Russian President Vladimir Putin's motives for helping Donald Trump become President of the United States. Watch Part 1 here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCf6qkRJuy4 Video by Bryce Plank and Robin West Subscribe to TDC: www.youtube.com/TheDailyConversation/ Music: "Dark and Cinematic Ambient, TDC Remix" by Motion Array "Long Note Two" by Kevin MacLeod incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/?keywords=electro+sketch&Search=Search Like our page on Facebook www.facebook.com/thedailyconversation In our previous video, we examined how Russia interfered in the US election. Now, let’s explore why. The four factors that motivated Russian President Vladimir Putin most seem to be: 1) he wanted to weaken the American-led liberal democratic order, 2) he wanted to improve his standing at home by making Russia seem more formidable abroad, 3) he feared Hillary Clinton, and 4) he knew a Donald Trump presidency would serve his short-term interests. But before we get into all that, let’s take a moment to understand what drives Russia’s leadership. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Vladimir Putin was a KGB spy in East Germany. After coming back to Russia, he used his newfound skills in the art of manipulation to rise through the ranks of government, making tons of connections along the way. Before long he became the second president in the short history of the nation, taking over for the incompetent Boris Yeltsin. To consolidate power, Putin orchestrated the takeover of major oil and gas companies, and Russia’s biggest banks, and placed them in the hands of his loyal allies. Over the years, this type of corruption has made Putin’s inner circle incredibly wealthy at the expense of everyone else. Russia is now the most unequal country in the world with a staggering 74% of its wealth owned by the top 1%, while the median wealth is less than $1,000 US Dollars. Russia’s mainstream media doesn’t cover this because Putin controls it too, and has even begun censoring the Internet, making it virtually impossible to expose his rampant corruption. Now, nearing the end of his fourth term as President, with a stint as Prime Minister sandwiched in the middle, Putin’s seventeen years in charge have allowed him to become a master at using the levers of power to his advantage. Still, no leader can completely silence the critics and rivals who refuse to go away—but in Putin’s Russia, they get thrown in jail, poisoned, or shot. [News anchor] “We begin with breaking news from Russia. Prominent Russian politician Boris Nemtsov has been shot dead in central Moscow. Nemtsov rose to the post of First Deputy Prime Minister in the last years of President Boris Yeltsin’s administration. He was once considered a potential successor to Yeltsin, but he would become a leader of the opposition and a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin.” All this makes Vladimir Putin essentially the world’s biggest gangster, and he may even be its richest man. The reporting that accompanied the disclosures in the Panama Papers traced how Putin hides his cuts of deal after deal in hard to find offshore tax havens. How’s he gotten away with this for so long? Controlling the media and terrifying his political opposition helps, but the most effective tactic is his relentless appeal to his countrymen’s unique sense of nationalist pride. Russians have suffered through some tough years in the aftermath of their empire’s collapse, and many have grown desperate for a hero to place a little hope in. Through his relentless propaganda campaigns, Putin’s convinced enough of them that he’s their man.

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