Milchakov, commander of "Rusich" group fighting for Russia in Ukraine:
"I'm a Nazi, I'm a Nazi. I won't elaborate whether I'm a nationalist, a patriot or imperialist. I say directly: I'm a Nazi. I can raise my hand in Nazi salute"
(interview to Provsvirnin, Sputnik and Pogrom)
Milchakov, commander of "Rusich" group:
"When you are going to war, that's sexual desire, it's like wanting to fuck... When you are killing a piglet, you savour his wife becoming a widow, his family grieving , him coming back home in a coffin. You have erection, don't you?"
Milchakov, commander of "Rusich" is an interesting person. He used to be a fan of the football club Zenit under a nickname "Fritz". In 2011 he became famous after uploading a video with himself killing a puppy, cutting of its heads and then eating it (photos are googlable)
In 2014 the war in Donbass started. So Milchakov rallied his comrades together and founded a group "Rusich" which departed to fight in Donbass on the Russian side
In 2022, Rusich group also actively participated in the Special military operation. Here you can see a Russian propagandist boasting about Milchakov "de-Nazifying" Ukraine
In his early days Milchakov was known as "Fritz". Now he uses "Serb" or "Topaz" nicknames. Here you can see Milchakov congratulating everyone with Hitler's birthday (April 20) in his Telegram channel - Говорит ТопаZ
Milchakov's views have never been a problem. In 2016 Putin's deputy Vladislav Surkov organised a Council of Commanders of Donbass Volunteers. Milchakov participated of course. Here you see him shaking hands with Russia-appointed governor of Crimea Aksenov
When you are hearing about the "de-Nazification" of Ukraine, keep in mind who is de-Nazifying it
Warning: next photo will be graphic
Here you see a de-Nazifier Milchakov straight after he cut off a puppy's head but before he ate it
Here you can see Milchakov in visible confusion after Ukrainians hijacked his Quadrocopter. He orders an immediate retreat as now Ukrainians may know where Rusich group stay and can shell them
You may have wondered where the initial videos with Milchakov declaring himself a Nazi and describing the erection he has when thinking about the grieving families are taken from. Well, from Yegor Prosvirnin (=Sputnik and Pogrom) YouTube channel of course
Sputnik and Pogrom used to be by far the most influential Russian nationalist media. It had tons of high profile fans (@achubays for example) as it promoted the nationalist and imperialist agenda in a manner "sophisticated" enough so that higher classes would like it
At this point, I'm gonna stop. I'll just ask readers to remember the keyword "Sputnik and Pogrom", because it gonna be relevant in the context of the next thread. The end
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Many are trying to explain his success with some accidental factors such as his “personal charisma”, Cuomo's weakness etc
Still, I think there may be some fundamental factors here. A longue durée shift, and a very profound one
1. Public outrage does not work anymore
If you look at Zohran, he is calm, constructive, and rarely raises his voice. I think one thing that Mamdani - but almost no one else in the American political space is getting - is that the public is getting tired of the outrage
Outrage, anger, righteous indignation have all been the primary drivers of American politics for quite a while
For a while, this tactics worked
Indeed, when everyone around is polite, and soft (and insincere), freaking out was a smart thing to do. It could help you get noticed
People don’t really understand causal links. We pretend we do (“X results in Y”). But we actually don’t. Most explanations (= descriptions of causal structures) are fake.
There may be no connection between X and Y at all. The cause is just misattributed.
Or, perhaps, X does indeed result in Y. but only under a certain (and unknown!) set of conditions that remains totally and utterly opaque to us. So, X->Y is only a part of the equation
And so on
I like to think of a hypothetical Stone Age farmer who started farming, and it worked amazingly, and his entire community adopted his lifestyle, and many generations followed it and prospered and multiplied, until all suddenly wiped out in a new ice age
1. Normative Islamophobia that used to define the public discourse being the most acceptable form of racial & ethnic bigotry in the West, is receding. It is not so much dying as rather - failing to replicate. It is not that the old people change their views as that the young do not absorb their prejudice any longer.
In fact, I incline to think it has been failing to replicate for a while, it is just that we have not been paying attention
Again, the change of vibe does not happen at once. The Muslim scare may still find (some) audience among the more rigid elderly, who are not going to change their views. But for the youth, it is starting to sound as archaic as the Catholic scare of know nothings
Out of date
2. What is particularly interesting regarding Mamdani's victory, is his support base. It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that its core is comprised of the young (and predominantly white) middle classes, with a nearly equal representation of men and women
What does Musk vs Trump affair teach us about the general patterns of human history? Well, first of all it shows that the ancient historians were right. They grasped something about nature of politics that our contemporaries simply can’t.
Let me give you an example. The Arab conquest of Spain
According to a popular medieval/early modern interpretation, its primary cause was the lust of Visigoth king Roderic. Aroused by the beautiful daughter of his vassal and ally, count Julian, he took advantage of her
Disgruntled, humiliated Julian allied himself with the Arabs and opens them the gates of Spain.
Entire kingdom lost, all because the head of state caused a personal injury to someone important.
One thing you need to understand about wars is that very few engage into the long, protracted warfare on purpose. Almost every war of attrition was planned and designed as a short victorious blitzkrieg
And then everything went wrong
Consider the Russian war in Ukraine. It was not planned as a war. It was not thought of as a war. It was planned as a (swift!) regime change allowing to score a few points in the Russian domestic politics. And then everything went wrong
It would not be an exaggeration to say that planning a short victorious war optimised for the purposes of domestic politics is how you *usually* end up in a deadlock. That is the most common scenario of how it happens, practically speaking
Global politics are usually framed in terms of kindergarten discourse (“good guys” vs “bad guys”) with an implication that you must provide “good guys” with boundless and unconditional support
BUT
Unconditional support is extremely corrupting, and turns the best of the best into the really nasty guys, and relatively fast
Part of the reason is that neither “bad” nor “good” guys are in fact homogenous, and present a spectrum of opinions and personalities. Which means that all of your designated “good guys” include a fair share of really, really nasty guys, almost by definition.
Purely good movements do not really exist
That is a major reason why limitless, unconditional, unquestioning support causes such a profound corrupting effect upon the very best movement. First, because that movement is not all
that purely good as you imagine (neither movement is),