>Not really. For large amounts of people to get worked up enough about a proposed government policy to bother protesting in public, it usually means the proposed policy is really bad. People don't get off their butts otherwise.
The "large amounts" can be a figure media put out of their asses.
Take Putin, as a case in point. He has the majority vote by a large margin, the common people love him, but in western media he is portrayed as a dictator.
E.g they take some pro-westernization demonstrations of 10,000 people and blow them out of all proportions. The equivalent would be to use the "Occupy Wall Street" footage as proof that the majority of Americans are against their leadership and the country is a dictatorship.
It doesn't hurt that the minority of Russians that americans find closer to them and their views are anti-Putin. For them, those people (bloggers, tech-geeks, young westernised people etc) represent what most Russians want, when in reality they represent a small minority.
The "large amounts" can be a figure media put out of their asses.
Take Putin, as a case in point. He has the majority vote by a large margin, the common people love him, but in western media he is portrayed as a dictator.
E.g they take some pro-westernization demonstrations of 10,000 people and blow them out of all proportions. The equivalent would be to use the "Occupy Wall Street" footage as proof that the majority of Americans are against their leadership and the country is a dictatorship.
It doesn't hurt that the minority of Russians that americans find closer to them and their views are anti-Putin. For them, those people (bloggers, tech-geeks, young westernised people etc) represent what most Russians want, when in reality they represent a small minority.