It's important to name the ideology of Trump and Putin

A disaster for the UK Green Party. Even if you think Israel is engaged in colonial rule, military occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, war on civilians, and genocide on some definitions, it is a terrible idea to formally declare yourself an anti-Zionist party. Zionism can mean anything from murderous ultra-nationalism to the belief that Jews needed a state of their own. The big own goal here is not just with Jews critical of Israel, it is with serious people more broadly. A serious person will read this as consumerist pandering to consumerist identity politics posturing. The message becomes: perhaps the Greens are not a party for serious people.

Quick take on the Putin Kaliningrad threat - (1) The actual message is: I don't know if I will ever do a low-threshold challenge to Article 5 in the Baltics. I don't have such plans now. But if I were to do it, and you blockade Kaliningrad in response, I will nuke you (he won't). (2) While our recent over-panic about the Baltic scenario played into Putin's hands, and while the Baltics are well prepared, and while Putin's capacities are limited - Putin doesn't need a provocation in the Baltics to be a military success. He just needs it to generate a political crisis in the West. (3) Putin's regime is naturally disposed to political triangulation - the introduction of a third position into a conflict between two positions that is going badly. (4) Putin's regime experiences time - felt duration - differently. Politically revolutionary regimes operate on emergency time. A week or a month can be an eternity for them. This is not true of Western democracies. This fact reduces our confidence in being able to predict what the Putin regime will and will not do.

"Anyone can become angry - that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not easy. " The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle

Breakdown of Putin's latest Kaliningrad threat

The Real Reason Everything Feels Broken Right Now - what history teaches us about political frustration vladvexler.substack.com/p/th…

The Real Reason Everything Feels Broken Right Now - what history teaches us about political frustration Throughout history, people have lapsed from zones of safety to zones of ruinous danger. Often, with a frightening suddenness. And it is a version of normal for humans to be left stumbling as the world around them is transformed. In the recent history of my country, Britain, the First World War is perhaps the greatest example of such transformation. In Testament of Youth, Vera Brittain gives a feminist account of innocence smashed by catastrophe and loss. Vera lost her fiancé Ronald Leighton - killed in December 1915. She lost her brother and only sibling Edward - killed in June 1918. She lost two of her closest friends - Victor Richardson, who died of wounds in 1917, and Geoffrey Thurlow, killed in 1917. Immediately after the war at Oxford, Vera formed a magical friendship with Winifred Holtby, an upcoming writer five years her junior. Vera lost Winifred to "Brights Disease" in 1935, when Winifred was 37. Christ Church, where I was a graduate in the early 2000s, was one of 26 colleges and women's societies in 1914. During the First World War, it lost 238 men. Oxford's losses were astonishing - one a half times higher than the national average and in some cohorts many times higher. At Corpus Christi, of the 16 men who entered in 1916, 15 were killed. A death rate of 94%. Why did I just give you a microcosm of privilege collapsing into disaster? It's not because I want you to think that humans in the past endured much worse than us, and therefore, we should suck up our temper tantrum about how Trump and Putin are ruining the world. What I want to do instead is get you to think about what it feels like to get something from history which you didn't ask for. Our overwhelm about Western democratic decline is a case of wanting something from history and not being able to have it. That is to say, it is a case of human frustration. Frustration poses many dangers. So let's name two of the big ones. The first danger is giving up ON one's desire: the world is so screwed up that I don't want to want what I want anymore. You anaesthetise yourself, and let your desires retreat into the subconscious. The second danger is becoming very rigid about how you want to realise your desire: I want to avert democratic decline, but I only want to do it by going back to the "historical normal" of the recent past, 1989-2014, and I don't care if you tell me that's impossible. Now, you are giving up not on your desire, but on your desire being open-ended. With this second danger, a common type of self-talk is: the reason we lapsed from 1989-2014 is because IGNORANCE did it, or IMMORALITY did it, or malign foreign interference by Russia did it. This is a voluntarist and highly moralised description that obscures what you actually need to know about how you got here, and what you might actually do about it. So: how do we handle the dangers of unconstructive frustration? What you want to do is keep your desire, but loosen your picture of how it must be satisfied. That means you keep wanting what you want, but stay curious about reality. You keep wanting liberal democracy, institutional checks and balances, the failure of the monarchist "might is right" politics of Trump and Putin. But you don't turn that desire into a demand that history must satisfy it in the form you expected in the recent past. The fantasy here is: Trump disappears, politics normalises, the old centre returns, institutions behave like theY did before. The tragic element of the phantasy is that it guarantees that you don't get what you want. Being fixated on a recent past that cannot be brought back, you'll miss other forms of democratic renewal that do not resemble a return to the world you have lost. Not being able to get the politics you want, doesn't mean you give up on politics. That itself is a form of politics you don't want - it is a step in the direction of hyper-neoliberliasm, the Trumpist and Putinist idea which blends consumarism and raw power: I must be able to buy what I want, and if I can't buy it, I can take it by force. Instead, what you do is try to acknowledge that the political environment has changed - and allow yourself to be disappointed by that fact. Don't pretend that the loss isn't real. But do remain open about what can be done about it in the world as it is. That is to say, do not run away from frustration. And know, that this is not just part of being a good citizen, but part of leading a good life. In On Giving Up, Adam Phillips, the most articulate psychoanalyst in our culture, takes these issues beyond politics and further than I have done here.

VLAD REACTS: Peter Thiel says evil can be good youtube.com/watch?v=P0j5GZ5g…

The internet is wrong about Trump's "dementia" - here's what Nietzsche would say

Video link: youtu.be/OvcgZKmNdjw?si=gfq_…

How to Stay Hopeful in an Authoritarian Age An important message of hope on my main channel! Why authoritarian politics needs you powerless - and why you shouldn't give up!

Russia’s ruling putin party wins election.

Trump's approval level has now dropped to just 29% in the latest poll ... the lowest ever. Will it sink further, to match his low intelligence, low morals, and low levels of knowledge? We shall see.

In a recent New Statesman piece, Alexander Etkind predicts the end of Russia - and what will come after. In my latest main channel video, I respond to him.

If Russia collapses...how will the world react? (Vlad responds to Alexander Etkind). - MAIN CHANNEL VIDEO, link below.

This is hyper-neoliberalism! The marketisation of politics; blending consumerism and authoritarian power. Online entrepreneurs, Logan and Jake Paul, are merged with patriotism and state institutions.

Trump is not instructed by the Kremlin. Instead, he mirrors Kremlin talking points because: (a) he relies on Putin for narcissistic supply, elevating him into an idealised society of great leaders (b) he overlaps with Putin ideologically - both are might-is-right-monarchists

Putin is having an election - here is a 2 minute explainer on Putin's system of electoral monarchy and why it's - scarily - coming to us in the West

European politicians - if you do this in public, your conversations with Trump in private will go better, not worse.

Just reflecting on Carney’s speech. One of the top 5 skills a leader needs today is responsible nervous system leadership. Especially in an age in which authoritarian populists take people’s nervous systems to the cleaners for personal benefit. One way to ground people’s nervous systems is to ground them historically - by pointing out that their grandparents faced difficult challenges and got through. But you have to do it without sounding like a technocrat or a lecturer. On the whole, Carney did that at the start of the speech.