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They were too busy complaining about his tan suit and coffee cup salute.
Liberals always like to reduce things to a single cartoonishly evil villain, ignoring any inconvenient context or just making things up
Lately? It’s called personification, an old social technology which works great on mundanes. There are no reasons, no economy, no classes, only some guy’s will.
It has been always been this way. They do the same with China too like Xi runs the country by playing a Civ campaign on his computer.
runs the country by playing a Civ campaign on his computer.
Based if true.
We are all in xi’s simulation
Discard Civilization VI, it’s now Civilization XI time
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They’re all word games. “Putin’s army” gives a more dictatorial connotation, and people actually fall for this. Too small to comfortably point out, and yet so effective…
manufacturing consent for a regime change operation. reminds me that i saw commentary around, like, “we want putin out and a yeltsin in”
Do they not know that Yeltsin’s, like, dead?
There are tons of expats educated in ivy leagues that would love being a Yeltsin. Hell, there are probably 20 assholes at the IMF gunning for that job right now.
There’s always Chubays
maybe they’re trying to raise a frankenstein
Remember Biden’s “My gawd this man cannot remain in power!” speech? Yeah.
I guess they were told that dehumanizing all of Russia was a bad move.
I think this is even more dehumanizing, it’s saying they have no brains of their own and just do whatever Putin tells them like he’s a cult leader.
Yeah, this is how the US justified the Iraq invasion. It removes their statehood and builds the narrative that almost everyone in the country is a slave of the leader, who has ultimate power over everything in their borders. It’s part of the dehumanization of the people and the cartoon villain image of the leader.
Maybe. But I suspect that framing the narrative in a way that emphasizes “Putin” as the aggressor rather than “the Russians” can help a sow little less russophobia.
We saw that the media’s emphasis on the providence of the 'Wuhan virus" during the early stages of the pandemic caused a sharp increase in anti-asian hate crimes. The mainstream media and politicians were blamed for this. I wouldn’t be surprised if regulators still have that mistake fresh in their mind and sent the memo not to focus on the country when reporting on this war.
Plus the more they villainize Russians, the more anyone with a trace of slavic heritage is going to side with “the bad guys” because the alternative is the genocidal rage of the ignorant.
like others have said, they’ve always done this.
The point is to treat the whole of an organized body as though it’s entirely at the whims of its leader. When the leader is of a friendly disposition it’s intended to make all of the victories and accomplishments bolster public support for the leader. When it’s an unfriendly character, it’s for the opposite.
When Russia fails, media can put their blame on Putin and greatly simplify things for their audience. Rather than having to explain who generals and theorists are, thereby keeping their readers from gaining a more nuanced view of the event.
The media would rather people saw world events from a ‘great figures’ perspective, rather than a collective one. And they’d rather let historians pick up the slack on providing nuance on issues after the public has already gained a bias in the favour of the media.
By only listing Putin, Xi, the Kims, ETC. while talking about world events, they mean to give us a world view wherein every issue in the country is directly related to them and their interactions. To their view, if you removed that singular figure you’d remove the only barrier to “peace”. And the more liberals believe that, the louder they’ll support colour revolutions and wars of imperialism against NATO’s enemies.
I want to add to this point;
When the leader is of a friendly disposition it’s intended to make all of the victories and accomplishments bolster public support for the leader. When it’s an unfriendly character, it’s for the opposite.
When it’s a friendly character but something bad happens, they’ll blame the empowered individuals under them (generals, politicians, etc.). And when it’s an unfriendly one, when something good happens it’s anyone but the great leader’s doing.
As an example, when abortion was banned in the US media started talking about the Supreme court, never mentioning Biden. But in the transverse, if abortion was banned in China media would be mentioning Xi every article.
Yes, it’s called “Good Tsar syndrome”, because how often and successfully it was used by the Romanov dynasty (others did it too all the time, but they are the most spectacular, long time and recorded case). Bloody Nicky failed miserably at this though and that added to his demise.
Very well put. But is this really done at the level of MSM? I think that policians themselves already strive to achieve this effect. Even when reading or listening to politicians it is generally difficult for me to figure out who the theoreticians are, and what specific theoretical framework is used to justify a specific policy. I don’t often see politicians giving credit or providing a thorough bibliography. But I might just not be looking in the right places. Do you know where I can find the theoretical framework that explains the contemporary actions of Putin’s team and allies? Who are the theoreticians that work closely with Putin? I am very interested.
They’re literally trying to make him a Bond villain now
Which is funny because I always thought he looks like Daniel Craig
All the better for regime change on top of everything that’s already been said. They’ll never get there way, but if they could replace Putin with a domesticated leader the easier for the rhetoric to fade into the distance
