Russian caricature on the American elections.
Dollar to Trump and Biden: “Hey small fry, I’m the boss in America!”
By SlavaTsukerman:
Though until January 14, none of the official representatives of the Russian government commented on the Capitol attack, the actions of American Internet platforms to block the pages of Donald Trump and the second impeachment of him, nevertheless the state controlled media and politicians, close to government, were united in their support of the Trump’s position.
On January 7, popular site Gazeta.ru wrote:
“The institution of democracy in the United States has been challenged by internal political strife. Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Russian Federation Council Committee on International Affairs, wrote about this on his Facebook page: ‘America no longer charts the World’s course, and therefore has lost all right to set it. And even more so to impose on others.‘ Kosacheev stressed that those who disagree with the official election results have good reasons for that. ‘The votes of the Americans were counted non-transparently’, Kosachev added, and now America is split and ‘the festival of democracy is over’ he thinks. In addition, Kosachev criticized both the Democratic and Republican parties. ‘The current US President Donald Trump, who refused to recognize the election results, ended up on the captain’s bridge of a ship sinking to the bottom’”
Website news.ru published the comment of Russian Senator Alexey Pushkov on blocking of the Donald Trump page on Twitter.
“This is another symbol of the Orwellian world in the United States and a signal to everyone who still has illusions about this”, the politician said.
According to Pushkov, the social networks have declared “merciless war” on the American leader. Pushkov is convinced that network companies in the United States, as well as Internet platforms, have become the guardians of the “liberal order.”
“Liberal” is the strongest curse word in the Pushkov and his brothers–in–arms vocabulary. The senator believes that censorship in the American Internet companies has become an integral part of their functioning.
On January 14, it finally was published a comment of Russian Foreign Ministry official spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on the actions of American Internet platforms to block the pages of Donald Trump. The comment was reprinted from Zakharova’s Facebook page by the popular newspaper and site aif.ru.
In Zakharova’s opinion, the decision to block Trump’s pages can be equated with a nuclear explosion in cyberspace, since “the destruction from the explosion is not as terrible as its consequences.” She stated that “the social media actions hit the democratic values promoted by the Western community”.
The first time in the modern Russian history a lot of prominent members of the Putin’s opposition agreed with the official position.
Andrei Illarionov, former Putin’s economics adviser and lately one of his most active critics, stated, that in his opinion, the Capital attack was a provocation, staged by Democrats in order to compromise Trump.
He wrote: “What is happening in recent months in the United States is more and more reminiscent of what happened in Germany exactly 88 years ago, in 1932-33. And the so-called ‘storming of the Capitol’ on January 6, 2021, is increasingly acquiring the characteristic features of the arson of the German Reichstag on February 27, 1933”.
The opinion of Yulia Latinina, one of the most prominent political writers of Russian opposition, is very close to Illarionov’s position.
She wrote:
“Of course, the mostly unspeakable story is Trump’s supporters storming the Capitol in US. When I watched it, I thought that, of course, Trump had bad PR people, because it was necessary to let Black Lives Matter take the White House in the summer, and then we would have seen no less impressive pictures, but Trump did not know how to build a strategy.
“I have always been saying that Trump is not terrible, but those who will come after him are. Because, of course, banning Trump on Twitter is only the first sign. We can argue and say that Twitter is a private company, has the right to ban anyone, but we see that a lot of Trump supporters are being blocked, and we see that the alternative messenger Parler is being purged from the App Store. And this is no longer some kind of individual journalist who calls for the purge of Trump’s supporters. What is going on is a sign of the birth of a new one-party America.”
Here is a FB post of a Russian immigrant in US, which in my opinion perfectly describes the situation. I don’t provide the name of the immigrant, as his post is private.
“Russian liberals and anti-liberals have entangled in a joint urge to defend freedom of speech in America. Vladimir Soloviev (The most outrageous pro-Putin TV commentator. S. Tsuk.) is so passionately grieving for America, it hurts to look at him. His soul is bleeding, and his heart is torn apart, he cannot endure how the freedom of speech is being ruined by monopolists in the field of social networks. Illarionov exposed the Democratic Party as the puppeteers of the fake “storm” of the Capitol. Almost the entire Russia, with rare exceptions, has risen in defense of the innocent outgoing president – the great martyr. Let’s not let the nasty Zuckerbergs ban our president! That is, not theirs, but our president! I am, and we are Donald Trump!“
Of course not all the members of the Russian opposition share opinion of Illarionov and Latinina.
The most prominent democratic radio Echo of Moscow asked its listeners about their opinion:
“Is the United States still the main democracy in the world?”
ONLINE 10,084 people answered:
76% (7658 people) answered YES
19% (1936 people) answered NO
5% (490 people) find it difficult to answer.
BY PHONE 237 people answered:
89% (212 people) answered YES
11% (25 people) answered NO
0% find it difficult to answer.
