Putin claims landslide in Russian election and scorns US democracy

"election"

I couldn't get 88% of people to agree on which day of the week it was, much less who should be president.
- Lol, I think that nobody outside of Russia has any belief that this was a free and fair election. I mean, even if you don't count that Putin imprisoned his political ally and killed him.

GOP is just jealous because they have a hard time trying to pull off the same stunt in the US
- That's literally all this is. He can fix an election and they can't even really pick their own fuckin candidate.
- yet
- (Don't ask why they won last time despite getting less votes)

As stupid and fucked up the US elections are, that doesn’t give you the right to do something objectively worse. Shit up.
Edit: I decided to not correct that typo.
- upward shit fireworks
- Insert Tubgirl.flv
  If you don't know, I don't know if I'd suggest looking it up.

I love how all the western polling in Russia before the election shows that Putin has over 80% approval, and now all the western media acts like it's shocking that he got around that in the election. For example, here's an example from CNN just a few days ago
But Putin undoubtedly has reaped the rewards of a political landscape tilted dramatically in his favor. The Levada Center, a non-governmental polling organization, consistently reports Putin’s approval rating at over 80% – an eye-popping figure virtually unknown among Western politicians, and a substantial increase on the three-year period before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/14/europe/putin-russia-election-explainer-update-intl/index.html
Absolute clown shit.
- I don't think anyone is acting like it's shocking. On the contrary, it's exactly what everyone expected so it's not a surprise. After all, he's been Russia's President for 21 of the past 25 years.
  
  The whole context for this thread is a BBC article throwing shade on the Russian elections.
- Because before elections, west media wanted to convince us that all Russians are bad and you shouldn't oppose their government only.
- It's not hard to get the majority of votes when the real opposition is in jail or dead
  
  The real opposition in Russia is the KPRF who have around 30% support.

There is no Democracy in the Untited states... there is a Facade of a Democracy while at BEST it is an Oligarchy.
- Democratically elected Republic. But it's more a corporatocracy than an Oligarchy.

The only difference between the Russian and US system is that instead of having one big party whose interests are entirely separated from the public and which completely crushes any opposition parties, we have two big parties whose interests are entirely separated from the public and which completely crush all opposition parties.
A sham democracy if there ever was one, but that's because the purpose of indirect democracy is less to decide on policy and more to select a strongman leader that's most appealing.
The Russian election was "rigged" in that there was only controlled opposition... But this is also not an inherently unique feature. When was the last time a US President was neither Democrat nor Republican?
- The US needs ranked choice voting badly, but to say the only difference between the US and Russia is the two party system is just straight up incorrect. Opposition leaders and dissidents do not get regularly assassinated by the government in the US for starters.
  
  Opposition leaders and dissidents do not get regularly assassinated by the government in the US for starters.
  Currently yes. But Trump's lawyers have argued in court that the President can't be found guilty of any crimes, including assassination of political rivals.
  
  That's because none of the opposition leaders are actually threats. They killed plenty of opposition leaders while your parents were alive, though. Martin and Malcom are the two most obvious ones.
  But before that, when there was a labor movement, lots of people got killed for being on the wrong side of power.
  And finally, the USA doesn't have a USA out there funding and inculcating opposition leaders, connecting them with spies and mercenaries, and building movements to create a coup.
  
  Opposition leaders and dissidents do not get regularly assassinated by the government in the US for starters.
  Because there's no need to do it
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
  
  What opposition leaders? What dissidents?
  Two of the top university presidents in the country were taken down after daring to question the common narrative on the conflict in Gaza.
  A whistleblower for a government defence contractor was just assassinated in the middle of legal proceedings against that defence contractor.
  Whistleblowers are hunted after: Assange is struggling to avoid extradition and Snowden is stuck in Russia after being pressured to leave everywhere else.
  Meanwhile, even legitimate presidential candidates like Sanders are given every disadvantage, most notably in terms of (a lack of) funding and superdelegate votes in primaries.
  
  Personally I'd say score voting would make the most sense. Essentially it works like this, you get a list of parties and you vote them 1-5 on how much you agree with them. This changes the whole dynamics as you now aren't choosing who will rule, but how much you agree with each party ideologically and forcing you to research on their proposed mandate plans. It also serves as sort of an evaluation of how do you think each party has been addressing the country's issues before the election.
  Mathematically, this may not ensure always the most happiness, but it ensures the least unhappiness compared to all current known voting methods (you can easily find research on how this was calculated in many papers on mathematics).
  Personally i would also propose returning to the old Roman and the first proposed French republic system of having 2-3 consuls of the most voted for parties and they take turns proposing legislation to a senate that's a direct seated representation of the voting results.
  As an interesting tidbit, the reason we have a president/prime Minister with all the power in most western democracies, is because Napoleon altered the original proposed 3 consul system into a prime consul with all the power then minor ministers because he was aiming to become Emperor and wanted to centralize the power. Our democratic systems are strongly influenced by the first French republic post the French revolution.
- The Russian election was "rigged" in that there was only controlled opposition
  Incorrect. They were rigged pretty much completely, as some data shows. Something about 30 million fake votes.
- tell that to Daphne Caruana Galizia
- US politics is absolutely retarded but at least you aren't going to fall out of a window for criticizing the president.
  
  No, but if you blow the whistle on a US company you might end up suicided.