The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW LIVE： Realpolitik #26 ｜ The Year in Review

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to another episode of RealPolitik. I am your host, Firas Mordad.

00:00:09.240 This is the last episode of the year, so before anything else, the most important thing to say

00:00:14.440 to you is Merry Christmas. Have a wonderful holiday, spend time with your families, go to

00:00:20.300 church. But let's talk about slightly more depressing things right now. We have to talk

00:00:25.740 about geopolitics. And I think what I want to start with is the single most important development

00:00:32.200 that's happened in the year. This wasn't obviously the bombing of Yemen or the bombing of Iran or

00:00:37.760 Trump's attempts at making peace with the Russians. I think the most important thing that has happened

00:00:43.320 is the rise of identity politics among the white population. And I don't mean that negatively.

00:00:51.360 Basically, the Israeli war on Gaza and its conclusion and then the strikes on Iran really

00:01:00.160 galvanized the right in the West in a very particular way. It started with opposition to

00:01:07.500 going to war with Iran, with the United Opposition for the United States going to war with Iran.

00:01:15.840 This is what got Tucker Carlson to invite Nick Fuentes onto his show. And then we saw the fireworks

00:01:22.440 that came afterwards. And the reason Nick Fuentes is popular, fundamentally, is because he says that

00:01:30.520 every single group in the world has identity politics, except for white Westerners. And this was

00:01:37.780 apparently some kind of revelation or some kind of very unusual thing to say. And it is,

00:01:44.200 because for decades now, Westerners weren't allowed to be proud of their nations in any particular way.

00:01:51.800 White people weren't allowed to be proud of being German or British or American or anything else, 0.76

00:01:58.940 really. It was meant to be guilt all the way down. And so when the strikes on Iran happened,

00:02:06.260 Tucker decided that as part of his arsenal in terms of pushing back on this, according to him,

00:02:10.840 he was going to invite Fuentes onto his show. And this led to an insane war within the American right,

00:02:19.780 which then turned to a war within the global right over the question of who gets to have an identity and

00:02:28.860 who doesn't. And the rules of the game, as they've been set for the last few decades, were that everybody

00:02:35.580 gets to have an identity and to be proud of it. You could see the Wikipedia entries about black pride,

00:02:42.620 Jewish pride, whatever, and the entry about white pride, which is obviously very demonized.

00:02:50.220 And that dam broke, more or less, and it broke suddenly. And it reflects something that Carl has

00:02:57.020 been talking about, which is that the West has abandoned its young men. I wrote about this on

00:03:03.160 Moda Geopolitics. But if you want to mobilize the population to go to war with Russia, as the current 0.65

00:03:10.400 EU leadership is trying to do with their plans to reconscript people, rebuild military industries,

00:03:17.380 etc., etc., well, who are you going to need? You're going to need young white men. What have you offered 0.77

00:03:23.320 them? What love have you shown them? And therefore, what reciprocal love can you expect from them?

00:03:30.080 And the answer is none. And now they're vocally demanding it. Fuentes is a kind of a totem, or you

00:03:38.860 want to call him a token, not really the leader of it, but definitely the leader of a real movement

00:03:44.840 that's been struggling to articulate itself. And what we're seeing now is this demand for

00:03:53.180 white people to be respected as sovereign people in their respective countries. And that's a huge

00:03:59.920 change. So far, we've had a lot of containment. We've had people like Maloney, who will slow down

00:04:06.500 illegal immigration, but open the door to legal immigration. We've had people like Starmer, who are

00:04:12.620 closing the door for legal immigration to around just half a million per year, but keeping it open

00:04:20.220 to illegal immigration. Now we're seeing something quite different, whereby the right is saying,

00:04:26.340 we don't want more tinkering. We want to be able to assert that this country is ours, whichever Western

00:04:33.940 country that might be. It's happening in Australia, as it is happening in America, as it is happening in

00:04:39.000 Britain and Europe. But we want to be able to say that this country is ours. That's what the right is

00:04:44.460 saying. And good on them. That's exactly what they should be saying. Your countries are yours. They're

00:04:48.680 not anybody else's, you know. If you don't defend them, somebody else will take them from you.

00:04:54.000 So this change, I think, is quite dramatic. And it got reflected in a huge number of ways,

00:05:01.680 which I will talk about. But it's been a disaster in particular for Israel. Because what has happened

00:05:12.240 in the wars in the Middle East was that the Americans initially in April and May were bombing

00:05:19.260 the Houthi movement in Yemen. They bombed Yemen as much as they could. But you have to remember,

00:05:25.020 Yemen has been getting bombed by American jets since 2015, and arguably since 2006.

00:05:32.240 because these were Saudi jets that were trained and equipped and given intelligence by the Americans.

00:05:38.480 And they were used against the Houthi movement in Yemen. Let me just sort of

00:05:43.040 pull up the map as we talk about different countries, because that makes it easier

00:05:48.320 to just have this conversation. So the Houthis in Yemen, here on the intersection of the Indian Ocean and

00:05:57.200 the Red Sea, they got bombed by the United States for 45 days, it was. J.D. Vance was the only guy on

00:06:04.400 record who said that, no, no, no, I actually oppose this. We shouldn't be bombing Yemen just to secure

00:06:10.240 Israeli shipping. But the bombing happened. And then the Americans signed a ceasefire with the

00:06:15.440 Houthi in May 2025, which didn't require the Houthi to stop attacking Israeli ships.

00:06:23.520 And that was a big, dramatic change on the part of the United States, because essentially

00:06:28.800 for the Israelis, it looked like the Americans abandoned them.

00:06:34.320 Now, obviously, it didn't end there. In June, we had the bombing of Iran. The bombing began three 0.73

00:06:40.720 days before the Iranians were supposed to meet with the Americans here in Oman, in Muscat,

00:06:48.480 to negotiate over the nuclear issue. The Israelis preempt these negotiations by launching strikes

00:06:55.840 against Iran. And what followed was the 12-day war. And the most remarkable thing in the 12-day war was 0.62

00:07:02.560 that the Americans consumed 25% of their terminal high altitude air defense interceptors. This is a

00:07:13.760 system called THAAD, Terminal High Altitude Air Defense, which uses hypersonic missiles. They go at

00:07:22.400 around 8 Mach, if I remember correctly. Mach 8, if I remember correctly. And 25% of them were consumed

00:07:30.880 in 12 days against Iran. So you had, and then obviously the Americans bombed the Iranian nuclear program,

00:07:39.200 but we have no idea to what extent this successfully terminated the program. The three sites that were

00:07:47.200 bombed, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, are no longer active, but the Iranians still 1.00

00:07:55.360 have stockpiled enriched uranium, and they probably have other secret sites that haven't been detected yet.

00:08:02.640 And so the result of these two wars was to show the limitations of American power. We're no longer

00:08:13.360 dealing with the United States of the 90s and the early 2000s, which could in 1990 simply destroy the

00:08:21.520 Iraqi army unchallenged. If they wanted to invade all the way and overthrow Saddam in 1990, they could have.

00:08:28.480 They didn't. In 2003, they rolled up the Iraqi military, I think in a month or in six weeks,

00:08:36.560 and got to Baghdad in just about six weeks. So now we're dealing with a different kind of warfare.

00:08:43.200 And in this different kind of warfare, the Americans cannot just do what they want. They can cause a 0.81

00:08:49.600 massive amount of destruction, they can cause enormous damage, but they couldn't stop a bunch of 0.53

00:08:55.840 tribesmen in Yemen from firing hypersonic missiles at Israel and from attacking shipping in the Red Sea

00:09:03.360 and thereby closing the Suez Canal, through which I think 12-15% of all global commerce passes.

00:09:10.960 So that was a big blow to the United States, essentially, and obviously to Israel. And on the back of this, 0.78

00:09:16.560 you had Tucker Carlson interviewing Fuentes and basically opening the floodgates to the extent

00:09:25.200 that I think it was the ADL who called Tucker Carlson the anti-Semite of the year.

00:09:31.200 And the way that this story is playing out is really important because it's showing a real conflict

00:09:37.440 within the heart of the global American empire over who's in charge and what are the principles

00:09:46.960 that should underpin decision-making in the West. That's what the fight is about.

00:09:54.960 And what the right is arguing is that it should be our nation first, which again, whichever nation that 0.85

00:10:01.680 happens to be. And you have a contingent, obviously the Zionist contingent, who are saying that no,

00:10:13.440 part of being Britain first, America first, whatever first, is backing Israel. And that conflict is coming 0.74

00:10:21.920 to a head, especially because liberal Brazilians, shall we use that term, are still arguing for inclusion,

00:10:34.080 are still arguing for colorblind meritocracy, are still arguing for liberal ideas that have

00:10:42.640 clearly demonstrated their failure. And so this change is going to play out throughout 2026.

00:10:49.680 And you have French elections in 2027, British elections in 2029, a bunch of German federal elections.

00:10:59.680 This is going to be a big issue. And you're seeing the beginning of the mainstreaming

00:11:06.400 of the assertion that Western nations belong to Westerners.

00:11:12.160 I think this and the generational divide that comes with it

00:11:16.240 that are going to be the main things to watch in the West, because they will determine the appetite

00:11:24.160 of the West to intervene in the Middle East, to intervene in Russia, Ukraine,

00:11:31.760 how it will treat economic policy, welfare policy, etc., etc. And the thing is that

00:11:38.720 as Westerners become assertive about their own identities, this is naturally going to bring them

00:11:45.040 into conflict with the Muslim world, or especially with the Muslims who are already in their countries,

00:11:51.760 because you're also reaching a major economic crisis. Dan and I spoke about this last week,

00:11:58.240 where we argued that, look guys, we are on the precipice of a financial crisis

00:12:04.800 that makes the 2008 global financial crisis look extremely tame. And you see that with the debt

00:12:11.680 indicators, you see that with the interest rates on different kinds of bonds. We mentioned that Chinese

00:12:19.040 dollar bonds are trading at less than American dollar bonds, which is unthinkable from a mainstream

00:12:28.000 economic perspective, but it means that the markets trust China more than they trust the United States,

00:12:34.080 which if you know anything about China is a bit insane. So you're coming to a point where there is

00:12:40.640 this resurgent identity and you're heading towards an economic crisis. What do you do in an economic

00:12:46.400 crisis? Well, you cut spending. What should you cut spending on if you're gearing for a war with Russia?

00:12:52.880 Well, obviously welfare. How will the public react if you start throwing pensioners on the street while 0.94

00:12:59.760 you're still housing migrants on benefits? Quite badly. Quite badly. So an economic crisis is going to

00:13:09.120 accelerate this tendency quite strongly. And basically we are in Weimarian days. We are living in Weimar in

00:13:19.840 terms of the extent of sexual degeneracy, in terms of the level of indebtedness of the population,

00:13:26.640 the inflation of currencies all over the world, people being unable to afford basic necessities. I mean,

00:13:36.720 now you have the lefties winning elections on affordability as a key issue, while Trump is

00:13:42.560 pretending that, you know, the economy is doing great, but really nothing is becoming more affordable.

00:13:50.160 So we're heading towards a crisis at a time of surging national identity. And if you're a minority,

00:14:00.000 that tends to go badly for you. And unfortunately, it tends to go badly for the weaker elements in

00:14:08.080 minorities who don't deserve bad treatment, because the richer ones and the ones who are better off can

00:14:14.640 escape it early. So that's the kind of concern that is animating a lot of liberals and a lot of liberal

00:14:23.840 Brazilians. And it's a partly valid concern, but they're playing their hand wrong. They're playing their 1.00

00:14:32.560 hand very badly. What they ought to be saying is the West is our friend. America, Britain, the French 0.88

00:14:41.680 helped defeat the Nazis. They've all been incredibly supportive of Israel. We want to reciprocate this

00:14:50.160 friendship. Instead, we get some liberals speaking out of turn. And as I was saying today to some people,

00:14:57.920 like even when you talk to Israeli right-wingers, they think that

00:15:03.280 Brazilian liberals have absolutely lost their minds in the West, and that they shouldn't be listened to, 0.99

00:15:08.640 and that this is something that should dramatically change, and that these people should stop being liberal.

00:15:16.400 So we have this change that we're seeing, and it really ended up informing the Americans' national

00:15:23.360 security strategy. It's basically led the United States to issue a new national security strategy. I have

00:15:33.440 the link here somewhere, and I covered it in detail in a previous episode, but the most important thing

00:15:40.560 about that strategy was its focus on Latin America, and its insistence that the sphere of influence of

00:15:47.600 the United States should be Latin America, and to a large extent Europe. Like you could see that in the

00:15:54.240 subtext, that what the Americans are trying to do is both gain control over Latin America, but also

00:16:01.200 get European governments to change their leaders, or get European countries to change their leaders,

00:16:08.800 so that there would be a right-wing leadership in Europe that would align with them.

00:16:13.040 And in Latin America, they succeeded in doing that in Chile.

00:16:18.960 They, I think, succeeded in, I want to say Ecuador, but I'll double check.

00:16:24.640 They're working on doing the same throughout the continent, and the real test case is Venezuela.

00:16:31.040 And there we're seeing the United States do things like seize the oil tankers that are going to and

00:16:38.320 from Venezuela and saying these are sanctioned cargoes or sanctioned ships, and therefore we get to take

00:16:46.240 them away. And what they're trying to do is to impose enough economic pressure on the Venezuelan 0.86

00:16:52.400 government, both by targeting the drug boats and targeting the oil tankers, to just collapse the

00:16:59.280 system. The problem is that these kinds of sanctions and economic pressure haven't collapsed

00:17:06.240 a regime in a very long time. They tend not to work. Iraq was under sanctions from 1990 to 2003.

00:17:15.360 It still required an invasion. Russia is under severe sanctions. It didn't have much of an impact on

00:17:22.640 them. The sanctions on China backfired. And indeed, the whole trade war on China, contrary to what I

00:17:29.440 expected, actually, failed as far as the Americans are concerned. It just didn't succeed

00:17:35.360 for the United States. And with Venezuela, what you're going to get is Brazil and Colombia, who are both

00:17:43.120 left-wing countries and neighboring Venezuela.

00:17:46.960 Um, both of these countries are going to do everything that they can in order to help the

00:17:53.040 Venezuelans smuggle oil and keep the regime afloat. Um, there are, I mean, getting things by road through

00:18:02.400 the jungle of Brazil, I'll have to check how feasible it is. But I know that some smuggling goes

00:18:09.520 on between the two countries and that they've built road connections and that smuggling between Colombia

00:18:14.880 and Venezuela is a sort of perennial problem. Um, we saw that in Iraq, in the KRG, where when the, uh,

00:18:24.640 government of Baghdad tried to shut down exports from Iraqi Kurdistan, they just started exporting oil

00:18:32.560 by truck overland into Iran and into Turkey in pretty forbidding territory, in pretty difficult territory.

00:18:40.240 They did manage to do it anyhow. And they stayed afloat. Uh, things weren't great, obviously, but they

00:18:47.760 did stay afloat. So with Venezuela, we're going to see to what extent this succeeds, but it's going to

00:18:54.400 become a test case. And if the Americans successfully get rid of Maduro, they're probably going to have an

00:19:01.040 insurgency on their hands backed by Brazil and Colombia and behind them, China. But, um, that 0.81

00:19:09.840 would be a strong message to the rest of Latin America that, look, you don't get to mess with us. 0.96

00:19:15.200 You don't get to deviate. You don't get to side with China against the United States, which is really

00:19:20.800 what this, this whole thing with Venezuela is all about. Um, they're trying to control Latin America and

00:19:29.120 make sure that the resources of Latin America don't go to China, but they go to the United States

00:19:34.320 instead. Will it be smooth sailing? Absolutely not. Could they succeed? Conceivably. Is it the most

00:19:43.440 likely outcome? No, I'd say it's not the most likely outcome. Um, but it does herald a much more

00:19:52.160 interventionist US policy. And the problem for the US is always going to be Mexico. Because as,

00:20:00.000 as you know, as I've mentioned on the show, uh, Mexico is a narco state. The Mexican government 0.95

00:20:07.040 is allied with the cartels, uh, at least with some factions within the cartels. They do get money from

00:20:15.360 them. They have tried to reconfigure the military's economic interests in order to make sure that the

00:20:22.000 military is also on board with the cartels. And that's going to be the main problem for the United

00:20:26.880 States. But what this also points to is the US being a lot more occupied with its own region.

00:20:34.480 If you enjoyed this piece of premium content from the Lotus Eaters,

00:20:37.840 head to our website where you can find more.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - January 06, 2026

PREVIEW LIVE： Realpolitik #26 ｜ The Year in Review

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