Tuesday, September 15, 2020

Despite small gains for the far right & Navalny, Russia’s weekend elections don’t suggest any major political change is imminent — Paul Robinson


Analysis of the Russian election. The status quo won handily.

RT
Despite small gains for the far right & Navalny, Russia’s weekend elections don’t suggest any major political change is imminent
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

13 comments:

Peter Pan said...

Status quo is winning handily just about everywhere.

Andrew Anderson said...

Hysteresis plus boomers need to move on themselves ...

Matt Franko said...

Yo Trump is populist outsider candidate...

Peter Pan said...

If Trump were a threat to the empire he'd have been assassinated by now.

Matt Franko said...

He’s a transitional figure... he’s changing the post ww2 policy...

He is successfully building his own transitional coalition in the GOP, some of us have been advocating for this since the 90s... were finally getting it 25 years later... takes time...

Peter Pan said...

All I see is noise on trade with China.

Cold War 2.0 - on schedule
Foreign policy - hawkish
Military budget - bloated (i.e. just the way they like it)
Green New Deal - not on the table
Job Guarantee - not on the table
Infrastructure - not on the table
Immigration - same old, same old

And if Biden wins, you can kiss this "transition" goodbye.

Andrew Anderson said...

Job Guarantee - not on the table Peter Pan

That's a positive, not a negative since paying people to waste their time doesn't do anyone good.

I recall reading about an experiment at a German concentration camp after an Allied raid had destroyed the camp's ability to make rocket (V-2?) fuel:

Week 1: The inmates were ordered to move the rubble to the other side of the camp.
Week 2: They were ordered to move it back.
Week 3: Move it to the other side again. (grumbles of "Stupid Germans can't make up their minds").
Week 4: They were ordered to move it back again.
Week 5 ...

Soon many of the prisoners went mad and charged the fences to be shot down.

The moral of the story is that people would rather do useful work for their enemies than waste their time.

Peter Pan said...

Citizen's Dividend - not on the table

So where are the positives?

Andrew Anderson said...

A positive with Trump is he's perceived to be a loose cannon against the status quo.

That sure beats Biden's "Nothing will change."

So maybe Trump can learn ...

Not that I'll vote for either one.

Matt Franko said...

Cold War 2.0 is better than WW3...

And you have to train and prepare military to maximize readiness... deter aggression... etc... doesn’t mean you have to ever deploy it...



Matt Franko said...

And we dont have the real Human Resources for either GND or infrastructure...

Will take years of developing new skills in our working age cohort first...

S400 said...

”The moral of the story is that people would rather do useful work for their enemies than waste their time.”

And if you were honest you would also say that his nothing to do with a Job guarantee. But then again you’re not a honest person.

S400 said...

“ Will take years of developing new skills in our working age cohort first...”

Are Americans that poor in learning new skills?