In part, it’s what @alahmnat said - pretending to be democratic is what dictators do to fit in these days. And it does work - it’s always “president Putin”, while for example Lukashenka of Belarus, who is somewhat less subtle about the “for life” aspect of his presidency, gets branded “Europe’s last dictator”.
There’s also internal considerations. Even though everyone knows that Putin’s approval ratings and vote counts are bullshit, nobody knows by how much. And when the populace has only one 90+% figure as reference, there’s bound to be some psychological anchoring - “sure, he’s not that popular, but there still must be plenty of people who like him, so no use grumbling”.
Plus, fake elections work as a sort of character assassination of the whole concept of democracy: when you’ve learned from experience that elections are a charade where the result is always decided in advance, it’s hard to be excited about a solution that involves more voting - except done properly this time, unlike the last time when fake elections with one candidate were replaced by fake elections with multiple candidates.
I wonder if anyone will object to the USA influencing the elections by releasing true facts about Russian political parties.
One thing’s for sure, Putin’s going to be in big trouble when the Russians find out he’s had the temerity to contact foreign leaders during his campaign. The outrage will surely unseat him!
Is there any dirt to spill? United Russia is simply a Putin cheerleading squad, and the Communist Party and the LDP (far right) support Putin on all the stuff that matters, like annexing Crimea and supporting the separatists in eastern Ukraine and generally embiggeining Russia’s power and glory.
EDIT: Didn’t read the second paragraph so missed your absolute sarcasm.
I wonder if he has any plans for ‘after i’m Gone’ so Russia and thus his legacy doesn’t instantly implode. Or is he of the mindset ‘it can all burn for al lI care I’ll be dead and gone.’
Lacking. But then again, Hitler spent most of his career catching up with Stalin’s body count, and he made it in the end, so there’s nothing one can’t achieve through ambition and perseverance.
Rituals are important. You sit up late at night, watch the meaningless votes get counted, finish your cognac and wake up the next morning trying to not read any news and avoid all and any small talk about the current events.
While I love that movie, in truth I think if an AI took over the world, there’s an excellent chance we’d never even realize it. Things would change as fast as it dared, but it would have no reason to reveal itself and every reason to conceal its existence. How things would change is the open question. But if we lose our dominant role, I doubt we’ll ever even know it.
