Many, or most?

Submitted by Peter Chew (United States), Sep 12, 2016 at 14:18

The fact that Russians have emigrated, appreciate Western freedoms, and don't sympathize with Putin is no guarantee that they will not be susceptible to the Russian government's information warfare. I have a Russian emigre friend who's a Christian evangelical and has lived in Chicago 15+ years. Very unusually even among Russian Christian emigres, she and her Russian husband even oppose the Russian annexation of Crimea. Yet I was very surprised to hear my friend defending Donald Trump's comment that Putin is a "strong leader"; she's also made the illiberal suggestion that perhaps the US needs a "strongman" leader like Putin, sidelining any considerations of the leader's morality.

You can take Russians out of authoritarian Russia, but it seems it's very hard to take authoritarian Russia out of emigre Russians.

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