If you followed the news in last few days, you know that federal government is under risk of shutdown and it will all depend on vote in Senate. Chuck Schumer, minority leader in Senate and supposedly leading fighter of Democratic Party now, decided to not vote against it and urges his colleagues to do the same.

We can argue whether he acts rightly or not (I think personally such act is cowardly). I write about this because I see very similar image to one with one of the Russian opposition leaders, Grigory Yavlinsky.

He was the leader of Yabloko party, only real opposition party allowed in State Duma (Russian parliament). For years, he was example of someone who tries to fight the corruption by being inside the system and trying to fix it. Unfortunately, he made same mistake that current leader of Democratic Party does. He thought that there is a middle ground that can be found with his opponents, and that some things and rules cannot be broken. Because of this, he started to take shortcuts, which started to detoriate his image as opposition leader.

While still being supposedly one of the opposition leader and only candidate from opposition on Russian Elections 2018, when he used soft critique against Putin, he turned into man who criticizes Alexii Navalny (most popular opposition leader, killed a year ago) when he was sent in prison, and when Russia invaded Ukraine, he blamed it on everyone, including Western countries.

My point is, Mr Yavlinsky thought he could fight back against Putin regime by trying to negotiate and find middle ground. But by doing so, he started to slowly become an indirect vessel of regime, as his message started to have increasingly similar ideas as the thing he fought against. That’s why some people who oppose Putin despise him, considering he ‘sold his soul to Putin’.

When you fight against authoritarian or unjust rule, there is no middle ground. Either you let them step over you (which currently Chuck Schumer unfortunately does) or you fight to not let it happen. And I hope majority of people here will choose the latter.

P.S. you can’t also check what I said about what I learned about protests (https://www.reddit.com/r/50501/s/yNvF4mvFwB) and similarities between Russian propaganda and Trump rhetoric (https://www.reddit.com/r/50501/s/34VaBFzvvp)

Originally Posted By u/Similar_Employee_164 At 2025-03-14 09:24:47 AM | Source