Three politicians - four politicians

According to opinion polls, Russians, as we know, do not trust the absolute majority

the society in which they live. Especially relatively new, representative institutions, at least in name and appearance - democratic, say, political parties, parliament, public associations, trade unions, etc. Our compatriots trust much more

and above all, of course, to the first person. In this sense, the latest data from the Levada Center on ratings of trust and distrust of the main figures of the Russian political establishment look quite familiar, there are no surprises here.

The trend that has emerged recently is also clear: against the backdrop of a very significant month-on-month increase in trust in two figures who have relatively recently come to the fore, who are now being promoted from morning to evening by the most popular media channels (Sergei Ivanov and Dmitry Medvedev), the level the declared trust in others, even from the first person, has decreased somewhat. It’s as if the newcomers are drawing away some of the attention that Russians previously showed to other politicians. But no noticeable, fundamental regroupings of the political field are taking place. So among the leaders of the trust there are still no representatives of democratic parties; but not one of them appears on the list of those whom Russians most distrust today.

It is interesting to compare what qualities Russians today attribute to the three politicians whom they trust to the greatest extent, and two of whom, one way or another, may become leaders of the upcoming electoral race in 2008 (however, more than 60 people expressed their readiness to recognize Putin as president for the third time at the end of 2006 % of Russians). The list of leading qualities for all three politicians is the same - energy, education, intelligence, intelligence, responsibility. But if Putin and Medvedev put energy first, then Ivanov has education and intelligence. They are also equal in terms of intelligence - for all of them it comes in fourth place.

It is obvious that Sergei Ivanov and Dmitry Medvedev for Russians today look like doubles, pale copies of Vladimir Putin - after all, no qualities other than presidential ones have been noticed in them. However, if, say, Putin’s energy is noted by slightly more than 60% of Russians, then the same quality is noted by the other two – from one fifth to one quarter of those surveyed, etc. But the main positive quality of Ivanov and Medvedev for Russians today is not even the listed features that bring them closer to the image of the president in the minds of Russians, but the real

, his

.

The following mental chain is formed: we, of all politicians, trust the president the most, and he, of all the others, trusts these two the most, therefore... 26% of respondents noted this valuable quality in Ivanov, and 30% in Medvedev. And more often than others, this trait is highlighted by representatives of the social periphery - the less educated and wealthy, residents of medium-sized and, especially, small cities. One way or another, this proximity is much more important than efficiency, education and other qualities that, on the contrary, are more often highlighted by educated residents of large cities.

Let me emphasize: actually

stands for Russians today in one of the last places among the qualities of the most prominent current

. This means that, strictly speaking, the respondents in this case portray not politicians, but statesmen, or, more precisely, people in the administrative corps. It is clear that their most important quality is loyalty to the established system and to its main symbolic figure, the leading link - the president. In the same sense, it is apparently worth interpreting such a characteristic as the presence of “political, government experience” among the named persons - and along this line, S. Ivanov’s position looks stronger in the eyes of the population than Medvedev’s. However, there is no competition between political programs, candidates’ struggle for broad support, etc. Such representations, of course, are not provided for. We are dealing with the results of a consistent

masses with simultaneous

their consciousness.

It is significant that the weaknesses of the listed politicians are almost not highlighted by the mass consciousness. This consciousness is not critical: from 65 to 70% of our respondents found it difficult to name such traits. And they are expressed as faintly as possible in the president’s “doubles,” in whose portraits, as we remember, positive characteristics stood out two to three times less clearly than in their “original model.” And yet I note that the hierarchy of negative qualities of Ivanov and Medvedev again repeats the set of corresponding presidential traits. “Talks a lot, does little” in relation to Putin was noted by 12% of respondents, in relation to Ivanov and Medvedev - 8 and 5%, respectively; “insufficiently independent, manageable, dependent” was attributed to Putin by 9%, to Ivanov and Medvedev by 8 and 7%; “does not have a clear political line” - 7, 5 and 4%.

It is characteristic that the lack of independence and dependence of Ivanov and Medvedev (one must understand that their dependence on Putin) is more often identified as a weakness by educated residents of large cities. This subgroup has already been discussed. However, the majority of Russians - including the electoral majority - are, of course, residents of completely different types of settlements. And in recent years they have become as depoliticized as possible, just as they are maximally dependent on the television “needle” on which they are placed.

We can say that in Russia now there are, as it were, three “policies” or three facets of politics. One is the paternalistic internal one, which, despite all the grumbling, is perceived by the masses most gratefully; it’s not for nothing that the president’s promise of a one-time benefit for women to give birth to a child was considered the biggest event of the past year.

The second policy is a protective-compensatory external one, according to the formula “we showed them”; such acts of symbolic aggressiveness towards the world, the USA, and surrounding countries are also accepted with approval by the majority of Russians.

The third policy is cynically aggressive behind the scenes, it is a struggle for power, place, feeding trough. It does not evoke mass approval, but it is expected and understandable to the majority: they say, it cannot be any other way (option: in Russia it cannot be any other way).

All three are complemented today by the symbolic policy of nationalized audiovisual media - this is the fourth, simulated television policy. Moreover, this entire structure appears to the public as recognizable, everlasting and unchanging, which, in turn, is recognized by it as the long-awaited “stabilization,” improvement and order. I’ll add one thing: politics in all four of its projections is what

. But never what the respondents themselves do and what it would have been time for adults, who should be responsible for their own lives, to do long ago. No, they answer sociologists. And while this is the case, there is no need to talk responsibly about politics and count on serious changes in this area: who, why, under whose pressure, counting on whom, with what forces will change anything here? And from this political paralysis they are losing

.