I think everyone who has been paying attention saw this coming. Now so-called “socialist” Hasan Piker is putting out CNN level liberal propaganda. Even western polling had to admit that Putin enjoyed an approval rating above 80% just prior to the election, but of course when you have demonized Russia to this degree you have to resort to reality denial to explain what you see.
We need to start using the term “red liberal” to describe these “leftist” political streamers and YouTubers who mimick the aesthetics and language of leftism while feeding into imperialist dogma and liberal assumptions about the world. Hasan also continues to deny the Donbass genocide that had been taking place since 2014 before Russia finally intervened, refuses to accept that Russia had legitimate reason to take action to stop NATO eastward expansion, and downplays the Nazi nature of the Kiev regime.
Now after he made fun of all the dumbass chuds who insisted in 2020 that the US election was stolen and made up all kinds of conspiracy theories to try and justify it, Hasan himself engages in the same kind of behavior when it comes to Russian elections. This is the kind of “socialist” who will act like they are not Democrat shills by superficially criticizing Genocide Joe yet continue to advocate that you vote for Democrats as the “lesser evil”.
It is good though that since 2022 all of these sheepdogs for liberal imperialism have been exposing themselves. Now we know where the lines are drawn. Once again Lenin’s words ring true:
“We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we have to advance almost constantly under their fire. We have combined, by a freely adopted decision, for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not of retreating into the neighbouring marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very outset, have reproached us with having separated ourselves into an exclusive group and with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliation. And now some among us begin to cry out: Let us go into the marsh! And when we begin to shame them, they retort: What backward people you are! Are you not ashamed to deny us the liberty to invite you to take a better road! Oh, yes, gentlemen! You are free not only to invite us, but to go yourselves wherever you will, even into the marsh. In fact, we think that the marsh is your proper place, and we are prepared to render you every assistance to get there. Only let go of our hands, don’t clutch at us and don’t besmirch the grand word freedom, for we too are “free” to go where we please, free to fight not only against the marsh, but also against those who are turning towards the marsh!”
I don’t see how that makes elections fake, having only one realistically viable option. You can’t say an election isn’t real just because one candidate is massively more popular than everyone else.
What makes bourgeois elections illegitimate is that they are actually really decided by the bourgeois class through their control over the media apparatus which indoctrinates and manipulates the people into voting how the bourgeois class wants.
Also, conditions for electoralism are not the same in Russia as they are in the US. The US for instance has no politically viable communist party that could ever win any significant elections. Russia does.
At the end of the day I’m not saying that Russia’s bourgeois elections are legitimate, but that they are really not that different from those in the West, apart from the results. Also it’s not hard to understand why Putin is so popular:
Mind you this is essentially propaganda, it lies by omission of the more inconvenient social and economic indicators while focusing too much on averages instead of the median. But otherwise it is pretty accurate as far as the numbers that it cites.
People in Russia can feel the improvement in their material conditions. With the exception of those already ideologically predisposed to dislike Putin (either communists like us, or on the other side, pro-Western liberals) i think most people cannot help but admire him for what he has seemingly (“seemingly” because he or course didn’t do it alone) achieved these past 20 years in Russia.