Julia knows this because she speaks to Russians who have been screaming about "Screw your democracy and the empty shelves it brought with it" since the 1990s. I know this for the same reason, and also because I was a member of the working class and heard this said many times...
https://twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/1488285320542138373
I worked in manual labor in 2001 and 2002, when a small venture-capital company I was working for as a technician went belly-up in the in the post-9/11 crisis. My vaguely "threatening" name ("Is this Farsi?") shut me out of most jobs, and I wound up working in a warehouse...
Wasn't anything to complain about. The money kept the newborn fed, and heavy lifting was nothing to be scared of for a Soviet immigrant.
But holy shit, the coworkers...
The first thing they did was nickname me "The Terrorist", because obviously...
But holy shit, the coworkers...
The first thing they did was nickname me "The Terrorist", because obviously...
When I tried to engage them on the topic of increased security measures, restrictions of freedom and general un-Americanness of the Bush administration's response, every single one of them said they'd rather live in a police state but with no fear of dark people blowing them up.
Words such as "democracy", "freedom", "due process" or "American ideals" meant absolutely nothing to them. Less than nothing. They'd happily give all of them up, if it meant folk like them stayed unscathed.
Went without saying that they'd scream them from the rooftops otherwise.
Went without saying that they'd scream them from the rooftops otherwise.
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