The only difference between the Russian and US system is that instead of having one big party whose interests are entirely separated from the public and which completely crushes any opposition parties, we have two big parties whose interests are entirely separated from the public and which completely crush all opposition parties.

A sham democracy if there ever was one, but that's because the purpose of indirect democracy is less to decide on policy and more to select a strongman leader that's most appealing.

The Russian election was "rigged" in that there was only controlled opposition... But this is also not an inherently unique feature. When was the last time a US President was neither Democrat nor Republican?

I couldn't get 88% of people to agree on which day of the week it was, much less who should be president.

I love how all the western polling in Russia before the election shows that Putin has over 80% approval, and now all the western media acts like it's shocking that he got around that in the election. For example, here's an example from CNN just a few days ago

But Putin undoubtedly has reaped the rewards of a political landscape tilted dramatically in his favor. The Levada Center, a non-governmental polling organization, consistently reports Putin’s approval rating at over 80% – an eye-popping figure virtually unknown among Western politicians, and a substantial increase on the three-year period before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/14/europe/putin-russia-election-explainer-update-intl/index.html

Absolute clown shit.