I don't know what else to tell you.
This discussion:
- Navalny dead
- Ackshually Navalny bad
- Navalny shades of grey
- No, Navalny bad. I don't know what else to tell you.
You made a strong claim: that he was never against the war. There's a clear counterexample to this in his discussion with Girkin, where he explicitly says otherwise. So, like, at least from this angle he'd be an improvement, eh?
Then there was some hedging of bets, arguing that never mind the guy, his party is shit. Which is moving the goal posts. And besides, we all know in Russian centralised presidential system the political platform controls the president, right?*
Your other argument is that as president he'd fix Russia before doing pretty much exactly the same thing Putin does, only with more oomph and less self-exploding. Which 1. is a hypothetical 2. seems somewhat unlikely given what he actually said about the war 3. in worst case could take years to accomplish, given how broken Russia is, upending the ruling system in the process, so that twenty years down the line the whole imperial expansion ideology could just not be on the cards anymore. But hey, maybe he'd just build more ammo factories, who's to say.
I know he wasn't a saintly edifice of sparkling sugary western values. No shit, man. Anyone who ever spends more than a moment skimming the headlines gets that, despite your tiny bit arrogant protestations to having a unique insight into his character. And yet, he was the closest Russia had to taking a step in a different direction than where it's been headed.
So I'm going to take my imaginary hat off over the killing of this deeply flawed man, thank you very much.
*the joke is it's actually the FSB, and any discussion of what would a particular person's qualities and professed ideas result in should they be elected is moot.