Comparing Vladimir Putin's Popularity to Western Leaders

In a previous posting, I looked at how Canada's Ambassador to Russia, Sarah Taylor, viewed Russians' sentiment toward their leader, Vladimir Putin and how he was just a short step from being tossed out of office.  In this posting, I want to compare President Putin's popularity to that of some key Western leaders and see who is really admired by their citizenry. 

 

Recent polling from Russia's  non-politically aligned Levada Center shows us that Vladimir Putin is still highly regarded by Russians: 

 

In December 2024, Putin's approval rating among his fellow Russians was 87 percent.

 

Now, in sharp contrast, let's look at the popularity of Justin Trudeau, Canada's Prime Minister (for now) and Ambassador Taylor's boss:

 

Currently, only 22 percent of Canadians approve of Justin Trudeau's performance, an all-time low.  By party, Trudeau's Liberals would receive only 16 percent of votes, another all-time low which would result in the party garnering only 6 out of the 338 seats in Canada's House of Parliament.

 

Here's a summary of polls showing Joe Biden's approval rating:

 

 

Just over 37 percent of Americans approve of Biden's performance.

  

Here is a graphic showing the popularity of France's President Emmanuel Macron:

Only 23 percent of France's voters approve of Macron's performance, a near-record low.

Now, let's look at the approval rating of U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer:

 

Only 27 percent of Brits are satisfied with Starmer's performance and only 21 percent are satisfied with the performance of his government.

While I don't have a graphic to show, polling in September 2024 showed that only 18 percent of Germans were satisfied with the performance of their Chancellor Olaf Scholz as quoted here:

One might almost think that the nations leading the battle against Putin's Russia find themselves with leaders that they wish to rid themselves of on a permanent basis.  I'm guessing that many of the West's leaders, many of whom are of the Neo-liberal persuasion, would kill for the very high approval numbers that Vladimir Putin is receiving from his fellow Russians.

Canada's Ambassador to Russia and the Next Russian Revolution

This article recently appeared in the Globe and Mail, Canada's once great newspaper of record:

 

Sarah Taylor is Canada's current ambassador to Russia and a Trudeau government appointment effective November 15th, 2023 as shown here:

 

Let's go back to Sarah Taylor and the Globe and Mail.  Here is a quote from the article:

 

"To be Canada’s ambassador to Russia these days is to be both officially ignored and constantly watched.

 

The Russian Foreign Ministry holds regular briefings for foreign diplomats but doesn’t invite those from the countries it considers “unfriendly” – a list of more than two dozen, mostly Western, nations that Canada has been on since soon after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Diplomats from countries on the “unfriendly” list are also skipped for Christmas and New Year’s party invitations.

 

Meanwhile, Sarah Taylor – Canada’s 17th ambassador to Moscow – and her staff experience regular surveillance, as well as staged demonstrations berating Canada for its assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded its smaller neighbour in February, 2022.

 

“I would say there is a somewhat hostile atmosphere. That’s not new, although it has intensified since the invasion of Ukraine,” Ms. Taylor said in a video interview from Moscow. “The feel, for a Canadian or Western diplomat, is quite Cold War-like, with one exception – that there are a lot of Eastern European countries that are now part of NATO and not part of the Warsaw Pact....

 

The Kremlin, meanwhile, almost completely ignores the Canadian embassy, other than on low-level issues such as consular cases.”

I hate to tell Ambassador Taylor but she's not in Moscow to attend Christmas and New Year's parties put on by Russians.  If she is that unhappy with her new posting, perhaps she should retire from her cozy and comfortable life in one of the most dynamic cities in the world.

 

I'm not exactly certain why Ms. Taylor expects a warm welcome from Russia given that Canada has, for all intents and purposes, declared war on Russia and "donated" $5.55 billion in financial allocations, $520 million in humanitarian aid and $2.41 billion in military assistance (current to October 31, 2024 - U.S. dollars) for a total of $8.48 billion, putting the nation in sixth place overall after the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan.  Here is a sampling of the military assistance that Canada has provided to Ukraine:

Here is a complete list of military equipment that Canada has supplied to Ukraine since February 2022 should you care to understand what type of obsolete equipment the Trudeau government has offloaded.   As well, the Trudeau government is looking at the possibility of donating formerly legal guns that have been forcibly confiscated from law-abiding Canadians to Ukraine as shown here:

Let's go back to Ambassador Taylor's whining.  One of the issues that she brings up is the supposed anti-Putin movement in Russia (with my bold):

 

"Being in Moscow allowed Ms. Taylor and other Western diplomats to join the thousands of Russians who came into the streets on March 1 to mourn opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison camp in what Mr. Navalny’s allies see as the Kremlin-ordered murder of Mr. Putin’s most prominent critic.

 

Standing outside the church, Ms. Taylor noticed that the crowd became braver as it grew in numbers. Soon, anti-war and anti-Putin chants were echoing through the streets of Moscow.

 

That convinced Ms. Taylor that there was very little genuine affection for Mr. Putin or enthusiasm for his war in Ukraine. While Russia has seen little in the way of public dissent since Mr. Navalny’s funeral, Ms. Taylor believes things could change in a hurry."

  

Here's the key quote:

 

“Everything seems quiet now, but in the right circumstances and with the right leader you could see Russians coalesce quite suddenly,” she said. “Like with Syria, like with all these authoritarian regimes, everything is fine until it isn’t.”

 

That comment would appear to me to be completely undiplomatic at best.  She obviously has very little understanding of the culture of the nation in which she is currently living and what a significant impact the Second World War had on their national identity.  Having spent time in Russia, you cannot understand their culture through the lens of Western eyes.

 

While she may be swallowing the line that Putin is only clinging to power, recent polling from Russia's  Levada Center would show otherwise:

 

 

In December 2024, Putin's approval rating among his fellow Russians was 87 percent.

 

So, while Canada's Ambassador to Russia claims that Russians are being mean to her and that the citizens of her host nation are just a very short step away from a potential overthrow of their allegedly unpopular President, it would appear that this is nothing more and nothing less than Western mainstream media anti-Russia propaganda.  Quite frankly, I'm surprised that Sarah Taylor's comment on the next "Russian Revolution" hasn't found her ejected unceremoniously from her cushy job in Moscow and deported back to Canada.

Falling Out of Favour - The Debt Debacle and Political Popularity

A recent poll by Gallup shows us the following:

Public support for the Republican Party has fallen to a record low, down 10 percentage points from September's 38 percent to its current level of only 28 percent while approval of the Democrats remains within its recent range, dropping slightly to 43 percent.  The approval rating for the Republicans is the lowest for either political party since Gallup started keeping track in 1992.

Of those polled, 49 percent had an unfavourable viewpoint of the Democrats whereas a rather shocking 62 percent viewed the Republicans unfavourably.  Nearly 25 percent of Americans viewed neither party favourably.

What is rather surprising is that 27 percent of Republicans viewed their own party unfavourably, up 8 percentage points since September.  This is in contrast to only 13 percent of Democrats who view their own party unfavourably, up only 1 percentage point since September.  Among those declaring themselves as Independents, 32 percent view the Democrats favourably compared to only 27 percent for the Republicans. 

While the Gallup poll is interesting, here is a look at the approval rating for President Obama from Real Clear Politics, an aggregate measure of the President's popularity:

His current disapproval rating of 50.4 percent is just below the all-time high of 53 percent seen back in August 2011, just around the time of the last debt crisis.  The difference between his approval and disapproval number is plus 7 (7 percent more people disapprove than approve), off the all-time high of 10.2 but it is among his highest net disapproval ratings.  Interestingly, the most recent AP - GfK poll shows that only 37 percent (17 percent strongly) of those polled approve of how President Obama is handling his job responsibilities compared to 53 percent that disapprove (35 percent strongly).  This is down from 54 percent approval in January 2013; at that time, only 41 percent of those polled felt that the President was not doing his job.

From AP - GfK, here is a breakdown of how Americans feel about the President's handling of various key issues:

Notice that only 22 percent approve of his handling of the budget deficit issue compared to 52 percent who disapprove of his efforts and that only 21 percent approve of how he is managing the federal government compared to 51 percent who disapprove.

In any case, it is quite obvious that the ongoing debt and deficit problems are doing no one from either political party any favours.  As time goes on, Americans are becoming increasingly jaded about their own political system with very good reason.