OK … this comment is going to be less about the Ukraine specifically and more about applying political theory to human motivation … let me explain.
This is the second time in as many years that a duly elected leader of a country was removed from office by a “popular uprising” that has been embraced by the American people. The first was Egypt. In both cases the elected leader was cast aside because he appeared to be moving the country towards a identity based collectivist government. In Egypt the group was the Muslim Brotherhood. In the Ukraine it was Putin’s “Russia”. In Putin’s “Russia” the Russian State is the most important thing. It is a collectivist society. Nationalistic. Tied to a common identity.
In both cases it amounted to a choice between a government where the individual people held the power and were the most important political unit, or the Collectivist Group held the power and the group was the most important political unit. Hobbes’ Leviathan.
Don’t get wrapped around the axel over elections. That someone is elected is largely irrelevant. Autocratic, identity based leaders are elected and re-elected by the population they lead all the time. Elections are not the important point. Political ideology, either individualistic or communal, is. So, it does not matter if Yanukovych was elected. He was taking the country where those people of a individualist mindset did not want to go. We Westerners generally agree with that mindset, so we support a non-democratic change of power.
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