Winner Take All Quotes
This is the major factor in many nations trying to shift to a democracy from a totalitarian form of government. The winners assume that they can now do anything without regard for the minority rights of opinions.
This quotation illustrates the "winner take all" conceopt of many political cultures that call themselves and think of theselves as a democracy. But a true democracy does not allow a tyranny of the majority--especially a very narrow minority.
After the economic & power collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was the only remaining superpower. Givern Russia's diminshed capability and many Americans still carrying resentments about the Cold War, America's foreign policy and diplomacy did not treat Russia as if they were a very important power in the world. Puten greatly resented the fact that Russia was no longer considered or treated like a world power, Russia had a nuclear arsenal and a total delivery system what was in the same destructive potential class as the United States. There were many Russiabs who had similar resentments and Putin sert out to adopt policieis and practices that would force the United States and the other nations to consider them with more dignity, respect and consdideration. This was a typical statement of the period when he was "stoking the fires of Russian resentment.
At the time, the Republicans held the House of Representatives, but not the Senate or the Presidency. By popular vote, even the House elections had the majority voting for the Democrats, but the gerrymandering gave the Republicans more seats. A minority of the minority Republicans were Tea Party Republicans—ultra conservatives who would not compromise but who intimidated other Republicans by threatening to run candidates against them in primary elections. The result was that the Tea Party Republicans—a minority of the minority could block almost any legislation and did. That Congress passed less legislation than any in American history including the “Do Nothing Congress” of the Truman era.
Although he had majority support, he reacted very badly to anyone who challenged him or his party about anything. One of his decisions to transform a park into a shopping center drew crowds of peaceful protesters. He grossly overacted as he believed in a “winner take all” view of democracy. So long as he could bring more followers than the protesters, he was right and they were wrong. This had the effect of polarizing a population that had been a democracy since the 1920s. In his view, dialogue, discussion, and debate are not valuable processes, and minority views can never be correct, but whoever can muster the majority gets to call the shots and make all the laws and decisions, regardless of the views of minorities.
Whenever different ethnicities perceive that they are in a “zero sum game” situation where one group cannot benefit without detriment to others, the situation is always unstable and usually explodes as when Yugoslavia broke apart at the end of the 20th century after being held together by a strong leader, Tito. Note that there was a different spelling of Yugoslavia in the 1920s. The pronunciation was the same.
