EDITORIAL: Russia is a Deeply Psychotic Country

EDITORIAL

Russia is a Deeply Psychotic Country

In a recent public opinion survey, only43% of Russian respondents said they thought the country was moving in the right direction, down from 59% a year ago.  That’s not surprising, of course, given that the ruble has lost one-third of its value, foreign exchange reserves are down by half the and stock market by three-quarters.

But what is surprising is that even though a clear majority of Russians believe the country is on the wrong path, 76% of them say “prime minister” Vladimir Putin is doing a good job, while 68% say “president” Dmitri Medvedev is doing fine.

There’s only one word for that contradiction, and that word is:  Psychotic.

True, the approval ratings for both Putin and Medvedev are down over the last six months, Putin falling 12 points and Medevedev 15.  But still, even though they believe the nation has jumped the rails, an overwhelming majority of Russians apparently think neither Putin nor Medvedev has anything to do with it.

One must wonder, then, what they think the pair is doing?  Struggling heroically, perhaps, to force an otherwise incomnpetent government to do the right thing. But they appointed that government to power! Perhaps Russians see themselves as witless cattle, incapable of doing the right thing, merely a burden around the shoulders of their rulers, who somehow magically avoided the perils of being Russian and emerged almost as a different species from their mothers wombs — perhaps, even by means of immaculate conception.

Medvedev, it seems, they don’t actually think is doing anything at all.  Three times more respondents thought Putin holds the “real” power in the Kremlin, and twice as many would vote for him if a presidential election were held today.  Yet they approve of his performance! Presumably, his “job” is to do whatever Putin tells him, and his obsequiousness is fully approved.

It’s hard to believe this is actually what is going on in Russia, it seems more like some sort of incredible movie script.  But indeed, it is reality.  And how bizarre should it be considered, when after all following decades of Soviet terror Russians have chosen to once again by dominated and victimized by the KGB.

It reminds of they psychological disorder that makes kidnap victims want to remain with their captors and abused wives stay with their venal husbands.  Is Russia a country suffering from a national psychosis, desperately in need of a national psychiatrist?

We think so. And it’s a tragedy, of course, that there is no such thing, meaning that Russia is doomed to spiral into bleak failure and self-destructive collapse.