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.
Putin killed away all critics early?
I get angrier when I think of Musk or Trump because, bafflingly, my peers have been fooled into giving these frat boys control over parts of my life.
Not so much Putin. Yet.
Granted he is probably more objectively evil.
Putin also has seemed to stfu and back away, musk and trump just word vomit constantly
I utterly reject your premise
Quality concern trolling. No notes.
Pretty sure you are measuring using the wrong indicators.
There is little reason to talk shit of Putin as he is so hated, just as no reason to discuss water being wet.
Don’t start “whataboutism”. Those other people suck too. No reason to rank them.
There is little reason to talk shit of Putin as he is so hated, just as no reason to discuss water being wet.
Wouldn’t the same be true about Elon and Trump though, especially when talking about Lemmy.
That’s Whataboutism.
Putin probably gets plenty of hate on Russian language social media. English language social media is going to be full of criticism of English language influencers.
There’s a huge contingent, even here, who loves both those guys, but maybe more importantly, they’re supposed to be on our side. Hell, Trump is the president! Putin is the dictatorial ruler of an enemy country, we expect that he’s going to do and say stuff that’s terrible.
I don’t hear about what Putin is doing every single day. But I talk shit about his bitch-ass too, when he comes up. Fuck Putin. All my homies hate Putin.
This is the correct answer. Putin has been almost universally hated, even within Russia, for years.
Everyone knows of his election fraud, and the assassinations of political opponents, let alone changing the law in his favor.
It’s just hard for people to have a strong response to what he does, because he spends the vast majority of his time controlling his meat puppets in silence. Meanwhile, both Trump and Musk yap their face off on every occasion
Wouldn’t it also be correct to say that on Lemmy, Trump and Elon are also almost universally hated too? That’s why it’s so confusing that I mostly see it directed at them when I feel like it should be more towards Putin.
On a second though, the amount of tankies here probably explain this to a some extent.
The real answer to your question is that Lemmy is probably 70% American. Most of these Americans that shit on Trump and Elon either don’t know what’s going on in Russia or don’t care because it has no direct influence over their livelihoods.
Or prefer to talk about what is affecting them, even if they do care about the situation in Russia, it’s pointless to talk about because the only way to affect it is through talking about people like trump.
I think this is the most accurate answer. Trump and Musk have a direct impact on ppls’ day to day, and has the impact of the countries politics to be considered. Putin is just the big bad guy that’s always been there for Americans, so maybe a bit of a novelty affect for the other two too.
Putin is a fascist dictator and you expect him to act that way. Democratically elected politician in democratic country should behave differently and when he doesn’t, it obviously result in some outrage.
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.
Labour in the UK haven’t offered anything new since Tony Blair, and even then it wasn’t new in a good way. It almost looked like they might with Corbyn, but they destroyed him themselves.
Yet
I think most of who you’re hearing are Americans. I might hate Putin with all my heart, but he leads a different country. There isn’t “chain of command” between me and him.
Edit/more blathering:
I try to avoid the virulent speech (not always successfully I admit) about Americans’ choice in leadership. And to a large degree, at home, even that is outside my “sphere of influence”, but I at least have an opportunity to be heard by other parts of the electorate here.
And by the way, I think supporting Trump is supporting Putin. I hope I’m wrong, but I do believe that.
We can piss and moan about Putin (and we do, I’m not sure what you’re missing TBH), but investing time and emotional energy, it makes sense to start at home, where we at least should have some influence on self-determination.
There isn’t “chain of command” between me and him.
I mean, sure their is.
Putin
POTUS
SCOTUS
Senate / House
. . . . You.
And that answers OPs question.
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.
kim and trump get plenty but since they have been pretty impotent all around they don’t get as much play. Its about who seems to be inclined to do harm and has the most potential to.
It kinda depends on on distance. I live in a country with a long shared border with Russia. Putin, putinists, Ukraine and whatthefuckcanwedoaboutit are regular and well researched debate in here.
In here American politics/elections are not in daily discussions but they surely are a thing to follow/be aware.
So here on Fediverse it is what most active users see and do. It’s pretty American (and German). Far away from the war and Putin.
To be fair. In my experience I see much more hate directed towards Trump and Elon here in Finland too. Putin is rarely the subject of discussion among my friends.
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.
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.
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.
Another fascinating question is why Netanjahu is receiving more hate in the West when they’re basically doing the same thing, only Putin has even less of a reason and is killing more people. (Ukrainians didn’t massacre Russian civilians or take them hostage, either)
It’s because the US is supporting Ukraine in fighting against Putin. In Israel, the US is supporting Netanyahu.
If we were funding Putin’s war, you would see a different reaction. There’s just less of a reason to complain if we’re already against Russia as a country.
Expectations.
People don’t expect a country that’s supposed to be a close ally to do actual pure evil.
Russia has always been in a different category. It’s oscillated between being an outright enemy and being a distant, somewhat-ally the West is suspicious of. Either way, Putin was never someone you trust.
When someone betrays your expectations, you have a stronger emotional response.
When you feel like your country is actually helping with evil acts, that’s another layer of emotional response.
But if someone you feel like you can’t do anything about and has always been bad anyway is being evil, again… Well it’s a bit of a “no shit, Sherlock” moment. Doesn’t spark anger in quite the same way.
Recency bias. Also anti-semitism. I don’t mean that in the sense that any criticism of Israel is necessarily or logically anti-semitic. I mean it in the historical sense. Any time Western societies starts hating on Jews, we really, really need to reflect hard on why.
I know, we all think we are objective enough to separate the Jewish identity from the Israeli identity, but I’m not so sure. Jews are definitely not so sure. It would be interesting to see a study on the correlation between having general anti-semitic views and having negative opinions about Israel.
Because Lemmy is dominated by USA demographic, and Putin is ruling on another continent, so his actions are less impactful for average Americans’ lives.
