Oh, they may not have anything quite as surreal as QAnon, but some enterprising individuals have come up with some pretty huge theroies explain why, despite massive resource wealth, Russia still has staggering inequality and an economy that ranks behind Italy. One says that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was secretly "occupied" by the United States.

Related: 8 Hilariously Insane Examples Of Vladimir Putin Propaganda

This might come as a shock to many people, especially U.S. military personnel who never knew they could be deployed to occupation duty in Russia, but it is the pet theory of a Russian State Duma deputy named Evgeny Fedorov. He claims that the American occupation of Russia is something more subtle. For example, one insidious thing those evil Yanks got the Russians to do was amend their constitution to ban censorship (because the Kremlin observes the shit out of that rule!) and any state-mandated ideology.

But according to Fedorov, the tide is turning, because in 2014, Vladimir Putin heroically rose up against the invisible American occupiers. Fedorov is doing everything he can to help by founding what he calls the "National Liberation Movement." It mostly consists of people getting paid to wave flags at rallies and rail about "fifth columnist" traitors.

Speaking of which ...

Russia's state media readily obliges, producing such gems as a "bombshell" about Alexey Navalny, an anti-corruption activist often seen as the most prominent face of the country's non-systemic opposition, who they say is, you guessed it, a spy for foreign powers.

The "investigation" features recordings of a man who sounds nothing like Navalny, as well as documents in poorly translated English. Even the FSB (one of the successors of the KGB), which is usually more than willing to arrest people on the stupidest grounds, doesn't find the evidence convincing.

Related: Eerie Similarities Between Trump, Putin, ISIS, And Kim Jong Un

If you're an open opposition supporter, you're basically fair game if anyone wants to attack you, even in public. Remember Alexey Navalny? He's been assaulted on the street too many times to count. On several occasions, attackers splashed him with a green antiseptic dye (and on other occasions, notably less antiseptic feces). The assailants are typically never arrested, and on the rare occasions when they have been, they are released without charges.

One such group that is notorious for such attacks is known as SERB, or the Southeast Radical Block. Despite numerous public attacks on the opposition, it has received almost no police response. Thus far, there hasn't been concrete evidence that the group is directly financed by the Kremlin, but that's almost beside the point. There's plenty of evidence that the authorities are well aware of the group's actions and yet give them a free pass. In the end, that's all it takes.

In Russia, Putin's cult of personality puts Trump's to shame. In 2014, Deputy Chief of Staff Vyacheslav Volodin famously said, "there is no Russia if there is no Putin." Meanwhile, in Moscow, one finds all kinds of souvenirs with Putin's likeness, usually looking cool in sunglasses or wearing uniforms for military branches he never served in.

Related: 4 Horrifying Things You Need To Know About Vladimir Putin

But he was still a KGB badass, right? Probably some kind of assassin? Well yeah, about that. When he worked in the KGB, Putin was stationed in ... let's see here ... the quiet streets of Dresden, well behind the Iron Curtain, where he basically sat behind a desk and collected info on foreign visitors. Just for comparison, during the years Putin was posted in Dresden, there were KGB agents in Afghanistan running covert operations across the border in Pakistan. To my knowledge, none of them ever got their mug on a T-shirt.

There are even songs dedicated to Putin. One has a woman wishing for a man who is "like Putin." It is not clear if the woman wants this hypothetical man to share other qualities of the Russian president when it comes to women, such as treating his wife like a state secret and then divorcing her after years of estrangement and persistent rumors about an affair with a former Olympic gymnast.

In a more recent song, young children from a military academy say that they are ready to die for "Uncle Vova," referring to Putin. Might want to dial it back a bit, kids!

In reality, Putin never got rid of these things; he just changed the nature of the game in ways that made it less noticeable or more predictable for a lot of people. Still, Putin's media machine constantly reminds citizens that if he ever falls, the country will return to that '90s-era post-Soviet lawlessness. When the man goes away, that anxiety will remain. Likewise, if Trump loses in 2020 or 2024, the headlines might become slightly less stupid, but the wounds in the culture that got us here will continue to fester. If you want to change the direction of the country, getting past Trump is just the beginning.

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