Russia and America vs. The Free World

America joined Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Israel, led by indicted corrupt criminal and Putin pal Netanyahu, wanted for war crimes, to vote against Ukraine’s United Nations resolution calling for peace and an end to Russia’s genocidal invasion. In this week’s Gaslit Nation, Andrea and Terrell Starr, of the Black Diplomats Podcast and Substack, joining from Kyiv, explain how we got here and what to do about it. Fascism helped build America, and global resistance to fascism will help us overcome the threats we face in this dangerous crossroads for America, and the world.

People are waking up from their shock and fighting back. Over $250,000 was raised on GoFundMe for Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl, the woman roughly dragged out of a town hall. The sheriff who threatened her with arrest from the stage is under investigation, along with his three unidentified rent-a-cops. Protests continue at Tesla dealerships, as well as Republican town halls across the country. Tesla owners face vandalism threats and pay to remove the logo, as the company’s stock plummets. Twenty-one civil servants of the United States Digital Service, taken over by DOGE, resigned, writing in their letter: “We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations. However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.” France’s President Emmanuel Macron fact checked Trump at the White House and helped a banned AP reporter ask a question, and promised to strengthen security across Europe, including for Ukraine. At the Governors Ball in the White House, before Trump, the Army Choir sang the resistance anthem against tyranny, from Les Miserables, "Do You Hear the People Sing?" 

To help us lift up our hearts and minds for the work ahead, this week’s bonus show, for our Patreon members at the Truth-teller level and higher, is our recorded first ever Gaslit Nation book club, looking at Albert Camus’ The Stranger (Matthew Ward translation) and Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, to see what wisdom they hold for us today, and how these two works “talk to each other.” Thank you to everyone who supports the show–we could not make Gaslit Nation without you!

Want to enjoy Gaslit Nation ad-free? Join our community of listeners for bonus shows, ad-free episodes, exclusive Q&A sessions, our group chat, invites to live events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!

Download Transcript

Show Notes

Want ideas on how to resist? 

 

Two days after a woman was dragged from a Coeur d’Alene town hall, Sheriff Bob Norris and other parties will face investigation into conduct https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2025/feb/24/two-days-after-a-woman-was-dragged-from-a-coeur-da/

Justice for Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl: Fight for the First https://www.gofundme.com/f/justice-for-dr-borrenpohl-fight-for-the-first/cl/s?lang=en_US&utm_campaign=fp_sharesheet&utm_content=amp13_t1-amp14_c&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=copy_link

Hegseth Defends Trump’s Firing of Joint Chiefs Chairman Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in an interview on Sunday that Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. was “not the right man for the moment” and praised President Trump’s handling of the war in Ukraine. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/23/us/politics/hegseth-trump-cq-brown-pentagon.html

Trump and Hegseth’s Pentagon purge undermines the armed forces How to damage military morale and recruiting? Trump and Hegseth seem to be trying to find out, alas. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/23/trump-hegseth-pentagon-generals/

New FBI director Kash Patel plans to relocate up to 1,500 employees https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/new-fbi-director-kash-patel-plans-relocate-1500-119064886

Mike Galsworthy ‪on BlueSky: “Just America & Israel voting with Russia, Iran, North Korea... ...against Ukraine.” https://bsky.app/profile/mikegalsworthy.bsky.social/post/3lix7n4o4tc2w

French prosecutor seeks 5-year jail sentence and ban from office for far-right leader
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/french-far-right-leader-marine-le-pen-faces-5-year-ban-office-rcna180103

TikTokers Are ‘Hunting’ Tesla Cybertrucks to Project Anti-Musk Messages on the Tailgate https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tiktokers-hunting-tesla-cybertrucks-project-174834791.html

Transcript

Sheriff Bob Norris (00:00):

Behave poorly and then not struggle with the consequences. That is shameful. I think what we've got right now is a situation where these folks are trying to filibuster and shut this whole program down. Unfortunately, they're successful. To all of you who came here to hear the legislators, I applaud you for sitting there. Let quietly listen. I promise we'll give back to you in the meantime. I know we've just got to be a little aggressive with some of these folks here … should go out and cry … You're not healthy, you're not healthy, you're not healthy.

Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl (00:47):

Excuse me Sheriff Norris. This man is assaulting me. This man is assaulting me. Is he your deputy? No. Is he your deputy. Is he a deputy? (unintelligible) You're not deputy. Who are you?

(01:39):

Who are you? Who are you are? Show your badge. Who are you? That's what they, you refuse to identify yourself. Who are you? Where is your badge? Where is your badge?

Andrea Chalupa (02:16):

Welcome to Gaslit Nation. I am your host, Andrea Chalupa, a journalist and filmmaker and the writer and producer of the journalistic thriller, Mr. Jones, about Stalin's genocide famine in Ukraine. The film, the Kremlin and its allies in the White House don't want you to see, so be sure to watch it. Our opening clip was bystander video of Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl getting forcefully dragged from her seat in a town hall in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho by three wannabe tough guys who refuse to identify themselves as Sheriff Bob Norris, speaking from the stage, threatened to arrest her for exercising her first amendment rights protected by the us. You can hear in that audio that we played that as the three men roughly dragged her away, the sheriff praised Elon Musk's destructive mass purge of our government.

(03:11):

The sheriff is now under investigation along with those men, and a GoFundMe was set up for Dr. Borrenpohl, which raised around a quarter of a million dollars. Keep in mind Dr. Borrenpohl was there, along with others protesting Republican cuts to Medicaid, when she was forced out physically and Americans United and said, we're going to give this woman a quarter of a million dollars and demand an investigation. And now that's what's happening. Okay, Americans are fighting back. Do you hear the people sing? If you want to know how to fight back, look at the show notes for this week's episode. We list it all there.

(03:54):

If you want the Fascism weather report and ways to resist, you've come to the right place. I'm joined today by my dear friend Terrell Starr of the Black Diplomats podcast in Substack, who is reporting from Kiev, Ukraine. This week marks 11 years since Russia invaded Ukraine and three years since Russia launched its full scale invasion, repeating Hitler's assault in World War II by attacking Ukraine in the early morning hours.

(04:25):

This week also marks the 11th anniversary of a popular uprising that overthrew Viktor Yanukovych, a wannabe dictator aligned with Russia that pillaged the government to enrich himself and his family. Jankovich fled to Russia where he remains to this day waiting for Trump and Musk to join him. Before we get to that, I want to flag some major developments in Trump and Russia's ongoing coup against America from the Washington Post. I'm going to read now General Charles Q. Brown Jr. The second African-American to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired him and also Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the chief of Naval Operations and General James Lyfe, the vice chief of this Air Force, along with top lawyers, the judge advocates general for the Air Force, Army and Navy. And on the list goes of the big Pentagon purge. And in addition to that, Kash Patel plans to relocate 1,500 FBI agents removing them from FBI headquarters in Washington DC, a viper den of foreign espionage trying to weaken America from within.

(05:42):

So he wants to remove 1500 agents from Washington DC put him out in the field with 500 going to Alabama. Why he wants to change the FBI mandate from intelligence gathering, fighting the Russian spies and Chinese spies and domestic white terrorists aligned with Russia to crime fighting. What does he mean by crime fighting? Well probably protestors immigrants, women now far right. Conspiracy theorists podcast host Dan Bonino who says his life purpose is to own the libs can now do that paid for by taxpayer money to own the libs. As the deputy director at the FBI likely put in that role to carry out Trump's retribution. Trump and Russia's aggressive weakening of America's security services are clearly laying the groundwork to ensure the military and FBI don't stand in their way. What happens next? Trump is following the dictator's playbook, including fulfilling the Kremlin's wishlist of weakening America from within.

(06:47):

So let's look at that playbook. Three years ago, ahead of Russia's full scale invasion, US intelligence warned that Russia would use a false flag operation to justify its invasion of Ukraine. That didn't happen because US intelligence called them out on it and they just carried out the invasion. Anyway, false flag operations are a fake terrorist attack created and blamed on scapegoated group like Ukrainians or somebody else. Russia consolidated power under Putin. The KGP dictatorship came to power under Putin by launching a false flag event bombing apartment buildings in Moscow, blaming it on the Chechens, then releasing a scorched earth destruction of Chechnya in their second war there. And the wars have continued to ramp up ever since Chechnya, because that is what Putin's KGB dictatorship uses to stay in power to create these enemies from within without to further control and confuse the masses of Russia leading to a historic brain drain that has gone on and escalated for at least a decade.

(07:55):

And so Americans get ready. The signs are pointing to a potential false flag event, meaning some sort of terrorist attack orchestrated by the Russians, by some other actors to justify Trump using all these emergency powers to ramp up his purge and consolidation of power, especially among the security services, to ensure that they protect him from the American people. That's how dictators stay in power. Maduro, for instance, the dictator of Venezuela. It looks like he lost his election. The opposition leader won, but Maduro gets to stay in power. Why? Because he has the military on his side. So should a false flag event happen, a Reichstag fire and Trump starts saying, okay, emergency time, military in the streets, hold onto your humanity, know your rights, and refuse to be silent and scared because that is what they want. That is when we redouble our efforts and fight, fight, fight for our country and our very lives. So just get ready. What are your thoughts on all this, Terrell?

Terrell Starr (08:56):

Basically what we are seeing is that America is not the democracy that we thought it was. And so I'll tell you some of the conversations that I've had with Ukrainians here, then my thoughts to it. One, they're just shocked. And the first question is why aren't Americans protesting or resisting this and have to respond and say that we are resisting it? It may not manifest in these large protests that you see that are easily captured on television, but people are protesting. They're smaller organized marches. People are also responding illegally by filing lawsuits against the federal government over some of these executive orders. And so people here are a bit shell shocked, not necessarily by Trump, by the idea that America's institutions are so strong that they would easily unravel as they are. And I have to remind them about the three branches of government. I have to tell them about the executive, the judiciary, and the legislative.

(09:55):

In reality, when you think about a fascist, because Trump is a fascist, A fascist was elected to the Oval office. So a fascist is controlling the executive and the legislature by and large is supporting the fascists. So roughly half of the legislature is either elected fascists themselves or people who are silent as a fascist is trying to unravel the democratic institutions of the country. And the only thing that is holding us together is our judiciary. Even some of the Trump appointed judges are resisting his ridiculous court violence. About one half of our three branches of government is controlled by fascism. And the problem behind why people are surprised by this are not ready for this moment is this notion that America can never get to this point. That's the fundamental problem. And so the way that we talk about political science, the way that we teach it needs to have a wake up call and really speak to some of the weakening and failures of the United States.

(11:06):

And so when you think about the biggest irony with EF is that he spent so much time talking about DEI and you have a Fox show post who fired two four star generals. Think about that, right? And you think about these two four star generals, and they were considered by all of their peers as some of the most competent people that anyone in the armed forces has ever worked with. They go through congressional confirmations. If anyone has gone through the ringer in order to justify their qualifications, it's the two people that he fired, right? His only claim to fame is roughly three or four years in US service, which listen, you could talk to a number of Americans who served in the military. So that's really not nothing remarkable to put on your resume because both my parents served in the military. I don't think that either of them would qualify to be a defense secretary.

(12:02):

That's the other thing. And two, what's really dangerous about this is that Trump basically wants to have control of the military like a dictator. We all know that around the world, one of the things that holds dictators in power is the military, Paul Pot, Kim Jong-Un, and you have Putin Milovich. One of the reasons why Milovich lost power was that law enforcement refused to shoot into the crowds as he ordered them to do. And you know that he was on trial for war crimes and he ultimately died in the hate. But that is where Donald Trump is taking us. And what is the lesson for us as Americans who are going through this right now? One, we have to start looking at ourselves as a developing nation. We think that we are a developed nation, but politically, socially, we are pretty much in development because all these conversations around wokeness, all these ideals of attacking immigrants show that we as human beings are failing at the task of properly living with one another.

(13:12):

And so therefore, we really cannot be considered a developed democracy. And so just as our founding fathers push for, and there are a lot of failures and a lot of critiques of the founding fathers, but one of the things that we should take from them is that in order to keep this country whole, we have to be activists in pushing ourselves forward. Our country is predicated on us always pushing forward and always advocating for our liberty because someone like Trump can easily corrupt the minds certain swath of the American population and turn it into fascism. And one more thing, the thing about Germany, for example, and I know we're going to talk about Germany, the fascist party, the AFD, got second place. They doubled their support from the previous federal election from five years ago. Why does that make sense for us as Americans?

(14:05):

Keep in mind that Germany never really liberated itself from fascism. It took someone else to do it. That's an important note to make the Nazi regime fail not from within. It failed because of an alliance of military powers to take down that Nazi regime. We are going to have to realize that we can become Nazi Germany. We very much can. A lot of people are uncomfortable with saying that America could be a fascist Nazi state, but we literally elected a Nazi. We literally elected a Nazi that very much can be us. We are becoming that. We are a country that just 60 years ago was ruled largely under Jim Crow for much of the American population. We lived in an apartheid state roughly more than 60 years ago. That's not that long ago. There are people who think that those days were the better days and are slowly but surely trying to bring us back to that. And we can very much be in that state again if we're not careful.

Andrea Chalupa (15:09):

Completely agree with you. And it's well known by this point that the Nazis turn to the Jim Crow brutality, the legal warfare against black people in the Jim Crow South to develop their own genocidal law in strengthening their dictatorship and ramping up their genocide. And I think one of the most dangerous things we see, and we saw this during the time of Hitler, and I want to say folks that are like, oh, every flavor of fascism is different. Fascism is fascism, is fascism. I studied the journalists that reported on the first Hitler, and they would go to Moscow and they would report from Stalin's Moscow. They would report from Hitler's Berlin. And at the time, the intellectuals of the age, the fashionable types were having these debates over which ideologies better Stalin's communism or Hitler's fascism or Mussolini's flavor of fascism. And the reporters that had to just report on the facts believe their eyes and ears of what was happening before them in Berlin and Moscow, they're like, it's the same shit.

(16:18):

Fascism is fascism is fascism. Whether it is the American institution of slavery and the genocide of Native Americans or the Henry Ford death camps of the Third Reich or Stalin's mass murdering regime. Hitler did not mass murder on the level that he would ultimately reach until he partnered with Stalin in the Soviet Nazi Pact, which included a secret plan between Hitler and Stalin to carve up Europe together, including invading Poland, which kicked off World War ii. And because they're mad men, eventually Hitler invades the Soviet Union and Stalin turns to our side and the allies. We used one monster Stalin to get rid of the other monster Hitler, but we were still left with the monster. So a lot of wet America's facing now is unfinished business from World War ii, which is Stalin level fascism that Putin proudly resurrected when they invade Donbass, they put up Stalin posters for a reason.

(17:34):

They're carrying out these Stalinist torture chambers in occupied Donbas for a reason. They banned my film and the nonprofit that dared to show it in Moscow for a reason. And so they want their Soviet Union back. And with that comes the death camps comes the fascism, and to the people that on social media who are finally waking up to Moscow, paying off another useful idiot to try to infiltrate and state capture just like they did throughout the Soviet period. And you're finally learning that this is Trump being a Russian asset is just another tool in the Kremlin's playbook they've used for generations. Let me just tell you something. The Soviet Union is a gaslighting term that means Russian Empire. All of those countries that were trapped under the Soviet Union behind the Iron Curtain, they are now moving heaven and earth to stop that fate of what we're now experiencing here in America from hitting them again.

(18:37):

Romania overturned the results of a presidential election because of the same illegal disinformation driven shenanigans that Musk and Trump used to come to power in 2024, the same level of disinformation across social media of trying to bribe voters and so on. And romania's like, no, no, we're not going to let this result go forward because this is clearly a Russian driven operation to attack our very sovereignty. One of Romania's most respected journalists on the day of those election results said, Romania is now under Russian occupation. And the Romanians said, we're not doing this again and we're going to cancel this election. And now Trump and Musk are going after Romania, like they went after Germany because Romania knows what Russian occupation is like. We are now under that Russian occupation, America, we've been warning about this for years. And people laughed at us.

(19:32):

They wrote hit pieces against us, and we kept telling them, learn Russian history from the perspective of enslaved people that had to suffer under Soviet genocide occupation. If you understand Russian history from the perspective of the oppressed, you would see what is happening to us clear as day. But because academia and a lot of those that trained at these universities that would go off to cover Russia and Ukraine at major mainstream outlets, they all learned to understand Russia through a Moscow lens.

(20:08):

Why? Because the Soviet Union wouldn't let you in as an academic unless you supported their ideology. And so as a result, the academics that advanced and had prestigious careers for decades were essentially Kremlin mouthpieces who then got fact-checked after the fall of the Soviet Union. And all these countries gained independence and opened up their archives to a new wave of historians like an Applebaum. And Tim Snyder who wrote new history saying Actually, this is the history of oppressed people. This is the history of captured nations stuck behind the Iron Curtain.

(20:46):

It was genocidal by Moscow, which Moscow wants to bring back today. And Elon Musk and David Sachs and Peter Thiel are in the mix because they share Russia's racism. They're mad about apartheid. They have their own historical grievances. So this is the reality now, and I do believe in a united Europe, I do believe in a united free world. Why? Because the eu, the strong nations of the EU and those that are aspiring to be among them and join the eu, they invest in their people. They invest in higher education, they invest in developing the minds of their people. They're technologically savvy. They're driving global innovations, including in building a sustainable greener economy. Europe is advancing without the United States. And let me just tell you, I have European friends who live in the United States because they make a ton of money as software engineers because compared to American software engineers, they are superior.

(21:47):

They are superior because their education is just so good over in Europe, if they want to be software engineers in Europe, they're a dime a dozen. But in America, the job market is theirs, okay? That's why they live here. They could be kings and queens in this, but back home, they're a dime a dozen. That is a warning to America. Republicans have invested so much in dumbing down Americans that we cannot compete in a war against the EU and the other NATO countries. Their minds are superior to ours. And that is the same dynamic that existed between the north and the South. When the Civil war broke out, Sherman who had become General Sherman was in Louisiana at the time, and all his friends around him were like, oh, you're going to fight for us the south, right? And he was distraught. And he said to them, you don't know what you've just done.

(22:37):

You Southerners, you may be winning in the early stage of the war with your bravado, but pretty soon the North is going to defeat you because they're intellectually and technologically superior to you. And that is exactly the dynamic that is existing now between the US and the European Union and including the uk. If Europe has the will, they have the way forward to protect the free world, to ensure victory in Ukraine and a defeat of Russian fascism. Putin's last car that he has left to play is Trump. Putin's economy is on the verge of collapse, is undergoing a crisis brain drain that has been accelerating for a decade. There's hyperinflation last seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and you have not enough bodies for his meat grinder that he created with his invasion in Ukraine. The North Koreans came over and they left.

(23:30):

They got snuffed out by the Ukrainian army, and they're too busy watching porn on their phones and the relative freedom of Russia. They're like, we don't want to fight North Koreans. Were useless to the Russians. Putin is stuck. He's in trouble. The only thing he has left is Trump and Musk. So if the free world unites with strength and resolve, we can overcome the Trump Musk threat. All of Musk's businesses must be banned across the eu. They need to take a stronger stance against disinformation there. And they need to tell these social media companies, we're going to regulate the shit out of you unless you solve your fact checking crisis problem that you've created that helped bring Trump to power in the first place. And on and on the list goes, and we can ultimately get through this. I want to play a clip of French President Emmanuel Macron, who has emerged as a new leader of Europe saying that we need to mind fuck Putin.

(24:23):

We need to make him scared that everything's on the table. So he doesn't know which direction we're going to go, and he's right. And we need to back up Germany and France will provide a nuclear weapon shield for Germany, should the US pull out of Germany, France will fill that void and protect Germany and all of Europe. And Emmanuel Macron just visited the White House where he was promoting Europe's plan for a fair piece for Ukraine that doesn't sell out Ukraine to Russia or exploit it for its natural resources. So he was there promoting that. And in the midst of that, he was trying not to laugh in Trump's face as Trump was rambling on about searching for gold in Fort Knox. And he also had to fact check him a couple of times. I'll play a clip of that.

Emmanuel Macron (25:08):

I support the idea to have Ukraine first being compensated because they are the one to have lose a lot of their fellow citizen and being destroyed by this attacks. Second, all of those were paid for, could be compensated, but not by Ukraine, by Russia, because they were the ones to aggress.

Donald Trump (25:25):

Again, just so you understand, Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine. They get their money back.

Emmanuel Macron (25:32):

No, in fact, to be frank, we paid. We paid 60% of the total effort and it was through like the US loans guarantee grants, and we provided real money. To be clear. We have 230 billion frozen assets in Europe, Russian assets, but this is not as a collateral of a loan because this is not our belonging. So they are frozen. If at the end of the day in the negotiation we'll have with Russia, they're ready to give it to us, super. It'll be loan at the end of the day, and Russia will have paid for that.

Donald Trump (26:05):

If you believe that it's okay with me.

Andrea Chalupa (26:07):

So what are your thoughts on all that, Terrell?

Terrell Starr (26:10):

You said something earlier about Timothy Snyder and Anne Applebaum who are very renowned scholars writing books about the history of slavery in Europe, particularly with Russian colonialism. It's important to note that we have our own history, and I don't think that the Americans need to rely on anyone's playbook because we have our own. As I said earlier, the way that we teach and talk about our history and talk about American democracy, we speak about it as if we have overcome a lot of the fascist models of government that have existed. And we don't even talk about fascism in America. We don't inform policy conversations. Fascism is a concept that we ascribe to the Mussolini of the world or the Hitlers of the world most famously. And so now it's important to note that we've always existed in that matter. For example, apartheid. We don't talk about apartheid in the context of America.

(27:07):

We call it Jim Crow, but it was essentially an apartheid form of governments in much of America up until the late 1960s. And so I see very much the way that Donald Trump speaks. He speaks about the America of old. He speaks about the times where life was better pretty much for white people, even though it was much worse for people who are not white. So when we discuss our country, some of the most productive work that we can all do is really learn how black history is our history. But the reason why we're not having that conversation is because even before Donald Trump, conservatives have always pushed back against talking about the true history of this country. Not only conservatives, but a lot of people in the Democratic party don't really want to deal with the rigors of slavery because it will really force America to account financially, politically in ways that many people in America are not ready to reconcile.

(28:14):

When you bring up Germany, I think about several things. I say Germany because that's a country that I'm becoming more and more familiar with. I visit Germany every year. I stay two to three weeks. Now it's become more of a month staying more and more. You can legally call someone a fascist in Germany. So when you think about the A FD, the alternative for Deutschland, right, is what they're called is their official name of their party. It's legal to call them fascists. And I'm saying this because a higher court in Germany made this ruling when a FD official want a state election, and he was deemed a fascist, and legally you can call him that Germany, for all of his failures for many things, has done the difficult work of trying to reflect on its role in the Holocaust. And again, it's a very problematic, very nuanced way to discuss it.

(29:08):

But this idea of that we're just going to outlaw certain things is a step that America rarely takes. Or you think about Romania where they just completely said, you know what? This election is not legitimate and we're just going to throw it out. That was their higher court that throughout that election, there's been very few moments in American history where that has ever happened. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that America between this black population, this white population, it's Latino population, it's Asian population, because our history is so racially fraught, we don't have the homogeneous population that can galvanize around one common national theme like in Europe. So I think that's a major problem that we're dealing with. And so finally with Macron, I found it to be funny because he was trying to hold back his laughter, but what we saw was that the Europeans actually can resist and fight back if they choose to.

Andrea Chalupa (30:09):

Exactly.

Terrell Starr (30:10):

That's the main thing. And so the number one issue with Europe is that they never developed a energy industry or a military industry, an interconnected military industrial complex that could survive without the United States. And so what Europe is starting to realize is that not only is Trump's aligning with Putin is threatening Ukraine, it's threatening their own. And so the Europeans legitimately have to think about the fact that what if the United States pulls out of nato? Because I don't think people realize that it's not as difficult as people think that is. Trump has to pretty much say, we're going to drop out, the Congress has to approve it. Now, will the Congress approve that? That's a different conversation. But if Congress goes along with it, he could pretty much pull out NATO and that process can end in less than a year. That's a fact. And what would NATO look like without the United States?

(31:05):

And so that's forcing Europe to develop its own security infrastructure independent of the states. Now, that's the worst case scenario. The best case scenario is that once we get a more sane president in, I'm pretty sure the Europeans will say, yeah, you can come back on into nato, United States, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's not the fact that America can go back into nato. It's the destruction that Trump leaves behind. Because at the end of the day, it's not about the country, it's about himself. What we're seeing is people really being shocked by how weak American democracy is. And I'm simply saying it was never particularly strong.

Andrea Chalupa (31:41):

Of course, absolutely. Trump is just the latest white rage attacking non-white progress in America. And you have the Russians like Maria Bna, the spy who was the pollinator of Kremlin corruption central to Russiagate. She was arrested as part of Robert Mueller's investigation, and she went back to Russia where she's now promoting Russia to American conservatives with the, I don't even know how to say this, with the vacation slogan of, Hey, you want to live in 1950s America? You can do that here in Russia. And these American conservatives are taking her up on that offer.

Terrell Starr (32:26):

What's really interesting about that, I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos of Americans that go back to America and they all say the same bullshit. I want to go to a country that values the family where there's no woke culture, where there are no transgender people in any pronouns, just all this stuff that has nothing to do with their lives. Now, mind you, a lot of these conservatives, and they're pretty much almost always men.

Andrea Chalupa (32:52):

White men.

Terrell Starr (32:54):

They're white men. What I find interesting is that for a lot of conservative white men, Maria Butina is considered a highly attractive woman. Now, again, talking about, I'm not saying this to make fun of her looks, not at all. What I am speaking to is the fact that there is a particular aesthetic that Russia politically understands that's attractive to the American white man. That's an important note to make, and I'm just being careful of that because I don't want to come across as being sex or anything like that. This is very much a social, her engagement on social media and marketing to white men. It's very much a KGB socially engineered initiative. So we need to be very,

Andrea Chalupa (33:37):

It's a honeypot. She's a honeypot.

Terrell Starr (33:39):

Yeah, absolutely. She's a honeypot, but her particular aesthetic is the honeypot, and she's selected for a particular reason. And so what she doesn't say is that just a few years ago, Russia pretty much struck down laws that says that we can't arrest you for beating your wife. And so domestic violence is extremely high in Russia, and they talk about the freedom of speech where we can speak out against woke culture. What they don't tell you is that if you walk around with a placard saying, I don't agree with Putin's policies, you can be put in jail for five years. They don't tell you about that. And so...

Andrea Chalupa (34:19):

Your kids taken away from you and sent to God knows where.

Terrell Starr (34:22):

And sent to God knows where. Right.And so the Russians say, you can come over here and exercise speech against woke culture, but is it really free speech? No, it is not. What they're trying to do is create this exodus of conservatives to Russia, but there is a more sesinister ploy behind that. One of the things that we have to realize is that Russia very much is tapping into the Western white supremacist framework of it's us versus them. And we really have to look at Russia as a white supremacist state. That is what they are. Whereas we consider white supremacy in the United States, Russians are operating under a Russian supremacist framework where the ethnic Russian is at the top and everyone else is at the bottom. And for Americans who don't understand how the racial dynamics work in Russia, the Ukrainian is below them.

Andrea Chalupa (35:18):

Not only that, the Russians have a whole genre of creating videos, viral videos, attacking immigrants on the street in Russia, including immigrants from former Soviet states.

Terrell Starr (35:31):

These conservative white men don't care about that.

Andrea Chalupa (35:33):

They want that.

Terrell Starr (35:35):

That same type of behavior to place freely in the United States without any consequence or any penalty. And so of course, Russia is going to be appealing to them. And so Russia is the white supremacist paradise, and that is what the government is trying to push towards the West. And so it is very dangerous because the Russians, the AFD in Germany, one of the things that they all have in common is that we may differ on a number of issues, but we have our whiteness that can bond us together through it all. And we as people of good faith have to decide what is going to bring us together. That is the question that really is troubling the American public. So much of what pulls us together is racism and white supremacy and domination, and people feeling like they have to be above everyone else.

(36:27):

And my religion has to reign supreme over yours. And because I'm a man, I have to domineer over you because I can quote some passages in the Bible that justify me doing so if I don't have any problem with immigrants being beaten and killed, because at the end of the day, I feel justified if I have to beat my wife into compliance, I should be able to do that too, which is one of the reasons why Russia is so freaking appealing because they legitimately have legislation that actually is in favor of making it easier for people to be domestic abusers. We are dealing with a global psychotic and sale induced society of people who want the world to be very much as fascist as they are, and we have to resist that.

Andrea Chalupa (37:13):

A hundred per cent. What Maria Butina is ultimately doing is she's recruiting Americans to come over to Russia and be turned into spies for Russia. One of these idiot white men that went over to live in 1950s, America and Russia then got turned into a spy for Russia and sent into Ukraine to spy. So five eyes minus the US all intelligent services have to keep an eye out for Russia's latest operation. Back in the day, the honeypots, the Russian kgb, honeypots would have to infiltrate a network abroad. Now, they willingly come because of their racism. They're being led to slaughter essentially.

Terrell Starr (37:58):

But let's also look at the fact that what Russia understands is that white men, when it comes to Slavic, women are pretty gullible. The thing about Maria BNA is that she plays this role. And by the way, I think it's important to note, I wonder if she actually believes this bullshit herself. I have questions about this. She's a spy and she's...

Andrea Chalupa (38:20):

So, she's a Russian patriot through and through.

Terrell Starr (38:23):

Yeah, she's a Russian patriot through and through. But I think that in Russia, they definitely, Putin himself definitely plays this role. We want to have more babies, et cetera, et cetera. But in reality, none of these people really care about it because at the end of the day, it's about their power.

Andrea Chalupa (38:40):

Exactly. They're like Republicans, we want you to have more babies, but we're not going to help you take care of them.

Terrell Starr (38:45):

Yeah, we're not going to help you take care of them. But more specifically, Russia is saying, we want more white people who will align with us because at the end of the day, the Russian feels like they're superior to everybody, including these very white men. Let's keep that in mind. So these white men are utilities for Russian supremacy greater purpose, which is to reign a Russian way of thinking across the western world, the western world that they hate, but they exploit. And so these are the same people who rail against the L-G-B-T-Q community who rail against American imperialism, but all these people love Gucci. All these people love Mercedes-Benz. Their presidential vehicle in Russia is a Mercedes-Benz. So all these people love the trinkets of the West.

Andrea Chalupa (39:37):

That's why they're not going to use their nuclear weapons because they vacation in the west, they send their kids and their mistresses to live in the west. Don't believe Putin's nuclear war blackmail do not fall for it. He doesn't want to destroy his vacation land and all his properties in the West.

Terrell Starr (39:53):

I think to really bring this home for our audience, what people need to know is that in America, we have these oceans, the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean that shield us, at least from a naval perspective, at minimum, from any major military threats. Canada is a friendly nation above us. Then below you have Mexico, which can't harm us in any way. And so Americans have not had to deal with the anxiety of their sovereignty being threatened. We've never had to deal with that. Our sovereignty has only been threatened from within in any real way, and our democracy has only been threatened from within. What Russia is trying to do is that they're not necessarily going to be a military threat to the United States. What they are trying to do is to destabilize us, and they're destabilizing us by tapping into the worst of our society, which is racism, which is sexism, which is ethnic and racial division.

(40:56):

And they know how to do that effectively because they did it in their own near abroad. Russia, the Russian Federation is nothing more than a settler colonial state. We don't talk about Russia being a settler colonial state. It very much is the southern regions of Russia. Many of the people who are being forced to fight in this war come from those southern regions, the ethnic minorities, settler, colonial state. One of the main differences between Russia and the United States is that the Americas pretty much killed off much of its indigenous community. The indigenous communities of Russia, even though they themselves have been killed off in significant throughout the Russian Empire in particular, their communities are still in Russia in the southern parts, namely. So Russia has experience with racial strife and racial division. And so they have mastered the tools of creating disinformation that taps into the worst of the racial strife across the west.

(41:54):

And so we have to be mindful enough of this happening and not allowing ourselves to have people like Donald Trump who promise a particular group of people in America that the reason why your economic vitality is failing. It's because of these people. These people being immigrants, black people, Asian people, Mexican people. Until we deal with that particular issue in America, which is race, we're going to always be vulnerable. And our democracy is going to always be under threat just as it was more than 60 years ago when it was at its very worst. But those days are not that far away. Those are the days that Trump wants to take us back to. And if we do not rise up, rise up with our votes, rise up with protests rise up in this next house election in the next couple of years, we are going to be in the threat of living in a Jim Crow society, which in itself is fascism.

Andrea Chalupa (42:57):

And check the show notes for a list of upcoming protests and ways that you can get involved and exercise your constitutionally protected rights because the constitution still and always will matter. And I wanted to ask you, it's Black History Month, MSNBC celebrated with a blood bath of canceling beloved black talent. Joanne Reed, one of my favorite anchors on tv. She was early in calling out exactly what you are saying, Russia's fascist threat against American democracy in helping Donald Trump illegally in the 2016 election when so many in the media were laughing off Russiagate. Joanne Reed was reporting on it in July, 2016 that she was that early, and MSNBC just canceled her like that. They're also getting rid of other shows by Katie Fang, who's Asian, Jonathan Capehart a long list. And in the past, they got rid of Tiffany Cross.

Terrell Starr (44:05):

And Aman, who was another Arab American guy. Aman

Andrea Chalupa (44:08):

Aman, yeah. And they got rid of Tiffany Cross in the past who was a fabulous anchor who said what needed to be said. And Alyssa Harris Perry, who even before her was also that strident voice that you don't get enough of on cable tv and this is a blood bath. Why might MSNBC be doing this? Because Comcast is spinning off MSNBC to sell it. Basically, they're trying to sweeten the deal by putting a lot of establishment friendly, predominantly white faces on MSNBC so that they can attract a billionaire white man to buy the network and turn everything into Morning Joe, or worse, do what Jeff Bezos has done to the Washington Post. It's very dangerous. What is happening here. And this is like how Putin consolidated Russian State TV. He got friendly oligarchs to buy up all the networks. We already have a Republican who owns CNN and has ramped up Russian disinformation on CNN, not Russian Republican disinformation on CNN. So my idea that I want to manifest here in the universe is that billionaire Tyler Perry, step up, please, Tyler Perry, and use your money. Bring together a bunch of investors and buy MSNBC and give Joanne Reed her show back. Bring back Tiffany Cross make MSNBC the network that we need today to fight this Russian backed white supremacy fascism. What are your thoughts, Terrell?

Terrell Starr (45:46):

At the end of the day, what this is really telling us is that the news, mainstream media anchors and journalists who dare to tell us the truth about what's happening in this country are under threat. And it really is incumbent upon us to support, really recognize that this media ecosystem where we largely go to mainstream publications for much of our news is weak, and we need to support independent journalists support Gaslit Nation.

Andrea Chalupa (46:16):

Black diplomats,

Terrell Starr (46:18):

Black diplomats. So I want to encourage people to come to Black Diplomats study. Next week. I'm going to relaunch the newsletter where I make foreign policy less, more. So I'm going to be talking about things such as trade. Why is it important for us, for Americans to understand trade and how dangerous Donald Trump's tariff wars are? We really need to realize that we have to seek out news that's important that we feel is important, seek it out for ourselves and support independent journalists. And that's going to require you to spend maybe five more dollars a month, right? Spend $10 a month or extra $20 a month supporting substack and supporting podcasts like Gaslit Nation to help keep us going. Because what's happening in mainstream media is really what's happening with Twitter, for example. No matter how much I try to engage Twitter, it's not a reliable source of news anymore. It's not a reliable source where I can engage my public anymore because even though I have more than 270,000 followers on Twitter, I can barely reach a few percentage points of them because of the way that the algorithm is rigged.

Andrea Chalupa (47:29):

Facebook is the same. Instagram is the same oligarchs that were front row at Trump's inauguration. Do this deliberately to divide and conquer.

Terrell Starr (47:39):

Right? And here's another thing that you notice, particularly on Facebook and Instagram. Notice that when you have the option of categorizing your post, there's no news section. None of these people want us to be informed.

Andrea Chalupa (47:54):

And connected in a meaningful way with healthy FactCheck information.

Terrell Starr (47:58):

The FactCheck information. And so that means that we independently as citizens are going to have to seek that out ourselves. And so I have just from a revenue standpoint, or just being able to get people to support my work, I've lost out struggling financially myself for the very simple reason that these tools that I use to reach out to people to support my work, they don't exist anymore. Everybody is going through that. And so whereas with the Joanne Ries of the world, they're losing their jobs. They themselves, she's probably going to do what Don Lemon is doing. He created his own platform, and sure, he asked people that

Andrea Chalupa (48:36):

Jim Acosta

Terrell Starr (48:38):

And Jim Acosta, all these folks. And so that is the new reality. Now, here's the good news, because I'm not a gloom and doom person because I believe that there's always something that we can do to fight back. I genuinely believe that if we invest in ourselves, we invest in independent media, then we can take control of the ecosystem. Because no matter how many billions of dollars that Elon Musk spends on Twitter, if you look at it as a trash site where a whole bunch of right-wing nut jobs are going to go, you just know that that's the place where all the nut jobs go. You're not going to go and get valuable news and information from them. We can create our own ecosystem. It's going to look different, but we can definitely do it. And we have to just be persistent in believing ourselves in the fact that we can.

Andrea Chalupa (49:27):

Exactly right. And that's how progress has always been made. And I want to close it out by reminding all of the Americans, especially you are not alone. A black woman child of immigrants came extremely close to becoming president of the United States, and they threw everything at her. The richest man on the planet was essentially bribing people to vote his way and got called in by a judge. He bought the largest social media platform and turned it into a disinformation machine for Russia and white supremacy in America known as maga. And you had of course, Republicans like Kemp in Georgia using the KKK playbook to suppress the vote using AI to wipe thousands upon thousands off of the voter rolls. And the Russians were calling in dozens of bomb threats across the country. And then you had Trump and Putin Ally Netanyahu, who was financially propping up Hamas, as you see in the must watch documentary, the BB files.

(50:37):

We had the filmmakers on the show recently, and Netanyahu is clinging the power. His court purged didn't work. So by financially supporting Hamas all these years that paid off getting him his terrorist attack on October 7th, Putin's birthday, that's no coincidence given that Hamas had been taking trips to Moscow as well as Russian, la, Iran, and the lead up to October 7th, and now Netanyahu gets his forever war. And yes, it's a ceasefire, but he's still going because once this war is over, there's going to be an investigation and that might kick him out of power and finally force him into jail where he belongs. He and his wife Sarah, two of the most corrupt vile leaders on this planet. And so net and Yahoo wants his Trump back. So he knows that his war crimes allowed by Biden, Mr. Status quo, are going to divide and conquer Trump's opposition in the US election.

(51:34):

Just as Terrell warned on this show early on. And that proved to be true, that did play a role in people not voting or voting third party in the 2024 election. And so all of these forces combined were thrown at Kamala Harris. And she still came incredibly close to winning this election. Despite all that, despite Biden staying in this race longer than he should have, despite the Democratic party establishment being addicted to chasing, overpaid, bloated consulting contracts and TV deals, instead of investing in the all important grassroots level, we had institutional betrayal by the DNC, by the Democrats in this election that also worked against us. It was a long list. And then of course, you had Merrick Garland's, DOJ, which simply had one job, which is stopping a violent insurrectionist from holding power again, according to the US Constitution. And they failed at that job, and they were complacent, and they were just biting their time and waiting out the clock.

(52:41):

And likely many of those DOJ prosecutors and agents in the FBI were on the side of Trump because of white supremacy, blinding them to the destruction they were causing to their very country and themselves. So I want to assure Americans that this election was extremely close, and there's more MAGA voters and independent voters that are waking up to what they have done. And we need to hold space for them because they're waking up to the gaslighting. And some of them will come over to our side, some of them won't because they're all in it. They're all in for white supremacy. But just remind yourself in the darkest of times, no matter how dark it's going to get, and it's going to get dark, you are not alone. You are not alone. There are more of us than there are them. And yes, a woman will be president someday, including a black woman.

(53:29):

Let's just hope it's for a Democrat and not Ivanka Trump or Kim Kardashian, okay? Or one of her children. But yes, America, you are not alone. There's more of us than there are them. And to close us out, we know famously that Donald Trump loves show tunes. He has his favorite songs off of Broadway. But one of those favorite songs is not the one you're about to hear from Miz, which is a defiant anthem of the people fighting against a king. And this was a song that was selected to play at the all important governor's ball at the White House, bringing together governors across our union who are on the front lines now of protecting the US Constitution.

Singing (54:30):

The Lord...

Andrea Chalupa (56:18):

Want to join the conversation? Shaped 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 space 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 in 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.

(57:26):

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 out our Patreon. It keeps us going. Original music and Gaslit Nation is produced by David Whitehead, Martin Berg, Nick Farr, Damien 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 hire Diana Gallagher, work for Better Prep for Trouble. Abby Zavos. Lily Wachowski, TBL 9 2 6 6 6. Sherry Escobar, Sydney Davies. John Scholer. Iceberg is Defiant. Yes, we are Larry Gossan. Ann Bertino, David East Mark, mark, Sean Berg, Kristen Custer, Kevin Gannon, Sandra Callins, Katie Urus, James D. Leonard. Leo Chalupa. Carol Goad, Marcus j Trent, Joe Darcy, DHL Sinfield. Nicole Spear. Abby Road. Janz, SRAP. Rasmussen. Mark. Mark, Sarah Gray, Leah Campbell, Jared Lombardo, Ann Marshall and Tanya Chalupa. Thank you all for your support of the show. We could not make Gaslit Nation without you.


Andrea Chalupa