Message from @mattforney
Discord ID: 633054386368544798
clearly declare their allegiance to Russia or the U.S.
the government dithered as long as they could and then picked the U.S. in the most weaselly, noncommittal way possible
pleasing no one
Oh, so they half-assed the entire thing and lost on both sides
exactly
and despite being an "illiberal," "authoritarian" government in the mold of Fidesz, every time the opposition sneezes they run to offer them a Kleenex and some cough drops
a big part of the problem is that Georgian Dream aren't really ideological and are just a bunch of cowardly civil servants and oligarchs
they want to keep skimming off the top and avoid serious issues
during the presidential election last year, Bidzina Ivanishvili (the capo of Georgian Dream), used one of his charitable foundations to buy up the debts of 400,000 people
which is a big number (the pop is only about 3 million)
Doesn't that raise questions?
it was a last ditch effort to win the election since the government candidate and UNM's candidate were tied
it raised questions but not enough for people to care because Salome Zurabishvili (the Georgian Dream candidate) ended up winning
she's a doofus
an expatriate who speaks Georgian in a French accent
you see the different mentality compared to Fidesz: they pulled out all the stops to get a clearly mediocre person into power
Are they trying to be self-defeating or to keep nice with the opposition?
To be honest, fidesz also have huge blind spors, but they are ruthless vs the opposition when they act
like I said, they have no real ideology and just want to make money, so they overreact any time there's a threat to their income streams
they think throwing concessions at people will get them to go away
Then there is no future there, although I think no european country has any future
For different reasons they are all doomed
a good comparison would be to Viktor Yanukovych, who basically tried to be everyone's friend
and got run out of power by ideological fanatics
I'd say Georgia has a bit further to fall at least re: poz
one of the few major things Georgian Dream did was rewrite the constitution like Fidesz did
they inserted a clause banning gay marriage
of course, this is the FSU, and that kind of thing can be overturned with a "plebiscite" where a bunch of votes just materialize out of thin air
Yeah, it is nice that it is there but that can change anytime
pretty sure Ukrainians didn't expect that Euromaidan would end with Azov Battalion veterans marching in pride parades, and yet it happened
Is the media also on such bad shape over there?
I mean, of course very few people would look up what the news are in Georgia
it's worse in some respects
I didn't even know about the flying ban
there aren't any Germans buying shit up like they did in Poland, but there's also no state-run media apparatus like in Hungary
there's the pro-government news channel and the opposition news channel
the pro-government paper, the opposition paper
etc.
the opposition media outlets are profitable because they aren't being drowned out with state money
or forcibly sold to friends of the government