#crime per capita

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

#us politics #news #axios #hasan piker #hasanabi #@hasanthehun #twitter #tweet #x #migrants #immigration #immigration reform #us mexico border #reactionary propaganda #undocumented immigrants #undocumented workers #migrant workers #crime per capita #welfare #taxes #war on drugs #fentanyl #xenophobia #racists #racism #drug trafficking #2023 #biden administration #donald trump

[reasoningdaily]

Mississippi has the third most hate groups in the country with five hate groups per million residents and 15 total hate groups operating within the state, reports 24/7 Wall St.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed the number of hate groups in each state for every 1 million state residents according to data provided the Southern Poverty Law Center. To be considered for 24/7’s ranking, a state needed to have at least 10 active hate groups. Of all hate groups espousing a white supremacist ideology, neo-Nazi groups grew the fastest, from 99 groups in 2016 to 121 in 2017.  

Most Hate Groups Per Capita:

Idaho: 7.1 hate groups per million people, 12 total

Tennessee: 5.6 hate groups per million people, 37 total

Mississippi: 5.0 hate groups per million people, 15 total 

Alabama: 4.7 hate groups per million people, 24 total

Indiana: 4.5 hate groups per million people, 30 total

Virginia: 4.4 hate groups per million people, 37 total

Oregon: 4.4 hate groups per million people, 18 total

Arkansas: 4.0 hate groups per million people, 12 total

Georgia: 3.9 hate groups per million people, 40 total

Colorado: 3.8 hate groups per million people, 21 total

More than 950 hate groups operated in the country last year, with the majority focused on white supremacy, the center said. The report found about 223 black extremist groups, compared to more than 600 white extremist organizations.

Overall, the number of extremist groups, which also include armed militias and male supremacy organizations, rose 4 percent since 2016, according to the center, which monitors hate groups and other extremists throughout the U.S. and exposes their activities.

"(This) was a year that saw the 'alt-right,' the latest incarnation of white supremacy, break through the firewall that for decades kept overt racists largely out of the political and media mainstream,” the report said. “The overall number of hate groups likely understates the real level of hate in America, because a growing number of extremists, particularly those who identify with the 'alt-right,' operate mainly online and may not be formally affiliated with a hate group.”

Kyle Bristow, a self-described "alt-right" activist and attorney for high-profile white nationalist Richard Spencer, dismissed the report, saying the center inflates numbers as a fundraising tactic. He also pointed to articles highlighting inconsistent findings by the center, including a recent Politico report about an Illinois town placed on the organization’s “Hate Map,” even though police found no evidence of hate groups there.

“The SPLC reports every year that ‘hate is on the rise' — and their new ploy is to blame President Trump for it — and then they yelp to their left-wing donors that they need more donations to oppose it,” Bristow said. “A lot of the groups they claim to exist don’t actually exist, and those that do many times have the same four or five members.”

The report mirrors similar findings across the country by other experts, who conclude the "alt-right" — a term that covers a loosely defined group whose far-right ideology includes racism, populism and white nationalism — has exploded into popularity.

The rise can partly be attributed to Trump's election, which became a rallying point for white nationalists, who watched as the Republican repeatedly amplified some of their views in campaign rallies and tweets. The movement has also downplayed the white hoods and robes of the KKK in exchange for a seemingly more moderate approach while still focusing on its goal of United States run by and for white people, with minorities either marginalized or removed. 

"The 'alt right' is quickly gaining influence and members, but most of the members are soft-spoken and educated citizens who are concerned about issues like immigration, affirmative action and economic and foreign policy," Bristow said.

Max Wachtel, a forensic psychologist and the author of the book "Sociopaths & Psychopaths," said the rise of hate groups follows a loss of empathy. In a polarized nation, it's no surprise the extremes are getting further apart, he said.

“It can be boiled down to the mantra that the ends justify the means. If you feel very strongly about something, and you absolutely believe that it’s right, anything you do to further that goal is going to be right or justified, even if it’s dangerous or tramples on the rights of others," Wachtel said.

"People think, 'it’s scary to think that someone might take over and do something to the country that I don’t believe in, so I need to react in the strongest terms from happening.' And both sides are doing that,” he added.

While white nationalists have grabbed the majority of headlines, black extremist groups are also active, according to federal law enforcement. The FBI warned last year of the rise of what it called "Black Identity Extremists," suggesting that the killing of unarmed black men by police could spur further violence. As an example, the FBI cited the July 2016 shooting of 11 police officers in Dallas by a black military veteran who said he was angry about police violence.

The Southern Poverty Law Center criticized portions of the FBI's report, but acknowledged black nationalist groups have been increasing in a backlash against "the rising white supremacist movement."

"Typified by their anti-Semitic, anti-LGBT, anti-white rhetoric and conspiracy theories, these black nationalist groups should not be confused with activist groups such as Black Lives Matter and others that work for civil rights and to eliminate systemic racism," the report concluded

#Mississippi has 3rd most hate groups per capita #hate crimes #mississippi #white supremacy #white hate

[romanken]

I wish there was a function on assassin's creed that let you hang out with alexios. What's the point of videogame if you can't neg your psycho little brother

#i do LOVE the alexios stentor nikolaos myrinne kassandra dinner. together that family has committed more war crimes per capita than the #entire us army

[ceasarslegion]

Turns out that looking up crime stats in the neighbourhood you just moved to is a surefire way to paranoia

#im in hell! im in hell! #nevermind that i like. live in a very densely populated area #and the actual crime to resident ratio is comparitively low #me looking up the lrt station i have to use to get to and from work every day #and getting scared because there was one (1) crime story from it #from 2 years ago once again in a very densely populated area #turns out anxiety doesnt understand concepts like 'the more people there are the more likely that something will happen at some point' #and 'this actually has a lower crime rate per capita than where you moved from there are just a lot of people here' #and 'the vast majority of violent crime have motives and arent from random strangers' #me: lets google if this neighbourhood is safe #google: this neighbourhood has an excellent safety rating. just be street smart and the odds of you being a victim are very low here #me: hmmm. sus. surely redditors have never been biased or dramatic about anything #shut up dames

[echo-s-land]

France treats/speaks of Corsica like Corsica is a teenager going through teenage angst (completely ignoring that Corsica is very much not a teenager) so when other countries meet Corsica for the first time, they're taken aback

#'ha. theyre crazy when theyre teens uh ?' #*cuts to Corsica who is said to be the highest crime per capita in (only western?) europe* #aph france #hws france

[globalzombie]

#2024 #immigration #the spectator #comic #illegal immigration #asylum seekers #economic opportunists #economics #gdp #per capita #per capita gdp #crime #toon #satire

[kenbaltyu]

Killers of the Flower Moon [2023]

#“In the 1920s #members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma were the wealthiest people per capita in the country #because oil had been discovered #under their land. Then #one by one #they began to die under mysterious circumstances. Killers of the Flower Moon tells the story of one of #away during the same period #this critical chapter has long been erased from our nation’s history books. A century after these crimes #we #have tried to shine a light on the true story. Killers was filmed in Oklahoma in the very places where these events took place #and several #Osages whose relatives perished appeared in the film. It is an American crime story that is less about who did it than who didn’t do it. It #is about widespread complicity. And ultimately #it is about a reckoning with our past that is long overdue.” — David Grann #KillersOfTheFlowerMoon will exclusively be in theatres from @paramountpics and @appletv this October. It’s a project I am very proud to be #part of and I cannot wait to share it with you all.

[roseband]

i came across yet another “ugh why are we paying for yooooouuuuu to live” midwesterner on reddit

my guy... my dude........... my fiance and i have significantly above the nyc median income once we’re officially married and have joint income on our taxes, we both have above the nyc individual median too now........

we are literally supporting you fuckers with our taxes, your shitty ass states take soooo much more per capita than you put in, while ny is the biggest federal donor state. midwesterners are all leeches on the federal government and somehow a majority of them think they’re paying for nyc/la....... nyc/la have bigger economies than the majority of countries

my chronically ill ass is supporting you, im supporting you!!! im paying for your roads!!!!!!!! me!!! and you want me to die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

#personal #literally city gdp is tokyo -> ny -> la #how can someone from iowa fucking think they're supporting me lmao #and then the next highest in the us is ooooh sooooo scaaaaaaaarrrryy chicago lol #(which actually has per capita crime rates lower than a significant number of rural 'cities' if you can even call them that) #legit my fucking BOROUGH makes more money than some of these 'states' and im in fucking QUEENS?????? \ #my borough has a higher gdp than 13 states do????????? my BOROUGH!!!!! a portion of a city!!! and most of us in the borough work #in manhattan so our work is counted in the manhattan gdp.... instead of these fucking unpopulated shithole states

[jewish-sideblog]

Jews are gerrymandered out of leftist and liberal social justice.

Jews are exempt from the fight against cultural appropriation, despite the fact that the two largest religions in the world built their faiths on the backs of stolen Jewish religious texts.

Jews are exempt from the fight against whitewashing, despite the fact that the highest-grossing film franchise of all time is based on the work of Jews, and the film executives make the conscious and clear choice to erase the Jewish identities of every Jewish or Jewish-coded character brought to the screen.

Jews are exempt from the fight against bigotry, despite the fact that a Jewish person in the USA is statistically more likely to experience a hate crime during their lifetime than any other racial or ethnic group per capita-- and that's based on two-year-old statistics. The number of anti-Jewish hate crimes in the US goes up drastically each year.

Every single time a Jewish person expresses their concerns about anti-Jewish behaviours in a non-Jewish space, we get shut down. We are told that "it's not that big a deal", we get told we're "overreacting", and we get told that it's "fine, because we're all white and integrated, so who cares".

The most harmful anti-Jewish narrative does not come from the political right. It is not a narrative that paints Jews as crooked, greedy or vile. It is not a narrative that drives antisemites to harm us.

The most harmful anti-Jewish narrative comes from the political left. It is the narrative that paints Jews as universally successful, "caucasian", and free from discrimination. It is the narrative that discourages anti-racists from defending us against harm.

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Which country is the biggest exporter of video games?

Though China, Japan and the United States make great leaps and bounds in video game production each year, it is a small country in the Austrian/Bolivian borderlands that makes more tons of video game per capita than anywhere else in the world.

The small nation of San Sundertail was founded in 1981 by Mario von Wiisportz as a social experiment. Surviving at first on the quality of their mining craft and production of ceramic plastic, and mostly metal gears, their game industry grew quickly after. The government of the country was based on a tetrad of rulers who answered their nation's call of duty including the Prime Minister, the Prime Echoes Minister, and sadly another minister who was dismissed for Prime Corruption. Rumors of another arrest circulated but a 4th Prime still has yet to released. Hopefully a more straight-line tetrad will fall into place soon and clear the growing mess.

Sadly as a result, the nation is plagued by crimes such as grand theft auto, assassinations according to some kind of creed, and even the raiding of several tombs. Leaders insist that there is no inherent evil resident to their country, but the U.N. Squadron has declared this to be a fantasy, and the final one that they'd accept. Being a far cry from peaceful, they feel they now have just cause to enter the uncharted regions nearby and open a diplomatic portal, no matter what the fallout of such a commanding and conquering action may be.

This got depressing cuz all the franchises have negative or violent names. I'm gonna go take my mind off it with something else, something with serene rolling landscapes and lots of rest and quiet. Here we go, "Silent Hill" sounds nice, I'll try that.

#video games #gaming #nintendo #global politics #unreality

[utilitycaster]

look, I know polls are silly and fun and so I want you to understand writing this rant is silly and fun for me but EMON? Emon is the Critical Role Entry for Most Place of All Time? I must call bullshit. And so:

Friends, fellow critters, and people who have me blocked but hate read my blog each morning over breakfast: Emon is not even the Most Place on the Material Plane. It is not even the Most Place in Tal'Dorei. Hell, it's not even the Most Place on the fucking Bladeshimmer Shoreline, which includes a destroyed city now overtaken by bandits, and a cave system that hosts both a rift to the Far Realm and a different rock than residuum that can make a different magical drug than suude. Emon is if you took the aggressively mid vibes of Washington, DC and transplanted them to the inconvenient location and city of refuge for flaky people who avoid gluten for non-medical reasons of Los Angeles. The second Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III invents the motorcar that sumbitch is going to have traffic bad enough to summon Tharizdun. Also there's a literal pit of fire that's been burning for 30 years that both hasn't been adequately addressed but also doesn't really seem that interesting. Like oh a bunch of dragons destroyed your city? Big deal. Draconia got so fucked up it doesn't exist anymore, and at least Westruun has some fucking charm. At least Pike and Grog actually lived there, whereas Vox Machina got a house in Emon and proceeded to spend their time literally anywhere else.

Here is a brief list of places on the planet of Exandria in the Material Plane - not even across Critical Role's main campaigns/EXU, which includes such non-Exandrian places as "living city of people who mind-melded and escaped to the Astral Sea during a century-plus-long war of the gods"; "Ligament Manor"; "Ryn's groovy pied-a-feu, man I wonder what made the scorch marks on that furniture, anyway", and "THE MOON THAT IS ACTUALLY AN PRISON FOR A THING THAT EATS GODS AND IS POSSIBLY HATCHING" - that are more of a place than Emon:

Jrusar: 5 spires no waiting, sweet cable car system, city almost entirely destabilized by goo creatures as part of an overly complicated plot to blow up the aforementioned moon

Bassuras: (literally "garbagetown") Run by Mad Max gangs and everyone is cool with it; regular sandstorms; one of those gangs apparently sits atop a hive mind and NO ONE has examined this (except for them)?)

Whitestone: has a tree planted by one god over a buried temple to another god that was corrupted in the name of a third, shittier god; overrun by zombies but it's fine now; streetlights and two bears that are allowed to do whatever the fuck they want.

Yios: The canal system of Venice meets the colleges per capita of Boston meets the orcs from your fantasies, also there's some kind of kitchen-based organized crime ring so intricate it could be its own campaign (so, also like Boston).

Vasselheim: literally no one understands what the fuck its government system is. Old as balls. Temples everywhere! Temples full of trees. Temples full of blood! Temples full of an old guy who will kick your ass. A sphinx that regulates the monster hunter mini-game. Presumably the giant titan full of the ancient cannibal dwarf city is like, still there, as a new fixture, since I don't see how they're moving that.

The arctic: where teleportation doesn't work, there's a river of lava in the middle of the snow, ancient ruins full of snow globes full of actual people, and the Chaos Bisexual Emerald - and that's just a smattering of what Eiselcross has to offer.

Since this is about space and not time we can toss Aeor and Avalir too, since they once were places, and while we're at it whatever the fuck is going on with the Shattered Teeth and its permanent fog cloud and fish dream cult and capitalist shipwrecked merchants.

And, of course, any arbitrary square millimeter of Wildemount, frankly, has more Mostness than the entirety of Emon could muster under absolutely ideal conditions. But for the sake of one place per region, let's hand it to Rosohna (city of eternal night for practical purposes, built over the Evil God Headquarters); Uthodurn (underground! Giant goats! Elves and dwarves, living together, mass hysteria!); Hupperdook (steampunk gnome party city); Nicodranas (Fjord, Jester, Veth, Marion, and Yussa literally all live there at once; plumbing used to be courtesy of an imprisoned marid...but watch out); and Blightshore (Blightshore).

In conclusion: Emon is boring, nominating it was a mistake, there are literally sealed gods in other parts of the world and also way better taverns, good night, and what the fuck.

#critical role #long post

[recycled-cotton-knit]

I've seen many men online spreading the myth that mothers are more likely to abuse their children than fathers, specially with since whole 8 Passengers thing. Let's look at the numbers.

"In the United States, more perpetrators of child abuse were women than men. In 2021, about 233,918 perpetrators of child abuse were women, compared to 213,672 male perpetrators."

First, we see both statistics are very similar: about 52% perpetrators were women, about 48% men (I'm rounding the numbers). So, even with the raw data, there's not a huge divide between both sexes.

Now let's take some things into consideration. In most households, mothers usually take care of their children way more often than fathers. We also have to consider single-parent households:

"Across the U.S., about 30% of children who live with a parent live with just one, according to 2021 American Community Survey estimates. Among those children, nearly 75% live with their mother."

So now we start to see that the original numbers have a reason to be slightly skewed against mothers.

Let's look only at single-parent households now. If women were truly more likely to abuse their children, it would be easy to see that when segregating the abuse commited per capita by single fathers versus single mothers, right? (The following numbers are taken from NIS-3)

Children living with their only their mothers experienced maltreatment under the Harm Standard at a rate of 26.1 per 1,000 children. Children living with only their dads? 36.6 per 1,000.

What about abuse? Children living with only their moms: 10.5 per 1,000. Children living with only their dads: 17.7 per 1,000.

So yeah, I think it's pretty clear men are more likely to abuse their children, which shouldn't be surprising considering the rest of crime statistics divided by sex.

Sources are here

#radblr #radical feminist safe #radical feminism #radical feminists do interact #rec #radical feminists do touch #rant

[brostateexam]

Listen to the southern right talk about violence in America and you’d think New York City was as dangerous as Bakhmut on Ukraine’s eastern front.

In October, Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis proclaimed crime in New York City was “out of control” and blamed it on George Soros. Another Sunshine State politico, former president Donald Trump, offered his native city up as a Democrat-run dystopia, one of those places “where the middle class used to flock to live the American dream are now war zones, literal war zones.” In May 2022, hours after 19 children were murdered at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott swatted back suggestions that the state could save lives by implementing tougher gun laws by proclaiming “Chicago and L.A. and New York disprove that thesis.”

In reality, the region the Big Apple comprises most of is far and away the safest part of the U.S. mainland when it comes to gun violence, while the regions Florida and Texas belong to have per capita firearm death rates (homicides and suicides) three to four times higher than New York’s. On a regional basis it’s the southern swath of the country — in cities and rural areas alike — where the rate of deadly gun violence is most acute, regions where Republicans have dominated state governments for decades.

#long reads #*guns

[infamousbrad]

For a few years now, I've taken multiple opportunities to ask groups of my fellow Americans the same question: "do you think early 21st century America is a good place to raise a child?" Answers varied from person to person, even among parents of children, from "yeah, pretty good" all the way down to "oh hell no." Rather than give my answer, and go into my reasons (for now) let's look at a report card ranking 35 major countries by several criteria, that just rated only Mexico as worse than the USA as a place to raise a family.

Safety: F. Based on homicide rate, average fear of crime, risk of dying to war or terrorism, school shootings per capita, and protection of civil rights for all. We did okay on most of the sub-ratings, but barely mediocre on civil rights and, well, obviously insanely bad compared to everybody else on school shootings.

Happiness: C+. Based on the human freedom index, world happiness index, per-capita suicide rate, household income inequality, and whether or not some families are discriminated against in adoption rights. I couldn't quickly find the sub-ratings on this one, but the USA came out pretty average.

Cost: F. Based on child care costs, per household family support spending, out-of-pocket educational costs, out-of-pocket health spending, and income-adjusted cost of living. The UK and New Zealand were even worse on child-care costs, but the US came in dead last in every other sub-category. We are the only country that expects those costs to be entirely born by parents who currently have minor children instead of spreading them out across all households.

Health: D-. Based on maternal mortality rate, child mortality rate, access to contraception, air pollution level, and average life expectancy. Because we're not in the bottom 5, I again can't easily find the US ranking on each of those sub-ratings, but I imagine we really got hit on our maternal mortality rate.

Education: C+. Based on teen enrollment rate, early-20s enrollment rate, average reading performance, average math performance, and average science performance. We weren't in the top or bottom 5 so, again, I don't know our detailed rankings but we did end up above average. And finally ...

Time: F. Based on time off per worker, weeks of paid maternity leave, weeks of paid paternity leave, weeks of mandatory paid sick leave, weeks of mandatory paid vacation leave. Only Mexico gave its workers fewer hours off work, and we are the only country in the survey to have a zero in all four other categories.

Across all countries: Only 5 of the 35 countries got an A+ overall. Starting with the highest score: Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Luxembourg. Only two countries got an F, the US and Mexico. If you choose to have and raise a family in the United States, you will bear a higher percentage of those expenses than almost any country in the world, your children will be in more physical danger and health danger than anywhere in the industrialized world outside of an active war zone, and you will have less time with them, less time to parent them, than parents anywhere else surveyed.

So, you tell me: in your opinion, is the United States of America in the early 21st century a good place to have and raise children, or not?

Not to beg, but I'd really appreciate more eyes on this, please? Especially from my fellow Americans and doubly-so from people who have kids or who have recently raised kids?

#us politics #us economy #parents #children #family

[siryouarebeingmocked]

I was watching an LP of Spider Man 2 (PS5) SPOILERS

In the first mission after the intro, some guys try to rob a gun club. Which, has no security but a thin metal rolling door that some random thugs easily back a truck through. Sure, I get it, it's a plot contrivance.

Spidey (Peter) complains about the stupidity of the idea of having a gun club in the city. He banters about how he wants to replace the city's gun clubs with places that don't hurt anyone, like complement clubs.

In other words, a man who can dodge bullets in a high-tech, bullet-resistant suit packed chock-full of unlicensed, experimental, powerful concealed weapons* says guns are bad because they hurt people, as he beats thugs to a pulp with his carbon-fiber reinforced fists.

Two,  legal gun owners are rarely the people who shoot others. If they shoot anyone, it's probably themselves, on purpose. Most gun crime is with illegal guns, and blaming legal owners for that is stupid.

Heck, I'm from one of many countries with low legal ownership, strict gun control, and more per capita gun homicides than America.

Three, the plot of the first game involved terrorists attacking the city, compromising a public official, and nearly blowing up the Mayor. Then there was a supervillain prison break, then the Mayor called in a PMC to keep order, which turned out to be tyrannical fascists. 

Followed by a bioterror attack using weaponized biotech from the Mayor’s own company.

Needless to say, the Mayor loses his job.

I’m not even covering the DLC and Miles Morales game, which caused even more chaos. In short, faith in the city government and cops to protect the public has to be at an all-time low.

Also, the city's gun laws apparently don't keep countless bad guys from toting around their thundersticks. And we know those laws are probably similar to reality, because one of the side plots in SM2 involves Spidey responding to people with fireworks, which are illegal without a permit.

In the entire state. Except for sparklers.

Also, Spider-Man usually mocks his enemies. He spends most of the fight mocking the idea of gun clubs. Imagine if some randos tried to rob a jewelry store, and he started going on about blood diamonds.

I'm an hour or two later, and some guy says that his foundation is developing GMO crops for humanitarian reasons, as opposed to normal corporate GMO crops, which are made for profit and are "rightly criticized".

The speech does not sound one bit like something an actual person would say. It's possible the character is drawing on the language of a speech or article, but it still sounds awkward.

Peter later says "Money shouldn't be part of the equation when it comes to basic human necessities." 

Man who lucked into a cushy job because he was friends with a nepo baby of a billionaire in high school says “the vittles shouldn’t cost money.”

And last time I checked, a lot of crops wouldn't even be grown if farmers and corporations couldn't profit by them. Because, y’know, food costs time, money, effort, and resources to make. Like most things.

Just to be clear, I'm actually in favor of Open Source, generally. But this is just so preachy.

*Including armed drones with lasers powerful enough to destroy scenery.

#spider-man #spiderman #writing #cringe #sjws #social justice #gun control #gunblr #guns

[mariacallous]

Tucker Carlson went to Moscow last week and had an absolute blast. He rode the subway and marveled at its clean cars, the fancy tilework in Kievskaya Station, and the lack of booze-drenched hobos. He went to a grocery store and was astonished by what ordinary people could apparently buy. He even managed to meet a local history buff and sit down for tea and conversation. Carlson, who had never previously visited Moscow, declared himself “radicalized” against America’s leaders by the experience. He didn’t want to live in Moscow, but he did want to know why we in America have to put up with street crime and crappy food when the supposedly bankrupt Russia provided such a nice life for its people, or at least those people not named Alexei Navalny.

My former Atlantic colleague Ralph Waldo Emerson called travel a “fool’s paradise,” but not all forms of foolishness are equal. Many commentators have guffawed at Carlson’s Russophilia and pointed out that Russia’s murder rate is roughly that of the United States, and that its citizens are dirt poor, about a fifth as wealthy per capita as the citizens of the United States overall. “I don’t care what some flagship supermarket in an imperial city looks like,” The Dispatch’s Jonah Goldberg tweeted. “Russia is far, far poorer than our poorest state, Mississippi.” Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal suggested that Carlson instead visit the grocery stores of the “10th or 50th” richest Russian cities, and see how they compare with America’s.

In 2019, I visited several large and small Russian cities, and I went grocery shopping at least once in each. Would you believe that Tucker Carlson is on to something? In Moscow (the largest) and St. Petersburg (No. 2), the flagship supermarkets are indeed spectacular. The Azbuka Vkusa branch next to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow is more luxurious than any grocery store within 100 miles of Washington, D.C. Other branches in Moscow vary in quality, and they are usually smaller than American supermarkets. But to some extent that’s just a matter of culture: The U.S. has fewer supermarkets, but each one is big enough to feed the 82nd Airborne Division for a month; in Europe, supermarkets are more numerous but tiny.

Makhachkala (22), the capital of Dagestan, followed a similar pattern to Moscow. One supermarket downtown was amazing, the equal of an upscale supermarket in Washington or Dallas. On the outskirts the quality varied, but not drastically. Local residents were not eating soups made from grass clippings. In Murmansk (71), the cramped bodega near my rented flat had a good wine selection and enough fresh staple foods to prepare a different meal your mom would approve of every day of the week. Only in Derbent (134) did I start to wonder whether the bad old days of the Soviet Union were still in effect. But even that would be an exaggeration. In Derbent, for $15, you could get champagne and caviar with blini and velvety sour cream. If you want to flash back to Cold War communism, go to Havana. There the grocery stores stock only dust and mildew.

With apologies to Emerson, travel can disabuse you of foolish notions just as often as it plants them in your head. An idea ripe for dispelling among Americans at this particular moment is that life in Russia must suck because the frigid depression of the Cold War never ended. In those days ordinary citizens were spied upon and tortured and killed, and the shops were empty, save for substandard goods at prices few could afford. Now Russia is different. The state repression is much more limited, though no less brutal toward those who attract its attention. Until the Ukraine war added a huge category of forbidden topics, the main ones that you could get locked up for discussing were war in the Caucasus and the personal life and finances of President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle. Most other topics were broachable, and you could whine all you liked about them.

Equally in need of updating are American expectations about Russian economic misery. Those whose visits to Russia stopped 20 years ago tend to have outdated views of the best the country has to offer. My visits started 24 years ago. Back then, I spent days at a time on the Trans-Siberian, crammed into railway cabins with little to do but talk with Russians and see how they lived. Life was not beautiful. The men busied themselves with crosswords and sullenly browsed pornography. When not in motion, I stayed with Russian friends in single-room flats that looked straight out of a New York tenement building 100 years ago. No one I met was starving, but women sometimes approached me in train stations hoping to rent out their homes or bodies, or to sell me family heirlooms. That type of desperation seems to have subsided, although I would be shocked if any of those people are able to buy the jamón ibérico at the Smolenskaya branch of Azbuka Vkusa yet. On the roads between the big cities, there are still villages so ramshackle that they look like sets from The Little Rascals. Evidence suggests that the Russian military’s frontline troops tend to come from these depressed and benighted lands, the places that really are stuck in the 20th century.

Certain aspects of life remain dismal even in the cities. My flat in Murmansk had surly drunks tottering outside its entrance, and its stairwell smelled like every cat, dog, and human resident had marked its territory there regularly since the Brezhnev era. But the playgrounds were decent, and you could get a delicious smoked-reindeer pizza at a cozy restaurant for $7. Remember, this is in a small, depressed Russian city—not somewhere stocked with goodies just in case an American wanders out of the lobby of the Radisson and needs to be impressed. The “useful idiots” of yesteryear were treated to fake Moscows, which evanesced as soon as the next Aeroflot flights took off. The luxuries of Moscow that Carlson sees, and that I saw, are not evanescent, and they are not (as they are in North Korea, say) a curated experience available only to those on controlled visits.

The stubborn belief that all good things in Russia must be illusory can in turn warp one’s analysis of the country, and in particular of Putin’s durability in power. After all, why would anyone remain loyal to an autocrat who delivered only hunger, penury, and the reek of cat piss? Putin rules by fear but not only by fear. Most Russians will tell you that Russia today is better than it was before Putin. They compare it not with the Soviet era but with the anarchy and decline of the 1990s. Life expectancy has risen, public parks are better maintained, and certain fruits of capitalism can be tasted by Russians of all classes. Who would risk these gains? Like every autocrat, Putin has ensured that his downfall just might destroy every good thing Russia has experienced in the past two decades. This risk is, from the perspective of regime continuity, a positive feature, because it keeps all but the most principled and brave opposition quiet, and content to shut up and enjoy their cheap caviar. Those like Navalny who object do not object for long.

Carlson’s videos never quite say what precisely he thinks Russia gets right. Moscow is in many ways superior to New York. But Paris has a good subway system too. Japan and Thailand have fine grocery stores, and I wonder, when I enter them, why entering my neighborhood Stop & Shop in America is such a depressing experience by comparison. Carlson’s stated preference for Putin’s leadership over Joe Biden’s suggests that the affection is not for fine food or working public transit but for firm autocratic rule—which, as French, Thais, and Japanese will attest, is not a precondition for high-quality goods and services. And in an authoritarian state, those goods and services can serve to prolong the regime.

I confess I still enjoy watching Carlson post videos of Moscow, wide-eyed and credulous as he slowly learns to love a country that I love too. I hope he posts more of them. One goes through stages of love for Russia, often starting with the literature and music, then moving to its dark humor and the personalities of its people, which are always cycling between thaw and frost. Inevitably one reflects on the irony that this civilization, whose achievement is almost without equal in some respects, is utterly cursed in others—consigned to literally centuries of misgovernment, incompetence, and tyranny. The final stage is realizing that the greatness of Russia is part of the curse, a heightening of the irony, as if no matter how much goes right, something is deeply wrong. Maybe when things go right, the more deeply wrong it is. Carlson seems to still be in one of the early stages of this journey.