Crackhead Ken

In a Gaslit Nation first, we’re speaking to a guest whose voice is… well, masked like Putin’s stiff botoxed face. That’s because we’ve had to protect their identity—our guest today is none other than the undisputed ruler of the underworld, likely the wealthiest person on the planet (given the cadre of oligarchs they’ve got on speed dial), and—let’s not forget—a master strategist. You may know them as Darth Putin KGB, the Twitter titan who once made parody fun before it got, well, a little too real.

Now, if you’re finding it hard to understand Darth Putin’s voice, don’t worry. We tried several different settings to find the right balance between protecting their anonymity and making sure we didn’t sound like we were interviewing an angry vending machine. But, for those of you who are truly committed, you can follow along with the full transcript of the interview, which is conveniently available at the top of the show notes.

Darth Putin is also the author of two books, the most recent being How to Tankie: The Anti-Imperialist's Guide to the Modern World, and The Darth Putin Guide to Being a Master Strategist: 13 Rules on How to Think, Act, Dress & Date Like a Master Strategist. We’ll be sharing excerpts from our conversation in future episodes, including their thoughts on why satire is needed more than ever in an age of growing fascism, and how to be a master strategist when it comes to making fun of dictators and their lackeys. In this part of the interview, Darth delivers a chilling warning: we must not abandon Ukraine, for the security of both the world and ourselves is on the line. This is obvious to everyone, except for crackhead Ken Pete Hegseth, Trump’s frat boy date rapist pick to run the most powerful military in human history. 

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Show Notes

Transcript of the Darth Putin KGB interview: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fgG16BVg4_hdIMk0aBJWBaI3vW2Rk2xU/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=117489509282294341490&rtpof=true&sd=true

Heart of the Want to Believer from Limbic Psalms by Confusions https://confusions.bandcamp.com/track/heart-of-the-want-to-believer

Submit your song to be featured on Gaslit Nation! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-d_DWNnDQFYUMXueYcX5ZVsA5t2RN09N8PYUQQ8koq0/edit?ts=5fee07f6&gxids=7628

Four Takeaways From the Special Counsel’s Report on the Trump Election Case Jack Smith wrote that Donald Trump would have been convicted had the case been allowed to proceed and explained why he didn’t pursue charges of incitement of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/14/us/politics/jack-smith-trump-election-report-takeaways.html

Irregular Army How the US Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members, and Criminals to Fight the War on Terror By Matt Kennard https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/233226/irregular-army-by-matt-kennard/

Merrick Garland Both-Sides the Coup https://www.gaslitnationpod.com/episodes-transcripts-20/2022/1/12/merrick-garland-both-sides

CBS News: Jack Smith’s Trump Report
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNyd7mXI-hU

ICYMI: Here are previous documents the Security Committee has shared:

Transcript

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Andrea Chalupa (01:19):

The song you heard at the top of the show was Heart of the Want to Believer by the band Limbic Psalms by Confusions. For more of their music, check out our show notes. If you have music you'd like to share, submit it through the link in this week's show notes. We love, love, love listening to the incredible music from our listeners. Special thanks to Ben Turner for submitting heart of the Want to believer. It truly captures the mood in this country. Many of us still want to believe that our democracy's intact, but with Fox News hosts potentially controlling the largest military in the world, there's concern that this same military could be turned against the American people as some Republicans have long wished recall. Senator Tom Cotton's 2020 op-ed in New York Times, "Send in the Troops."

(02:07):

Several recent terrorist attacks have been carried out by former or current military personnel, including the attack in New Orleans and the Green Beret who exploded a cyber truck outside Trump Tower in Las Vegas killing himself. Fox News is regularly broadcast on military bases spreading right wing disinformation, inserting it straight into the veins of our armed forces. And for years the US military has recruited from extremist groups including neo-Nazis. For more on this read, independent journalist Matt Kennard's book, ire Army, how the US military recruited neo-Nazis, gang members and criminals to fight the war on terror. As I've said on Gaslit Nation for years, the judiciary are judges are the cage bars of a dictatorship. If you control the courts, you control the law, you become the law and your lacky judges will rubber stamp it for you. Just look at Trump's packed Supreme Court, which claims that the president is above the law. No, he is not. But that's what led us here. This is one of the many obstacles that horrifying, horrifying Supreme Court, mullah majority. That was a major obstacle to Jack Smith's investigation.

(03:37):

He calls it out in the report that he released today and all of this hellfire that's raining on us now, no one dared to stop it. No one dared to put in the meaningful work other than black prosecutors like Fannie Willis and Atlanta and Alvin Bragg in New York. It was the people who have lived through generations of genocide themselves and their families that understood the stakes and did what they needed to do, stuck their negs out. And yes, every single prosecutor, every single public servant, the election monitors, everybody paid a price of danger, right? Because we're living in a time of growing fascism. Nothing changes the fact that Merrick Garland wasted two years. Two years. And now Jack Smith is telling the world today with his report, I wasn't given enough time. And I want to remind everyone that on the one year anniversary of January 6th, Merrick Garland came out and both sided the coup saying that there's political violence on both sides.

(04:47):

We did an episode on it called Merrick Garland, both sides of coup. So if anybody has blood on their hands here among the so-called good guys, it's Merrick Garland. How is this guy going to write off into the sunset? Now in some cushy, ceremonial job at some university or law firm, book deals, speaking gigs, I don't have words. I mean you've heard it all for years now. You heard it all for years now, Merrick Garland, wherever you are right now, planning out your comfortable retirement, I want you to know something. Every night when you go to bed, you have blood on your hands. You have blood on your hands.

Dean Obeidallah (05:31):

Lemme put it this way, Merrick Garland is the greatest failure of an attorney general in the modern era. And I'm being no joking, very serious. He was sworn in March, 2021. The first thing he should have done is appointed the special counsel in sophisticated Donald Trump for his involvement in January 6th. That would've changed the tone. Republicans had not coalesced yet around Donald Trump. Trump was at CPA just two weeks before with Garland sworn in talking about maybe running. That was the headlines that could have ended it because every Republican would've known he's going to get charged soon and they would've known the Supreme Court was a delayed thing. So he's going to be a convicted felon and maybe in jail and it would've emboldened other Republicans and maybe just maybe they push him away. But what Merri Garland did though by he out appointed special counsel to investigate for almost two years, Jack Smith, when Trump sits, he's running and what did that do?

(06:20):

It normalized Trump for two years because we're out there saying Trump attempted a coup. Trump incited a terrorist attack and everyone else is going, whoa, why isn't he charged yet? It's two years later if it was that serious. So what Garland did his delay, it was undermined. All of our arguments and democratic members of Congress want their look forward. We were in Covid. They wanted to focus on that. I kept begging them call for prosecuting Donald Trump for attempting a coup. It is not partisan, it is patriotism. The man attempted a coup. It is unreal that a guy could attempt a coup and set a terrorist attack and now be back in the White House. It destroys everything we're told this country's supposed to stand for the rule of law people. If you do that, how could you even be on the ballot is the question. And here we are.

Andrea Chalupa (07:02):

That was political analyst Dean Obeidallah laying it all out on MSNBC. For a quick summary of Smith's report. Check out CBS news.

Katrina Kaufman  (07:09):

It's really interesting to see this final report from Jack Smith and one thing that stands out is the quote you mentioned, which is his confidence that had they gone to trial with this case, that Trump would've been convicted. And we have to remember that is on top of his other conviction in his New York criminal trial where he was just sentenced and made a convicted felon entering this office. Some other things that stood out are we really got some insight into the thought process behind these charges behind the case. For instance, Jack Smith talked about why they didn't bring the charge of insurrection, for example, which people had wondered and he talked about how there was really no precedent for it. They were worried that with Trump being a sitting president at the time, that it wouldn't necessarily be successful and they really wanted to make sure that the case they brought against Trump was going to be airtight. Another thing he mentioned was that in a letter to Merrick Garland that went with this, that this decision to prosecute Trump was his alone. And I think that's significant in the context of Trump saying that he is going to exact retribution on the people who have brought these cases against him

Errol Barnett (08:23):

And it's a fascinating read of viewers. Really should dive into it. Where do we stand with the other case that Smith was prosecuting?

Katrina Kaufman  (08:32):

So there is still the Florida classified documents case Smith has dropped that against Donald Trump, although it's without prejudice so it could be brought back later. But he's trying to reinstate the case in the 11th circuit against Trump's co-defendants and actually he's turned this case over to the US District attorney of Miami and there's also still going to be a hearing actually on Friday about the part of Smith's report related to that classified documents case, which they want to present as some top members of Congress, but Trump and his co-defendants are trying to block that.

Errol Barnett (09:06):

Alright, Katrina Kaufman live for us from our DC Bureau. Katrina, thank you.

Andrea Chalupa (09:10):

For my reaction to Smith's report. Check out my remarks at a protest in early January, Washington DC organized by Jessica Denson of the podcast. Lights on.

(09:19):

None of this is normal. None of this is normal and we're here because Merrick Garland is a coward. We're here because Christopher Ray is a coward. We're here because the Democratic party establishment is filled with cowards. Come on, none of this is normal. Everything that's happening in the United States of America before the eyes of the world, before our allies, before the men and women in Ukraine who are fighting against fascism, the same fascism that openly backs Trump and Maga Mike Johnson and the entire MAGA movement are watching this and going, what the hell happened in the United States of America?

(09:58):

Now how did we get here? Trump has packed about 30% of our courts with his judges and that number will likely double in the next few years. Meanwhile, the radicalization of the US military continues making it a final line of defense against the American people and the justice system. What's left of it? Protecting those in power from accountability. This sets the stage for a future where power is passed from Trump to let's say Ilanka. Then Baron Cabana boy, JD Vance. He's there to play whatever role they need him to play. Yeah, maybe he'll get to be president soon, but he's got the shark pit of the Trump family also circling there, so he has to watch out. Will Trump capture the military? Let's hear from Fox News host Peter Hegseth. If you have been trying to live your best life and staying away from the news and you may not be familiar with Peter Hegseth, first of all, good for you. Here's Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island giving us a rundown of who Peter Hegseth is.

Senator Jack Reed (10:58):

We must acknowledge the concerning public reports against you, a variety of sources including your own writings, implicate you with disregarding the laws of war, financial mismanagement, racist and sexist remarks about men and women in uniform, alcohol abuse, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and other troubling issues. I have reviewed many of these allegations and find them extremely alarming. Indeed, the totality of your own writings and alleged conduct would disqualify any service member from holding any leadership position in the military, much less being confirmed as the Secretary of Defense. Nonetheless, I understand that you reject many of these reports as they involve whistleblowers, non-disclosure agreements and anonymous, although numerous sources including those who have faced political intimidation for sharing their experiences.

Andrea Chalupa (11:53):

Now, let's listen to Senator Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan asking he up if he'll turn the US military into Trump's personal security force like what Putin has in Russia.

Senator Alyssa Slotkin (12:04):

Have you been involved in discussions about using the active duty military inside the United States

Peter Hegseth (12:10):

Senator, I am not yet the Secretary of Defense. If confirmed, I would be party to any number of conversations.

Senator Alyssa Slotkin (12:16):

But you haven't been in any of these conversations,

Peter Hegseth (12:17):

Which I would not reveal what I have discussed with the president of the United States or not.

Senator Alyssa Slotkin (12:22):

 No. Just have you been in conversations. Again, you're going to be in charge of 3 million people. The active duty that I know you care about, I believe you care about. So have you been in conversations about using the active duty in any way, whether it's setting up in detention camps, policing dangerous cities, have you been involved in any of those conversations?

Peter Hegseth (12:41):

Certainly, I have been involved in conversations relating to doing things this administration has not, which is secure the southern border and not allow floods of illegals into our country through an invasion abdicated and ignored for the last four years.

Senator Alyssa Slotkin (12:57):

That wasn't my question.

Andrea Chalupa (12:58):

I also want to remind US senators especially worthless Susan Collins of Maine that Trump's nominees frequently lie during their confirmation hearings. The most blaring example of course is how his Supreme Court nominees talked out of both sides of their mouths on whether or not they would overturn Roe v Wade only to later gleefully overturn it and send women to die in America due to lack of access to basic healthcare. As for Ukraine, Angus King of Maine, the good senator from Maine challenged Hegseth on whether or not he'll support Ukraine. And here's Hegseth talking out of both sides of his mouth like he's been playing beer pong with Kavanaugh.

Angus King (13:36):

I was very disturbed in your opening statement where you talked about the priorities that you have. We will work with our partners and allies to deter aggression, the Indo-Pacific from the Communist Chinese. There's not a single mention in this statement about Ukraine or Russia. Is this code for we're going to abandon Ukraine?

Peter Hegseth (13:55):

Senator, the President, that's a presidential level policy decision. He's made it very clear that he would like to see a end to that conflict. We know who the aggressor is, we know who the good guy is. We'd like to see it as advantageous for the Ukrainians as possible, but that war needs to come to that.

Angus King (14:10):

You talk a lot about deterrence of China. I would submit that Xi Jingping is watching what we do very carefully. If we abandon Ukraine, that would be the strongest single possible to Xi Jingping that he can take Taiwan without significant resistance from this country.

Andrea Chalupa (14:22):

As for China, if you've been following the latest news out of China, they're expanding their fleet of ships including building invasion barges. What are invasion barges exactly what it sounds like. China is constructing massive specialized landing barges designed to transport a fleet of military vehicles presumably onto the beaches of Taiwan. Invasion by water is very difficult and it's increasingly clear that China is getting ready and learning Putin's mistakes in Ukraine. She the Trumpian dictator of China, recently launched investigations into corruption into the military to weed out the kind of internal corruption that undermined Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I want to point out once again, China is getting ready to invade Taiwan and they will if we don't stop their allies, Russia and Ukraine and maintain a strong resolute Democrat global alliance. But with the US military led by a drunken date rapist frat boy, China and Russia may get a green light to keep going to build their brutal empires while the US destroys itself from within with the help of our foreign adversaries and oligarchs dark times here to help us combat that darkness is a very special guest and a longtime friend on social media for those who miss the glory days of Twitter.

(15:45):

You may know the famous Putin parody account called Darth Putin KGB. The genius behind that account came on Gaslit Nation in the spring of 2024. We did not run the episode then due to the rollercoaster ride of the election, but also we had to take great care to disguise this person's voice. This is a Gaslit Nation first we have a guest on the show whose voice had to be masked for their protection.

(16:11):

It took us a while to find the best balance to ensure that you can't recognize this person's voice, but you can still mostly understand them. It was a very tough trial and error balancing act to find this and this is the best we could come up with after trying going back and forth with the guest with our sound engineer for weeks.

(16:32):

So apologies if this is still difficult to understand to help you. I'm including at the very top of the show notes a transcript of this interview. So if you can't make out the words, you can follow along that way. Please understand that we had to do this in order to protect this person who has gotten threats and all sorts of fun attention from the idiots in the Kremlin. If you're having a hard time understanding what Darth Putin KGB is saying, again, I have included a transcript of the interview portion at the top of the show notes that you can read to follow along.

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Andrea Chalupa (17:51):

It's unfortunate that the good guys have to take such measures, especially when they're so funny and have a lot to say. We're going to be running more excerpts of this interview in the future in smaller chunks so it's easier to understand and absorb given the voice protection. Darth Putin KGB shares a lot of great insights as we'll share in later shows on how to use satire to fight evil, which they do to such great effect getting under the Kremlin skin. In this part of an interview, Darth Putin KGB warns us not to give up on Ukraine for our own sake and the world.

(18:27):

What's your view right now of how things are going in the U?

Darth Putin KGB (18:37):

Oh, I had been with it in my podcast just a week ago, and I would potentially say very cautiously pessimistic is not the way to put it perhaps, or there is reason to hope that he might not get elected and that enough moderate Americans would be put off by the fact that he is such an outrageous criminal that they can't elect him. The way he put it struck me is, and I steal from him, is that the grownups in the Republican body have lost control of the children and the lunatics are running the asylum. I think a larger percentage of Americans are really, really bored and shielded by America's geography and education system from the way that the world actually really is and that both major political parties, the Democrats and those grownups in the Republican party are not good at explaining to ordinary people why what's happening in the Ukrainian war actually matters.

(19:31):

And the simplest way I would put it is that in about five or six years time, they're going to be wondering why all of the profits and their companies have formed a pieces because the global economy has seized up because China has decided it can invade Taiwan. Those concluded that the Americans won't do anything about it. And where did they get that idea from? Not good is the short answer to your question. Certainly during the Cold War, people could rely on America to be generally relatively sensible, but the foreign policy of American presidents since the 1990s has been rather blinkered and naive with a couple of exceptions, not particularly good.

Andrea Chalupa (20:11):

What do you want Americans to know about the 2024 election and the impact it might have on the whole world

Darth Putin KGB (20:19):

Then? It's either the 2024 election or it's their last election. It's one of the two that if Trump wins, he is openly running to be an autocrat. And I believe that people who are in the Trump cult do so because it's their only way of gaining some form of social status in society that their actual lack of talent otherwise denies them. And in order to do that, you have to believe the great lie of the S stolen election and the various other lies that Trump pedal endlessly. And that's a very dangerous path to go down because all dictatorships be their left wing or right wing have a very strong component of denying objective reality and then punishing people who stand up and say, no, this is actually the case. This is what's happening. Those students, for instance, protesting against Israel and Gaza right now you think that Biden's no different from Trump. You can criticize Biden all your life, but if you think you're going to be able to protest like this when Trump's president, good luck with that.

Andrea Chalupa (21:23):

Well, they would argue back that look at all the police brutality against the protestors.

Darth Putin KGB (21:28):

Sure. I agree with that. American has a very militarized police force.

Andrea Chalupa (21:32):

What would you say to a disillusioned American voter who screams from the rooftops that Trump and Biden are the same?

Darth Putin KGB (21:43):

That's completely ludicrous. I would play in the recording of a child in a cage screaming for its mother. So only one of them did that and only one of them intends to do it and only one of them intends to do it more. And even worse vote like it's your last election. It might well be

(21:57):

A lot of people like that will have quotes of Gandhi on their bio or on their poster in their war. It was a Gandhi who said that neutrality in the face of aggression is siding with the aggression. Something like that. Can't remember the exact quote off the top of my head, but a lot of people refused to vote failure he Clinton in 2016, and potentially enough of them if they had have voted for a, might've stopped Trump because Bernie Sanders wasn't their candidate, so they weren't going to vote. So that's what I would say to them. Go and spend some time in a dictatorship and see how you like it.

Andrea Chalupa (22:27):

In actual dictatorship things aren't ideal in the US by any means. We have a lot of work to do, but it's still not an authoritarian regime. People can run for office. People can do a lot of things with the power they have. And when I interviewed one of the organizers of Pussy Riot and a theater director for the Belarus Free Theater, I did this for a Penn America event and I asked them basically that sort of the same disillusion question about what would you say to the American voter? And they would say, you've democracy, can you come to Belarus, come to Russia. Americans still have democracy for a limited time at least

Darth Putin KGB (23:04):

You have freedom of speech in the United States and you still have freedom after the speech as well. That's the thing that is at risk of changing and not all dictatorships take the same form. Trump's dictatorship is largely about keeping Trump out of prison and enriching his family. And in a way that's what the Putin dictatorship is about. It's about keeping him out of prison and enriching himself, although he's now a full-on dictatorship. And you could argue many scholars are filling up many megabytes of bandwidth discussing how poster style is rhythm. But certainly there'll be aspects of freedom of speech in the United States that would be, I would say are under question. And that's because I believe Trump, I take him that his word when he says that we're going to address these freedom of speech issues so that they can't just say things I don't like or what he calls a libeling in so we can sue them for lots of money. That was something he said in 2015, I think he's posted on whatever company, social media platform he owns, that it's time to suspend the constitution. He's telling you what he's going to do. I find it amazing that somebody wouldn't read that believing given the situations in and then just decide, oh, he's the same as the other guy who is not saying that at all.

Andrea Chalupa (24:16):

Right. I would even say it's unethical. It's totally unethical to promote that.

Darth Putin KGB (24:21):

I absolutely, I agree. It is unethical that it's mentally lazy as well. And again, I'm not a sociologist or anything, but it does sound like you have to have a particularly privileged life to think that those two men are exactly the same and it's not going to make any difference to you. Which one's going to get in

Andrea Chalupa (24:38):

Without question? You've studied Putin closely. How do you think Putin's story ends?

Darth Putin KGB (24:44):

Oh, well, he is not leaving the office while he is alive. And the most traditional Soviet way is he retires for health reasons and is confined to his luxurious that under close guard and like Khrushchev, I think it was his memoirs are smuggled up the butt crank of his attendant. That's one possibility being retired, the other is being bumped off. I would recommend Simon Seabag Montefore book to Romanov because that lists the various ends of every Russian czar of the Romanoff family or Zaina. They were usually in violent and bloody unpleasant. So this is kind of one of the challenges of being dictator is you have effectively unlimited authority, but with that you have absolutely no safeguards at all. So there's no particular succession plan in the Russian political system. There never really has been, I don't know is the honest answer, but I think when it happens, we'll say, oh, that's pretty obvious that that's how it was going to happen.

(25:45):

Nobody came out and protested for Putin when Prgo was driving up motorway to Mosco. So just like when the Soviet Union fell and they pulled down the Felix Zinsky statue, that side the Ian, nobody came out and protested to save the Soviet Union. In fact, they were glad to see it gone. So he might have an official approval rating of 87% based on his most recent performative election, but nobody's going to come out and protest to keep him. I killed by his rivals, retired by his rivals die in office. Those are the three options. Some variation of that.

Andrea Chalupa (26:20):

Tell us about your books.

Darth Putin KGB (26:23):

Well, the second one published six or so weeks ago, the first one is called How to Tanky the Anti-Imperialist Guide to the Modern World. The idea came to me kind of out of the blue, which is actually what happens with a lot of the tweets. They just sort of seem to hit me. My mind works that way. And I sort have this tweet that saying that will describe current situation relatively well in my opinion. And the book came to that as well. It was shortly after the full scale invasion, I think I started writing it and there were a lot of people going, well, and if you go back to February 22nd, 2024, there was about 96 hours of silence while people in Europe suddenly sort of on denied. And most of the diplomats were waiting for instructions from the Kremlin because if you notice, most of the diplomats you would think would be ashamed that the American government knew more about the Russian government's intentions than the Russian diplomats did.

(27:21):

And then it all became, well, it was absolutely inevitable because of native expansion and various promises that were made and Russia was never treated with respect or whatever. And I'm saying it's just a total crock of shit. So I made a thread of tweets saying, this is what the official tanking must believe, and I like 20 tweets or something. Somebody who's a very, very good Russia watcher said, well, I might as well quit now because you've just explained it all has nothing else to be saying. It's in this. The first one is that Russia is a victim and is only defending itself and Russia became the world's largest country by peacefully defending itself in other people's countries and so on and so on. So that book is written from the perspective of an unreliable narrator who's a European leftist or an American leftist as well, Chomsky or John Han, who constantly reel out the self-evidently false statements that are easily debunk and beat themselves in the sense that while they claim to be anti-imperialist, the nature of what they're saying is inherently imperialist.

(28:20):

For example, Ukraine should have to ask Russia before taking any major foreign policy decision. They're not allowed to do that. Russia has to have a veto over it, which is classic imperialism. That's what imperialism is. One country decides the fat of another country because mine is right. I wrote that book and it's a short sweet deconstruction of what they really believe. There's probably a couple of things that need to be added to it since the full scale invasion, which is this belief that if the West stopped providing weapons to the Ukrainians, the Ukrainians would stop fighting. Trump said, oh, then the war in 24 hours. He's delusional about a great many things, but he's particularly delusional about that because the Ukrainians won't stop fighting and they can't stop fighting. And there's this wonderful, charming idea that the Ukrainians were just holding arms with the Russians and go and sing charming folk songs together into the distance as soon as they're just roll over and surrender it to the Russians because the Ukrainians have no agency, they don't get a vote in all of this.

(29:17):

It's the Americans and the Russians that have to decide it and the Ukrainians just get what they're given. So that's the first book. And I wrote it Satirically, of course. But in a way it's a way of telling people this is what they believe and this is how you smack them around their head with it, with their arguments. Because that's the one thing that Kremen don't like is when you take their argument and smack 'em back with it. The second book's a slightly different book. It's kind of part lifestyle guide for dictators, part machi that for me it's year written by somebody that not only likes Putin but wants to be him. And there's another crowd of people that like Putin beyond the European leftists who don't like America, so they like Putin. And that is the kind of tech bro incel crowd of young men who are struggling with the fact that the world is changing around them and their status in that world is relatively declining compared to where their grandfathers were, for instance. And they are drawn to a man like Putin because perhaps you could confirm this as a lady, he's not an obviously handsome individual. You have to look to find something in him that might appear to a lady.

Andrea Chalupa (30:30):

Looks like Smeal.

Darth Putin KGB (30:32):

Yeah, well that's perhaps an insult to Smle. But so the book is written from the perspective of one of these people that want to live like him because if you are a master strategist like he seems to be, Putin is one of those rare people that has effectively transcended money and the Roman optimistic were the same, just unbelievable, fantastic amounts of wealth. And a man like him who has done that despite looking as he is, I mean we see 175 centimeters tall, slightly pudgy, balding face like a smack bump allegedly has beautiful women all over him. And for whatever reason, I think it was YouTube was will have to be because I don't have other social media accounts were offering me various short videos. And it was of that NBA player that has met Jim ler. He was being interviewed by a couple of drooling, early twenties sort guys at the club tech nerd.

(31:28):

And he was talking about how he'd been in Moscow and when he was talking in a nightclub talking to this astonishingly beautiful woman, and then an entourage of even more astonishingly beautiful woman arrived with Putin than she said, I wanted to go and talk to Putin. I'll come back and talk to you again. And these two kids were just drooling about it. I mean they honestly almost needed to change their shorts. It was really strange and it suddenly hit me, these are the guys I'd like him because the only way that they would ever get to talk to a woman like that is if they two were a trillionaire. So how do we do it? So there's the kind of standard things where you can't begin by annexing Crimea, but you can just park your car in the VIP spot who's going to argue with you?

(32:03):

How do they know you're not a VIP? There's actually the 10 10th of the law and there's 13 rules about how to be a master strategist that make your colleagues guilty. Then you've got dirt over them. For instance, that Russian three star general that's just been arrested for taking bribes, a piddling $11,000 bribe for a guy that has probably stolen billions across his time in the army. And that's always a thing. You can always arrest a guy like that and just say, how do you afford this vast ture that you've got that's worth millions on your official salary that's took $30,000 a year. So he's always got that hold over people. Corruption is what binds, and it's also what he can use as an influence over them. So there's a chapter about how you can do that, and there's a dating chapter so you can date like a master strategist.

(32:47):

I had to read, although I honestly couldn't finish it. There's that book, is it The Game, which is written by a pickup artist? I think I'd never heard of a pickup artist before, but a writer I know said, read this book. It'll help you. But these are guys that go round claiming they can pick up any woman just with a series of things that they say and do in the way they dress and that women melt before them and then they share their conquests as if women are some sort of trophy and transactional objects. I don't know if it was a sati or if he actually is one of those people. And it was disturbing, but it wasn't clear to me. There's a dating chapter, there's fashion chapter a little bit, but it's massive value free. And I'm trying to show the way a dictatorship like he actually functions and the things that he does in order to ensure the loyalty of his minions and corrupt and converting enemies. But then what actually happens when it doesn't work and your enemy start uniting against you as it's happened in the last couple of years?

Andrea Chalupa (33:43):

Well, if you ever want to join forces and write a satire together, I've always wanted to write the office set in a Kremlin troll farm.

Darth Putin KGB (33:53):

Interesting idea. So I think it would be Steve Cow's character

Andrea Chalupa (33:58):

Ian's ghost.

Darth Putin KGB (34:00):

Yeah, that would be interesting. Imagine the HR meeting for that. You are five minutes late. Bang.

Andrea Chalupa (34:06):

Catch this grenade.

Darth Putin KGB (34:08):

I don't like this idea. Leave through the nearest window.

Andrea Chalupa (34:10):

Yeah. Alright my dear. Well, thank you Darth Putin KGB for all that you do for all of us democracy worldwide. And keep picking at those fascists. Keep putting those fascists on the run.

Darth Putin KGB (34:25):

I go after Marist as well, I'm afraid. It's amazing how much they share in common these days. Yeah. Thank you very much. I bought your film. I didn't realize you had quite such an ensemble cast in the film. That was an amazing achievement that you did. It's stunningly well-made, so I suspect you'd probably put my writing to shame.

Andrea Chalupa (34:48):

I would.

Speaker 13 (34:51):

Would you like some tea or sushi or perfume for that night?

Andrea Chalupa (35:00):

When to join the conversation? Shape the show by becoming a member of Gaslit Nation on Patreon. Join our community of listeners for exclusive q and a sessions. Bonus shows. Get all episodes ad free invites to live events and more. Most importantly, connect with other listeners in our group chat and committees, planting Seeds of Change. Sign up at patreon.com/gaslit. Gaslit Nation hosts resilience political salons every Monday at 4:00 PM Eastern Can't make it live. Recordings are available to our community on Patreon. Salons are your to vent, ask questions, and connect with other listeners who also really, really hate Nazis to help Ukraine with urgently needed humanitarian aid. Join me in donating to RASO for ukraine@rasoforukraine.org to help refugees and conflict zones donate to Doctors Without borders@doctorswithoutborders.org. And if you want to help critically endangered orangutans already under pressure from the palm oil industry, donate to the Orangutan project@theorangutanproject.org.

(36:07):

Gaslit Nation is produced by Andrea Chalupa. Our editing wizard is Nicholas Torres and our associate producer is Carlin Daigle. If you like what we do, leave us a review on iTunes. It helps us reach more listeners and check at our Patreon. It keeps us going. Original music and Gaslit Nation is produced by David Whitehead, Martin Berg, Nick Farr, Damian Ariaga, and Carlin Daigle. Our logo design was donated to us by Hamish Smite of the New York based firm order. Thank you so much. Hamish Gaslin Nation would like to thank our supporters at the producer level on Patreon and Higher Iceberg is defiant. Lily Wachowski, Abby Voss, Sherry Escobar. Sidney Davies. Work for Better Prep for Trouble. John Shoal. Larry Gossan, Ann Bertino. David East Joseph Mara Jr. Mark Mark, Sean Berg, Kristen Custer, Kevin Gannon, Sandra Collins, Katie maus, James D. Leonard. Leo Chalupa. Carol Goad, Marcus j Trent, Joe Darcy and Marshall. DL Sinfield. Nicole Spear Abby Road. Janz. Stri. Rasmussen. Mark. Mark, Sarah Gray, Diana Gallagher, Jared Lombardo, and Tanya Chalupa. Thank you to everyone who supports the show. We could not make Gaslit Nation without you.

Speaker 13 (41:30):

When booking With other holiday rental apps. Sounds like this place doesn't look like the pictures. Is there a door behind all those spiders? It's time to try one that sounds more like a holiday. This is perfect. Relax. You booked a stays.

Andrea Chalupa