"What's it like when Russians are after you?"

Many Americans don't know how living under autocracy *feels*. Here's a brief analogy

Think of a kraken. A voracious beast that is trying to get its tentacles into everything. This is what the corrupt, authoritarian Russian government is like.

If you’re white, American, and middle-to-upper class, you may not know what it feels like to constantly be aware of the presence of the kraken. If you’d like to know how it can affect poor people of other races, check out Rebecca Chowdhury’s very concise piece on how hi-tech surveillance already affects them. Much like with period/pregnancy apps, which I wrote about earlier this week, the authorities have an expanding arsenal that can be used to track you and, if needed, accuse you of a crime.

But let’s go back to the kraken, for a second. Not everyone thinks it’s a monster. A lot of wealthy people in the United States look at what the Russian government does to its own people — and like it. This places our republic in danger.

There are other people, not nearly as wealthy and powerful, but still convinced that they could live under the kraken’s rule. Think of people who’d like tough abortion laws without realizing that they could be affected if someone they love has a miscarriage. Or people who want a more militarized police force in their community, because they assume a cop could never point a gun at them. Or people who yell that people with guns should have their kids taken away, because they think their family could never be broken up by the CPS.

They think “an oppressive government will oppress the right people. Not me.”

They’re wrong. I can tell you that just after 7 years of living under the Russian government. People always think they can feed someone else to the kraken. But this idea that the beast can be manipulated into oppressing only those you don’t like is an insult to its authority. The monster will always remind you that it is, in fact, a monster.

Russians have tried to have a better government. Their terrible failures, I believe, contribute to a general malaise — the low life expectancy, the HIV epidemic, and letting corruption corrode everything, the Russians’ beloved space program included.

This is why our republic is precious and worth saving. We have a clear example of what happens when people feed a monster and let it grow, thinking it could never turn on them.

If you find this analogy helpful — I hope you can understand why Ukrainians would rather die than live under this monster today.

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