Democracies aren’t perfect, but they are much more transparent than authoritarian states. People see and read about the imperfections of democracies which our own politicians and press publicize. But Russian problems can be hidden to some degree and most people are unsophisticated and can’t see the subtle differences.

China shows how a regime that is only going to steal some of the wealth generated, and will allow a fairly large elite to get in on the theft (as opposed to the DPRK, where the grift is quite limited), can be popular. There are a lot of crumbs left over in China for the mass of people. So what to Americans is abject poverty is actually a huge improvement and will look really good to people in places like Africa. Their governments aren’t delivering, comparatively China’s does.

For Russia in the West there is also this weird, “well they are Christians and are defending ‘whiteness.’” In the USA, Orthodox ritual would make our Fundamentalists puke, but it is safely in Russia so it’s ok.