There was a point during (I think) the 1905 Russian revolution (yes, that early) when a mob as storming the Tzar’s palace. Allegedly, a private in the line yelled at the Tzar, “Your majesty, you must order us to fire or abdicate!” The Tzar broke out of his shock and ordered, “Fire!” The revolution came to an end. But as it turns out political movements are like glaciers, slow, but inevitable. (Unless global warming is really a thing and melts them all.)...(Oh.../S)
The Russian public has been ignoring their government’s actions until those actions started to affect them. Now the war and the government’s bad handling of it isn’t something distant, it is rolling the street. The glacier has noticed.
I'm told that the Emperor Commodus got away with his atrocities until the danger started hitting close to home, at which point the plot was fomented to assassinate him.
The Russian public has been ignoring their government’s actions until those actions started to affect them. Now the war and the government’s bad handling of it isn’t something distant, it is rolling the street. The glacier has noticed.
In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway explained it like this:
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, then suddenly.”
——until those actions started to affect them——
No more Big Macs. No more Starbucks. No more IKEA.
No more most everything