Justice & Law Quote by Bob Schaffer

There is a subtle jab baked into Schaffer’s framing: Western media, he implies, is stuck worshipping the familiar furniture of democracy while missing the messy, real engine of political change. By listing “supreme court,” “central election commission,” and “parliament,” he isn’t offering a civics lesson; he’s invoking the kind of institutional checklist that makes foreign coverage feel legible, respectable, and safe. The rhetoric works because it sets up a contrast between what outsiders can easily narrate (procedures, rulings, votes) and what they struggle to capture (mass mobilization, informal power, street legitimacy).

The second sentence is doing heavier lifting than it appears. “In reality” is a pivot that claims authority over the narrative and, more pointedly, suggests that prevailing coverage is not just incomplete but mis-seeing the country. “Now” is the tell: this is a line written for a particular moment of rupture, when Ukraine’s public asserted itself against entrenched elites and the legitimacy of institutions was either contested or overtaken by events. It’s a democratic affirmation, but also an argument about where legitimacy should be located when courts and commissions are suspected of being captured.

The subtext carries two political aims. First, it endorses popular sovereignty in a way that flatters a pro-democracy storyline Western audiences already want to believe. Second, it subtly downgrades institutions as the primary measure of freedom, implying that democracy isn’t just administered; it’s seized and defended. That’s inspiring, but it also risks romanticizing “the people” while leaving unanswered the hard part: what happens the morning after the square empties, when destiny has to be converted back into laws, budgets, and boring governance.