The typical reply to this question appears to be "because America is big", which is a disarmingly stupid answer, given nobody is asking you to protest in the opposite corner of your country.

The population of New York City alone is some 25% bigger than that of Serbia. Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of Serbs took to the streets in Belgrade, a city of less than 2 million.

How many people out of New York City's 8 million took to the streets of New York City, not some far away place, in protest against Trump? Likewise, another common answer appears to be "he'll impose martial law if we protest in large numbers".

Unlikely, but lets assume he'd do that. What is the plan then, never protest out of fear that might happen? Cause the more you wait, the more likely that scenario gets.

Because boycotting American products is the very least we regular Europeans can do right now to return the favor, here's a thread of US brands to avoid, split up by category for your convenience.🧵 Fashion:

Georgescu's unhinged supporters are gathering up in Bucharest for their "grand protest" aimed at saving their cult leader from prison.

Given just how angry and excited these lunatics are right now, this will likely turn out to be a very busy day for the Romanian Gendarmerie. I will continue to post any relevant updates that might come up under this thread. Feel free to bookmark it if interested.

So far, about 3k of them showed up ahead of time, with plenty being bussed in. Their "protest" is set to start in 1h from now (2PM local time).

With the USA on the verge of turning into everyone's least favorite banana republic and for the sake of giving MAGA a taste of things to come, I figured it's time to take a look at Turkmenistan and their eternal dear leader, one with a striking set of similarities to Trump. 🧵 Every bit as passionate as Trump when it comes to renaming things, the Turkmen dictator eventually went all the way and decided to rename the months of the year and days of the week after his family and friends. Very much loving his mom, he also renamed "bread" after her.

Seeing how the USA now hellbent on emulating their newfound ally of Russia, both at home and abroad, I find myself obliged to repost my dive into Russia's posh cities, just to give your average MAGA a glimpse into the greatness Trump is sure to bring about! Do enjoy!🧵 While a romantic sunset, sunrise or the sun in general is not something you're likely to experience in Norilsk - a city that fields a beautiful bi-annual Biblical plague when the local river runs red with pollution, is one for sure bound to go straight to your heart. And lungs.

For the sake of making myself as unlikable as possible with the MAGA community, to whatever extent MAGA is still a thing or a community right now, I've decided to do a short thread tackling the most common misconceptions they seem to have about Europe.🧵 No matter how hard you'd try it, and plenty of MAGA seem to be engaging in the task, you can't fit Europe into Texas. In fact, you can't even fit it into all of the US! Believe it or not, and I'm guessing not, Europe's 10.5 million sq km are more than USA's 9.8 million sq km!

Given how Musk, USA and Russia have now united their effort in helping an insane man become president in my country, I figured it is very relevant to show and remind everyone just how crazy Calin Georgescu is, through his very own words. About Russia...

"Romania's only hope is the Russian wisdom. [...] There, in Russia, is the light, the West means absolutely nothing [...] Vladimir Putin is a great leader and a great patriot, in their sense of the word. He is very dedicated to his country and his people."

When you see Musk's attempts to promote a pro-Russian lunatic as president of Romania, don't go thinking he's attacking us just cause that's what happened to randomly catch his attention.

While this might come as a surprise, Romania plays a crucial role in Europe right now. 🧵 With offshore gas reserves of around 100 billion cubic meters which we are just about to start extracting by 2027, Romania is already the largest gas producer in a very energy hungry Europe, and plays quite the role in easing European dependency on Russia and the US.

While lots of mean voices, mine included, accused Musk of suspiciously overlooking China in his fight against "globalist neo-communist oppression", that is not entirely correct.

Elon Musk did tweet quite a great deal of things about a China, and here's a thread to prove it! 🧵 While Musk often refers to democratically elected Western leaders he doesn't like as "illegitimate", "tyrants" or "communists", when referring to Xi Jinping, an actual illegitimate communist tyrant, he always makes sure to follow the protocolary "President Xi".

Solidly present in Twitter's "Top 30 Most Community Noted" with over 100 entries, Visegrad24 seems to be Musk's new favorite source of news for Europe.

For those not yet aware of what a Visegrad is and does, I've prepared a short thread to help you get a taste of it.🧵 What I do appreciate most about Visegrad is the holistic approach they take to lying, very much not restricting themselves to doing it solely for political purposes.

While I have to admit a mosquito air-defense system does sound pretty amazing, it is unfortunately not real

I figured I'd do a thread to put into some perspective Transnistria's seemingly absurd recent refusal to jointly purchase gas with Moldova and why at this point, even if offered free gas from a non-Russian source, they are very likely to flatly refuse it. 🧵 Freezing or starving, do not assume the population of Transnistria will put the blame for it on Russia. The few that understand Russia has means of bypassing Ukraine to supply them with gas, will blame the pro-EU Sandu, while the many that don't, will blame Ukraine for it.

Having decided to do an occasional historical thread every now and then, meet the very smoothly named "Nikolai Robert Maximilian Freiherra von Ungern-Sternberg", quite possibly the craziest man you have never heard of and the holder of the "Last Khan of Mongolia" title.🧵 Born in Austro-Hungary in 1886 from a German mother of noble heritage and a father legally declared insane, the young Roman would soon move to the Russian Empire alongside his family, mostly thanks to the family's rather unsubstantiated realization that might be Romanovs.

With the impending Russian made humanitarian crisis in Transnistria bound to increasingly make its way into the news, I figured I'd do a short thread on the history of the place to offer a bit of a context, inevitably also touching on the history of Moldova and Romania.🧵 In 1918, in the aftermath of Russian Empire's chaotic disintegration, Moldova succeeds in putting an end to over a century of brutal Russian occupation and, faced with the prospect of being re-absorbed by the new Russian state, votes for unification with the Kingdom of Romania.

With Russia playing geopolitical poker with the lives of the 500k people living in Transnistria that it very much likes to call "its own", a thought came again to mind, one of the first to naively strike me back on that infamous morning of February 24th, 2022.🧵 Whenever I heard those Russian speeches about their "historical claims to Ukraine" or the whole "we are the same people" narrative backed by passionate "brotherly" claims, as a Romanian, I couldn't help but compare that to our views and our actions in relation to Moldova.

With Russia cutting off the gas supply in an attempt to destabilize Moldova ahead of its 2025 parliamentary elections (a last ditch effort after the pro-EU Maia Sandu won a second presidential term), Transnistria is quickly spiraling into a full blown humanitarian crisis.🧵 The pro-Russian Transnistrian "authorities" have completely cut off the hot water and heating supply to urban areas, with residential buildings only receiving "enough gas to cook".

Even so, the 13 million m3 of gas left are estimated to completely run out in 14 days, at best.

By popular demand, as promised, I compiled a short thread of the funniest and most absurd of Russia's recent arsons (with a bit of a bonus something at the end). Do enjoy! 🧵 In Bryansk, an zealous Z patriot decided to do her bit for the motherland by following the online advice of what she believed to be FSB agents, which instructed her to set fire to a random police car, in order to smoke signal their super secret FSB helicopter patrol mission.

She promptly proceeded to walk towards the nearest police station and patriotically set fire to the police car she judged to be most likely to send the biggest smoke cloud, burning it to a crisp.

With Russian ships sabotaging our cables and getting themselves sunk all over, I figured I'd do a thread on arguably the greatest feat of incompetence in Russian naval history.

This is going to be a TLDR of the utterly idiotic voyage of Russia's "Second Pacific Squadron".🧵 Following the revolution of 1905, Tsar Nicholas II figured a short and easy war would be just what he needed to help with his abysmal popularity.

Of all potential candidates for that "short and easy war", in a remarkably well-thought-out move, he picked Imperial Japan.

Although having the possibility to bypass Ukraine through the Trans-Balkan pipeline, Russia's decision to stop gas deliveries to Transnistria starting with January 1st is likely to lead (as intended) to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis aimed at destabilizing Moldova.🧵 Transnistria's presumed strategic reserves are estimated to last for about 2 weeks when it comes to gas consumption and about 50 days when it comes to coal - following this, the Russian controlled territory is likely to face a severe heating and electricity shortage.

Considering the quoted tweet, the many parallels, similarities, and coincidences between Ceaușescu's and Putin's "timelines" came to mind.

I figured I'd do a short thread to highlight them, just for the sake of it. 🧵

https://x.com/Daractenus/status/1870512932641223033

After a gravely ill leader, Romania's 47yo Nicolae Ceaușescu, a little-known figure from security forces, rises to power.

In Russia, a sick Yeltsin is succeeded in by 47yo Vladimir Putin, another quasi-unknown figure from security forces.

OTD 35 years ago, Ceaușescu delivered what would become his final speech, addressing 100k people forcibly gathered there so he could stage a facade of popular support for his regime.

In one of the most iconic moments of modern history, he will lose control of the crowd.🧵 Bucharest would soon be engulfed in revolution, with an ever increasing number of people taking to the streets in the following hours.

To the sound of "Death to the dictator!", people begin to carve the communist coat of arms out of the Romanian flags they were carrying.

With a lot of whatever little is left of our democratic world soon to head towards the polling stations, and since voting our way into idiocracy can occasionally be tricky business, I've refined my list of ten very simple rules follow as to ensure we rise to the occasion.🧵 1. It can never happen to you!

It is essential to acknowledge that ending up in a full-fledged dictatorship is something that can only happen to other people. Of all times and places, you alone were lucky enough to find yourself in the one spot magically immune to it.