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Notes -
Those are valid points, however I’d also point out the following.
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I’m sure a similar poll would have yielded similar results in, say, Charlottesville or Richmond, (also) due to the number of left-leaning college students and Beltway region transplants among the local population, back when the local prominent Confederate statues were removed. I’m also sure that outside groups normally played a big part, but not the sole part or an outsized one. And we know that, in the end, not one politician/lawmaker on the local or state level dared to make the argument that the statues should remain, and the only people willing to protest their vandalization and removal were all dismissed as Nazis. So I leave it to you to consider to what extent do these incidents count as “war within a culture”, if that culture is (in the narrow sense) Virginia.
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We also don’t know if that poll was cooked or not – it probably isn’t, because then the result would likely be more lopsided, but it’s possibility for sure. On the other hand, we can be sure that any Ukrainian citizen wanting to openly object to this decision is given more than ample reason not to do so.
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