I would 100% agree with you if people wouldn’t eat this shit up. Not only my relatives, but real people all over Russia in general.
My anecdotes sadly confirm your anecdotes. People are dumb and don't go outside enough. But, luckily, Russia's not a democracy. So there's no need to fear what people think ;-). I agree it's bad that there are fascist/racist/conservative opinions entrenched out there, which creates the potential for bad leaders, but I also think people's backward views are tempered by pragmatism/apathy/civility. Sure, hypothetically, the Jews and Gayropa want to addict your kids to drugs and perverted sex, everyone knows that, but in your daily life it's not something that ever comes up. (Unless you yourself are the target of discrimination, which sucks, obviously, but it's not systematic.) Most people are too busy dealing with normal shit to want to get into politics.
Hey, maybe I'm 2 years behind. But I've vacillated on this question before. I think the darkest timeline is not in the interest of the ruling class either.
My anecdotes sadly confirm your anecdotes. People are dumb and don't go outside enough. But, luckily, Russia's not a democracy. So there's no need to fear what people think ;-). I agree it's bad that there are fascist/racist/conservative opinions entrenched out there, which creates the potential for bad leaders, but I also think people's backward views are tempered by pragmatism/apathy/civility. Sure, hypothetically, the Jews and Gayropa want to addict your kids to drugs and perverted sex, everyone knows that, but in your daily life it's not something that ever comes up. (Unless you yourself are the target of discrimination, which sucks, obviously, but it's not systematic.) Most people are too busy dealing with normal shit to want to get into politics.
Hey, maybe I'm 2 years behind. But I've vacillated on this question before. I think the darkest timeline is not in the interest of the ruling class either.