Westerners have spent two decades wondering why the Russian people have fallen under the spell of Vladimir Putin. Diplomats, historians, economists and pundits have all failed to provide a satisfying explanation.
But where academics and strategists have failed, perhaps the denizens of "Sesame Street," from Kermit the Frog to Elmo, might succeed.
It was 1996. My homeland was in the midst of “shock therapy” — the rapid liberalization and privatization of its economy by decree, after the Soviet Union’s fall — and I was at Princeton working on my doctorate. One day, a report about Russia on CNN caught my attention. Unusually, it was not about a killing or business takeover or an oligarch’s rise or fall — negative coverage delivered with a holier-than-thou tone that never failed to rankle. Instead, it is a seemingly positive story: The Muppets were headed to Moscow.