World War III Mind Games
Convicted felon Donald Trump got booed at an NFL game after our euphoric election. So the elites in Congress hit the panic button. This is World War III in America: oligarchy, Big Tech, and Democratic Senators obeying in advance.
Here to help us get back on track is Evgeny Finkel, a historian at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and the author of Intent to Destroy: Russia’s Two-Hundred-Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine and other works on the anatomy of evil. He shares his advice for building an opposition to fascism in the U.S. and what he fears more than a MAGA dictatorship–a civil war.
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Show Notes:
Intent to Destroy Russia’s Two-Hundred-Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/eugene-finkel/intent-to-destroy/9781541604674/
Why We Must Inherit the Third American Revolution https://avantjournal.com/2024/04/08/why-we-must-inherit-the-third-american-revolution/
CLIP: Trump getting booed at an NFL game in Maryland: https://bsky.app/profile/acyn.bsky.social/post/3m5a7te2sva2q
CLIP: https://bsky.app/profile/thetnholler.bsky.social/post/3m4y34obdzk2o
CLIP: Sen. Angus King: "Standing up to Donald Trump didn't work" https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3m5bqhe6mrx26
CLIP: Q: Will you assure House Democrats they'll get a vote on ACA subsidies by a date certain? MIKE JOHNSON: Ah -- no. I'm not promising anyone anything. https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3m4xvxwbikg2h
CLIP: George Carlin – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhqPHQcVeH0
Democrat Aftyn Behn’s Chances of Winning GOP Tennessee House Seat—Polls https://www.newsweek.com/democrat-aftyn-behns-chances-of-winning-gop-tennessee-house-seat-polls-11024292
Aftyn Behn (D), Matt Van Epps (R), and four independent candidates are running in the special election for Tennessee's 7th Congressional District https://news.ballotpedia.org/2025/11/06/aftyn-behn-d-matt-van-epps-r-and-four-independent-candidates-are-running-in-the-special-election-for-tennessees-7th-congressional-district/
8 Senators Break Ranks With Democrats and Advance G.O.P. Plan to End Shutdown Two of them are retiring, and none of the others face re-election in 2026. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/us/politics/senators-democrat-shutdown-vote.html
Gil Duran: “In 2022, Peter Thiel protégé Balaji Srinivasan—formerly of Andreessen Horowitz and Coinbase—envisioned a Second American Civil War. He predicted it would be triggered by Bitcoin. This is how it would work” https://bsky.app/profile/gilduran.com/post/3m5decrbsv22n
NEWS: The UK is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. https://bsky.app/profile/natashabertrand.bsky.social/post/3m5efzunquc2n
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Donald Trump (00:02):
And state your name, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the constitution of the United States.
Andrea Chalupa (00:29):
Our opening clip was convicted felon Donald Trump getting booed out of Washington Commander's Detroit Lions NFL game in Maryland. Welcome to Gaslit Nation. I am your host, Andrea Chalupa, a journalist and filmmaker and the writer and producer of the journalistic thriller, Mr. Jones, about Stalin's genocide famine in Ukraine. The film the Kremlin doesn't want you to see, so be sure to watch it. And this is Gaslit Nation, a show about corruption in America and rising autocracy worldwide.
(00:58):
We are the first and your leading news source for winning World War III. Only this time we are defeating the Nazis on US soil and -- plot twist -- just like the Russians launched World War I with the Nazis, they launched World War III. Only this time, they're not switching sides. Like World War I and World War II, those were each marked by major changes in warfare technology. World War III is a war of fascist-backed big tech hacking minds.
(01:38):
We see this and they brag about it. Gil Duran of the essential Nerd Reich newsletter and the recent guest for his number two appearance on the show shared this quote by Peter Thiel protege Balaji Srinivasan: "It's a mistake to think a second American civil war would look anything like the first civil war or like World War II for that matter. It'd be nothing like the movies with huge movements of uniformed soldiers, tanks and planes. Instead, it'll just be a continuation and escalation of what we've seen over the last several years. A network to network war to control minds rather than state-to-state war to control territory."
(02:31):
Yeah, that's what I've been saying. The fascists are saying it and I've been calling this for years, years even before launching Gaslit Nation. That's why I had to launch Gaslit Nation. We've been in World War III for a while.
(02:47):
As a security expert in Kiev back in say, I think it was summer 2015, this British security expert who had been on one of the last planes. He claims it was the last plane to get the hell out of Iraq when ISIS was taking over. He was in Kiev, we're chatting and he said World War III is already started. The West just doesn't know it yet. And that is what helped get Donald Trump elected in 2016.
(03:14):
Many people out there are acting like the world will go back to normal. If we only defeat Trump, we'll get our country back. But that is not how this works. The fascist virus has been awakened thanks to deeply funded social media bots and influence networks. We all saw Benny Johnson temple getting hundreds of thousands of dollars from Kremlin cutouts and of course complicit social media companies like Apple, Meta, all of them. The culture wars are now heating up in the UK with the same engine behind them.
(03:47):
This is what tipped the very close Brexit vote with militarized propaganda tech Cambridge Analytica. And they're doing all this again, ramping it up to take back Great Britain for Putin-loving Nigel Farage. And that's even after all the destruction that Nigel Farage- and Putin-backed Brexit has caused for the British people and for Europe. So as badly as the Brits have been hurt by their very own Brexit vote and from the mind hacking that went into tipping that extremely close election, Nigel Farage is making a comeback in the UK. That's the power of the mind hacking we are up against in World War III. And it comes of course with political violence. Havana Syndrome injured around 1000 men and women who served in the C-I-A-F-B-I and other government related groups and their families. And then of course MAGA mass shooters. The political violence crisis is concretely coming from the far right that has been the warning of experts who study the data and including our own FBI during the rise of Trump with Birtherism, which the first black first lady said put a target on her head and her family.
(05:09):
Now speaking of the UK, the British government said that it will no longer share intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking in the Caribbean because Trump and crackhead Ken Pete Hegseth are sadistically mass murdering boats in the Caribbean and that is illegal and the British do not want to be complicit in mass murder and that is a British government currently under labor. But that policy of course could change if Putin fanboy Nigel Farage gets his British MAGA party back in power. So yes, everything looks very grim, but like World War II in this World War III, Antifa will win. How do we know that? Because when we study the memoirs, the interviews, the documentation of the resistance, large and small to the Nazis, people said again and again, I don't know what came out of me. I just had something in me that rose up and met the moment. We defeated the Nazis because regular people found a superpower in them to fight for life.
(06:19):
The armies of life, which are Antifa will defeat the armies of death, which is the fascist whatever you want to call them, America First, MAGA, Nazis, Soviets, Mussolini, whatever label you want to put on it is the armies of death and life will win. Life always wins. Just look at evolution. Life is extremely stubborn. Okay, so we're going to win this one. Alright, and speaking of winning, remember the euphoria we all it bathed in collectively from election day just a week ago from sea to shining, shining sea, we dominated Mississippi, we dominated. The blue tsunami showed up. So what does the Senate do in response? What it was designed to do The Senate panicked. Senators including eight Democrats and that includes one independent who votes with Democrats and their corporate donors panicked. They pushed the panic button this past weekend pushing through a weak deal for the American people giving in once again to Trump's fascist oligarchy.
(07:22):
The system was designed this way. The Senate deal this past weekend is not a flaw. It is by design. The Senate and electoral college ensured the people would be ruled by the elites, the land owning class. The progress we enjoy today was hard fought people put their lives on the lines that women could vote so that black people could vote so that Native Americans could get some rights and recognition. This isn't me of being woke, this is American history. There is a reason why it's not taught in schools and why they're attacking universities because college campuses are where young people finally learn about the people's history of the United States. Once they learn, they want to build a better system to create a freer and fairer world for all maga, the foot soldiers of the oligarchs attack our schools because ignorance is slavery. Some of you out there might be thinking, well, the Democrats had to make a deal. Airplanes were about to fall from the sky and don't worry, they'll get their vote for Obamacare and force Republicans to be on the record ripping away healthcare for millions of people and we can fight again in January when another budget battle will be looming. But here's the thing, Republicans can't be trusted to bring a vote, certainly not in the house. Here's MAGA Nazi house speaker Mike Johnson.
Mike Johnson (08:50):
I'm not promising anybody anything. I'm going to let this process play out. I'll tell you what they wanted. I'll tell you what Schumer and Jeffries wanted. In fact, Chuck Schumer said it publicly and decried that Thune and I would not go in a back room with them and make a four corners agreement on Obamacare subsidies. And I said there's no way. that it was never possible or appropriate.
Andrea Chalupa (09:07):
Now there is some good news. Adelita Grijalva, the Democrat elected congresswoman in Arizona will finally be sworn in, seven weeks late. But is it too late? Obviously MAGA is desperate to make a deal with Democrats to make the Epstein files go away. MAGA will try to trade that Obamacare vote in exchange for never bringing an Epstein vote. And if that doesn't work, they're counting on a big race in Tennessee between Republican Matt Van Epps and superstar state rep Aftyn Benh, the Tennessee Holler recently confronted Van Epps at the airport.
Reporter (09:52):
Matt. Funny running into you here, Matt. How are you?
Matt Vann Epps (09:54):
How are you? How are you?
Reporter (09:56):
I'm good. How are you? So Aftyn was on with us yesterday and she said that Speaker Johnson is waiting for you to get there so you can cancel out Adelita Grijalva's vote on the Epstein files. What do you think about that? Does that sound right to you? Do you think that's Speaker Johnson's plan. Why was it so hard for you to answer the Epstein Powells question, Matt? Is that why they put $2 million into your race so that you would go there and help cover up the Epstein files? This is a simple question. You said you're for transparency. Why not just be strong about that, Matt? Why do you have to hem and haw so much? Do you think that's the plan, Matt, to get you up there to cancel out at Adelita Grijalva?
Andrea Chalupa (10:43):
That's how MAGA plans to block an Epstein vote. So even with Grijalva in Congress, the big Tennessee race on December 2nd could give MAGA the votes they need to block the Epstein files. Mike Johnson could swear in Van Epps a day after he wins his special election. That is if he wins. So if you want those Epstein files, which are just the tip of the iceberg of alleged pedophile, Trump's 15 year friendship and alleged crime spree with confirmed pedophile Jeffrey Epstein do everything in your power to help Aftyn Benh win the special election in Tennessee on December 2nd. Make phone calls, send text messages, raise hell on social media. That is an election we have to win. The big picture is this, 250 years ago America was born with some seriously dangerous compromises like protecting slavery as the British empire was. In the process of phasing it out, the first American Revolution defeated the biggest empire in the world.
(11:50):
The Second American Revolution ended slavery with the Civil War. The Third American Revolution established civil rights and defeated Jim Crow. America is long overdue for a fourth revolution to end the oligarchy and prevent the next Trump. We need to bring back reconstruction and finally see it through this time. We need Nuremberg trials for the many crimes against humanity carried out with our tax dollars by Trump's ICE Gestapo. Those dreams for our country are the same dreams of Martin Luther King Jr. and civil rights of all the community organizers who came before us and fought hard for the progress many take for granted today. That is why the betrayal of the eight Democrats including that one independent, but that block of eight in the Senate that betrayal is inexcusable. America needs bold, tough backbone leadership to fight for the dreams of a more perfect union. We will not get a fourth American Revolution reconstruction and Berg trials without moral force. What we witnessed of those eight and of course the others who secretly encouraged them was a criminal lack of courage and imagination. It was simply inexcusable. Here are their names, the independent Senator Angus King of Maine who gaslit Americans by saying that it's impossible to stand up to Trump. Here's the clip.
Angus King (13:13):
Well, Joe, you have to go back to what the strategy was at the beginning of the shutdown. There were two goals, both of which I support. One was standing up to Donald Trump. The other was getting some resolution on the ACA premium tax credit issue. The problem was the shutdown wasn't accomplishing either goals and there was practically, well there was zero likelihood that it was going to. In terms of standing up to Donald Trump, the shutdown actually gave him more power. Exhibit A being what he's done with snap and snap benefits across the country. Oh, by the way, Joe, you're going to love this. Guess who's getting paid during the shutdown? Not the park rangers or air traffic controllers, the ICE agents under special law under that big awful bill that they passed last summer. The ICE agents are being paid. Nobody else is. So standing up to Donald Trump didn't work. It actually gave him more power.
Andrea Chalupa (14:10):
And the others include Senator Tim Kane of Virginia, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, who's retiring. Senator John Federman of Pennsylvania. Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire. Senator Jean Shaheen of New Hampshire who's retiring. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Senator Jackie Rosen of Nevada. Again, two senators are retiring and the rest don't face reelection in 2026. And that's why the Democratic Party establishment led by Chuck Schumer had them be the ones to take this vote. Do I want Schumer to resign as senate leader? Yes. Do I want the Senate to be abolished because it was designed to protect the including elite criminal impunity like slavery? Yes, is Congress George Carlin's big club and you and I are not in it? Yes.
George Carlin (15:02):
They don't want people who were smart enough to sit around the kitchen table to figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don't want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers, obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours the reduce benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it and now they're coming for your social security money. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something, they'll get it. They'll get it all from you sooner or later because they own this fucking place. It's a big club and you ain't in it.
Andrea Chalupa (15:49):
Just look at progressive Congressman Ro Khanna of California. He's the first member of Congress to call for Schumer to resign as leader. But guess what? Ro Khanna invested in Peter Thiel's Palantir, a big tech big brother that's currently embedding itself across our government in a massive surveillance state to map Americans. So what's the solution? It's not like ... we need to trust somebody, we need to have some people in power who are actually fighting for us. The solution is us. The solution is the people. The people are the ones who have agency here. Just ask Ukrainians and if you want to fight like hell and usher in the fourth American revolution, go to the gaslit nation action guide@gaslitnationpod.com. That is your roadmap on where to start. At the Gaslit Nation action guide, we list actions large and small that you can do wherever you are in the world to chip in because it is going to take all of us to fight for a better world because a better world is possible.
(17:02):
We know this. We are standing on the shoulders of giants who've been here before and now it is our turn. Like all those Antifa before us, we have something in us and is mad as hell. We're in this very fight for our lives together for the future, for each other. And remember, believe your eyes and your ears. That is how we get through it to help us get through it. We have a special historian on the show who's an expert on some of the darkest chapters in American history, including the Holocaust and Russia's 200 year quest to conquer Ukraine, which will never happen. He fears something greater than a MAGA dictatorship -- and that's an American civil war.
(17:39):
On this show, we're joined by Eugene Finkel, a professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University's school of advanced international studies, author of three acclaimed books including Intent to Destroy: Russia's 200 Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine and a contributor to outlets like the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Foreign Affairs. Finkle brings deep insight shaped by a global life. Born in Aviv, Ukraine, now based in Bologna, Italy. We are so honored to get his perspective here on Gaslit Nation. Thank you for joining us.
Eugene Finkel (18:19):
Thanks for having me.
Andrea Chalupa (18:20):
Alright, so one thing I keep telling myself to stay grounded in the chaos here in the US is that all the comparisons between Trump and Hitler, Trump and Mussolini, Germany and Italy and Austria, those were countries that were devastated by the Great War, which saw millions of bodies all across Europe. Europe was just a mass grave. People were deeply traumatized. The economy was in ruins, and so this was a level of carnage that history rarely sees on this scale. And you had advancements in technologies, killing machines and so on. So massive dystopian trauma for Europe out of this Hellscape crawl, these demons, obviously Hitler, Mussolini, and it was like the temperature was just right for them. Where in the United States, Americans are used to a certain type of customer service, if you will, and a certain type of lifestyle. We as a nation spend countless millions of dollars on Halloween costumes for our pets. So it seems unimaginable that we're going to get a madman dictator on that scale. And certainly the elections we just had were just a massive euphoria of like, no thank you. We don't want project 2025. We do not want a dictatorship here. What do you see as a historian as well as somebody who comes from a family of Holocaust survivors, what do you see in terms of the conditions here in the US for an actual dictatorship to take hold in this moment?
Eugene Finkel (20:00):
Right, so you know I'm in this weird position where I am an American and I work for a US university, but I live in Europe, so I'm looking at both as an insider, as an outsider, but what do I see? I mean, again, speaking like an expat I mostly try to make sense of what exactly is going on in the US and just by reading the news on the one side you mentioned all those Halloween parties and costumes. On the other hand, I used to live in Washington DC area, which is essentially and the military occupation right now. And we see, I see ICE and CBP and other federal agencies going out through Chicago and other places arresting people. So right now I think I see a lot of chaos and a lot of just trying to understand where things going. And you're right, it can go in very different directions. Some of that will be correction of the stuff that the current administration is doing, but it can also easily get much worse and much more violence and much more violent and much autocratic as we go.
Andrea Chalupa (21:15):
A Russian friend in 2016 said, oh, you're not going to be Russia. You've got stronger institutions. I'm like, are you sure about that? Because these institutions let Trump a corrupt career criminal with all of this backing over the decades from dirty Russian money certainly being lauded to his properties. Are you sure about that? Our intelligence community, the deep state, if it existed, it would've stopped him. What are your thoughts on that?
Eugene Finkel (21:38):
If the deep state existed, then it now would be probably the time to show that they exist, but more seriously. So I heard that in 2016 and in the lead up to the last election in the US that somehow institutions are going to save us or there are guardrails and the system is much stronger than that and apparently it's not. I used to say everyone that if you think that institutions alone are going to save us, no they are not. Institutions are people, and whatever people do in those institutions is exactly what going to happen. And right now we do see quite a lot of people in the administration hellbent on breaking those institutions. So no, I do not think that stuff that is on paper or even in law even as norms is going to save the democracy. If anything, those only the US citizens who can save the US democracy if it comes to saving the democracy in the US.
Andrea Chalupa (22:40):
Based on your years of research, what would that look like? Americans saving our own democracy.
Eugene Finkel (22:48):
Well, let's start with voting. With voting and elections. There were elections last week there midterms coming up, not taking stuff for granted. When politicians tell them that things are fine or they're go, or it's going to be okay actually also believing politicians when they say that they're going to do some pretty horrible stuff and not dismissing it. When they're telling us that they're going to wreck those institutions or deport millions and millions of people on destroy things, yeah, they probably mean it and we shouldn't be dismissing them and saying, no, they're just too cynical, too strategic, too crazy. We actually had this experience with Putin for instance, when he told us quite openly what he's going to do and what he believed in and all the community of Russia experts and all the foreign foreign affairs people said, no, he's actually, he doesn't really mean it. He's just a coercive diplomacy. He's too cynical for that. He's too concerned with his money and the act he's not going to do. But apparently if the lesson is, then we should believe people when they tell us what they're going to do.
Andrea Chalupa (24:02):
Yeah, Hitler wrote it all down in Mein Kampf.
Eugene Finkel (24:05):
We are definitely not anywhere near that yet. But yeah, I think we should take politicians at their word and if they tell us we're going to rack those institutions and change some stuff, yeah, probably they will.
Andrea Chalupa (24:17):
When a dictator is rising, there's always an opposition party and there's always elites within those opposition parties who can't make up their minds on which side of history they want to be on. And that's of course what Aran said. It's like what it comes down to is just most people do not make up their minds to be good or evil and they just think that history is something that's done to them. Life is just done to them instead of the fact that they themselves as an individual have agency. How would you describe the Democratic party establishment? We just saw this sudden Senate deal that was pushed through by a group of democratic party moderates in the Senate who don't need to face the American voters again because they're either retiring or they don't have an election for a very long time. The American people, especially the voters who delivered such a historic election last week, are stunned and they feel betrayed because Trump is getting booed, his approvals are tanking.
(25:13):
The election last week was a mandate on Trump and Trumpism, and that should have been wind in the sails of the Democrats to stand strong in this government shutdown. But instead you have Democrats caving. It's hard for people to understand that these dictators don't just rise because they're a seductive alternative or they're just so scary that people just get out of their way. There's also opposition that pre surrenders, that obeys in advance or is morally bankrupt or financially bought off in some way. What's the sort of historical context of how you would see the Democratic party establishment reacting to Trump today.
Eugene Finkel (25:48):
Comes from not taking the other side seriously. Exactly the things I was talking about. We answering your last question. So believing that the rules of the game remain the same even when they change caving came in exchange for some vague promise for some vote down the line, very unlikely to ever come. It's not just moral corruption. Quite all of those people just well meaning can simply cannot grasp the history they're living. There is also another process that's going on and that's believing that by small compromising this or by playing by the rules or by staying within the system rather than walking out, they can well maybe do some good stuff on the margins or prevent worse really bad things from happening. And it accumulates to a point where the line is crossed and there are no good things to do and the worst things are already here. And I think quite a lot of that actually is happening within the Democratic party right now. This belief that the rules of the game remain the same when the other side tells us what they want to do, they don't really mean it. That the big cynical or strategic and just the sport of small compromises and delivering on margins without recognizing that it's the entire nature of the game that's at play right here.
Andrea Chalupa (27:13):
Exactly right. And it's that normalcy bias, that desperation to believe in business as usual, which obviously undermines our institutions. It's not just that I hate this sort of simplistic conspiracy theory that both parties are in some Superman villain ice cave together plotting to take over the world and we're all just pawns in their game. It really does come down to people just being that stupid, just not taking history seriously.
Eugene Finkel (27:43):
Yeah, no, I don't believe there are grand conspiracies here and it's actually, it's not stupid. Those senators are not idiots. It's more trying to do the good thing on the margins or just being used to working in a certain way and refusing to accept that the rules have changed and it's not just the US thing. We see similar stuff going on pretty much everywhere. The US is not, the American democracy is not immune to the problems that plague democracies everywhere else. We are not unique.
Andrea Chalupa (28:21):
What is a way to get through this? If you were to sit in a room with a democratic party establishment like Hakeem Jeffries, senate majority leader Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, let's say replacing Schumer, if you were to be in a room with all of them as a historian, what would you advise?
Eugene Finkel (28:41):
The easy thing to advise is just wake the hell up. Shake off your preexisting beliefs when in a new horrible position to be a democratic politician right now, so many is happening and the zone is being totally flooded and you don't know what to respond to deliberately. Yes, absolutely. And I sympathize with their situation. The problem is that they're still sleeping. So just wake up, smell the coffee and do something,
Andrea Chalupa (29:05):
Smell the fascism.
Eugene Finkel (29:06):
Also, you smell everything that's burning. And quite a lot of things are burning.
Andrea Chalupa (29:10):
Right, you can't play with the rule book when the rule book's on fire. In your view, what is the worst case scenario for America right now? How do you see that? Because in all the years of research you've done, it's like in your DNA, in your muscle memory. I get flashes, I get flashes. So what are the flashes that you get in terms of our worst case scenario?
Eugene Finkel (29:28):
I do bad things that happen to good people for a living. So there are many very bad scenarios I can out outline and honestly, autocracy wouldn't be the worst one. So it can easily, with the polarization and the violences going on the street, I can easily see it escalating at some point into a civil war. It's not in the realm of the impossible. It can happen. Some sort of a secessionist movement or California or Chicago something, or even Texas declaring that they don't want to play this game anymore and declaring independence. So trying to break the unit. It's also a possibility. I mean, we have seen it before. It's not something that I'm completely making up. The US have lived for that and it certainly can happen. So on the grand scheme of things, I think autocracy is not the worst thing that can happen to the US. Not that it's a good scenario, but I think we should be seriously thinking about much worse things happening.
Andrea Chalupa (30:26):
A civil war. I agree.
Eugene Finkel (30:28):
A civil war. Yeah, absolutely.
Andrea Chalupa (30:29):
And not only the many millions of people who will die in a civil war, but also think about what that's going to do to our property value, guys. Let's not do it. Let's not go to war.
Eugene Finkel (30:38):
Well, yeah, although if you are dead or displaced, then you probably don't care that much about the property values. And again, it's not that I like this scenario, I'm paid to think about bad things that might happen down the line and the possibility is small, but it can happen. It has happened before. So we should definitely keep that in mind when we think about the future.
Andrea Chalupa (31:04):
Yeah, there was a Russian political scientist who predicted that the Soviet Union would collapse and then he predicted that the United States would break apart even if the midterms are euphoric and it's a repeat of the victories across the country that we saw last week, there's still this horrible tendency in the US to swing back and forth. So every election is a SmackDown against the incumbents, whichever party's in power. What do you see in terms of this swinging? How do you see that potentially stopping?
Eugene Finkel (31:37):
Oh, of course it's not that elections might go in either direction, but the polarization and the cleavages and the divisions are not going to go anywhere and the crazy fringes of both the left and right are not going to go away. Though right now I'm actually much more concerned about people like Nick Fuentes than the Antifa or whatever they might be. They're not going to disappear. So...
Andrea Chalupa (32:05):
No, Antifa is a safe zone here. Antifa stormed the beaches of Normandy, we're okay with Antifa. It's the nihilists on the left who were telling us for years that there's no war in Russia. It is a proxy war by the CIA and all of those tankies. That's the left that I can't stand, the saboteurs, the hope police, as I call them, anytime we get any sort of victory, they have to find a way to sabotage it with their nihilism. Anyways, but go on.
Eugene Finkel (32:35):
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean they're not that different from the Tucker and the Nick Fuentes of the world. I think they would be perfectly fine sitting together in a bars or in the administration for that matter.
Andrea Chalupa (32:47):
So I want to ask about international law accountability, rebuilding from the ashes you and I connected over social media. We were among the early ones in 2022 saying, you know what, this looks like genocide, what Russia's doing against Ukraine. And there were people screaming at us randomly, passively watching this war going, this can't be genocide because it doesn't matter. I'm like the Russian state TV is telling us it's genocide. And obviously you had the think tank elites who promised us that he would be conquered in three days and just give up zelensky, get out. It's very clearly genocide over there. And so I wanted to ask you about forcing any sort of accountability for Russia's genocide and also for Gaza as well, and what's happening in Sudan. Why do you see us living in this age of genocides and how do we force accountability in order to finally say never again?
Eugene Finkel (33:44):
Right. So unfortunately I don't have any good news here. And when I started talking about genocide when it applies to Ukraine in 2022, it was because first analytic, I believe that it is genocidal. And since then, the Russian State TV and Russian politicians only reinforce those perceptions both by rhetoric and actions, but I also believe that those labels actually mean something. So for me, when President Biden came out and said, yes, it's a genocide, I expected that something would change, that weapons will start flowing or that will have some meaningful policy change or as you said, accountability. And unfortunately I don't believe it anymore. And I think that all those debates about Gaza and Sudan that had driven not just by trying to understand what's happened, but by a policy hope that if we just use the G word, then something will change, will change on the ground.
(34:46):
I think they failed to catch up to this new reality that those labels actually not that meaningful. So it doesn't mean that I lost hope or that there will be no accountability, but I think that we need to rethink what it means and where it comes from. ICC is not going to do the job for us neither when it comes to Putin. I mean he's still in power and he's still able to travel all with Netanyahu, all with other bad actors. So the hope that there is the Hague is going to solve our problem, unfortunately they won't. What can solve the problem is internally. So I think that for Russia to get out of this war and truly rebuild itself, those people need to be on trial in Russia proper. And the same goes for Israel, and the same goes the same goes for Sudan. And we just need to insist that by we, I mean the US European powers that those countries actually followed through on that. Stop doing business as usual with people like Putin or Netanyahu.
Andrea Chalupa (36:06):
I thought it was really interesting what you said in an interview where Putin looked to the US and Israel and pointed out their moral inconsistency where the US was staunchly on the side of the war criminal Netanyahu, but then against the war criminal in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And he was playing up that moral inconsistency and saying, see, the US just has a cynical agenda in Ukraine. Ukraine is just a pawn in their game.
Eugene Finkel (36:33):
No, of course there is cynicism and politics is cynical, and the belief that some people have that the international humanitarian law or human rights simply just fall upon us from the sky and suddenly become policies. That's just not how politics is. And that's why if we want to see those people on trial, no matter where there we need to start domestically and changing our behavior and our own policies. But politics unfortunately will always be driven by interest, but it doesn't mean that we should completely subvert our interest to criminals.
Andrea Chalupa (37:19):
How would you advise us to start now documenting Trumps crimes against humanity? People are getting kidnapped off the street by ICE. We don't even know if they, federal agents are not. I mean, anyone can dress today as a federal agent kidnap someone off the street and they're getting sent to countries that they're not even from into prison systems where just the human rights record is abysmal. These seem like right cases to be documented. Obviously as you said, there is a role for the international community. The ICC exists for a reason, but the pressure has to come internally. What would you advise Americans to do to force some accountability here at home? Because everything we're seeing very much feels like the rise of authoritarianism. If we don't document it, expose it and force some sort of legal action and consequences to stop.
Eugene Finkel (38:06):
ICE and what they do, from what I see does seem to be quite well documented. The question is what is being done with that documentation and what follows whether there are investigations, so prosecution, so some legal accountability by state or local level authorities by those actions. So I'm actually among what the current administration does, I'm less concerned about documenting the ICE actions than what is going on with those boats in the Caribbean with it being bombed for absolutely no reason for what we see or absolutely no legal justification. And it's a kind of fleet black all, well, we don't really know how many of them been blown out until the Department of Defense or Department of War says so until we see some evidence. That's when it comes to international accountability and just lack of evidence is what I see a much bigger, much bigger challenge. That's why journalists and human rights organizations need to be focusing on because on the streets of Chicago and Washington, there are other ways to document it. When we're talking about documentation, the Caribbean is something that I'm much more concerned about.
Andrea Chalupa (39:29):
It's harder to document because
Eugene Finkel (39:30):
Absolutely, yeah.
Andrea Chalupa (39:30):
who's out there. So the resistance to Trump, again is global because we need to build bridges with any groups on the ground there that have any chance of filming what's happening. And what's dangerous about this lawless mass murdering, which is what the US military is doing, is that it is a recruitment tool. It attracts people that want to do that, that are attracted to that violence. And so their numbers strengthen. And so the people that don't want that, they resign as one of the military leaders did in that operation. And so what you're stuck with is a bunch of sadists at the command and it gets harder to get them out of power. The urgency is very real. I want to ask you about this big progressive shift We've seen in many parts of the country, certainly New York City electing its first democratic socialist mayor.
(40:14):
One thing we've seen across the progressive movement, not all of them, of course, there is an isolationism there. This feeling of any involvement anywhere around the world is automatically George w Bush's invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. Those were very traumatic conflicts. They were driven by literally lies. Media complacency, media propaganda. Everyone was buying George w Bush's talking points. And so as a result, you do have this resistance movement with a strong movement within it. Poor isolationism. And that includes blaming the victim, blaming Ukraine for its own invasion, saying, well, there's fascists in Ukraine, and so on and so on. We've already put you in a room with the establishment Democrats. If you were to be in a room with the progressives who are driving a lot of the change we desperately need in America, but then also have a blind spot when it comes to foreign policy, what would you say to them?
Eugene Finkel (41:01):
From what I see from the outside, this non-interventional or isolationist would, is there probably with the exception of Israel-Palestine where it does not exist. So I'm waiting to see at least some student population around Sudan. I'm old enough to have seen it happening in the US not that long ago when college students were all about therefore, and now nobody cares about. Therefore, no matter how many people die, including in places that are connected directly to UAE that funds this genocide, I'm pretty angry about this blind spot among the US left who know how to mobilize around Gaza and around Palestine, but not every other parts of the world. So my message would be, first the word is you can do both. You don't have to pick and choose. And if you really care about human rights, then human rights are everywhere and for everyone. And if you don't care about them elsewhere, then eventually they will come after you and you will have to deal with them at home. And at that point it might be already too late.
Andrea Chalupa (42:13):
Our discussion continues and you can get access to that by signing up at the Truth Teller level or higher on Patreon. Discounted annual memberships are available and you can give the gift of membership bonus shows invites to exclusive events. Get all shows ad free and more at patreon.com/gaslight. That's patreon.com/gaslight. Thank you to everyone who supports the show.
(42:36):
To help Ukraine with urgently needed humanitarian aid. Join me in donating to razomfor ukraine@romforukraine.org to support refugees in conflict zones donate to Doctors Without borders@doctorswithoutborders.org and to protect critically endangered orangutans already under pressure from the palm oil industry donate to the Orangutan project@theorangutanproject.org.
(43:03):
Gaslit Nation is produced by Andrea Chalupa. Our associate producer is Karlyn Daigle, and our founding production manager is Nicholas Torres. If you like what we do, leave us a review on iTunes. It helps us reach more listeners. Original music and Gaslit Nation is composed by David Whitehead, Martin Berg, Nick Barr, Damian Ariaga, and Karlyn Daigle. Our logo design was generously donated to us by Hamish Smyth of the Design Firm order. Thank you so much, Hamish.
(43:32):
Gaslit Nation would like to thank our supporters at the producer level on Patreon and Higher Ice Bear is Defiant. Li Wachowski, Ruth Ann Harish, Todd Dan Milo, and Cubby Ann Bertino. David East, Diana Gallagher, DL Springfield, Janz Ra Rasson, James D. Leonard, j Bardo, Joe Darcy, John Schoenthal, Katie Urus, Kevin Gannon, Kristen Custer, Larry Gusan. Leah Campbell. Marcus j Trent. Mark. Mark, Nicole Spear. Randall Brewer, Sherry Escobar, Ellen McGirt, Carol Goad. Tanya Chalupa. Work for Better Prep for Trouble. Thank you all for your support of the show. We could not make Gaslit Nation without you.