TWITTER IS A SEWER (CHINESE VERSION)

YouTuber Serpentza comments on Chinese government agencies being allowed to use Twitter to spread their PR and propaganda, and the "mysterious" troll armies who attack anyone criticising China with gutter language. 

TRUMP COMMITS "POLITICAL SUICIDE" WITH GLOATING MURDER TWEET

Trump: peak crazy old man energy

by Colin Liddell

Trump, aka the Turd in the Whitehouse, effectively committed political suicide today after he posted a message on Truth Social gloating over the murder of director Rob Reiner and his wife by their son who has drug addiction issues.

The message on Truth Social read:

"A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before May Rob and Michele rest in peace."

To be clear, this is the President of the United States taking time out of his not-so-busy day to gloat over the tragic murder of a US citizen and his wife, while also trying to make the whole thing about what a "great President" he is. Meanwhile this nutcase has his finger on the nuclear button.

This incident is extremely bad for Trump for a several reasons. Firstly, his popularity has been in a steep decline for a long time, and almost all independents now hate him. Secondly, his support even among his MAGA base is much softer than it was, with MAGA diehards, like Marjorie Taylor Greene and others, turning against him recently. Thirdly, elected Republicans are increasingly conscious of the severe damage that being associated with a major shit stain like Trump will do to them at their next election. 

And, finally, the message raises concerns not just about Trump's total moral vacuity, which has been known for a long time (and priced into the political popularity market), but, more worryingly, about his mental acuity and judgment. In other words, a message like this, in its psychopathic stupidity, gross narcissism, and lack of even reptilian empathy, denotes someone whose brain is, like a piece of Swiss cheese, riddled with holes. 

The evident mental illness of the President also provides Republicans with a convenient way to disassociate themselves from him and oust him, something they will feel increasingly motivated to do by his snowballing unpopularity.

Removing a sitting President would involve invoking the 25th Amendment, which allows for the involuntary transfer of power if the President is deemed "unable to discharge the powers and duties" of the office. This explicitly includes mental incapacity, further defined as "severe mental debility, dementia, or other conditions preventing rational decision-making." 

The actual mechanism by which this would happen would require a majority of Trump's Cabinet to transmit a written declaration to Congress that the President is unable to function. This would give the Vice President the powers of Acting President. If the President contested this, Congress would then be required to pass a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate to sustain the declaration; otherwise the President would resume his powers.

The trickiest part is clearly the Vice President and the Cabinet, who are all Trump's creatures. But once this Rubicon is crossed, it is almost certain that Congress will ratify the process. 

Although this scenario may still seem unlikely to many, all the incentives are there to remove him. Vice President Vance stands to gain the most, while many in the Cabinet must be painfully aware that Trump is dragging the Party in the mud, not only with his increasingly unstable behaviour but also with his unlimited corruption.

It is also clear that any moves behind closed doors to get Trump to modify and moderate his erratic behaviour, assuming they have even been made, have simply not worked. Any further attempts along these lines would likely lead Trump to fire anyone making them. In short, this is someone who can't be reasoned with, even by his own cabinet of servile, corrupt sycophants. 

We are now in uncharted territory, but the path to the 25th Amendment is now clearer than ever. 

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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

UNDERSTANDING "TRUMP-PUTINISM" THROUGH A GEOPOLITICAL LENS

Trutin

by Colin Liddell

It is easy to hate Trump (THE TURD IN THE WHITEHOUSE) and even easier to hate Putin (PUTIN'S MEAT CUBE). They are both the worst kind of scumbags, and they will both probably be dead soon. But there is also an underlying geopolitical rationale for what, at times, seems the weirdest of bromances. The problem is that this geopolitical rationale, or project, just has the two worst salesmen possible, both of whom are effectively dragging it down.

So, stripping out the two dysfunctional psychopaths who are currently sitting on top of this project, what exactly is it? What exactly is Trump-Putinism (without Trump and Putin to shit all over it)?

It is simply the idea that America and Russia are natural allies and that both nations gain from allying with each other in the great game of geopolitics. 

Let's look at this in both a more essentialist and macro sense.

Essentially there are four-and-a-half major power centres in the world and plenty of mid-sized power centres. The big four are North America, Europe, Russia (when it is well run, i.e. Catherine the Great, Stalin, etc), and China. The "half" is India.

Of these big four, Europe and China are qualitatively much higher, with more and smarter people for a lot longer, and should, on the basis of that, be the dominant two. However, China is held back by historical drag and Europe by its national divisions. This allows America and Russia (when it is well run) to stay in the game. Europe, too, suffers from historical drag left over from WWII, while America, with essentially no history to speak of, in a macro sense, largely escapes the effects of historical drag. 

Another key point is that it is always easier to ally with remoter powers than adjacent ones, which gives us the classic "chequerboard" pattern of geopolitics. There are obvious reasons for this -- less overlap of interests and less historical drag. Right now, China and Russia are aligned, and even allied to some degree, but Russia is also sitting on a vast area of what used to be the Qing Empire, stolen from China in its "Century of Humiliation." This is significant historical drag that will ultimately have consequences.

Next, we come to the Thucydides Trap, the theory that when a rising power threatens to displace a higher power, war is highly likely between them. We can hopefully downgrade the possibility of war to a certainty of intense rivalry.

In the late 20th century, America, which has been the leading global power since 1945 (or slightly earlier), faced several challengers, first the Soviet Union, then Japan, and then the European Union (a more nebulous challenge). The Soviet Union was contained and allowed to self destruct, Japan was co-opted (a complex and interesting story), while the EU has been flattered and kept friendly until comparatively recently (something in which the UK played a key mediative role until 2016).

But from the 1990s onwards, America started to face a deeper challenge from China. China has the economic dynamism of 70s and 80s Japan, the bulk of Europe, and the political centralisation and inherent animosity of the Soviet Union. In 2025, China is the main challenger to America's number one spot, and threatens America in several key ways.

Let us consider the financial threat. This is multifarious and includes things like tech, exports, and manufacturing, but also much else. America has been pouring its debt (and therefore social inferiority) into China on a massive scale through its trade deficit (re-exported around the World in Belt-and-Road projects); while China has been outsourcing its inherent unemployment (and therefore political instability) into America.

But Japan is also very much part of this picture due to its vital role in the increased liquidity it has provided with its flatlining interest rates for so long. In fact, this is the basis of America's crypto and 401s (tax-advantaged retirement savings) asset bubble, as financial entities borrow yen at zero, and buy assets with a profit margin. China's rise threatens much of this by forcing the Japanese economy to switch from providing liquidity to an overheating US economy to reinvesting in its own military power. I won't even mention US tech's troubling dependency on Taiwan's chips.

These two factors -- Japan-supplied liquidity and Taiwanese chips -- mean that the USA effectively has a "border" with China. According to the laws of geopolitics, this makes them inherent rivals and possible enemies.

The one country America has no meaningful border or "friction line" with is Russia, unless you take a Europhile view (Muh European homeland!). Back in the days of the Soviet Union, things were different. Communism was a global threat, and the USSR's alignment with "decolonization" even threatened America's internal racial dynamics. Also, the Warsaw Pact was a direct threat to countries like the UK, etc., that were deeply in hock to America. In fact, Britain only finished paying off its World War II debts to the United States on 29 December 2006! 

So, once you wipe off the Trumpist and Putinist gunge, there is actually a sensible basis for Russia and the US to ally.

A US-allied Russia, as people like Trump advisor Elbridge Colby realise, can provide a very convenient back-door threat to China that could help to contain its rising, and even superior, power.

Also, the USA can't expect Europe to remain a self-weakening welfare queen forever. Viewed through a macro lens, the EU has become increasingly united and economically interwoven, despite a few blips, in the last 30 years, and its currency remains a real threat to dollar dominance. The war in the Ukraine will very probably help the EU to flush out a few more weaknesses and accelerate its path to a stronger union. We shall see. But a US-allied Russia would also be a convenient means of the US exerting leverage in that direction.

As for Russia, it is only strong when it has a great leader, and Putin, who once seemed that way, has now been exposed as a poor one, maybe even the worst. Rather than Alexander I, he is Tsar Nicholas II. Rather than Stalin, he is Brezhnev or even another Yeltsin!

But when Putin and Trump are mopped up into their respective buckets and flushed down the toilet of history, the permanent underlying interests of a Russian state and the United States will remain, and they line up pretty well. The goal of European and Chinese leaders should be to frustrate this "low-human-capital" synergy from being realised.

Never again!

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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

A KREMLIN ASSET IN THE WHITE HOUSE

by Daniel Barge

Let's cut through the endless fog of obfuscation and distraction that the regime media churns out whenever inconvenient truths about Donald J. Trump are raised. No, this is not about the Epstein Files, it is about something far worse: Trump's 1987 trip to Moscow. 

The evidence and the dark picture it paints of this infamous trip isn't just compelling—it's overwhelming and, frankly, undeniable. A brash, ego-driven New York property developer, with serious financial problems and not a political bone in his body, flies into the heart of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, gets the red-carpet treatment from KGB-linked officials, stays in a bugged VIP suite, and emerges just weeks later to splash nearly $100,000 on full-page newspaper ads parroting classic Soviet propaganda lines.

Coincidence? Really? This was the moment the Kremlin hooked their long-term asset.

It all started in 1986 when Trump "caught the eye" of Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubinin after a chance meeting. Dubinin's daughter was apparently "obsessed with Trump Tower"—how convenient! Fast-forward to July 1987: Trump, accompanied by his Russian-speaking wife Ivana, jets off to Moscow on an invitation from Goscomintourist, the state tourism agency deeply intertwined with the KGB. He tours potential hotel sites, including spots near the Kremlin, and holes up in the Lenin Suite at the National Hotel—a notorious KGB honeytrap den rigged with microphones and cameras in every corner.

Former KGB officers aren't shy about what happened next. Yuri Shvets, a major in the agency at the time, has detailed how the Soviets targeted Trump as a "perfect mark": vain, ambitious, and drowning in debt from his Atlantic City casinos. They flattered him relentlessly, dangled big deals, and likely set up the usual kompromat operations—women, booze, whatever sticks. And now, in 2025, ex-KGB bigwig Alnur Mussayev has gone public on Facebook, stating flat-out that his directorate recruited the then-40-year-old Trump in 1987, assigning him the codename "Krasnov." Mussayev even hints the file is now privately held by one of Putin's inner circle. No real evidence? That's how these operations work—deniability is the point.

But what's the payoff for the Russians, as even the most prescient of them could hardly realise that this blonde 1980s buffoon would one day go on to make all their dreams come true? Actually, they cashed in their Trump chip for a rather petty end, namely a feeble influence op.

Trump returned home and on September 2, 1987, published at the Kremlin's behest an open letter in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe. This letter is now often forgotten, but it is a blatant attack on US Defence policy, especially America's global commitments, tailored for the strong strain of isolationism that has always existed in America. The name at the bottom is Trump's but the voice is the Kremlin's.

Here is the full text:

"There's nothing wrong with America's Foreign Defense Policy that a little backbone can't cure. An open letter from Donald J. Trump on why America should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves. For decades, Japan and other nations have been taking advantage of the United States. The saga continues unabated as we defend the Persian Gulf, an area of only marginal significance to the United States for its oil supplies, but one upon which Japan and others are almost totally dependent. Why are these nations not paying the United States for the human lives and billions of dollars we are losing to protect their interests? This situation is bad enough, but far worse is the fact that we are protecting them while they take economic advantage of us. Japan, for example, a country that we protect with our military might, is killing us economically. The world is laughing at America's politicians as we protect ships we don't own, carrying oil we don't need, destined for allies who won't help. It's time for us to end our vast deficits by making Japan and others who can afford it pay. Our world protection is worth hundreds of billions of dollars to these countries and their stake in the protection is far greater than ours. America is being taken advantage of. Let's not let our great country be laughed at anymore. We Americans are laughed at around the world for losing control of our foreign policy. We have become the world's patsy. It's time for a change. Make America great again.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Trump"

In view of everything that has happened since, this all sounds incredibly familiar right down to the MAGA bit.

This may sound "Trumpian" to modern ears but it's straight out of the KGB playbook—"active measures" designed to undermine NATO alliances, portray the US as a sucker propping up ungrateful partners, and promote America's retreat from the wider world. The Soviets had been pushing this narrative since the 1950s to fracture Western unity. 

Trump's ad amplified it perfectly, and came right after his Moscow love-in. The timing alone screams orchestration. Look at the pattern: decades of failed Moscow hotel pursuits, Russian money bailing out Trump's bankruptcies, his endless Putin praise, the 2016 campaign's Russian ties, and now a presidency that bends toward Kremlin interests as much as is possible in what is still a democracy with a track record for standing up to military expansionist dictators.

The 1987 trip wasn't the business flop that Trump apologists try to claim—it was a recruitment success story for the Soviets. Sure, the letter had little impact at the time, mainly because Americans could see straight through it as the Cold War entered its final lap, but Trump became something even better for the Kremlin, a "super sleeper" agent who would go all the way to the White House. Trump visited Moscow, but it was a Russian agent called "Krasnov" who returned, and has been playing his role ever since, weakening America from within.

Why else would a so-called "populist," who in the past has done anything he can to get to get elected, constantly take up positions that have no appeal to the American public, and only serve to weaken his position? Polls show that the vast majority of Americans believe that America should continue to send weapons to Ukraine, increase its assistance, and oppose any cessation of Ukrainian territory. They also hate the tariffs that Trump has rolled out in order to disrupt America's relations with key allies, like Japan, the EU, and Britain.

These are all extremely unpopular policies, which this so-called "populist" President only pushes because they suit his master in the Kremlin. The undeniable reality is that Trump is nothing but a Putin asset in the White House, and the Kremlin's biggest fear is that Americans might wake up to this fact.

SHORTPOD (109) THE BATTLE LINES ARE BECOMING CLEARER

Just as the full-scale Russian invasion of the Ukraine in 2022 eliminated all ambiguity about the true nature of Vladimir Putin, so recent developments have highlighted the true nature of his operatives in the West. The recent publication of the latest "National Security Strategy Document" in the US and the EU’s decision to finally fine Elon Musk for spreading Kremlin propaganda have revealed who is and who isn’t a Putinist, who hates and doesn’t hate the West, and the battle lines that we must all fight on.

FOREIGN AGENTS (3): TUOMAS MALINEN

Not even hiding it!

This guy is a Twitter account (87.5K followers) and Substack account (with few reads but lots of paying subscribers). Both of these are red flags for influencer ops nowadays as both Twitter and Substack allow funds to be channelled to those who are on message with Kremlin (and other dubious state) agendas.

That Malinen is a foreign agent, or more specifically a Kremlin asset, is confirmed by his content which follows all the Kremlin's main talking points about the EU needing to be disbanded, Zelensky stepping down, Russia being provoked, etc. Also he tweets blatant fake news and retweets other known Russian assets like Musk and Vance. 

Malinen started out as a pretty normal academic - he is an association Professor of Economics at the University of Helsinki - but went off the rails during the Covid period with conspiritard content that was richly rewarded, and led him to slip smoothly into the warm, comforting piss stream of Kremlin propaganda, where we now find him basking today.

One of the lines he pushes is that a truncated Ukrainian state must exist in a state of "Finlandization," a term used during the Cold War to describe the weak neutrality of Finland. 

As he's a Finn, and most Finns are wise to Russia and its tricks, Malinen is forced to tweet mainly in English to a much more naïve English-speaking audience. 

TRUMP TAKES ANOTHER NAP IN CABINET

Breaking snooze!

Donald Trump has been caught napping in cabinet again. This time, however, the "cabinet" was a shiny wooden box with brass handles, raising concerns about the President's health and his ability to award pardons to drug barons and start wars with Venezuela.

In recent weeks, the 79-year-old President appears to have slowed down and even stopped moving completely, although he remains more active than ever on Truth Social, where he recently assured his followers that he was "sharper than I was 25 years ago," rebuking The New York Times for a report that maggots are probably "feasting in the rancid caverns of his diseased brain" by now. 

"Trump is sharp, but they’re not sharp," Trump 'truthed' back at them, chastising their reporters for what he cast as unfair treatment when it comes to his health and stamina, adding, "You people are crazy."

Meanwhile Trump's other cabinet, the one made-up of all the losers he appointed to government positions, gathered round the cabinet he was dozing in to celebrate the President's sharpness and vigour, despite what one onlooker described as a smell "like bad meat left in a hot car too long."

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick praised his trade wars and hailed the cabinet as "the greatest cabinet ever for the greatest president ever."

ROLLING COAL REVEALS RIGHT-WING REPULSIVENESS

The passive aggression of the right-wing American pickup truck driver

by Nix Jeelvy

In the past several years, I’ve come to distance myself from the political right. I realised sometime in 2022 that by marrying white identity politics to the political right, we not only limit our ability to convert liberals and leftists to racialist thinking, but also that we’re opening the tent up to some quite unsavoury characters, many of whom turn out to be non-whites using right-wing ideology to whitewash themselves and pass themselves off as "upstanding members of the white race." As such, I’ve called on white identitarians to dump the right-wing ballast from their ideology.

However, I didn’t really grow disgusted with the political right, or its adherents until relatively recently. Now, it was a long time coming, and it had many reasons. The low quality of human capital on the political right, the hypocrisy, the stupidity, the absence of dynamic thinking, the parochialism, the lack of any aesthetic, culinary, fashion or indeed behavioural standards. But the straw that broke the camel’s back was coal-rolling, or rolling coal.

While I am European, I always thought of myself as well acquainted with American culture and mores. Imagine my surprise when I heard of coal rolling for the first time. For those that don’t know, it’s the practice of installing an after-market modification that if switched on, temporarily disables the fuel filter on a pickup truck, causing the vehicle to belch out billows of black smoke out of its exhaust. The driver then uses this smoke to smother cyclists, pedestrians or drivers of smaller vehicles, impairing their vision and exposing them to noxious fumes.

Drivers of pickup trucks extol coal rolling as a means of "triggering the libs" in real life. While Wikipedia frames it as "protest against environmentalism," I’ve spent enough time in right-wing chats to know that the real reason is just petty cruelty, a character flaw all too abundant amongst right-wingers. And indeed, there are precious few practices in this world which are better described as petty cruelty than coal rolling. After all, these after-market modifications on the already expensive pickup trucks are not cheap, and they have no use other than to annoy and possibly endanger pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists. It requires a creature of remarkable pettiness and revoltingly low moral standards to even consider such an act, yet it is widespread among conservative pickup truck owners.

It’s not like the practice is harmless. Obstructing a driver’s or cyclist’s vision can easily lead to a traffic collision. Obviously, smothering someone in diesel smoke can cause injury to their eyes and respiratory organs. The practice is usually employed against the operators of hybrid cars or cyclists, which is supposed to express contempt for their environmental consciousness. I suppose it’s a variant on that old anti-vegetarian chestnut, "for every animal you don’t eat, I’ll eat two," only this time it’s supposed to mock and frustrate people who care about the environment.

After all, real men dump untreated chemical waste into the seas and blight the common biome, just like those "hypermasculine" Chinese!

Tai chi in the smog

The astute observer will also notice that the act of rolling coal is also a means of symbolically farting on a perceived political enemy. Far from a frustrated Frenchman "farting in your general direction," coal-rollers are very much in your face with their vehicular flatulence. This seems to track with data from behavioural scientists who’ve determined that no right-winger has emotionally matured past the age of twelve since at least 1981. I suppose we should have expected no less from the demographic which suspends plastic bollocks from the rear bumpers of their comically oversized vehicles.

So, to recap, an American conservative will purchase an already overpriced gas-guzzling gender affirming vehicle, and then spend even more money modifying it so it has even lower fuel efficiency, just so he could belch black smoke at people. Even if the smoke weren’t dangerous, the sheer self-pauperising lunacy and incredible pettiness of the act mark such people out as nothing but small creatures motivated by seething, miserable hatred.

I note with a dose of irony that such, generally "white" people have a lot more in common with the polluters, animal abusers and petty criminals of the Third World, who at least have the excuse of poverty. How odd that the petty cruelty you would expect from a donkey driver in Baghdad or a dog farmer in Beijing is also found among white right-wingers.

I’ve always known that conservative Americans love their pickup trucks, and that their cultural mores are different from my own. I was ready to accept these differences and celebrate the "great kaleidoscope of Western cultures." However, by embracing the practice of rolling coal, right-wing Americans, and increasingly right-wingers in other countries have shown that they will go out of their way, spend good money and time modifying their vehicles just in order to inflict this, at best, minor inconvenience, at worst, serious injury on others. As such, I can no longer endorse, support or celebrate such people. They’re some of the most morally repugnant creatures I’ve ever had the misfortune to observe, and insofar as their re-education is possible, it cannot begin quickly, or harshly enough. 

EUROPE NEEDS MORAL REARMAMENT

by Cemil Kerimoglu

Preparing for the civilizational confrontation with Russia that lies ahead, and in fact is already ongoing in Ukraine, will require more than weapons, industry, and budgets. Europe also needs moral rearmament. In fact, it is the pre-requisite for success of the physical rearmament program that European leaders and policymakers at least finally recognized as necessary and inevitable. The continent has spent decades wallowing in guilt about its past, and that guilt has become a strategic liability. It is time to recognize how heavily this burden is being used against the West by its enemies. And it is time for the West to get rid of that guilt.

Russia heavily exploits the West’s guilt complex in its rhetoric. Its propaganda leans on the idea that the West is forever stained by its colonial history and therefore unfit to defend its interests. Every firm response to Russian aggression is twisted into a supposed act of Western expansionism. Both the Soviet Union and Putin’s Russia have long tried to portray even the weakest Western pushback against Russian aggression as evidence of a colonial project aimed at them. Today, Russia even presents Western support for Ukraine as a colonial war against Russia itself!

At the same time, Russia cynically casts its own invasion of Ukraine as an anti‑colonial struggle. This messaging is designed to paralyze Western confidence. A society trapped in self‑reproach is a society that hesitates. Russia knows this and uses it. The more Europe indulges in self‑flagellation, the easier it becomes for Russians to undermine Western resolve.

Part of this strategy relies on resurrecting the ghosts of Europe’s Nazi past, especially Germany’s. By labelling any form of Ukrainian nationalism as "Nazism," Russia plays directly into the Western neurosis. The tactic works because it lands on sensitive ground. Whenever Europe stands firmly against Russian encroachments and hostility, Russian officials and propagandists claim that old "Nazi spirits" are rising again. Even in recent months, as Europe increased its support for Ukraine due to Washington’s instability, Russian voices compared Europe's stance to Nazism. Russia's intention is thereby to shame Europe into moral confusion, so that the Russians can present themselves as the "righteous" side.

This is why Putin and Russian commentators, capitalizing on the current pro-Russian US administration, recently evoked the Soviet‑American alliance of the Second World War. They wanted to wrap themselves in the memory of fighting Hitler and present their assault on Ukraine as the same kind of struggle. The goal is to make Europe feel ashamed for supporting Ukraine and resisting Russian aggression, as if doing so were a betrayal of its own historical lessons.

The same tactic appears in the rhetoric of parts of the German Left that are sympathetic to Russia. They point to Germany’s past to scold it for supporting Ukraine. The message is always the same: because Germany once committed terrible crimes, it must now silence itself and stand down in the face of Russian brutality. Russia and its advocates know which emotional triggers work. Europe has many. But if these triggers are neutralized, Russian leverage evaporates.

Admitting past crimes is honourable. So is apologizing for them. Europe's willingness to atone reflects its humanity. Yet this virtue becomes dangerous when it is used by hostile actors that feel no shame themselves. Europe cannot allow its enemies to turn its conscience into a weapon against it. Europeans may choose to remember their history and learn from it, but they must not let outsiders use that history to manipulate them. Only Europeans have the right to judge the faults of their ancestors. No one else can claim that authority.

For this reason, Europe needs a moral reassessment of the Second World War narrative. Above all, this is needed in Germany, whose leadership will be decisive in any future mobilization for European war effort. This reassessment does not mean denying Nazi crimes or going into revisionism. It means moving from total self‑condemnation toward a fairer, more nuanced view of history.

Different actions of Nazi Germany carried different moral weights. For example, the persecution and murder of Jews and Poles were crimes that deserve condemnation – albeit without guilt-complex and moral self-flagellation. But the invasion of the Soviet Union is another matter.

Germany, and the rest of Europe, should not feel guilty towards Russia for that campaign. The Soviet Union was the greatest threat to European Civilization at the time, just as its successor state is today. Confronting that threat was not a crime against humanity. It was a recognition of reality. The Soviet Union needed to be attacked and destroyed. The tragedy was that the only major European power who clearly saw that danger at the time, and was willing to act, was a regime that had already isolated itself morally and alienated many other Europeans – its natural allies. And hence it couldn’t convince enough of them to join in its just cause.

Essentially, a just cause was being pursued by an unjust state.

"Are we the good guys?"

Furthermore, Russia's claim to be fighting a noble "anti-colonial" struggle against the West is not only manipulative – it is laughably dishonest. For if there is a colonial empire in this war, it is Russia itself.

No one denies that the colonial record of the European powers is mixed and includes injustice. But the West has nothing to be ashamed of in the way its enemies, above all Russia, want it to be. Most former European colonies – despite the legitimate grievances they may hold – benefited in tangible ways from European presence. Roads, railways, schools, hospitals, modern bureaucracies, and legal systems were built. Diseases were treated. Lifespans rose. One need only look at the population boom in post-colonial Africa, driven by medical advances and humanitarian aid brought by the West, to see how beneficial this legacy has been.

Were there abuses? Certainly. But in the final balance, Europe’s colonies were left better off than they had been before European contact. Africa, for instance, was not some flourishing civilization interrupted by colonialism – it was a deeply underdeveloped place even before contact with Europeans. European colonization often brought the first semblance of modern infrastructure, public health, and administration. The notion that the continent’s current challenges are simply the fault of colonialism is both historically false and politically convenient for the West’s enemies.

Russian colonialism, by contrast, brought none of these benefits. Wherever Russia went, it made things worse. This is not a matter of opinion, but of historical fact. The peoples who once lived under Russian or Soviet domination – Poles, Balts, Ukrainians, Finns, and others – did not flock to Russia after independence. They built their own futures in their newly independent countries, and they built them better. In fact, it was Russians who migrated into these countries, eager to live among their former subjects rather than in the destitute realm they left behind. Also, unlike Africa before European colonialism, Poland, Baltic territories, Ukraine (Ruthenia), Finland were already developed and prosperous before being subjugated by Muscovy-Russia. Russian rule sent them backwards; in contrast, Europeans uplifted the colonies which they ruled.

Satire of the fact that Europeans made Africa much more orderly and safe

This tells you everything you need to know. When the Baltic states regained their independence, it wasn’t Estonians or Latvians who rushed to settle in Russia. It was the Russian settlers and their descendants who chose to stay. They preferred life among their former subjects to life in the "ancestral homeland" they claimed such an attachment to.

The pattern repeats itself across Russia’s other former holdings. Ukraine, for example, has always been more developed and culturally sophisticated than the Muscovite-Russian heartland. In the 17th century, it was Ukrainian scholars, theologians, and writers who brought learning and cultural refinement to Muscovy. Kyiv was a beacon of civilization while Moscow (its conqueror) was a civilizational backwater. Even during the Soviet period, Ukraine remained richer and more productive than much of Russia.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, before his brief rebellion, openly admitted that one motive behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was plunder. Moscow coveted Ukraine’s richer lands and industries, just as it had in the past. This isn’t new. For example, what came to be known in history as the "Russian Civil War" was, in essence, an attempt by the impoverished north-eastern Muscovite realm to seize control of the wealthier and more developed Ukrainian territories.

Even today, the contrast between Russian and European colonialism is visible in the direction of migration. It tells the real story. Ukrainians, Balts, and Poles have stayed and built. Russians, however, leave to those very places they colonized before, and also further west. But it is the opposite of the pattern we see with former European colonies. Africans, South Asians, and others continue to seek a future in Europe. Whatever their historical grievances, they choose to live among their former colonizers. Because, unlike in the case of Russians, the societies built by Europeans are prosperous, sophisticated, and offer opportunity and human dignity.

This is the crucial difference. Russian colonialism was extractive, repressive, and backwards. It dragged down the peoples it ruled. Western colonialism, even when marred by exploitation, often brought advancement. This is not to whitewash anything. But we must be clear-eyed about history, especially when the very country with a centuries-long record of brutal expansionism dares to lecture others on colonial guilt.

The hypocrisy of this so-called anti-colonial movement runs even deeper. In practice, it has rarely functioned as a consistent moral principle. Instead, it has often served as an ideological weapon – one wielded selectively, and almost exclusively, against the West.

During the peak of decolonization in the 1960s, when African nations were gaining independence, many of the most vocal anti-colonial activists were also passionate supporters of the Soviet Union – the most brutal colonial empire at the time. They condemned British and French imperialism with fervour, yet remained silent on the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, the Baltics, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. The same pattern continues today.

Many of those who rail against the West for its colonial past – and accuse it of perpetuating neo-colonialism today – are some of the most ardent defenders of Russia’s current invasion of Ukraine, which is nothing less than a colonial war waged with terror, looting and crimes against humanity.

The reason is not hard to see. Since shedding its artificial European veneer with the Bolshevik Revolution, Russia has been the vanguard of Third Worldist anti-Western resentment. Therefore, it is admired in the Global South and in the anti-colonialist circles within the West itself in spite of its colonial crimes, which were even more brutal than European ones. Essentially, the anti-colonial movement is less about defending the oppressed than it is about attacking Western Civilization. At its core, it has often been not anti-colonial, but anti-Western – and sometimes, quite plainly, anti-white.

Somehow forgot to mention of Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Chechnya, Dagestan, and Tatarstan, among her list of victims of colonialism

This double standard is staggering. Over the centuries, Russia has killed, deported, and subjugated more non-white peoples than most Western empires combined. Entire Turkic, Uralic, and Caucasian peoples have lived for centuries under brutal Russian domination – stripped of their resources, languages, and identities. Today, large swaths of the Russian Federation are home to indigenous non-Russian peoples who are still subjected to cultural Russification and economic exploitation. From the Siberian Yakuts to the Bashkirs and Chechens, Moscow’s grip remains tight.

Yet Western anti-colonial activists who claim to stand for justice rarely mention them. They remain fixated on "Islamophobia" in Europe while ignoring the Russian wars in Chechnya – two genocidal campaigns that flattened cities, killed tens of thousands, and continue to cast a shadow over the region. Even Turkey, the leading Turkic power and self-declared champion of pan-Turkism, seems more interested in scolding Europe and the United States than in confronting Russia’s centuries-long oppression of Turkic peoples.

Nowhere is this moral inconsistency more obvious than in the treatment of settler populations. When Algeria won independence from France, millions of French settlers were expelled – often violently. When India became free of British rule, few questioned the departure of the British. In both cases, the world accepted that colonizers had no rightful claim to stay.

But when the Baltic states regained independence after the fall of the Soviet Union, no one called for the expulsion of Russian settlers – many of whom had been brought in after World War II to replace the native populations, large portions of which had been murdered or deported to Siberia. In Latvia and Estonia in particular, this demographic shift was not accidental. It was a deliberate policy of ethnic dilution implemented by the Soviet Union.

Latvia, still not fully decolonised

Moreover, these Russian settlers were not innocent bystanders. Many were complicit – directly or indirectly – in the brutal Soviet occupation of these countries. Yet when Latvia or Estonia tried to assert control over their own language, culture, and citizenship policies after independence, they were morally hamstrung by the prevailing sentiment in the West. They were not praised for their restraint. Instead, they were chastised by some Western circles for "violating human rights" of Russians. If they chose to expel those Russian settlers (and their descendants), such an act would have been frowned upon in the West. Russia capitalized on this sentiment, using it to paint itself as the protector of "oppressed Russian minorities" and to cast the Baltic peoples – victims of occupation – as perpetrators.

Meanwhile, no one wept for the French who were killed or expelled from Algeria. No one demanded that India extend political rights to the British who had ruled them. Those colonial removals were accepted, even justified. But in the case of Russia, the rules changed.

Here, the anti-colonial movement revealed its true face. The French in Algeria were labelled as "occupiers" who had to leave. The Russians in Latvia, in contrast, were cast as "victims" whose presence must be honoured and preserved. Never mind that the Baltic peoples had far stronger moral grounds to expel their colonizers. Never mind that they showed restraint far beyond what was shown to the French in Algeria. In the eyes of the Left the Baltic peoples were wrong – because in this case the colonized were Europeans and the colonizers (i.e., Russians) were not. And therefore, in this twisted moral logic, Russians could not be colonialists.

Russian propaganda has mastered a grotesque reversal: it casts its victims as perpetrators. It has learned to manipulate Western concepts like "human rights" and "minority rights" to shield its own colonial legacy. In this twisted narrative, the descendants of Russian settlers – often brought in to replace native populations that were brutalized, massacred or deported – are painted as innocent victims, while the nations they helped subjugate are branded as "fascist" for wanting to reclaim their identity and independence.

Worse still, large parts of the Western establishment have accepted this inversion. Because in this case, the colonizers weren’t Western – they were Russian, and therefore, in the eyes of the anti-Western Left, beyond reproach. French settlers in Algeria or British officials in India were vilified and expelled, often violently, with the tacit or open approval of the global anti-colonial movement. But Russian settlers in Latvia or Estonia? They are treated with sympathy. The West mourns for them, not for the native populations they displaced.

This double standard is alive today, and it reaches deep inside Russia itself. The so-called "autonomous republics" inside Russian Federation, like Bashkortostan, Tatarstan or Yakutia are not genuine expressions of self-rule. They are occupied territories, ancestral homelands of non-Russian peoples who have lived for centuries under Moscow's boot. And yet, when voices from those republics speak of independence, they are met with warnings – including from so-called Russian liberals – about the fate of the ethnic Russians who live there. The concern, once again, is not for the colonized but for the colonizers.

This is nothing less than moral inversion. The burden of guilt is again shifted from the abuser to its victims. The Bashkirs, Tatars, and Yakuts are told to think first about the human rights of those whose very presence is the legacy of conquest. When the French were driven out of Algeria, few in the West raised such concerns. When India gained independence, no one demanded guarantees for the British who had ruled it. But now, the descendants of Muscovite settlers in northern Asia are to be protected at all costs – while their hosts remain voiceless.

This is the moral trap that Europe must escape. If it is to prevail in this historic confrontation with Russia, it must shed the burden of self-imposed guilt. Europe owes no apology to anyone. It does not need to explain itself. Its civilization has been the greatest force for advancement in human history. The world is better because Europeans exist. Even Russia, in its brief and partial flirtation with European values, briefly became less cruel. The rest of the world, whether it admits it or not, has benefited greatly from European Civilization.

The tables must now turn. It is not Europe that should feel shame. It is Russia. It is not Europe that must apologize. It is Russia that owes an apology – to the peoples of Eastern Europe, to the nations of Central Asia and the Caucasus, to its own colonized republics, and above all, to Ukraine.

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"INDECISIVE DAVE" IS THE SPIRIT ANIMAL OF THE DISSIDENT RIGHT

by Colin Liddell

Indecisive Dave is a well-remembered but rather one-dimensional character from The Fast Show, a brilliant UK comedy sketch show from the 1990s.

Dave's characteristic behaviour is to constantly change his mind and opinions to fit in with the people around him:

Yes, it's funny because there are real people like this.

The even funnier thing is that so many of them are in now the Dissident Right.

Over the years, my opinions have hardly shifted. I still more or less believe what I believed 10, 20, or even 30 years ago, although I now know a lot more. Not so for the leading lights of the Dissident Right, who have trouble not only keeping their views and opinions lined up over two or three years, but over five minutes.

Don't believe me? Well, have a listen:

Wow, a brilliant exposition on the way that Trump throws chum to his dumb supporters to keep them energised and on board, while effectively giving them nothing that they actually want.

I did a somewhat more sophisticated analysis of this phenomenon HERE and HERE.

Anyway, based on the above clip, Fuentes is clearly a hard core nationalist with a direct and unnuanced view of illegal immigration. He isn't about to tolerate illegals in his neighbourhood, is he?

Except he is:

Yup, the above clip completely undercuts and contradicts the previous clip. If Fuentes is personally turning a blind eye to illegals in his neighbourhood and is cool with them being there, why is he so hard on Trump's anti-immigration rhetoric being a bit hollow? It just doesn't add up. It's like two different people speaking.

Not sure which one of these clips is first, but it doesn't really matter, as I believe there is another video somewhere where Fuentes talks proudly about his own "migrant" heritage.

Fuentes does this shapeshifting all the time -- and it has to be said with great skill -- but he's not an anomaly in the Dissident Right. They are all at it, which makes you wonder what the whole thing's really about, something on which I have a few theories of my own.

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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.

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TRUMP RENAMES PEACE INSTITUTE AFTER HIMSELF

Clownworld

In what appears to be an act of extreme arrogance and intense insecurity, Donald Trump has apparently ordered the US State Department to rename the Institute of Peace, the "Donald Trump Institute of Peace."

The Institute of Peace is a supposedly nonpartisan, federally-funded institution that aims to promote peace worldwide.

A tweet "released" by the State Department on Wednesday read: 

"This morning, the State Department renamed the former Institute of Peace to reflect the greatest dealmaker in our nation's history. Welcome to the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. The best is yet to come."

This heavy-handed attempt by Trump to "associate" his name with the word "peace" could be part of his increasingly senile and demented campaign to extort a Nobel Peace Prize. 

Meanwhile his administration is (a) attempting to do sordid business deals with the Russian regime, right in the middle of a war of aggression, while Putin makes threats of nuclear war against Europe; (b) vaporising "drug boats" in the Caribbean in an attempt to kick-start a war with Venezuela in order to violently seize its oilfields; and (c) continuing to support Israel's policy of bombing whomever it likes whenever it likes.

EUROPEANS READY TO TRIGGER COUP AGAINST WEAKENING TRUMP CRIME FAMILY

From White House to shite house

by Colin Liddell

The constant cosying-up of the criminally corrupt Trump regime to the corruptly criminal Putin regime is constantly played down in official media, but European intelligence agencies and therefore European governments have a much clearer picture of what is really going on. They also have a much clearer picture of the growing dissident movement in the GOP itself, which is daily gaining strength from a badly aging and increasingly unpopular Trump. 

Now there are reports that Europe will simply not accept Trump's moves to compromise Ukrainian and European security, and is prepared, in the ultimate case of a sordid Trump-Putin deal that carves up Ukraine in exchange for "business concessions" for the Trump Crime Family, to threaten the US economy with a massive "debt bomb."

So, what exactly is being threatened? So far, there is not much out in the public realm, but it is clear that several major news organisations have already acquired details of the European countermeasures and are sitting on them.

Some sense of what is going on can be gleamed from this recent story in the Daily Express which refers to the Wall Street Journal:

"European leaders are considering dumping $2.34 trillion in US debt if Trump abandons Ukraine, potentially triggering an economic crisis worse than 2008. [...]

Insiders informed the Wall Street Journal that European leaders are weighing severe countermeasures in response, calculated to trigger economic turmoil across the United States. The proposed strategy includes liquidating trillions in American government bonds held by European governments [...]

The political fallout could be catastrophic for Trump and the Republicans as the midterm elections loom next year. 

The WSJ has yet to mention these countermeasures, described metaphorically as a “nuclear option,” in their public reporting, but the Express story is at least confirmation that the WSJ and thus the US political establishment now have a degree of awareness of them. As a result, such countermeasures are now an important piece on the political chessboard.

The likelihood of Europe taking this path is still extremely low, but the point of "nuclear options" like this is deterrence, and to embolden elite opposition to the rampant corruption of the Trump regime. 

With Trump aging day-by-day before our eyes and with his approval rate hitting 35% in some polls, we are already living in a post-Trump world.

The key point for Europe is to keep Trump locked in his trajectory of failure with American voters until the GOP can build up enough courage, moral outrage, or "informed" self interest to rein him in, or even depose him in an internal party coup. Needless to say, "informed" self interest will be the strongest motivator in any such development.

With most Republican politicians now extremely worried about their electoral prospects, the notion that any Trump-Putin "Crime n' Peace" deal could lead to economic chaos rather than opportunities, should embolden some of the cowards in the GOP to get off their well-worn knees long enough to stick a knife in Trump's bloated back. The European "debt bomb" plan is meant to give them a little extra courage.

As of December 2024, the United Kingdom holds an estimated $722.7 billion in US debt and the European Union member countries an estimated $1.62 trillion. This $2.34 trillion in debt is the whip hand that Europe has over America if it chooses to use it or just to threaten to do so.   

The bottom line here is that US elites have more to lose from deteriorating relations with Europe than improving relations with the Kremlin Crime State. They may need a little reminding of that point.

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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