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Comment by pain2022 | Hacker News Reader

pain2022

“Independent pollsters”, my ass. According to their polls, Navalny support was 0-1% while so many people was arrested during demonstrations in his support in Moscow that thousands were put into immigrant detention center instead of regular jails.

Also, people are scared they will get fired from their government jobs or worse if they voice opposition.

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Less than 10% of Russians live in Moscow, which is by far Russia's most liberal and Westernized city. The uncomfortable fact which progressives around the world seem to be having trouble with is that on average, most Russians absolutely do support the war and do see my family's home-country, Ukraine, as being a rightful part of Russia.

It probably won't change your mind, but here is a pretty transparent poll on a mix of Russians at a train station in Moscow (to capture some from outside the metropolises). The multi hour poll is a continuous video to show lack of selection bias (parts with no speech are fast forwarded) https://youtu.be/eNwe24PlPTQ

About half the Russians don't support the war. I hope the conflict ends soon.

Lack of selection bias would be selecting according to demography distribution. Looks like this sample has young people way overrepresented, by clikcing through a video. And young people support the war slightly less.

I've heard from my parents they would get fired from their non-government jobs too, if anti-war slogans were found on their social media. They also called me repeatedly asking not to participate in rallies, or they would "die of a heart attack". I used to organize those a few years back, and it sort of didn't end well.

Stop dreaming, support is strong. Washington Post via Levada reports an enormous 80-percent approval rating.[1]

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/03/26...

You do realize Moscow is a multimillion city so the 10k demonstration is nothing.

Also urban liberals aren’t representative of the country as a whole

nailed it. That's a bias I'm surprised very few people are able to grasp in the Internets, the same urban liberals ( from any country really ) or higher class tend to favor Western social networks, or be simply pro-Western, thus completely biaising the " I'm [Insert your nationality here] .. blablabla " It's especially rampant on Global South or emerging countries, while the richer people can actually afford slacking on Reddit responding to a mostly Anglophone audience.

You do realize only a fraction of demonstration was arrested, and that for every person who risked getting beaten up and arrested there are many of his friends and relatives who support his views

That's why we have polls and statistics, instead of relying on the "most vocal" and supposedly "most courageous" people that "brave" the streets to protest. I personally don't buy it.

Any political poll conducted on an authoritarian state will not be trustworthy either. It's like going to a black neighborhood on the US and doing a poll on marijuana use. Many people will not admit to illegal activity. This is something an statistics professor will say in any basic introductory course.

Again, there are no independent institutions or media left who could conduct polls and statistics.

All "polls and statistics" you see are basically fabricated by the government, either directly, or by induced fear.

If you're going to make up numbers, why not make up a majority? Be more ambitious.

10k is absolutely something in an authoritarian country when there is no free speech at all or freedom of assembly. And serious repercussions for those seen as against Putin.

10k is the number of people who were ready to be beaten, detained, tortured, have huge fines and later have their families harrassed.

You cannot claim that the only people who are against Putin are those who took part in illegal protests that are punished with hefty fines and arrests. Not everyone is that brave.

While Putin might have high rating in the polls, his party United Russia could win only 50% of seats in Moscow Parliament in 2019 (after most popular independent candidates were not allowed to be in the ballot). Furthermore, members of United Russia nominated as independent candidates to hide their party affiliation. If you believe that only ten thousands people are against the government then how can you explain this?

Another example is that Navalny was denied to register a political party for many years. If he has only 1% or 2% of supporters, as propaganda claims, why deny registering a party? Let him take part in election and get his deserved 1% with a disgrace (by the way, in 2013 Moscow Mayor election he got 27% of votes and obviously that was the last election he was allowed to take part in).

So from the above facts I can conclude that Putin's support is not absolute. There are reasons why he doesn't allow to hold fair elections, why protests are not allowed, why all major mass media are controlled by the government and Internet is censored. You don't need this with true 80% voter support.

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