In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American social media personality, conspiracy theorist and neo-Nazi, Angelo John Gage AKA Lucas Gage (@Lucas_Gage_). He's best-known for his rabid antisemitism, support for white nationalism, and his anti-Ukrainian statements on X.
1/16
In 2015, Gage was chairman of the National Youth Front (NYF), a far-right organization that's goal, according to Gage was "declaring our freedom from this oppressive, anti-white, globalist government that has been slowly subverting our country since the 1960's."
2/16
In 2016, Angelo started creating racist videos on YouTube, discussing topics such as "anti-racist is a code word for anti-white", "diversity is white genocide" and making videos with titles like "Make Whites Great Again".
3/16
As a clout chaser & opportunist,he soon realized that white supremacy is a losing strategy & after Trump's victory moved on to "ethno-nationalism" and populism. Ironically, he then stated that he's going to "get away from this internet bull****" and get into local politics.
4/16
He admired Trump's way to "attract broad support from Americans through a simple, hard-hitting and emotionally appealing style," and tried to distance himself from racist and antisemitic views as he realized that it would prevent him from getting political power.
5/16
In 2020, he published a blog post titled "My Journey In and Out of the Rabbit Hole of Racism," still being a rabid racist but now calling it "trait realism," while defending eugenics, antisemitism and opposing non-white immigration.
6/16
Basically, every narrative Gage spreads is revolving around Jews. He claims that the fabricated Russian text "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" is real. His X/Twitter feed mostly consists of anti-Semitic content and his criticism of Zionism.
7/16
In Feb 2023, Angelo tweeted that Russians had "intercepted a submarine in the Black Sea carrying a HUGE shipment of cocaine," then claiming that Zelenskyy reroutes military aid to Mexico in exchange to cocaine, and that Zelenskyy himself uses the dope.
8/16
According to him, "Jewish Supremacist are the MAIN DRIVER behind the Ukraine/Russia war." He's also spread the lie that the casualties are 7:1 in favor to Russia and that the US has "jihadist assets pulled from Syria" to assist Ukrainians with their defense.
9/16
He's also attacked the "Kyiv regime" and called for Ukraine to "kick out Zelensky and all the parasites" and stated that "I want Russia to feel secure at its borders." Angelo's also falsely stated that Zelenskyy refuses to have peace negotiations:
Naturally, he's called Zelenskyy Israeli asset, suggesting that he'll eventually flee to Israel after "Ukraine falls". He claims that Zelenskyy and his leadership takes orders from US/NATO and that he doesn't "give a shit about Ukraine."
In Jul 2023, he was a guest on RT.
11/16
Angelo is also trying to connect the situation in the Middle East to the war in Ukraine, by sharing a conspiracy theory called The Heavenly Jerusalem Project. It's a fake narrative over the plan to reduce the native Ukrainian population and replace it with Jewish settlers.
12/16
Angelo has legally changed his name to Lucas Gage and is now using this name on X/Twitter and YouTube. He's probably trying to wipe his past as a raging neo-Nazi and participating in far-right organizations in the past.
13/16
Before 7 Oct 2023, Gage's account went mostly unnoticed. After Hamas' terrorist attack against Israeli civilians, Angelo started promoting posts around the #GazaGenocide hashtag, gaining over 100 000 followers in one month. He's posted about the "evil Zionists" and a...
14/16
...summary of the fake scripture The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and quotes from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. In one of his more popular posts, he claimed that we should "STOP BEING SOFT ON JEWS!" and "that God is telling us to go HARD on them; they deserve it."
15/16
Angelo most probably does all this for attention and money. His book, "Thoughts and Reflections on Life", looks like 1 dollar store version of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. As is tradition, his angry and racist tirades have also been monetized by Elon's X.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce Yanis Varoufakis, a Greek economist and politician. He’s best known for rising to power at the height of the Greek debt crisis, not solving anything but endearing himself to the left, and using his fame to promote Russian imperialism.
1/20
Born in 1961 in Athens, Varoufakis studied economics in the UK and built an academic career in Australia, the US, and Europe. His early work focused on game theory, political economy, and critiques of capitalism.
2/20
Presenting himself as the fearless, unorthodox economist willing to confront the EU’s “neoliberal” elites, he rose to prominence during Greece’s debt crisis. At its height in 2015, he was appointed finance minister under the left-wing Syriza government of Alexis Tsipras.
In this 8th Debunk of the Day, we’ll discuss complaints about US financing of NATO, in particular how the US allegedly pays for European defense, leading to calls for a US withdrawal from the Alliance — which would only make it easier for Putin to invade more countries.
1/7
NATO by itself costs peanuts. In fact, the core of NATO is a principle, an agreement, that ideally costs nothing. The main cost is defense spending, which the US is eagerly doing anyway: Trump has just announced a 50% increase in military spending for his “Department of War”. 2/7
To sow division and thereby weaken the Alliance, vatniks deliberately mix up different figures, such as contributions to the NATO common budget, with defense spending. And US military spending has been huge by the sheer fact that the US is the world’s largest economy.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll talk about why we’re doing this: why we think Ukraine is so important and why we believe that souping vatniks and debunking their propaganda narratives is so crucial to counter Russia’s & their allies’ wars of aggression and achieve real peace.
1/20
War is expensive, and Russia is not a rich country that could afford this: Hospitals? Roads? Plumbing? No: everything into terror and destruction.
But not only that. There is a 2nd item in the Russian state budget that remains strong no matter what:
Manufacturing support for that terror and destruction. Propaganda. Vatniks. “Innocent” travel bloggers. “Independent” journalists. “Patriotic” politicians. Russia spends hundreds of billions of rubles a year ($5 billion) on this, and that kind of money buys you A LOT of BS.
In this second (and possibly last) Basiji Soup, we’ll explore how the Islamic Republic of Iran has prepared for a conflict with the US and Israel. We won’t cover the military aspects, but another kind of war — information warfare.
1/20
In the 1st Basiji Soup, we souped the Islamic Republic, its disinformation operations, its hypocrisy, its support of terrorism including Russia’s, its (one-sided?) relationship with Putin, and the mass protests against it that started two months ago:
The Internet blackout has been crucial in allowing the regime to cover up its massacre of the protesters and especially the scope of it, making it difficult to assess the number of victims. They went to great lengths to jam Starlink, after having made its use illegal.
In this 7th Debunk of the Day, we’ll expose the “Chickenhawk” fallacy. The chickenhawk accusation or the “go to the front!” imperative is a dishonest attempt to silence anyone supporting Ukraine by pushing them to go fight. A barely hidden death wish, as it’s always uttered… 1/5
…with zero regard for who you are or what your personal circumstances might be — you could already be there, on your way there, a veteran, or unable to fight. More broadly, not everyone can or should be a soldier, just as not everyone can or should be a policeman or a nurse. 2/5
Yet a society still needs those things to be done, and the fact that not everyone can go to medical school or fight crime does not mean that we have to surrender to invaders and criminals, nor that we cannot all have an opinion on healthcare. 3/5
In this 6th Debunk of the Day, we’ll talk about a complex and controversial topic: conscription. It is used by vatniks to attack Ukraine for drafting men to fight, while conveniently ignoring the alternative, including the horrors of conscription into the Russian army. 1/8
Military obligations are a reality in many countries, from the most peaceful democracies to the most tyrannical dictatorships — unless you have “bone spurs”. Some argue it is a necessity for defense against invading armies, especially for small countries. 2/8
Others point out that it goes against individual rights or that a professional army is better. And Zelenskyy might agree: he did in fact end conscription. But then a full-scale invasion happened: exactly why many nations, including the US, still keep some form of draft. 3/8