Europe is an enlightened flame in a dark and savage world. Stand up to protect our continent, our culture and our civilization!

It's over. Vucic has fallen.

Little more than 2 weeks before the US Midterms and Trump's talk of "rigged elections" to anticipate a possible loss seems fairly limited compared to his previous campaigns. I don't know if that should make us relieved or worried.

There are different levels of Kremlin-apologism across the West, and pro-Ukrainians as well as pro-Russians often make the mistake of lumping these together: 1. Public Russia-supporters: those who openly and unashamedly take Russia side in the war, want their own country to exit the EU and NATO and put the blame for Putin's invasion entirely on Ukraine and the West. These include several ultra-"nationalist" movements in Eastern European countries like Bulgaria's Revival Party, some eastern chapters of the AfD, far-left and communist groups and perhaps the conspiracist Dutch FvD could also be counted among them. This is the rarest group of Kremlin-apologists and they seem to be constantly shrinking, especially since Russia has hardly advanced on the battlefield in years. 2. Cryptic Russia-supporters: these are people who through their words and actions support Russia's war and propaganda efforts while never really openly admitting it. They often talk about just wanting "peace" or about rejecting "warmongers", and they might occassionally even halfheartedly condemn the invasion while at the same time they try to starve the victim of that invasion of the means to defend itself. This is a broad group that includes people like Orban when he was still in power, the mainstream AfD leadership, the far-left Die Linke, freaks like Varoufakis and maybe one should also include Melenchon and Fico, although both are not categorically against any form of military assistance/sales. Trump and Musk occassionally also fall within this group whenever they refocus their attention to the war. 3. Opportunists: people who openly condemn the invasion, support (conditional) aid to Ukraine and have little to no sympathy for the Putin regime, but who, at the same time, do not shy away from instrumentalising things like that aid and the sheltering of Ukrainian refugees, and promises to reduce those, for internal political gains and anti-establishment messaging. This is about the level where people like Marine Le Pen or Geert Wilders currently are. Farage might occassionally orbit close to this group, but perhaps it is not entirely fair to include him here as he has been pretty solidly pro-Ukraine in recently years. These categories are in no way monoliths and people often shift between them. AfD's Weidel, for example, was initally close to category 1, but has since then somewhat moderated her stance, while still being obviously in category 2. Melenchon is at the lower end of category 2 because he doesn't reject all military aid in all conditions, but by blaming Ukraine for high gas prices and ordering his party to demonstratively leave parliament when Zelensky came to talk, he is still more of a Kremlin-apologist than Le Pen. You might not agree with this exact classification and perhaps want to move some people or groups to other categories, but my main point here is that we should not paint all of them with the same brush because that would lead us to unwarranted pessimism as these people rise in the polls. There isn't an electoral "wave of support for the Kremlin" coming our way. Farage is not Die Linke and Le Pen is not AfD. These people and groups demonstrate various levels of Kremlin-apologism ranging from hardly at all to clearly wanting Putin to win the war of aggression that he started, and them coming to power will therefore have very different consequences for our support for Ukraine and our stance towards the Russian regime.

Many on the British right don't want to hear this, but Sadiq Khan is correct here. A majority of the British population supports rejoining the EU, and the left is already picking up this issue. On the right, only @cfdownes_ - to his credit - left the door open by suggesting that if the EU turns rightward then perhaps Britain should be part of it again. It's time for the British right to stop treating Brexit like some kind of epic victory for their side and face the truth. Leaving the EU has not just made Britain poorer, but also - Khan oddly enough failed to mention this - demographically less European, delivering the opposite squared of what it was meant to achieve. Moreover, Britain's foreign policy is now more reliant on the whims of either Washington or human rights lawyers, depending on whether the right or the left is in power, instead of deciding on issues together with its neighbours like before. Meanwhile, on issues that really matter like defense cooperation, Brexit seems to have had little impact as Britain simply keeps following the European line. As for the EU itself, the European centre-right has abandoned its long-held "firewall" against the nationalist right in Brussels, leading to the passing of a series of anti-immigration measures by the European Parliament that are stricter than those of many individual countries, including return hubs outside of Europe. Since EU elections work according to a proportional representation system unlike the UK's own "First-Past-the-Post", a rejoined Britain's MEP's would be overwhelmingly on the right, as they indeed were before the UK left the EU, and they would undoubtedly drag Brussels even more rightward. In short, a strong right-wing case can be made for Britain rejoining the EU, and I urge the British right - most likely to no avail - to start making that case. The left surely isn't waiting and is already making overtures to reverse Brexit, linking it to economic insecurity. The fact that the majority of people in Britain are against mass immigration in no way guarantees that this will always be the most important issue for them during elections. They might just as easily vote for someone who promises Rejoin. Combining those two positions would therefore be a solid electoral strategy, but I am afraid most of the British right isn't ready for this conversation yet.

All those Eastern European populists who hire and fly in the international right-wing griftosphere to shill for them are actually doing the opposite of what they claim. Instead of representing their own culture, they are symbolically contesting its uniqueness by reducing everything to a vague, global, americanised, quasi-Trumpian struggle "against the left" or "for christian values."

Given the fact a single human being like Putin has the power to cause a global apocalypse with the push of a button, perhaps AI has a point.

Like, Greta Thunberg didn't show up in Paris wearing a Palestine-scarf to join the protests because she deeply cares about the French school system, but because she saw videos of leftists and third worlders with Palestinian flags tearing the city apart.

The problem with the French student protests is that they are simultaneously a response to a legitimate concrete social issue and an outlet for much larger political and ethnic tensions. And unless you personally have to deal with the French education system, it is very hard to not view the protests through the lense of those tensions. This counts for both supporters and opponents of the protests. For many leftists, this isn't just a rally for better school funding, but a fight against "the system" at large, against the right, against racism or even against Israel, while for right-wing counter-protesters this isn't just about maintaining order, but a fight against, what they view as, traitors and invaders.

We support the patriot-side, but it has to be said that these are ugly and ominous scenes that truly begin to resemble an actual civil conflict.

It is a different situation only in the sense that it a much larger war of aggression, is fought mostly on the ground and takes place in Europe. Reluctantly condemning Russia's attack means nothing if you are fighting tooth and nail, and are even willing to cooperate with the far-left BSW, to starve the victim of that attack of aid. The rest of the AfD should take an example of @ogschrammi who understands where the sympathy of patriotic Europeans should lie in this war.

Now apply the same logic to Russia invading Ukraine.

Remember the day after Trump's first inauguration when he ordered his press secretary to proclaim that "these were the largest crowds of any inauguration in history, period"? That should have told you all you need to know about his bottomless narcissism.

Israel is run by a bunch of hothead idiots who keep squandering the credit they have painstakingly built over the decades. They look at a country like the UK where there is a large section of people who are sympathetic to Israel and they decide to support a ridiculous territorial claim on British territory by Argentina - which stupidly started and lost a war over it - just because the Israel-critical British left is currently in govt, thus alienating much of the British right.