Quote Originally Posted by Aemilius Paulus View Post

Why so? Have you lived in both nations? I understand your scepticism, but this is fairly simple and basic stuff.

Russians are normally rather quite pessimistic about their country. Not just like in US, grumbling about inefficiency and lobbies, but far worse. The reason why Putin is so popular (70-80% approval ratings) is because Russian people have very low expectations of the gov't. And Putin is overshooting the low expectations by a mile. This, you can read in any magazine, journal, think-tank publication, etc.

Never have I heard anything remotely similar to the "our country is the greatest on Earth" rant that is not only commonplace, but actually almost universally and (until about now) unquestionably believed. Even now, basically no-one challenges this idea of American superiority over all nations. Sure, some radical liberals, but how many of those are there? And they do not all share it.
That's what happens when you lose the cold war.

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