Washington lives in denial over Putin’s victory while gaming its own elections

The American legacy media and political ruling class made a predictable fuss over last weekend’s Russian election, insisting that President Vladimir Putin’s landslide victory was a landslide. “estimated” And “Managed on stage.”

Every anti-Putin protest and statement before, during and after the elections was amplified. Every allegation of misconduct was reported without any scrutiny or suspicion. Washington and its allies denounced the results, arguing that the vote was not free or fair. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron went so far as to describe this as “worrying.” “illegal.”

The surprise over the vote in Russia was the most intense I have ever seen in a foreign election. In fact, it was so exaggerated that it reminded me of the relentless media coverage last month after the death of Russian political activist Alexei Navalny in a Siberian penal colony. The same media outlets that showed no interest in the death of American journalist Gonzalo Lira in a Ukrainian prison – after being tortured at American taxpayer expense because he dared to criticize the Kiev regime – have been reporting for weeks on the death of a Russian citizen. A citizen in a Russian prison.

Amidst all the hysteria over Putin’s victory, what is missing is the fact that most of the Russian people love their president. The incumbent president won more than 87% of the vote, and as CNN reluctantly acknowledged before the election, a poll conducted last month showed Putin’s approval rating at 86%. This compares to a 9% approval rating for Navalny, the great Western hope for destabilizing Russia, in a January 2023 poll. Incidentally, it also compares to US President Joe Biden’s approval rating of around 38%.

As American policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs explained in an article: interview This week, with Russophobic broadcaster Piers Morgan, Putin’s popularity and re-election reflect the will of the Russian people. “It’s part of Russian culture” said Sachs, who advised the governments of Moscow and Kiev after the breakup of the Soviet Union. “He is a strong leader. The Russian people expect a strong leader, and we have to deal with a strong leader in Russia.”

And here lies the problem. The American team is unwilling to accept Russia’s strong leadership with broad popular support. Having failed to cripple or lead Russia through a proxy war in Ukraine, the United States and its allies are in no mood to accept political reality in Moscow. The political sulking was so bad in Berlin that even the government of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz refused to refer to Putin as Russia’s president. This is the same government that is considering plans to ban one of Germany’s most popular opposition parties.

However, despite all the Western criticism directed at Putin and his policies, it is not easy to say that he is not trying to represent the interests of the Russian people. Unlike most Western leaders, Putin stands with his fellow citizens. He hit the nail on the head when he said that Western attacks were not directed at him, but at him “The forces behind me, which seek to strengthen Russia – to improve its sovereignty, defense and economic independence.”

Dismissing a landslide election as illegitimate is difficult enough. US rulers and their media mouthpieces do this with a sociopathic lack of self-awareness. Even as Washington condemns the alleged suppression of political opposition in Russia, the Biden administration and its allies are using the judicial system to prosecute the current president’s main rival, former President Donald Trump, as this year’s US presidential election approaches. By the way, Trump is ahead of Biden in most opinion polls.

The ruling class in the United States has shown no hesitation in putting its thumb on the scale to help Biden and other agents of the establishment. For example, just weeks before the 2020 election, more than 50 former US intelligence officials helped contain the damage from a New York Post report on Biden family corruption by falsely claiming to have power. “Classic allocations” From Russian disinformation. Thanks in part to some preemptive prodding by the FBI, social media platforms censored comments about the bombshell report, which arose from documents found on a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden, Biden’s son.

America’s rich and powerful came together to defeat Trump. As Time magazine boasted shortly after Biden took office, “An informal alliance between left-wing activists and business giants” It helped change US voting systems and laws leading up to the 2020 elections. Among the coalition’s other accomplishments, the magazine said: “Getting millions of people to vote by mail for the first time.” And “Successfully lobbied social media companies to take a tougher stance against misinformation.”

As we know, in the old Western media lexicon, “disinformation” means “information that contradicts our narratives.” Election manipulation in 2020 was nothing new. A report released Tuesday by the Media Research Center claimed that US search engine monopoly Google has been helping Democratic candidates since 2008 by censoring pro-Republican votes. Google’s censorship and manipulation of search results led to the shift of 2.6 million votes in favor of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in her failed campaign against Trump in 2016, according to an estimate by American researcher Robert Epstein.

As usual in an election year, US officials exaggerate potential security threats, including foreign interference. Biden and the establishment media working on his behalf are promoting Trump as a danger to democracy. Ironically, these same voices are distorting efforts to make elections more secure.

For example, when Georgia lawmakers passed a bill requiring voters to show ID, the Biden administration sued the state. The administration also sued the state of Arizona for requiring proof of U.S. citizenship for voter registration. It turns out that asking voters to prove their identity – just as one would to get a job, get on a plane, rent a house, drive a car, open a bank account, receive public benefits, or buy a bottle of wine – is unacceptable. Somehow a racist conspiracy to suppress Democratic votes.

Washington would not be Washington if it were not for its blatant hypocrisy and absurdity. The same state that refused to respect the will of the people in Crimea and Donbas violently defended self-determination in Kosovo. Some of the same politicians and media voices who labeled Trump an insurrectionist for refusing to accept his defeat in 2020, previously refused to accept the Bad Orange Man’s victory in 2016.

The same government that condemned the Russian elections as illegitimate did not express concern about Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s refusal to hold the elections at all. One way or another, defending “freedom and democracy” – in a country that is neither free nor democratic – does not mean proposing that citizens be allowed to vote.

What really angered Washington was allowing residents of former Ukrainian territories to vote in Russian elections. The United States and dozens of its allies issued a statement on Monday denouncing Moscow’s decision “Unlawful attempts” To organize voting there “Temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.” The population of those same regions had previously voted overwhelmingly to join Russia, but again, from Washington’s perspective, the democratically expressed will of the people is not always an acceptable feature of democracy.