SLOPOLITICS

Slop image of a slop politician

by Colin Liddell

You've probably got used to the sight by now of Donald Trump sitting at his desk, holding his marker pen, conceitedly blowing smoke up his own arse, and signing all manner of "executive orders."

Everybody's triggered by this, either positively or negatively, and they're all paying attention. Having a war/mineral deal on the table also helps to get eyes on the ball.
 
As for me, I feel increasingly like this meme:

In fact, checking in on the Donald gives me the same clammy feeling I get on those rare occasions when I log onto my Facebook account to see what "delicacies" Mr. Zuckerberg has seen fit to insert into my now intensely neglected "Faecesbook" feed

In both cases I am overwhelmed by an all-consuming sense of wading through purulent slop. 

Slop (or "slop content" as it is sometimes known) is one of the most important aspects of the modern recent age. It is everywhere now. You have "Google Slop, YouTube slop, TikTok slop," etc., but Facebook slop just makes the slopness of the slop all the more apparent. However, it appears now that the slop has crossed over into politics in a deeply disturbing way.

So, what exactly is slop?

This is a good question and the answer is actually under debate at the moment. Some link it to AI-generated content and say it is "forced" on us in the same way that spam once was:

"Content slop has three important characteristics. The first being that, to the user, the viewer, the customer, it feels worthless. This might be because it was clearly generated in bulk by a machine or because of how much of that particular content is being created. The next important feature of slop is that feels forced upon us, whether by a corporation or an algorithm. It’s in the name. We’re the little piggies and it’s the gruel in the trough. But the last feature is the most crucial. It not only feels worthless and ubiquitous, it also feels optimized to be so."

This definition is a useful starting point, but, in my view, it grossly underestimates and mischaracterises the slop.

What makes slop powerful and dangerous is that it is worthless garbage that is algorithmically optimised to be "just good enough" or "interesting enough" to get you to voluntarily bury your snout in it.

For example, if you are a boomer or genXer and go on Facebook, their algorithm will bombard you with content for 70s tribute bands or "farewell tours" by reformed 80s outfits. You might have zero interest in those bands, but the algorithm has your age and other bits of info, and feeds you what lots of other people of a similar age and background might be interested in. 

Or you might just get generic shit that almost anybody might be vaguely interested in, like funny cat videos or weird AI-generated images.

Shrimp Jesus

The key point here is slop is not forced on us and it doesn't necessarily feel worthless. We choose to consume it and it only feels worthless if we have the time and mind to reflect on it. Most people don't and therefore exist in a largely passive relationship to their slop.

The other characteristic of slop is that, even though it is targeted, it is also messy and imprecise. For example I got this in my FB feed last time I logged on:

A total miss as I hate Father Ted. I assume Facebook shoved this into my feed simply because it 'believes' that a person with my "algorithmic characteristics" (British, male, Gen-X, likes comedy, etc) might possibly be interested in an unfunny sit-com from the 1990s.

The same cheap, attention-grabbing, messy targeting characteristics that we see with such online content now seem to have infected our politics, particularly embodied in the "slop politics" of Donald Trump 2.0.

Since becoming President around a month ago, Trump has managed to "flood the zone" not so much with shit (in accordance with Steve Bannon's advice) but with political slop.

Are you worried about excessive government spending? Well, along comes Trump (and increasingly "Kid Ketamine" Elon Musk) with some slop DOGE "initiatives that are reportedly going to "claw back trillions in waste." Somehow or other that just doesn't happen. Instead they just cause minor chaos and piss off enough people that they get watered down or simply dropped or forgotten. But, never mind, you already enjoyed having your snout well and truly buried in the lovely slop and the transitory sensation that something important was happening. So, win-win! 

Worried about migrants and countries "not sending their best," etc.? No problem, there's Trump at his desk signing EOs like there's no tomorrow, clamping down on all the "bad hombres" and setting up deals with El Salvador's Nayib Bukele to take back America's "most unwanted" huddled masses.

It all sounds good, but the reality is that you paid attention for a bit, and after all nothing much happened again. Maybe things are even worse than under Joe Biden.

Yup, you were "slopped" again.

Real politicians look for sensible, solid, workable solutions that can be processed into actual laws, and then enforced. It's hard work and it unfortunately takes time and requires building consensus. It's also kind of boring.

Slop politicians, by contrast, throw everything up in the air and shoot off a few performative gestures that are just good enough to grab your incontinent attention and make you feel like something important is happening, when, on reflection, you're just this guy:

Another characteristic of the slop politician is he doesn't want you to reflect too much. To stop you doing so he's ready with a whole fresh trough-load of slop. Maybe even a pipeline.

Donald Trump isn't the only one like this, and there have been others over the years moving in this direction, but Trump -- especially in his second term -- is unquestionably the defining politician of what we must now call "Slopolitics."

However, looking on the bright side, there is probably a limit to what he can get away with. Even Trump, with his extremely sloppable followers, won't be able to keep an endless tsunami supply of slop coming. We may already have passed peak slop.

Either Trump will have to deliver something more substantial soon (a real stretch for him) or else the coming gaps in the slop waves will allow more and more people -- even his dumb MAGAtard followers -- to reflect on the utter worthlessness and vacuity of his incessant political posturing. 

Gulf of Slop anyone?

____________________

Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying his book here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia), or by taking out a paid subscription on his Substack.

Follow on Twitter and Bluesky

THIS ISN'T NEW, AMERICA HAS ALWAYS BEEN RUSSIA'S ARSEWIPER

Trump has succeeded to the time-honoured position of Russia's Royal Arse Wiper

by Cemil Kerimoglu

Russia is indeed unraveling. Its economy is crumbling, its resources – both human and material – are depleting at an alarming rate. The trajectory is clear: collapse is on the horizon. There is no longer any question of whether Russia will win or lose its war against Ukraine. It is losing. It will lose, as long as events continue to unfold as they are now.

Yet, my concern lies elsewhere. My deepest fear is not that Russia might somehow snatch victory from the jaws of defeat – it won't – but rather that the West, led by the United States, will once again intervene to rescue it from total ruin. This pattern has repeated itself time and again: in the 1920s, during World War II, and in the early 1990s. At each of these historical junctures, Russia stood at the brink of collapse, only to be saved at the last moment by American benevolence. The true danger therefore lies in Russia’s renewed salvation at the hands of those who should have let it fall.

In the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution and the ensuing Civil War, Russia was drowning in chaos and famine. This was the moment to strangle the nascent Soviet regime in its cradle, to prevent its consolidation. Instead, the United States provided massive humanitarian aid, unwittingly stabilizing Bolshevik rule. But the damage did not stop there. Following World War I, as the victorious Entente powers eagerly dismantled the German and Austro-Hungarian empires in the name of self-determination, they conspicuously refused to apply the same principle to Russia.

Take Ukraine, for instance. A Ukrainian delegation stood before the Paris Peace Conference, alongside the Poles and the Czechs, seeking recognition and independence for their nation. Yet, they were summarily dismissed. The prevailing argument was that the “people of Russia” should resolve their own internal disputes – an argument that, in practice, meant the Russian state could crush independence movements at will. No such generous rationale was extended to the Germans or Austrians. The Habsburg and Hohenzollern empires were forcibly dismembered, their former subjects encouraged to chart independent futures. But when it came to Russia, the world suddenly discovered a newfound respect for imperial unity.

This undeserved leniency – this pathological fixation on humiliating Germany while letting Russia off the hook – enabled the Bolsheviks to consolidate their power unchecked and re-establish the Russian Empire, albeit under a different name and ideology. And from that failure, a monstrous regime emerged, one that would go on to commit atrocities on an unprecedented scale, unleashing unimaginable suffering upon Europe throughout the 20th century.

It is also crucial to recognize that Russia would never have had the capacity to commit its countless atrocities without American aid. In the early years of Stalin’s rule – the 1920s and 1930s – it was American companies that built the foundation of Soviet industrialization. It was American engineers who designed and constructed the very factories that would later churn out weapons of war. The Soviet economy, so often portrayed as an achievement of socialist planning, was in reality an edifice erected with Western expertise. The emerging Soviet industries, which would soon be turned into instruments of mass repression and militarism, owed their very existence to American effort.

Even as early as 1905 America was wiping Russia's arse when Theodeore Roosevelt oversaw the lenient Treaty of Portsmouth that ended the Russo-Japanese War. It was so lenient it caused major riots in Japan.

Then came the Second World War, when the Soviet Union once again stood at the precipice, battered by the German onslaught. And once again, the United States came to the rescue. Through the Lend-Lease program, the Americans provided the Soviets with an avalanche of military aid, without which the Red Army would have crumbled under the weight of a far superior German war machine. It was American tanks, American trucks, American food, and American fuel that enabled the Soviet war effort. It was American generosity that allowed the Red Army not just to survive but to push forward – first repelling the German advance and then raping and pillaging its way to Berlin. One could argue that the United States first saved the Soviet Union from certain defeat and then facilitated its brutal conquest of half of Europe.

This era – the age of Franklin Delano Roosevelt – is instructive in many ways. The official narrative presents America's alliance with the Soviet Union as a necessary, albeit unfortunate, partnership in the fight against absolute evil. But this is a convenient myth, crafted to justify not only that alliance but the immense suffering that followed in its wake. The post-war Western self-perception rests on the notion that Nazi Germany was the ultimate evil, while the Soviet Union was, if not exactly good, at least an acceptable partner. Such a view allows us to forget that long before Nazi Germany turned genocidal, the Roosevelt administration had already viewed the Soviet Union as a natural ally – regardless of what was happening in Germany, or anywhere else in Europe. And this, mind you, when the Soviet Union had already been genocidal since its inception, having killed tens of millions of people and committed numerous genocides by that time – among them Holodomor, during which 8 million Ukrainians were intentionally starved to death.

FDR neatly cleaned up Stalin's rear end when the USSR was drowning in its own shit in the 1940s

Indeed, Roosevelt’s government was teeming with literal Stalinists. From the very beginning, the FDR administration harbored a deep ideological affinity for the Soviet regime. The alliance with Stalin was not merely a tactical necessity; it was, in many ways, the realization of a broader geopolitical vision. Roosevelt himself mused about a future in which the world would be divided into spheres of influence, managed jointly by the United States, the Soviet Union, and China (then under Chiang Kai-shek). Europe – its nations, its ancient cultures, even the British Empire – was conspicuously absent from this vision. America's hostility toward Germany, culminating in its alliance with the Soviet Union, was not the result of Hitler’s crimes. It was the logical outcome of Roosevelt’s grand strategy. Nazi Germany merely provided the convenient pretext for a decision that had already been made.

The speed with which the United States provided aid to the Soviet Union is revealing. Lend-Lease shipments began flowing into Russia as early as October 1941 – two months before the U.S. officially entered the war. Even at a time when Stalin was an adversary and clearly no friend of America, Washington extended its hand without hesitation. There were no conditions, no strings attached. The urgency and scale of the aid stand in stark contrast to America’s current, hesitant support for Ukraine – a true, sincere friend of America, unlike the Soviet Union. Today, as Russia wages an unprovoked war of aggression, the moral lines could not be clearer: Ukraine is the victim, Russia the perpetrator. Unlike in the case of Nazi Germany vs. Soviet Union, Ukraine is clearly good, Russia is clearly evil. And yet, instead of an unambiguous commitment to Ukraine’s victory, the West provides support that is calculated – just enough to keep Ukraine from losing, but not enough to allow it to win.

Compare this to World War II, when, if there was ever a case for ambiguity and strategic restraint, it was then. If there was ever a time for hesitation, for moral uncertainty, it was in weighing Nazi Germany against Stalin’s Soviet Union. If there was ever a situation where a "both sides" argument might have applied, it was then. A reasonable and morally justifiable course of action would have been to support the Soviets only enough to prevent outright defeat, but not enough to hand them complete victory – or to allow them to reclaim lost territories and impose their rule over half of Europe. If there was ever a case for measured support, it was then, not now.

Instead, the United States unreservedly threw its full weight behind Stalin – arguably the greater evil – when it was attacked by Nazi Germany. And now, when the roles are reversed, when Russia is the clear aggressor and Ukraine is fighting for its very survival, the West hesitates. Now, when there is no moral ambiguity, when the demarcation between good and evil is as bright as day, Ukraine is subjected to calculated half-measures. If there was ever a time to decisively declare a country and its people as irredeemable evil, it is now. If there was ever a moment for the West to commit, without hesitation or restraint, to a just cause, it is now. Ukraine should have been the recipient of the same unapologetic support that the Soviet Union received – deluged with arms, equipped to not just repel the Russians but to march all the way to Moscow.

The reality is that the United States never truly saw Russia as an enemy, let alone as evil. After World War II, Washington accommodated the Soviet Union, granting it sweeping concessions – the rape and subjugation of half of Europe included. The U.S. did not immediately turn against the Soviet Union out of principle. It did not instinctively recognize Russia as a fundamental threat. Rather, it was only when Soviet hostility became too brazen, when Russian behavior became too ungrateful, that the West was reluctantly forced into confrontation. The Cold War was not the product of an innate Western opposition to the Soviet Union, but of Russian intransigence. Left to its own instincts, the United States might well have coexisted peacefully with the Soviet Union, indulging Russia’s pathologies and making endless allowances. It was Russia’s own actions – its shameless ungratefulness to the extensive goodwill and boundless, apocalyptic hatred of the West – that finally forced the United States to take a stand.

And then, history repeated itself once more. When the Soviet Union finally collapsed, it was the golden opportunity to put an end to Russia’s destructive cycle once and for all – to dismantle the empire completely, ensuring it could never rise again to menace its neighbors. But, yet again, the West balked. Apparently, the decades of hatred, threats, and violence that Russia had directed toward the West throughout the 20th century were still not enough to warrant decisive action. Instead, the Americans convinced themselves – against all logic and historical precedent – that this time, Russia would finally become a civilized, peaceful nation. That all it needed was a push towards "democracy" and "market reforms".

Even the most basic, common-sense measures – like stripping Russia of its nuclear weapons – were dismissed out of hand. Instead, the world was asked to take Russia at its word, as if a "pinky swear" was enough to ensure it wouldn’t one day again turn those weapons against the West. And yet, even as Washington indulged this naïve fantasy of a democratic Russia, it treated the victims of Russian imperialism – those nations striving for independence – with thinly veiled suspicion, if not outright contempt.

Nowhere was this more apparent than in Ukraine. Just months before the Soviet Union formally dissolved, then-U.S. President George H.W. Bush traveled to Kyiv, where he stood before the Ukrainian parliament and urged them not to declare independence. In his infamous "Chicken Kyiv" speech, he warned against "suicidal nationalism", painting the desire for self-determination as reckless and dangerous.

From the White House to the Shite House: Presidential Russian arse-wiper George HW Bush

The implications were chilling: Ukrainians were being cast as the troublemakers, their aspirations dismissed as destabilizing, even selfish. It was not Russia – the brutal aggressor, the country that had spent centuries committing genocide, repression, and terror – that was being lectured. It was Ukraine, the victim, that was being scolded. The burden of responsibility was placed not on the abuser, but on those seeking freedom from his grip. It was a grotesque inversion of morality.

And when Ukraine went ahead and declared its independence anyway, defying Washington’s pressure, the U.S. continued to act in Russia’s interests at every turn. Instead of disarming Russia, the U.S. pressured Ukraine to dismantle its own nuclear arsenal. The Budapest Memorandum, hailed at the time as a diplomatic success, was in reality one of the most lopsided and unjust settlements in modern history. Ukraine, the country that had been subjugated and brutalized by Russia for centuries, was coerced into handing over its last line of defense – not just destroying its nuclear weapons, and nuclear-capable conventional ones as well, but transferring many of them directly to Russia. This was not an agreement based on justice or fairness; it was a grotesque act of appeasement that set the stage for future catastrophe. History has now rendered its judgment: the Budapest Memorandum was an open invitation for renewed Russian aggression against Ukraine in the future, that came to be materialized twenty years later.

But that was only half of the betrayal. The West didn’t just strip Ukraine of its defenses – it also actively rescued Russia from the abyss. As the Soviet economy imploded and Russia teetered on the edge of starvation, the U.S. and its allies rushed in with financial and humanitarian aid. Russia was flooded with Western money, food, and technical assistance. Yet again, the West extended a fresh batch of goodwill – no accountability required, no demands for atonement for Russia’s past crimes, no reckoning for the genocides it had committed. Everything was forgiven, everything was forgotten.

Even worse, the West then stood by as Russia resumed its old habits of aggression and imperial conquest – sometimes even tacitly endorsing it. When Chechnya, a small nation that had suffered unspeakable horrors under Russian rule, fought for its independence, Russia responded with a campaign of utter savagery, flattening entire cities and slaughtering civilians en masse. And yet, what was the reaction from Washington? Then-U.S. President Bill Clinton infamously likened the Chechen freedom fighters to the Confederates in the American Civil War. The implication was sinister: the Chechens were the "bad guys" for daring to seek independence, while Russia – the empire that had razed their land and massacred their people – was the rightful authority.

Mud in your eye: US President Bill Clinton had his work cut out keeping Yeltsin's arse relatively spotless

And it was not just words. As Poland’s then-president Lech Wałęsa later revealed, he had been prepared to act decisively when the First Chechen War broke out – to push for Russia’s final collapse and end its imperial ambitions once and for all. But it was the United States, through Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, that intervened, arguing that Russia’s disintegration would lead to "unforeseen consequences" and therefore must be avoided. Let that sink in: the criminal was allowed to survive, because there was concern that it might hurt itself in the process. That was the priority – not the suffering of the nations Russia had already brutalized, not the atrocities being committed in real time, but the hypothetical danger that Russians might turn on each other. That was deemed unacceptable. But the continued oppression and slaughter of others by Russians? That was apparently a price worth paying.

The reality is that throughout the 1990s, even as Russia waged its barbaric wars, even as it seized new territories and crushed resistance with savage brutality, it was still showered with Western support. While Russian bombs flattened Grozny, while its soldiers murdered and raped their way through Chechnya, Western leaders, first and foremost Bill Clinton, were heaping praise upon Russia’s supposed "democratic transition". Boris Yeltsin, the man who presided over these atrocities, was treated not as a war criminal, but as a hero of reform. And even as Russia instigated a coup in Georgia in 1991, deposing its popular leader Zviad Gamsakhurdia, invaded and occupied Moldova’s Transnistria in 1992, and waged a genocidal war against Ichkeria (Chechnya) in 1994 – it continued to receive aid and goodwill from the West, welcomed into the family of civilized nations.

The pattern was unmistakable. Time and again, the West chose to see Russia as it wished it to be, rather than as it actually was. Time and again, the West placed its faith in the idea that Russia could be rehabilitated, that it could be a partner, that it could be reasoned with. And time and again, Russia proved that it would never change – that its fundamental nature remained that of a barbaric entity, built on conquest, violence, and subjugation.

And now, with Russia once again waging war, with its genocidal ambitions in full view, with its actions leaving no doubt as to where the lines of good and evil truly lie, what does the West do? It hesitates. It equivocates. It provides just enough support for Ukraine to survive, but not enough to ensure victory. Because at its core, the West, especially the U.S., has never truly seen Russia as an enemy. It has only ever seen it as a wayward partner – a country to be accommodated, indulged, and, when necessary, rescued from its own self-inflicted disasters.

The tragedy is that this endless cycle of indulgence and appeasement has never led to peace – only to greater horrors down the line. The world had a chance to end Russia’s reign of terror in 1991. It had a chance to finally rid itself of this predator, to ensure it would never rise again to threaten its neighbors. But it chose instead to save it. And now, Ukraine pays the price.

However, history is once again presenting the world with a golden opportunity to rid itself of the Russian menace. The trajectory of history may bend and twist, but it remains unrelenting in its course. Russia, in its current unitary form, is an aberration – an unnatural construct held together by force, deception and external help. This aberration could have been corrected in the 1920s, in the 1940s, in the 1990s, but each time, it was artificially sustained – propped up by foreign intervention, shielded from the consequences of its own failures. Yet, because it is an unnatural construct, its demise is only a matter of time. It is an inevitability, a question of when, not if.

But once again, the greatest danger is the all-too-familiar impulse, particularly in Washington, to prevent Russia’s collapse. The greatest threat is that, just as in the past, the United States – especially under a second Trump administration, though the same risk would likely exist under any American leadership – will step in at the critical moment and try to save Russia from total defeat and disintegration. There will be attempts to "freeze" the war precisely at the moment when it needs to continue, when just a little more pressure would push Russia’s crumbling economy into total implosion. There will be calls for a "deal", an armistice, a "pragmatic settlement" – all of which will be nothing more than veiled efforts to grant Russia the breathing space it so desperately needs to rearm, regroup, and return stronger in the future. And part of this betrayal will inevitably involve lifting sanctions at the very moment they are finally beginning to bite, at the very moment when they are inflicting real, irreversible damage.

This cannot be allowed to happen. Not this time. This time, it is Eastern Europe that must step up and take control of the narrative. This is where history shifts – where those who were once treated as objects of history become its subjects – its driving force. Thirty years ago, when the Soviet Union collapsed, the nations of Eastern Europe were still too weak, too dependent on the West. They had only recently escaped Russia’s grip, and they lacked the agency to shape their own destiny. That is why, in the 1990s, Washington could so easily pressure Lech Wałęsa into abandoning support for the Chechens and the push for Russia’s total collapse. That is why the Clinton administration could so effortlessly coerce Ukraine into surrendering its nuclear arsenal for empty promises. Eastern Europe, at the time, had no real power of its own.

But this time is different. Thanks, first and foremost, to Ukraine’s resilience and military prowess, Eastern Europe is no longer an afterthought in global politics – it is now a force to be reckoned with. Ukraine has proven itself not just as a courageous defender of its own sovereignty, but as the leader of a new, emerging power bloc. Today, Ukraine has the strongest army in Europe, an army that has adapted, innovated, and revolutionized modern warfare – particularly in the domain of drone warfare, where it now leads the world. Meanwhile, Poland is rapidly becoming a military powerhouse, modernizing and expanding its forces at a pace unparalleled in Europe. If Poland and Ukraine were to fully coordinate their military strength, they would form one of the most formidable military forces not just in Europe, but in the world.

And Ukraine has already begun flexing its newfound agency. It is no longer merely taking instructions – it is making demands, setting terms, dictating conditions. President Zelensky has openly defied attempts to exploit Ukraine’s resources, refusing to sign an exploitative agreement on rare earth minerals that was recently presented by the Trump Administration almost as an ultimatum. He rightly recognized the extortionist nature of the deal – one that demanded much from Ukraine while offering nothing in return, not even the most basic security guarantees. More importantly, Ukraine has been a crucial force in mobilizing Western support for the war and in opposing the ever-present temptation of appeasement towards Russia. It has repeatedly refused to bow to American pressure to make concessions – whether under Biden or Trump. It is resilient, it is bold, it is unyielding.

But Ukraine cannot do this alone. The rest of Eastern Europe must step up. This time, Russia’s salvation must be prevented. And the responsibility to ensure this falls to Eastern and Northern Europe – the part of the world that understands Russia better than anyone else. These nations have the clearest, most unflinching insights into Russia’s nature. Their voices must now guide Western policy. No "peace deal" that lifts sanctions, no ceasefire that grants Russia time to recuperate, no settlement short of Russia’s total collapse, disintegration, denuclearization, and demilitarization can be accepted. If Washington, in its infinite naïveté, chooses to turn its back on this reality, then Europe must take the lead. If necessary, even without American aid. Eastern Europe, likely in alliance with Northern Europe, must seize the initiative – because noone else will. The traditional giants of Europe – Germany, France, Britain – will eventually follow, but they will not lead. The task of forging the correct path, the only acceptable path, falls to those who understand the stakes better than anyone: the nations that know Russia’s true, ghastly nature.

America has always been a paradox – a colossus with immense talent, boundless energy, and unparalleled innovation, but also a country plagued by a fundamental naïveté. It has repeatedly been manipulated, deceived, and led astray – subverted to act against its own interests and the interests of Western civilization. It was duped into aligning with Stalin in World War II, just as it was duped into shielding Russia from collapse in the 1990s. The Roosevelt administration was filled with Stalinist sympathizers, and the result was a disastrous policy of accommodation towards the Soviet Union. Today, history is repeating itself: Trump’s administration is being packed with open Russophiles, eerily mirroring the FDR era.

This time, the nations of Eastern and Northern Europe must act as the counterbalance. They must counteract these renewed pro-Russian leanings in Washington and push forward with the only acceptable outcome: the total and irreversible collapse of Russia. Poles and Ukrainians, in particular, must take the lead in shaping this narrative. They must strengthen their presence in Washington, work closely with their diaspora in the United States, create their strong lobbies, and ensure that their voices are heard. They must make the case – not just in diplomatic circles, but directly to the American public – that Russia’s destruction is not only a necessity for Eastern Europe but a vital interest for the entire Western world.

At the very least, they must ensure that this time, if nothing else, America stays out of the way and allows Russia to finally implode. Because history has already shown what happens when Russia is saved from itself. The world cannot afford to make the same mistake again.

Not this time.

Follow Cemil Kerimoglu's Substack here

KREMLIN OPS DEFEATED IN GERMANY AS PUTINIST PARTIES ARE CONTAINED

The results of the German parliamentary election are in, and the Kremlin must be deeply disappointed after the two Putinist parties were, if not crushed, at least contained and rendered ineffective.

The biggest winner of the election was the conservative Christian Democrat Union (CDU) which won 208 seats in the 630-seat chamber.

Along with the 120 seats of the Centre-Left SPD, this should be enough to form a stable coalition, with the CDU in the driving seat. This means that Germany will strengthen its support for Ukraine, just as America is trying to undermine it.

Before the election, the government was a three-party coalition of the SPD (main party) with the FDP (liberals) and the Leftist Greens. The hope in the Kremlin was that this election would create a situation where their two proxies on the Right and the Left would gain enough seats to make Germany an ungovernable mess and sow chaos in the EU's support for Ukraine.

However, despite election interference attempts by both the Kremlin and the Pro-Putinist Trump administration aimed at boosting the right-wing Putinist AfD, it only managed to finish second, gaining 152 seats.

Meanwhile the Pro-Putinist left-wing party (BSW) also failed, getting just short the 5% of the vote threshold needed to gain representation in the German parliament. It will thus have no seats in the Bundestag.

The evidence of Putinist interference in the German election will probably lead to moves to outlaw the AfD and the BSW in the coming parliament in order to "protect German democracy." 

Yes, a disaster for Russia

THE WEAKNESS OF THE WEST

Putin's pet

 by Colin Liddell

What are we seeing with all the recent nonsense coming out of the White House connected to Donald Trump and his blatantly insane comments on the Ukraine war?

Here's Trump on Zelenskyy, someone who is actually higher in his country's opinion polls than Trump is in his: 

Trump has never said anything negative about the guy next door to Zelenskyy, the same one who has been murdering his own people and running fake elections for the last twenty years and who is now engaged in a Hitlerian war of expansion. 

Really, it is impossible to overstate how bad this makes America look. Even if Trump backtracks, even if he gets kicked out, even if things somehow return to "normal," the damage has been done. America will never be trusted again. If NATO (and America's alliance with its East Asian friends) is anything, it is the absolute trust that America will stand by them in a tight corner. That is now gone!

In retrospect, America has been on this road a long, long time. What we are seeing in the blatant Putinism on display in the White House is merely what we have been seeing since at least the Bush years with the distorting influence of the Zionist lobby.

Putinism in the White House is just a carbon copy of Likudism in the White House. In fact, it was Likudism that kind of blazed the trail. And even if Putinism is defeated, which is not impossible because it has much stronger enemies, other isms can be guaranteed to penetrate the White House and the American political establishment with similar ease.

Of course, having a fat, orange whore like Trump (currently amplified by an autistic, ketamine-addicted oligarchic freak like Musk), may make this seem worse than it is.

If they are both taken down, which is not unlikely given how out-and-out moronic their behaviour is, the picture may seem to improve, but the fundamental flaw is still there, and that is quite simply how easy it is to hack, buy, and manipulate your way relatively cheaply into the American political system.

The problem that Trump reveals is not a problem of Trump's making. That problem has been there for a long, long time. His special talent is to shine an extremely bright light on it. 

So, what are the contours of this fundamental flaw? There are several aspects to it. Firstly, there is the direct buying of politicians through donations. You have probably seen these people before:

Sheldon Adelson and Mrs Adelson dumping their money on Trump

The difference here is that the Adelsons dropped their Zionist-boosting millions on Trump after he rose to political prominence. This was in May 2016, when Trump was at least an important GOP candidate. 

The Russians, however, like to get in early.

They have a track record of cultivating people they see as important, culturally and socially, or possibly important politically further down the road. In fact this is how they built up their spy network in the UK back in the days of the Cold War. It is also possibly the reason their country outside Moscow and St Petersburg looks like a complete shithole. Rather than spend their oil, gas, and mineral revenues on improving the lives of ordinary Russians, the Kremlin would much rather stuff it into the pockets of corrupt and gullible Western politicians like this idiot on the right:

Evgeny Lebedev and Boris Johnson, round about the 

time Johnson gave his KGB-linked friend a peerage

In recent days there has been plenty of speculation about Donald Trump being an actual KGB hire called "Agent Krasnov." Without an obvious smoking gun such rumours are not very useful, but there is also very clear evidence of the Russians putting money directly into Trump's pocket back in 2008, roughly about $60 million through a ridiculous property deal.

The basics are that Trump bought a property in November 2004 for $41 million then tried to sell it for three times as much. Nobody was interested until a Russian oligarch fortuitously showed up and paid around a $100 million. You can read more about this here. 

Then there are the blackmailing and murder threats that the Russians are also a dab hand at. This can happen to you even if you are the President of an independent country if you don't play along with the Kremlin's agenda.

Back in 2004, this happened to Viktor Yushchenko, a former Ukrainian President who didn't want to play footsie with the Russians:

Yushchenko survived but his complexion didn't

The Kremlin had been careful not to overuse these more coercive methods in the West, or at least to restrict them to Russian expats, but rumours remain of the widespread use of blackmail and kompromat in Western countries. 

This is also something that the Zionist Likudniks appear to have been doing with their Epstein operation, although the details still remain murky. Suffice to say a sexual degenerate like Donald Trump would have been an easy mark for either the Russians or the Israelis, and there is plenty of evidence that the Epstein op was interested in him:

Sometimes the pussies grab you!

But the direct buying or blackmailing of US politicians and its absolute tolerance by a US political system run by these same politicians who are bought and blackmailed is not the only means of hacking the system. There is also the media, and the media today means the internet. 

There is plenty of evidence of both Zionist and Putinist funding of media in the West. With regard to Russia, we could mention Russia Today (a rather too obvious influence operation now shut down) and GBNews (sometimes referred to as "KGB News"), which loses £30 million of Kremlin-linked "dark money" out of Dubai every year. Or we could refer to the case of Tenet Media in the USA.

But there are also "fake news factories" like the recently exposed Doppelganger operation and the whole army of lower-ranking "Dissident Right" Putin shills on various social media platforms. These small fry are steered with relative ease through a network of petty donations and message boosting to parrot Kremlin talking points.

And this is even without even mentioning whatever is going on at TikTok and Twitter. Musk most notably did what seems to be an inexplicable U-turn on Ukraine, and then acquired Twitter, using it to boost Putinist messaging and Donald Trump.

Elon, bro, WTF happened?

Then there are operations like Israel's "Project Butterfly" part of the "Israel Cyber Shield," an operation set going in 2015 and funded to the tune of $900 million dollars!!!

As reported by  James Bamford in The Nation:

According to its secret internal operations plan, Project Butterfly was aimed at 'executing intelligence and influence efforts' against Americans by creating an 'infrastructure for narrative warfare—alternative messaging and negative platforms.' In other words, by creating fake news outlets, phony Facebook personas and posts, and other forms of information warfare, Psy Group’s goal was to deliberately deceive the American public about Israel and its actions against the Palestinians. 

To accomplish these goals, the group was seeking for the operation’s first year of a three-year plan and promised it would conduct its activities in utmost secrecy. All links to the donors would be hidden and none of the actions would be traceable to Jews or Israelis. The importance of the operation and its closeness to Netanyahu can be seen in Project Butterfly’s top officials. Among them was Netanyahu’s former deputy director of Mossad and director general of the Ministry of Intelligence and Strategic Affairs, Ram Ben-Barak, who was the project’s strategic adviser. Comparing the effort against the American boycotters to “a war,” he said, “you don’t kill them but you do have to deal with them in other ways.”

What was intended here was a clandestine operation to:

"...damage specific Americans and US organizations associated with the boycott movement. It would develop ways to disrupt their activities, lead them to be falsely investigated by the authorities, and run a hidden media influence campaign against them."

If the Israelis have done it, the rule is that the Russians must have done it even more.

As someone with long experience in Dissident Circles. and with past associations to many people who later turned out to be Russian shills or worse, I have seen how this works on a micro level. Essentially the method was to bribe those in the Alt and Dissident Right who played along through donations and boosting, and to criticise, isolate, and deplatform those who didn't.

This pattern is even written on the petty history of the Alt-Right and the short war of sorts that erupted between the Daniel Friberg-Richard Spencer faction and the Counter-Currents faction led by Greg Johnson sometime around 2016.

Spencer and Johnson, so alike yet so different

In the period following the Ukrainian Maidan Revolution in 2014, Johnson took a pro-Ukrainian position, as did many in the Alt-Right at the time. In Johnson's case it was probably motivated by his interest in out-and-out Neo-Nazi organisations like Ukraine's Azov battalion, which was pretty "Nazi" at the time, as well as his belief in Euro nationalism. Putin at the time was also seen as an oppressor of ethnic nationalism inside Russia. Also, due to his generally high level of organisation and networking, Johnson was more financially independent than other "more needy" Alt-Righters and therefore more ideologically independent. 

On the other side, Friberg and Spencer took a Pro-Putinist stance. Friberg, as I have pointed out elsewhere, was probably a genuine Kremlin asset, while Spencer was most likely his "useful idiot."

But it was not enough to be just pro-Putin, the Friberg-Spencer faction also attempted to launch personal attacks on the large number of homosexuals in the Counter-Currents faction, with Andrew Joyce, a close associate of Professor Kevin MacDonald, penning a number of anti-homosexualist articles  aimed at Johnson that were then published at Spencer's site.

This effort failed, partly because the Dissident Right is made up of all sort of weirdos, perverts, and freaks who find nothing really amiss in homosexuality. Also, soon after this attempt to marginalise Johnson, the Friberg-Spencer faction just fell apart. Exactly how is not yet clear, but it is notable that Spencer subsequently went on to adopt a more anti-Duginist and more pro-Western stance, leading to suspicions that he had effectively been "turned."

But, regardless of these trivialities, the fact remains that America's political dissidents, both on the Right and the Left, are wide open to foreign influence operations that seek to weaponise this underlayer of malcontents. Whether their resentment against the system is driven by legitimate political reasons or illegitimate psychological factors is an irrelevance in Moscow, Jerusalem, or wherever. 

Europe too is open to many of these pressures of subversion, but the Americans are 'gifted' with a peculiar gullibility and blindspot to such ops. Also, the benefits to geopolitical rivals of subverting America are understandably much greater than doing the same to Britain or Belgium.

The rise of Donald Trump is proof to the essential weakness of the American system. But much of that weakness is self-inflicted. Stronger candidates in either 2016 or 2024, at the primary or electoral stage, would have tidily disposed of Trump. Instead the GOP shot itself in the foot by putting up dull, corporate placemen, like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio; while the Dems sent in two unlikeable and unqualified feminist DEI hires, Hillary and Kamala. 

But even if Trump had lost, the fact remains that these operations to influence, manipulate, and control America would still be wreaking havoc. With Trump they just hit the jackpot.

The next question is whether the American political entity collectively realises it has been injured and then does something to defend itself or not.

Trump could provide the shock of realisation that it needs to wake up to its danger, or it may be too far gone already. In that case, Trump may merely serve as an advertisement of America's weakness and the benefits of ruthlessly hacking the its system.

Personally, I think a reaction to these forces is much more likely in Europe, where I suspect there will be moves in countries like Germany, France, and the UK to ban or co-opt what are seen as "compromised" political parties, while also cracking down on the open door the internet provides for disinfo and subversion ops.

In order to work, however, these moves will have to be backed up by attempts to address some of the legitimate concerns that help fuel this geopolitical subversion.

____________________

Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying his book here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia), or by taking out a paid subscription on his Substack.

Follow on Twitter and Bluesky

SHORTPOD (102) THE TURD IN THE WHITE HOUSE

Also available on SubStack, BitChute, and Rumble

We have passed peak Trump

Trump is turning into one of the most venal, deranged, and toxically immoral politicians ever -- all in real time. Will it affect his polls numbers? The signs are that it already has, says Colin Liddell. Even American voters, seldom overburdened with praise for their acuity, have finally started to notice what a turd they dumped in the Whitehouse.

TRUMPWORLD: MASSIVE EGYPTIAN MILITARY BUILD-UP ON ISRAEL'S BORDER

Spooked by Donald Trump's plan to push around 2 million Palestinians out of Gaza, Egypt is apparently mobilising its army and building up its military presence in Sinai. 

As reported by German news site DW: 

"For several days now, videos have been posted on social media showing what is supposedly a threatening buildup of Egyptian military forces in the Sinai area near the border of Israel, Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

According to some Arabic-language media and several Israeli outlets, the change in Egypt's military posture in this area is a reaction to US President Donald Trump's suggestion that Palestinians in Gaza be moved into Jordan and Egypt's Sinai region while a "Gaza Riviera" is under construction."

Adding to the tension has been the threat that Trump may attempt to force Egypt to take millions of Palestinians by cutting US foreign aid to country. In return for this aid, Egypt has long pursued a policy of peaceful co-existence with Israel. By adding additional demands on Egypt that far outweigh the benefits of the aid, Trump may inadvertently push Egypt towards a more natural position of hostility towards Israel.  

Israel is clearly alarmed:

"Egypt's military deployments in this area "have been ongoing since before October 7 [2023] but have been accelerated since," explained Ahmed Aboudouh, a foreign affairs expert with the Middle East and North Africa program at British think-tank Chatham House. "I don't think they are offensive, but according to the Israeli reports, their permanent nature has spooked Israel's leaders."

It's unclear how many troops Egypt currently has in Sinai. But el-Hamalawy pointed out Egypt previously received permission from Israel to bring in a lot more to fight extremists in the Sinai area. In 2018, Egyptian forces in the Sinai doubled, going from 25,000 men in 41 battalions to 42,000 men in 88 battalions over the course of a year. Egypt also built more permanent bases in the Sinai area."

Trump's willingness to "fuck with" the status quo as much as possible is greatly accelerating the possibility of instability and anarchy not only in America but worldwide. 

AMERICA APPLIES TO JOIN THE AXIS 80 YEARS LATE

The USA has officially applied to join the Axis, an unofficial group of evil states that exists in the world from time to time.

The decision became apparent after a recent meeting in Saudi Arabia between US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister of the leading Axis state Russia. 

America had a previous opportunity to join the Axis back in 1941 but unfortunately decided not to after a minor misunderstanding with an existing Axis power that resulted in the unimportant deaths of only two-and-a-half thousand Americans. 

1941: Missed opportunity

Since then, America has been with the much less cool "Allies," a club of generally likeable but ineffectual liberal democracies, who timidly support the "international rule of law" and not turning their populations into steaming piles of hamburger meat in order to conquer mineral rich lands in neighbouring states. 

America's decision to finally defect from the wimpy nice guy club has been confirmed by several statements and press conferences from "badass" US President and now dictator-for-life Donald J Trump. 

As a new member of the Axis, America will initially be allowed to sink passenger ships at will and machine gun the survivors in the water, conduct medical experiments on human beings bought on the open market, and rename random bits of geography. 

After a trial period and further approval by the "Grand Satanic Council of the Axis," the USA will then be promoted to "full Axis membership," after which it will enjoy all privileges, such as being allowed to nuke kindergartens and hospitals, gas entire sections of society for totally made-up reasons, and getting to redevelop Gaza into condos.

Joining the Axis means never having to open doors by yourself ever again