SK continuing to bring heat in a topic he has been nothing but completely wrong about without ever acknowledging the size of his errors is truly a sight.
I have! Seems smaller that these protests:
Which happened when about 60% of the US public supported the Iraq war.
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yeah, protests in russia don’t look like that
https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1573977123920007175
Right, my point is that existence of protests and dissent isn’t a reliable measure of public opinion. The Iraq war protests were massive but the war was still pretty popular. I don’t doubt that millions of Russians are opposed to the war and Putin. Showing the existence of dissent doesn’t show if that dissent is shared by 15% or 50%.
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What was I wrong about that I haven’t acknowledged? I’m sure it’s “everything” but try to be specific.
opposition to the war is a bit more serious when riot police are needed to scare women with automatic weapon fire.
It’s pretty impressive that someone who vehemently argued the wrong side of like every argument ITT leading up to the invasion is now arrogantly arguing the contrarian side ITT again.
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Is the consensus here that Putin is unpopular? I thought lots were saying fuck average Russian and their soldiers because they support Putin and the war. I recall people posting lots of TikTok’s where Russians were more concerned about mall closures than dead Ukrainians.
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generally, when more than half the country is scared to voice an opinion, it’s not an indicator of great support
Really a treat where the pro-Putin contrarian can cite the normally very pro-Ukrainian Washington Post and the and the “correct” side is posting videos of a couple of hundred guys rioting as evidence of…something.
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I think that the consensus is that the mobilization is unpopular, and that as a result the war has become a lot more unpopular since then. I think the stuff you’re referring to was a couple months ago, right?
those are mostly women, whose husbands and sons were given mobilization orders.
Again, I don’t doubt that there are tens of thousands of angry and worried moms out there who didn’t want their sons called up to fight in a war. But that can happen in a Russia where the war is broadly popular.
We’ve already had this breakdown of what things look like from inside Russia.
https://mobile.twitter.com/YudinGreg/status/1570101428542402561
Keeeed knows better, obviously, but there is this.
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That’s fair - and seems likely that the mobilization has limited support. It’s not as clear to me though whether 1) Putin had historically been popular and 2) whether opposition to mobilization has translated to general opposition to Putin/war.
For instance that tweet thread Wookie just shared indicates that there are roughly equal hard core supporters and opponents with most being ambivalent and just want to live their lives. Obviously mobilization will move some of this group to opponents as war is now affecting them, but its less clear to me if that is enough to now make most opposed to Putin and the war.
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i don’t doubt that there are tens of thousands of thoughtful and non contrarian keed posts out there that don’t stir up useless drama. but that can happen in the vastness of the internet motherland where keed broadly shitposts like he is getting paid per keystroke
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Indeed, the polls that track Putin’s support show that the defeat in Kharkiv and subsequent mobilization caused a decrease in Putin’s support. It went from 82% Putin approval to 77%. Seems likely that’s directionally correct, but who knows how popular or unpopular Putin actually is. I can only rely on what I’ve read, but I haven’t read anything about the Russian populace broadly turning against Putin, even in pro-Ukrainian outlets like the Washington Post or the NYT.
Do you think there is a meaningful difference in how Putin would handle this war if he had support for the war, as measured by a truly independent and anonymous polling operation asking “Do you support the ongoing special military operation in Ukraine?” at a 60% level vs. a 40% level?