ПОЧЕМУ В РОССИИ ЛЮБЯТ ДОНАЛЬДА ТРАМПА (Why the Russians like Donald Trump)

My foreign students are interested why the Russians like Donald Trump and don’t like Hillary Clinton.
In this Russian article I try to answer this question.
Here is the link:

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First, I’d like to thank you for posting this. Not only is it useful for studying Russian, it’s an interesting perspective on a question that intrigues me. Great recording to - kudos! I encourage other posters to show some appreciation of evgueny40’s work rather than just rip him a second one for his political views.

So you’re saying Russians like Trump because he represents a change. He says what he feels, and isn’t worried about being politically correct, doesn’t like liberals, etc. And some feel he could cause internal problems for the US politically, and weaken its grip on the world.

Although you mentioned Putin, I don’t think you wrote that Russians like Trump because Putin likes him. Do you think that’s likely? I see Trump and Putin as having some similarities. They are both what I call “puppet masters”, whereas Clinton is what I call a “puppet”, as are most politicians in the US.

Unfortunately, over half of the article wasn’t about why Russians like Donald Trump, but rather about how unfair American politics are for the rest of the world, and how justified Russia is in disciplining former soviet states. Although I agree that the US goes out of it’s way to control other countries for it’s own benefit, and that is fundamentally wrong and should be changed, I don’t agree that the world should stand by and let Russia do the same. The sanctions are justified, imo.

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No mystery here, really. Russians like Trump because they feel it’s about time the US got their own Boris Yeltsin.

There’s a story about Boris Yeltsin: apparently he was on an official visit to the UK and staying at Chequers - the official out-of-town residence of the British PM. During a relatively brief interval of time he consumed the drinks entire contents of the drinks cabinet! (Apparently the staff just couldn’t quite believe that one man had consumed so much alcohol within such a relatively short period of time!)

The best of drunk Boris Yeltsin - Best of drunk Boris Yeltsin! - YouTube

It was an interesting read. Thank you. I’ll risk violating the maxim, “don’t discuss politics or religion in polite company” by offering a few observation.

  1. Trump is not my candidate. I find much not to like. But I’ve actively avoided that other long thread about him.

  2. Though he does plenty to help them each time he opens his mouth, it seems, the media in this country (and much of the world) are controlled by those strongly opposed to Trump and who will always do what they can to present him in the worst possible light. The whole picture is not being painted.

  3. You don’t become as successful as he in this country without being able to negotiate a deal. In order to do that you need to understand what it is that the party you’re negotiating with wants, and to offer them something of what they’re after. Hopefully that will translate to his foreign policy (if he is given the chance to have a foreign policy), and we’ll see more deals to settle issues to the satisfaction of all parties.

  4. There has long been discontent in this country with the role that money plays in politics, the concern being that influence is being bought. Here is a candidate who has not accepted any donations to date ( though I understand that may be changing now). It is indeed ironic that this candidate who cannot be purchased is anathema to many of those most concerned about the influence of large donors.

  5. To some extent the Trump phenomenon is a triumph of democracy. The media did not choose him. The elite did not choose him. The party establishment did not choose him. His message has somehow resonated with a large enough portion of the populace to put him where is his today. And in a true democracy that should trump all. (Pun partially intended.)

  6. Having offered #4, I tend to agree with an analysis I read concerning the fact that although he has won a plurality of the vote in many states’ primaries, he has rarely (ever?) won a majority. The system is set up to say that more people voted for him than for others, but the fact is that more have voted against him than for him. I don’t like winner-take-all systems, especially if the “winner” does not have a majority.

  7. Primary elections are the most interesting and most important. In the general election I’ll usually vote for my party’s candidate. It’s in the primaries that I have a real choice of who that candidate may be. It’s much less interesting now that there appear to be two presumptive nominees.

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I really don’t understand that vision of a man like Trump. It seems to me that even people such as yourself, who are not necessarily in his favor, are buying all his rhetoric in an uncritical way that you’d avoid in the review of a commercial product or a movie.
He’s a triumph of democracy because he’s not “elite” or “establishment”?, a man born in a wealthy family who has been donating and manipulating (his own confession) members of both parties for decades?
He hasn’t been chosen by the “media”? He’s been aired on TV for decades and he has even had his own reality show(s) whre his image of “tough”, efficient guy has been repeated again and again.
It’s true that the most visible “political” establishment’s not in his favor (with important exceptions, think of Giulani) and that the kind of media support that he enjoys doesn’t come from your typical political pundits (again, with exceptions) but he’s as elite (the most insidious kind, the one who “pays” politicians) and as media-pushed (again, by the worst kind of media) as it gets.

Remember the American dream? Last time I checked it wasn’t about the spoiled son of a wealthy man, who starts with a “small” loan of one million dollars and goes on to increase that by means of a scam university, overpriced steaks and shady real estate operations. His “dealing” experience seems to be based on avoiding the legal consequences of his con operations.
You could as well argue that “El Chapo” would be a perfect candidate to fix the economy, based on his “success” and capacity to organize large-scale commercial operations and keep a steady cash flow for his commercial ventures.

The real good news for democracy would be the triumph of a person who would have “made him/herself” and whose message would be based on coherence and knowledge (telling QUDS from kurds would help, if you’re going to lecture on jihadism, for example or simply not taking “The National Enquirer” at face value). Not on exposure through junk TV and funding through inherited wealth + some scamming.
By trying to escape from establishment and media manipulation (a very real concern), Trump supporters (and others buying the image he’s selling) have fallen for a particularly nasty variety of that same manipulation.

I have the impression that, in a few years, the American people will look back to this “Trump” phenomenon (and similar ones) with a deep feeling of embarrassment.

I just can’t wait until the GOP and Democratic Party collapse. It’s about time for political dealignment.

If the best the GOP can get is Trump, then I will fear the worst. Besides, the rhetoric for a lot of Trump voters is they don’t want Hilary to win. Well guess what? The GOP rationalized the same thing for Mitt Romney to beat Obama.

Apologies for failing to vituperate. I don’t think this is the proper place for it. (Do note, however, that I did not say, nor mean to imply, a “glorious” triumph by any means. Nor did I say “for”, but rather “of”. There’s a nice exercise for English language learners – explore the semantic differences in that phrase when those to prepositions are used in turn.)

I don’t generally like to get involved in politics here, but somehow that’s what I ended up doing anyway. Oh, well. Perhaps I can bring things briefly around to languages by quoting a passage from Лавр:

Помнил ведь Арсения Великого, неоднократно сожалевшего о словах, которые произносили уста его, но ни разу не сожалевшего о молчании.

Now that’s a thought I doubt seriously that Trump could relate to!

1 - disagree. If this were true Trump wouldn’t get so much coverage. He’s treated very well by the media, over which he appears to have some degree of control.
2 - agree
3 - disagree. He’s a billionaire puppet master. He is the elite; he chose himself, and will almost certainly use the office to make himself more rich and powerful.
4 - disagree. The media and elite have chosen him. It’s true he has a lot of supporters now, but media has certainly helped him maintain and increase this support.
5 - agree
6 - agree. I’m once again hoping for a decent third party candidate.

I don’t like getting involved in “politics” (in this sense) either and I’m against vituperating. I didn’t intend to do so and I didn’t expect you to do it either.
I just wanted to express my bewilderement.

Nice quote, btw

ты уверен что силовики думает о Прибалтике как незаконная часть советского союза?

It feels good to start to understand stuff like this, because it shows my work and input is paying off.

But, back to the lesson. You say Russians like the straight fowardness, bluntness, ‘telling it how it is’, and speaking honestly qualities of Trump. It seems people here enjoy that quality, which is more rare in the culture here in the U.S. People here in the U.S.A. don’t really speak as honestly, because when he say something, it’s usually just to be nice, rather than speaking honestly.

Do people there just like that quality? From what I’ve heard my friends tell me, it seems Russian speakers are just more straight forward or something.

Jake, there are among Russians as among all nations very different people. But the most Russians are very open and outspoken, they like to name things like they are, and that’s why some western people think they are rude, but they don’t. It’s just another culture of the communication.

Russians like saying it like it is? For example the guy who shared a post on Vkontakte that said that Crimea was a part of Ukraine. He got 2 1/2 years in a Russian prison for expressing his views. like the fog of contradictory lies put out by the Russian government and government controlled media about the downing of the Malaysian airliner. Let’s not get carried away here.

I largely agree with ftornay. Trump knows relatively little about the issues. His policies will flip-flop. He is egotistical, very thin skinned and vindictive, and wants to become president because he thinks it’s only fair since he’s so rich and wonderful. There is no practical substance to the solutions he offering Americans.

I salute Evgueny for making this great Russian language content, interesting, controversial perhaps, but the kind of stuff that makes the learner want to read, listen and learn. The language is acquired as a splendid byproduct of our interest in the subject. We don’t need to agree. We just need to be interested.

Along those lines I have been creating videos on political subjects at youtube, and these are lessons in LingQ. You can find them here. Login - LingQ

My most recent video was also devoted to the Donald, and will be added to the library as soon as we get the transcript.

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Personally I think the management of the airline also has to take some blame. They shouldn’t have been flying over a de facto war zone like that! Almost every other major carrier had already diverted their flights before the incident.

The fact is, if military people are in a hostile situtation and think they are under attack, they may shoot first and ask questions later. A far worse example (arguably) is the infamous downing of an Iranian civilian airliner by the US Navy (an action for which no officer was ever held to account, BTW.)

BTW I think it’s a great new series of videos Steve - it makes a nice chance from always talking languages! :slight_smile:

The issue here is “saying it like it is”. There was no Spanish dispatcher, Ukranian jet fighters, Ukrainian buk or attempt to take down Putins’ plane, and whatever other nonsense was put out by Russian official sources. As for apportioning blame, the biggest blame belongs to the party that delivered this weapon , but maybe Malaysian Airlines, as well as Lufthansa, and I don’t know who else should not have flown there, but then they didn’t know that there was a weapon there capable of reaching 10,000 metres.