Ehhhhhhhhh *sort of*. He gets plenty of liberal support too because he’s sort of the only game in town other than Putin, thanks to Putin https://twitter.com/real_hotguts/status/1353019706953920514

It’s also complicated because part of the reason why Navalny is willing to go in on nationalism against the Caucasus is because Putin is very visibly tied into a breathtakingly corrupt and violent network of patronage there more than anywhere else

I think for better and worse there are a decent number of Russians who really kind of do see him as George Washington or whatever, and it doesn’t come from nowhere. I certainly did not see him going back to Russia, and that makes him unusual

Exile was always kind of the pressure release valve for dissidents - you fucked off to Europe and then later on if you kept making a nuisance or they wanted to send a message then they had you murdered - to refuse it like that is brave on a personal level

Honestly I think it is a consequence of the Skripal thing - the hubris involved in doing that was the failure to understand that it just kind of removed fleeing to outside Russia as an option

Like okay Litvinenko was murdered but he was very explicitly still trying to fuck with the Kremlin from abroad. I think the new vibe that they’d poison you just to flex has been counterproductive in the long run

Anyway the short answer is that he isn’t really less right wing but he’s right wing in what’s perceived to be a more modern way, which libs of course love

But he loves norms, is the thing https://twitter.com/resinsmokr/status/1353023877341978626

In the major cities at least there is a decent segment of Russians who do not mind having a president who says Georgians eat babies or Chechens are cockroaches so long as he wears an open collared shirt and watches Rick and Morty and makes a token attempt to conceal corruption

It’s modern and progressive to make a bunch of money by giving a contract to Generic Company LLC which you don’t disclose you own a share of. It’s dictatorial to do that by giving it to Baz Piss LLC and Baz Piss is your mate from St Petersburg who used to shake down people

Like I can’t stress enough the extent to which Putin’s people are overwhelmingly on a Crimes Are Good And We Like Doing Them platform. It’s like wanting Mayor Quimby instead of Fat Tony

Or if you want a real world example, you want a president like Macron, who is ‘young’ (40s) and ‘energetic’ (very racist)