sway the opposition because it looked like a cynical emotional appeal. Still one example of a largely universal ideal does not warrant the broad generalization you made.
Yeah, I heard a 538 podcast on the issue of the accuracy of Russian polls, and they were surprisingly positive about their accuracy. And they are the ultimate skeptics when it comes to polling methodology.