I think it's a bit of a childish fantasy to paint one regime is open and the other as having no dissent at all.
The USA absolutely has its overton window, and if you step outside it, bank accounts get shut, you're put on secret no fly lists, private companies who suspiciously act as official public broadcasting channels deplatform you, etc.
And let's not even talk about what Authoritarian western nations like the UK will do to you.
Russian propaganda, at least in English (which I confess is the only way I can consume) it, is also very contradictory. RT oscillates wildly between "global south throwing off the shackles of western imperialism" and "degenerate western nations destroy traditional family values", in effect trying to target both shitlibs and chuds.
Russia is also very multicultural and slavic ethnonationalism is not at all in the mainstream.
The USA absolutely has its overton window, and if you step outside it, bank accounts get shut, you're put on secret no fly lists, private companies who suspiciously act as official public broadcasting channels deplatform you, etc.
And let's not even talk about what Authoritarian western nations like the UK will do to you.
Russian propaganda, at least in English (which I confess is the only way I can consume) it, is also very contradictory. RT oscillates wildly between "global south throwing off the shackles of western imperialism" and "degenerate western nations destroy traditional family values", in effect trying to target both shitlibs and chuds.
Russia is also very multicultural and slavic ethnonationalism is not at all in the mainstream.