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Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

theguardian.com

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Re: Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

#61

Post by int_19h »

revolvingocelot wrote: post #33
bigdict wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe precisely because he doesn't have the degree of control that would be present in an actual totalitarian dictatorship?..

I think arguing about Putin's level of control over Russia is splitting dissidents, I mean hairs. The ability to openly murder and gaslight your opponents, even when they are in other countries, is certainly within tolerances for an "actual totalitarian dictatorship"; Putin has, and flaunts, this ability. Is he publicly directing uniformed thugs to kick down doors and execute people in the streets? Well, no, but not…

"Totalitarian" implies total control - i.e. yes, the ability to direct uniform thugs to kick down doors and execute people in the streets is included in it.

Putin's Russia is authoritarian, not totalitarian. That's why political opponents are murdered by assassins, not executed by firing squads.

Re: Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

#62

Post by robbedpeter »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #42
NortySpock wrote: post #34

Happened in Florida in 2020 as well... https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2020/12/02/the-name-is-the-... https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/20/florida-ele... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

The Russian case will likely end differently.

Maybe the assassination will be recorded on dashcam? (/s, hopefully)

Re: Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

#63

Post by int_19h »

smoyer wrote: post #3

This is pretty similar to Ross Perot splitting the republican vote in the U.S. '92 election except that Perot and Bush should have been political allies and instead split the vote in favor of Clinton. I can't think of an example of using this against an opponent as described in the article could certainly be used here (though I suspect using duplicate names) would be harder to hide).

How is it similar? Perot was clearly a separate candidate, and people who voted for him all knew that.

Re: Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

#65

Post by exabrial »

revolvingocelot wrote: post #19
no_time wrote: post #15

Easy solution: Cattle ear tags for politicians.

A more humane solution would be NASCAR-style jumpsuits, worn by law for all government business, emblazoned with logos of their moneyed sponsors. "Ah, there's my guy, he's the one beholden to land developers." Of course, I'm not sure how that'd work in Russia. I assume at least some of the criminal masterminds who fill the role of the West's owner class have a, like, inkan [0] or something. [0] https://en.wikipedia.o…

This would be nice, because we'd finally has some transparency on who they're being sponsored by.

Re: Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

#66

Post by gfaure »

nomoreplease wrote: post #47
NortySpock wrote: post #34

Happened in Florida in 2020 as well... https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2020/12/02/the-name-is-the-... https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/20/florida-ele... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

In the Florida case it was/is a common surname, not a full name. In this Russian case, two humans changed their full name to match. Presumably paid to do so. Very different situations Edit: in the Russian case, they also changed their appearance to match According to a sibling comment, this strategy goes back to JohnF Kennedy at least. Except that the Russians take it to the next level

In the Russia case, not their full name -- notice that the patronymic is different for each of the real candidate and the two fake candidates.

Re: Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

#67

Post by smoyer »

morganvachon wrote: post #24
smoyer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't intend it ... and it looks like I probably shouldn't have gone reminiscing in an HN comment!

HN tends to have waves of (for lack of a better term) "troll hunters" who come here with an attitude that everyone here is commenting in bad faith and must be called out for it. They will do it to commenters from all sides of an argument, even in cases like this where it was clear your comment was simply remembering a past event and not intended to be anything else. I haven't figured out if they mean well and are jus…

I'm not in it for the karma and don't worry about being down-voted when I'm writing a thoughtful but perhaps contrary comment. Sometimes (like now) it teaches me that I'm out of step with the "mood" of the commons. That's fine too.

Re: Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

#68

Post by gpm »

a-priori wrote: post #23
gpm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This left the People's Party with no seats in parliament. Note that even if the Rhinoceros votes went for the peoples party the same thing would have happened...

True, this probably didn't actually change the results, but it likely narrowed the margin in an already narrow vote.

You and I have very different understandings of the word narrow.

That's 58% vs 42% just counting the votes that went to the PPC/Conservatives. 39% vs 28% looking at all the votes in the riding. The rhino candidate got less than 2% of the votes in the riding.

It definitely didn't actually change the results.

Re: Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

#69

Post by CarelessExpert »

a-priori wrote: post #4

This reminds me of the 2019 Canadian federal election. There was a new party in that election led by a man named Maxime Bernier called the People's Party. They're a far-right populist party and generally awful. Bernier himself was running in Beauce, Quebec, which he had represented through the Conservative party since 2006 before he had created the People's Party. But then the Rhinoceros Party, a satirical political…

Well, in Canada (and I'd assume elsewhere, but I've not checked) our ballots include party affiliation, so it's pretty easy to tell the candidates apart if you're paying any attention at all.

Re: Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

#70

Post by revolvingocelot »

int_19h wrote: post #61
revolvingocelot wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think arguing about Putin's level of control over Russia is splitting dissidents, I mean hairs. The ability to openly murder and gaslight your opponents, even when they are in other countries, is certainly within tolerances for an "actual totalitarian dictatorship"; Putin has, and flaunts, this ability. Is he publicly directing uniformed thugs to kick down doors and execute people in the streets? Well, no, but not…

"Totalitarian" implies total control - i.e. yes, the ability to direct uniform thugs to kick down doors and execute people in the streets is included in it. Putin's Russia is authoritarian, not totalitarian. That's why political opponents are murdered by assassins, not executed by firing squads.

Sure, but for a society to be "totalitarian" is an asymptotic climb, not a defined goal. An independent Russian businessman might find himself approached by the local mob (under the aegis of an oligarch, who is under the aegis of the Russian state) to acquire a share of his business. He can't turn to any authority for help, and if he refuses his business (or he) will be crippled. That's not total control.

Political opponents are murdered by assassins, and domestic coverage of the murder makes no bones about what happened, nor is the even truthier international coverage suppressed at all. Public execution by implication. I'm certain Putin has the functional ability to quietly kill someone; he was in the KGB. Most of the big assassinations read more like expansive threats: "look what I can get away with, and the West just wags a stern finger at me; you are not safe, enemy of mine, even in the UK".

I appreciate that words usually have fairly fixed definitions (but sometimes not so literally, aha). That said, while Putin's Russia may not be totalitarian to the standards of, say, Maoist China, I think it's pretty damn difficult, and moreso than in most other countries, to do anything that the ruling class doesn't want done. That approaches total control.

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