The fact that you would see it this way as a Russian makes sense. Unlike Russia, the American information space has at least retained the facade of being free and generally accurate. What you are missing is that the Republicans have been gutting our educational system for over 50 years, media consolidation has given the political establishment significant control over what ideologies are or are not given favorable coverage, and social media algorithms have been tuned to favor establishment information sources. For those with the time and inclination, it is certainly possible to be informed, and I'm sure it's easier than in Russia, but most Americans don't have the time or media sophistication to understand anything but establishment narratives. Those of us who are informed get absolutely swamped out by misinformed or outright delusional voters.

[–] Mistic 3 points 1 week ago

I'm aware that that's been happening in US, yes. Although I don't actually know to what extent.

What I mean by "votes actually matter" (as I assume that's what you're responding to) is that election results aren't pre-determined (not on a federal level, at the very least). Basically, it's a night and day difference between US and Russia.

Technically speaking, they matter in Russia too, even though they don't affect the results. In short, it's all because of public opinions. It's better people be disillusioned elections were falcified than be ignorantly believe they weren't. Not to mention, it, at least till recently, was also possible for opposition to win on municipal or regional level.

As for the establishment narrative, people believing in it, and media control. First two aren't unique to US, happens pretty much everywhere. I can tell that media in US is mostly controlled by conservatives. In Russia, on the other hand, there is no space for opposition on TV, which is mostly watched by older people, which are the majority of voters. Ever since Putin's first became the president, he's been silently killing off all independent news media till there was nothing left. Now he's trying to do the same with internet media, although he's much more illiterate when it comes to the internet.