That's a racist lie. It's also an important lie that helps to understand the worldview of Russian "liberals". In the Russian discourse and especially in the "liberal" discourse everything negative or evil always come from Asia. It's an axiom that requires no proof or evidence
Consider the following. Clueless people like parroting the idea about Russian despotism inherited from the Tatar Khanates. Ok. Let's assume this may be true. Then the question about the political & legal culture of the said Khanates should take central place in that discussion
The argument about the Russian absolutist practices being borrowed from the Tatar Khanates, depends on a question of how did those Khanates look like? Politics, law, institutions. Notice that this question strangely misses from the discussion. Because the entire argument is a lie
There are great studies on the politics and law of the Khanates but they never ever appear in this discussion because it is not an honest discussion at all. It is the endless affirmation of Russian superiority through belonging to the supreme culture/race whatever you like better
There is an axiom that Russians (as Europeans and thus a master race) could never build anything imperfect themselves. So if the political structure they built has imperfections then it must be the influence of Asiatics. Ok, but how did those Asiatic structures look like? Silence
The entire "Muscovite absolutism is derived from the Horde" argument is simply the affirmation of:
1. Russian superiority 2. Russians never holding any responsibility for how their country looks or what it is doing 3. Necessity of stricter ethnic/cultural purification in Russia
If there was even a grain of honest analysis in this discussion, they would first ask the question - what do we already know on the Khanates? What kind of research on them exists? They don't. Because it is simply a massive racist affirmation parroted by the clueless Westerners
If you want to learn about the Tatar political culture, you can find some real studies, based on primary sources in this thread. Krolikowska-Jedlinska who read the Crimean archives may be the most interesting. But Pochekaev and others also do a good job
What I am saying is that "capitalist reforms" are a buzzword devoid of any actual meaning, and a buzzword that obfuscated rather than explains. Specifically, it is fusing radically different policies taken under the radically different circumstances (and timing!) into one - purely for ideological purposes
It can be argued, for example, that starting from the 1980s, China has undertaken massive socialist reforms, specifically in infrastructure, and in basic (mother) industries, such as steel, petrochemical and chemical and, of course, power
The primary weakness of this argument is that being true, historically speaking, it is just false in the context of American politics where the “communism” label has been so over-used (and misapplied) that it lost all of its former power:
“We want X”
“No, that is communism”
“We want communism”
Basically, when you use a label like “communism” as a deus ex machina winning you every argument, you simultaneously re-define its meaning. And when you use it to beat off every popular socio economic demand (e.g. universal healthcare), you re-define communism as a synthesis of all the popular socio economic demands
Historical communism = forced industrial development in a poor, predominantly agrarian country, funded through expropriation of the peasantry
(With the most disastrous economic and humanitarian consequences)
Many are trying to explain his success with some accidental factors such as his “personal charisma”, Cuomo's weakness etc
Still, I think there may be some fundamental factors here. A longue durée shift, and a very profound one
1. Public outrage does not work anymore
If you look at Zohran, he is calm, constructive, and rarely raises his voice. I think one thing that Mamdani - but almost no one else in the American political space is getting - is that the public is getting tired of the outrage
Outrage, anger, righteous indignation have all been the primary drivers of American politics for quite a while
For a while, this tactics worked
Indeed, when everyone around is polite, and soft (and insincere), freaking out was a smart thing to do. It could help you get noticed
People don’t really understand causal links. We pretend we do (“X results in Y”). But we actually don’t. Most explanations (= descriptions of causal structures) are fake.
There may be no connection between X and Y at all. The cause is just misattributed.
Or, perhaps, X does indeed result in Y. but only under a certain (and unknown!) set of conditions that remains totally and utterly opaque to us. So, X->Y is only a part of the equation
And so on
I like to think of a hypothetical Stone Age farmer who started farming, and it worked amazingly, and his entire community adopted his lifestyle, and many generations followed it and prospered and multiplied, until all suddenly wiped out in a new ice age
1. Normative Islamophobia that used to define the public discourse being the most acceptable form of racial & ethnic bigotry in the West, is receding. It is not so much dying as rather - failing to replicate. It is not that the old people change their views as that the young do not absorb their prejudice any longer.
In fact, I incline to think it has been failing to replicate for a while, it is just that we have not been paying attention
Again, the change of vibe does not happen at once. The Muslim scare may still find (some) audience among the more rigid elderly, who are not going to change their views. But for the youth, it is starting to sound as archaic as the Catholic scare of know nothings
Out of date
2. What is particularly interesting regarding Mamdani's victory, is his support base. It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that its core is comprised of the young (and predominantly white) middle classes, with a nearly equal representation of men and women
What does Musk vs Trump affair teach us about the general patterns of human history? Well, first of all it shows that the ancient historians were right. They grasped something about nature of politics that our contemporaries simply can’t.
Let me give you an example. The Arab conquest of Spain
According to a popular medieval/early modern interpretation, its primary cause was the lust of Visigoth king Roderic. Aroused by the beautiful daughter of his vassal and ally, count Julian, he took advantage of her
Disgruntled, humiliated Julian allied himself with the Arabs and opens them the gates of Spain.
Entire kingdom lost, all because the head of state caused a personal injury to someone important.