There were three election shockers in 2016.
Actually there were more than three but for the purpose of this post, there were three: Brexit. Trump. and Duterte of the Philippines.Trump and Duterte are brothers from different mothers. Their personalities & the tone of their rhetoric are very similar. They promise different things and disagree on several key points (notably regarding religion) but essentially they are different versions of the same politician.
One of these things is not like the other....
UK leadership elections are hard to control. Too many moving parts. Way too many votes. That's why pre-election polling in the UK is generally awful. A referendum vote is much more straight forward. It is yes/no. The UK voted "yes"....and Boris Johnson was named FM...which by itself is shocking. OTOH Johnson is very much Russia's kind of leader. Bombastic, nationalistic, and (by reputation) incompetent. High chance of him becoming the next PM.
My point?
We know that Russia influenced the US election. Some of the same fingerprints can be found on the Brexit referendum. I don't know a lot about the Philippines but as the title implies that's one country too many.But why?
Russia doesn't have the chops to return to their super-power status. They're too far north; too sparsely populated; too recently removed from their Soviet past. But they want it anyway. So instead of building Russia up, Putin is tearing down his competition.The good news: The rhetoric being pumped out is too extreme for the mainstream. Sooner or later it will be rejected.
