Being a good person and a good leader is not mutually exclusive. I’m not asking from a moral perspective—from an objective ‘business’ or even political point of view—is Vladimir Putin a good, professional leader in his country?
Putin was in his 30s or so when the Soviet Union dissolved. He’s an opportunist who saw the profit potential in a huge fire sale of the country’s economy. His wealth is roughly estimated to be $200 billion, all of it stolen from the people in various rackets since coming to power. The Russian people saw their country “lose” to the USA and, demoralized, they were disempowered to do anything about it.
Today the USA parallels this structure, with conservatives leading the defeatist, fatalist belief that we’ve “lost” to China, a narrative Trump fuels every chance he gets as it provides a shield from what he’s really doing. Every single crazy thing he does is a distraction from the financial racket being run by his family, who faded from the news cycle as soon as his second term began.
No_Ones_Slick_Like_Gaston@lemmy.world 24 minutes ago
Effective at staying in power, as any measure seems to be very good. All others are meh to WTF is he doing now that can’t be even weirder or wrong.