Paul Goble
Staunton,
January 10 – Earlier this week, Vladimir Putin shared with Russians that he had
received the military rank in Soviet times of lieutenant of artillery,
something that is almost certainly true given the nature of that system, Leonid
Gozman says; but what is interesting is not Putin’s remark but rather how
Russians have reacted to it.
In
an Ekho Moskvy commentary, the opposition
politician says that “even when [the Kremlin leader] speaks the truth,
[Russians] don’t believe him,” if one is to judge by the jokes made at his
expense and the slighting comments on the Internet “and on all not completely
censored media” about his claims (echo.msk.ru/blog/leonid_gozman/2348495-echo/).
Putin is thus finally having to pay
the bill for all the lies he has told in the past, about Russian forces not
being in Crimea, about their lack of involvement in the shooting down of the Boing,
and about all the other things which he has said over the last 20 years that
have turned out to be not true.
“For the thinking part of the country,”
Gozman continues, “whatever he says is now white noise,” something that is
always in the background but that can be ignored because it is so distant from
reality. When a leader passes this Rubicon, when the people living under him
assume he is lying rather than just being skeptical about his words, that is a
major change.
And that deprives him of one of the
most important resources a leader needs, the ability to set the agenda in a
manner that his own people will find convincing. When Putin or any other leader
loses that, he has lost more than just the reputation of a truth teller: he has
lost a key part of his power.
Gozman’s observation does not mean
that all Russians are this skeptical. They almost certainly are not. But enough
now are that Putin is unlikely ever to be able to recover the trust of those
who believe he lies on big things and small.
They are lost to him and his regime, and both he and it are all the
weaker for that development.
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