Russia’s politics are those of a former superpower, gripped by kleptocracy — the people want to feel important and powerful.
When Putin seized Crimea, his approval rating shot up from the low 60’s to 89%. 66% think the sanctions against Russia are to humiliate them, 5% think they’re over the Ukraine policy.
70% support the Ukraine policy continuing. But only 13% say the Russian economy is good.
This is the backdrop for Putin’s politics — strongman politics and they’re working.
What the US — including members of Congress — should frame Russia’s election interference as is evidence of their weakness.
Russia’s economy is smaller than South Korea, Italy or Canada. It’s just bigger than Australia, Spain and Mexico.
The way to attack Putin’s election activities is to say that Russia is so small and weak economically and militarily, that they have to try to gain power by election hacking.
There’s truth to this and it would damage Putin like no other framing. To humiliate him and mock him for weakness, trying to sneak and cheat against the real powers.
Russians do not want to be painted as weak and mocked. Putin will lose his support if his leadership is weakened in that manner.
The west’s response has been poor. By simply saying it’s wrong and acting as if it’s an existential threat, they are making Putin look strong and effective, which the Russian people like.
‘Wrong’ didn’t stop them from approving of the Ukrainian policies and it’s not an issue for them on the election hacking. They like seeing the west quivering and powerless complaining.
The west could hardly be doing more to build up Putin for his hacking. They should instead point out how much it shows Russia to be a weak and pathetic actor.
Compare Putin to Raul Castro and Kim Jong-un as minor figures holding on to power desperately. Mention the three in the same sentence.
Float discussions about the need to update the UN to replace Russia as a member with a permanent Security Council veto (not a real proposal, but have the discussion further mock Putin).
If possible, split trump and Putin by keeping the pressure on trump not to serve Putin’s agenda, while mocking Putin for getting trump elected and still not being able to end sanctions.
Turn Russia’s pride in causing trump’s election into the question, for what? All that and what benefit are they getting? Just ridicule.
Winston Churchill knew how this worked — he referred to Adolf Hitler as “Corporal Hitler” to mock him as a strongman. That’s what’s needed for little Putin.
Humiliate him for resorting to hacking and poisoning his critics because he’s so weak and has no other way to hold power. Blame him for Russia’s economic problems.
Currently we’re doing the opposite, which has driven him into the highest approval rating by far of any leader in the G20 and ensured his continued abuses in hacking, Ukraine and more to come.
Having said that — we should be prepared to offer a carrot as well. We haven’t been perfectly behaved. We offered little help as organized crime took hold and pushed NATO to their border.
How much were we interfering in Ukraine, as we complain about them doing so? Putin’s not entirely wrong on some of those issues — and doing the right thing would not let him use those issues.
One last point — it seems to me the issue of Russia’s election interference is more principle than harm. While it was devastating in 2016 by electing trump, that’s because the election was so close. What did their interference really amount to, and threaten in the future? We have no evidence they were able to hack any voting machines/counts. We could easily take more precautions. Off the top of my head, their interference was mainly one problem from Podesta clicking something he shouldn’t have leading to his e-mails being obtained, and ‘fake news’ articles and commentators.
We have far, far larger harms to our democracy to worry about with unlimited money, including ‘dark money’, allowed in our system.