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0 pointsGrustaf4y ago0 comments

That's exactly what McFaul suggested, and it's frankly absurd. Putin is quite popular, even my modern, non-Putinist friends in Moscow think he would win a fair election. Besides, he never lost an election, it's not that he lost and stayed on, that's not the issue.

And every one already knows that there are democratic countries, it's not like Russians would suddenly stage a coup because Ukraine has a fair election. Which they won't have any time soon, by the way. Ukraine is more corrupt than Russia.

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rudnevr4y ago

You wrong on all accounts.

Putin has never had fair elections in the first place. He was appointed first and ran as an incumbent already. He never held a single public debate with any of his opponents. He never faced a single opposition TV channel. Shutting down TV was his first term agenda. He never faced a single popular opposition leader competition, because they've been always excluded from elections in the first place.

And no, Ukraine rates better than Russia in corruption. Not saying Ukraine is a true democracy, which means the power was passed to opposition multiple times.

GrustafOP4y ago

I’m saying he probably WOULD win a hypothetical fair election. Or rather, that even my non-Putinist friends think so. Do you have any evidence that this is not the case?

Even this brutal war on a brother nation has popular support according to surveys https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/08/russia-publi.... Presumably Putin is not less popular than this.

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