You know that the U.S. too (and the West more generally, of course) has "tightly-knit academic communities" to discuss things such as the concerns that might come up in high-level state negotiations? In fact, the broad community of "open source intelligence" almost invariably has a markedly better handle on those issues than high-profile parts of USG that ought to theoretically benefit from secrecy and non-public info - despite common claims to the contrary!

More intelligent does not mean more correct. The way I read OP is that level of discussion among mass population seems to be more intelligent.

In my opinion, even if this hypothesis is correct, these ‘more intelligent’ discussions try to build upon inherently two-dimensional authoritarian picture, with carefully controlled inputs. Results of these discussions have very little touch with actual reality. It’s like existing in parallel reality.

Yes exactly, that was my point. High quality political analysis is niche in the US, but it is more mainstream in Russia.

I work on the theory that Fox News is a result of lack of democracy in the USA.

To give one example, the common complaints about the coastal elites and metropolitans. Its harder to get away with that if you have a democratic system that counts peoples votes since those groups include a lot of people.

By your theory, the political conversation should be worst in the countries ranked most democratic, which I don't feel fits the facts as well as the opposite.

https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2020/

> By your theory, the political conversation should be worst in the countries ranked most democratic, which I don't feel fits the facts as well as the opposite.

I didn't say the political discourse was "worse", I said it appeals to the lowest common denominator. The crowds are finicky and have a short attention span, but sometimes they may happen to be correct. And sometimes they're not.

Right, so the political discussion in New Zealand, Sweden etc. appeals to the lowest common denominator even more, because they are more democratic than the US? I don't think that's true.

Yeah, I don’t buy it. I especially don’t buy that link. Blaming American’s concerns about an invasion of Ukraine on a lack of intellectualism is embarrassingly weak tea.

Lack of intellectualism in the American political discourse is a common refrain even among the American left, not to mention the rest of the world, after becoming the laughing stock of the world during the Trump era. Of course this does not mean that American soft power was decreasing, Tyler Cowen (the right-leaning writer at Marginal Revolution) would argue exactly the opposite, but still, intellectualism being relegated to the sidelines and niche communities is a serious concern.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-19/woke-m...

Why does the author pull up Nord stream2 as important to the German economy considering there is no need for increased capacity only a Russian incentive to take away the cards of Ukraine and such?

Other than that the author makes a boatload of assumptions. South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Crimea, Nagarno karabakh, etc in recent memory but somehow he believes the Americans would not consider anything close based on this conjecture?

I mean, leaving propaganda issues aside for a moment, you still have a sample size of two. I'm not sure that qualifies as data.

I don't think Russian state TV insulting past and present NATO and US leaders proves nuance, depth, or belief.