Talking Politics

 Some people, on finding out that I am from the US, will ask for my opinion on Biden vs. Trump. I cannot have any meaningful political conversation in Russian, and even Google translate is woefully deficient when trying to explain things like threats to democracy, checks and balances and the erosion of separate but equal branches of government. My interactions are purely anecdotal, I don’t know what kind of news these people consume or if their views are at all representative of any segment of the population. They are just people who would talk to a random westerner riding his bike through their country.

But some themes have emerged through these conversations:

• When they ask how Biden is as president, they ask if he’s not too old and feeble to be president. I can only point out that he is better than the alternative and even if he did nothing in a second term, it would be preferable to backsliding. They said they like Trump because he tells it like it is and is straightforward, citing him before the first world leader to call Covid the “China virus”
• Some people seem to think that LGBTQ+ issues are the only thing going on in the US. They’ve asked if it’s ok that there are so many queer people around and how terrifying it must be to see women dressed like men and men dressed like women all over the place. Then they point to this as evidence of a giant mental health crisis in the US, citing “no gays in Kazkhstan.”
• I’ve been “politely” probed about whether I am transgender. Not because of anything that I said or did, but because some people seem to think that most Americans are trans (???). 
• The Israel-Palestine conflict seems to be a non-issue. It is some war being fought in a far-away land that does not affect them, or their way of life. When I’ve mentioned this the people, at first they are a little confused, when I say the word “war,” I get tepid responses like “oh yeah, I’ve heard of that”, or something involving “western problems.”
• I heard an interesting take about Jewish people - someone asked me if it’s true that Jews believe themselves to be superior to everyone and their end goal is to enslave all non-Jews. My response was “Jews talk a lot about having been enslaved, not about being slavers themselves.”
• I heard some real hot takes on the war in Ukraine: One person had a weird deflection. He said he’s been living in Moscow for the past couple of years. So I asked what they say about the Ukraine war there. He was like “what war?” And I was like “the one in Ukraine”. And he kept insisting there wasn’t a war, just some high level conflict. And I asked what people in Moscow say about it and he said “why would they say anything? There is no war in Moscow”. I asked him multiple times many different ways to try to get my point across but that was always his answer
• The other person I talked to about the war in Ukraine said “don’t you think it’s Biden’s fault that Russia had to attack Ukraine? I mean, Biden was making Putin so jealous about Ukraine joining NATO that Putin had to attack.” I said “in what world is it ok to start an incursion into another country because you were jealous? That doesn’t make it the other person’s fault!”