Yeah, that last point is such awesome cognitive dissonance, and so normal these days.

You know you are in a totalitarian system when people are so resigned to it they almost sound like they agree with it.

Thankfully, in some parts of the world, due to the violence of their captors over the centuries, there is varying degrees of cultural self defense against the clearly up for auction "government" which most citizens of such places refer to as Mafia, especially if they supposedly deposed all the mafia, I mean, who else does that?

Yeah, Putin's approval rating is high.

In a country where 40 years ago "shit is always breaking down" was not such an understatement.

My metric for a good candidate for expatriating from these soon to be Smart Cities is this:

Governments are at their best when they are new. After a few years they are the same dirty crack whores.