I’d argue it’s an objectively true statement that, of all the people alive today, Putin has singlehandedly caused more death and suffering than anyone else. The gap between him and whoever is second is likely orders of magnitude. Yet, when I read discussions about him, Russia, or the war in Ukraine, I almost never see the kind of hateful, nasty, and mean comments directed at him that I regularly see aimed at Trump, Elon, or even ordinary Republican politicians. Why is that?
Bonus question: Why be so nasty about it in the first place? There’s nothing wrong with criticism, but I struggle to understand the need for such meanness. Even when I agree with the sentiment, reading comments like that feels toxic. It poisons my mind too. I don’t like being angry, and I avoid it for practical reasons as well. Anger clouds my judgment, and I think it does the same for others and thus should be avoided.
Pretty sure that’s because of what kind of communities you’re following (or not following). He absolutly get’s that level of hate. Arguable even more as people regularly want him dead and mean it.
I follow plenty of news communities as well as Ukraine and NoCredibleDefence communities but I still rarely see comments like that. Not never but it seems way disproportionate compared to what I see of these right-wing political figures.
Oh, if you’re only talking about lemmy then totally. Lemmy is extremly biased. There is serveral big instances where criticising Putin will literally get you banned. And a lot of the bigger communites have tanky or tanky-leaning mods, too.
Also NoCredibleDefence is a rather lighthearted meme community, not a lot of hateful people there.
Here. This is just one I happened to read 5 minutes before stumbling upon your post and going like “wtf is this guy smoking?” Because, yeah… Go to any post about the invasion and you’ll find putin hate comments. Hell, even on trump related stuff you’ll find plenty of trump+putin hate comments.
I think you’re just dealing with some confirmation bias enforced by the fact that there’s been a ton more trump+elon news lately than Ukraine war stuff.
Pretty sure that if you’re Russian expressing your hate to Putin would at best put you in trouble, and at worst lead to a slow and painful death in a labour camp.
Don’t under-estimate how privileged we are in the West to express our hate for Biden, Macron, Trudeau, Von der Leyen and who ever is the British PM it’s changes so fast that I stopped to follow. Without any legal repercussion
For what it’s worth, the UK’s current PM is Keir Starmer. We had an election in the summer and fucking finally kicked out the last lot that had been, amongst their many other efforts to make everything worse, churning through leaders like 3rd century Rome. The new lot have their issues too and it is of course too early at the moment to see if they have actually restored some measure of stability, but there’s hope.
I talk mad shit about Putin daily in vkontakte and yet I’m alive and well. Continue eating that propaganda raw.
Can’t say for sure, but my theory is that people sorta accept that Putin is a hated person. Most people in Western countries - or rather people not in Russia - hate the guy, therefore people don’t necessarily feel the need to elaborate on their dislike of him. Whereas people like Trump, after all, he got voted in so clearly some people must like the guy. Therefore people push back harder against him to convice others to do the same.
Found on Lemmy.
But also, Trump and Musk have a much larger following in the western world. And they spout so much idiotic shit that it’s hard to believe anyone would actually like them. So it’s more fun to dunk on them because your goal isn’t to insult them but their followers.
Putin has always been an asshole dictator and everyone always knew him to be an asshole dictator. Hardly anybody likes him in the western world. And if people do like him it’s easier to understand because he doesn’t show the idiocy we’ve come to expect from Trump.
You’d accidentally fall out a 10th floor window.
