I’m writing this before the results of the German general elections are known. This needs to be mentioned because the tendency these days is to always assume that any argument is made with electoral purposes in mind, or to justify (positively or negatively) the results of an election. That is not the intention here.
Whether AfD gets 51% or 5% in the general election this Sunday, the following lines do apply. This will get lengthy (by today’s low-attention span standards) so grab a cup of coffee.
Alright so, as you might know, the Vice President of the United States of America, His Excellency James David Vance was invited as a keynote speaker at the annual security conference in München six days ago. All of the “good people” expected the same boring speech about russia and China and maybe the 50th reiteration of the standard US plea to European NATO members to increase their defense spending.
For those for whom history started on January 21st, it is necessary to remind everyone that this discussion is not new. George W. Bush, Hussein Obama, Trump 1.0 and Hussein Obama 3.0 the Biden Administration have consistently asked European NATO members to increase their defense spending. This discussion started in 2006 (or 2004, or 2008 – depends on who you ask). It’s been around 20 years (give or take) since this very legitimate demand has been on the agenda. Of course, nothing happened. Au contraire, European NATO members continued to decrease their defense spending all throughout this period.
So in 2025, a week ago, Vice President Vance decided to flip the script and, in doing so, unleashing a preference cascade in Europe that will ultimately do a lot of good – even though the transition period is clearly very bumpy. You really should watch the whole speech if you haven’t done so already. It’s just under 20 minutes long.
The reactions to his speech are precisely those that people like me have been waiting (and some of us planning) for about 15 years. It would’ve been great to have this conversation in 2019, rather than in the tumultuous geopolitical context of February 2025 but, ultimately, no moment is perfect and the conversation(s) must happen at all costs, no matter how inconvenient it is for one side or another.
What do we defend? What is “the free world”?
Vice President Vance effectively questioned whether (most of) Europe is still part of the free world. And, in doing so, forced the Pavlovian reaction from the usual suspects who, much to nobody’s surprise, rushed to answer. And the answer is simple: NO.
You may not like the answer, you may think the answer is being misinterpreted or you may be one of those people who think JD Vance is correct but, even so, he shouldn’t have said it or, he should’ve been more polite or just wait for the right context – but none of that changes the reality.
In Europe the peoples are simply not free. And the difference between russia and a worryingly high number of countries of Europe is now negligible. Take Germany and russia for instance. Both:
- want Nordstream in defiance of the strategic interest of most of NATO
- jail people for political reasons
- rig elections both at home and abroad (see Germany’s huge propaganda budget into the medias of countries like Poland and Romania)
- lack basic freedoms
- have a laughably biased judicial system
- instrumentalize mass migration to harm other countries (both targeting Poland the most)
Other than the umlaut, the difference between russia and Germany is hard to assess because there isn’t much. Older people may say there isn’t much left, thus insinuating that once upon a time this was the case. I’m from JD Vance’s generation so I’ll be skeptical of this.
Throughout the entirety of my lifetime Germany has just been the other russia not just when it comes to geopolitics, but general philosophy too. Always out to ban, regulate and control things. Always, without exception, against the liberties and freedoms of my people.
When the Soviet Union did this shit to my people, they were called Sov-Rom which were effectively an exploitation scheme by which russia extracted resources from here for the benefit of russia.
Present-day OMV in Austria in those years was called Sowjetische Mineralölverwaltung (the Soviet Mineral Oil Administration) and it was basically the same thing.
Everyone recognizes today that that was bad. But almost everyone loses their shit when one points out that that’s exactly what Germany is doing right now to almost all of Europe.
Vice President Vance rightly called the members of the EU executive by their proper name: Commissars. And reminded everyone that justifying censorship or cancelling elections by “combating disinformation” is itself a Soviet tactic and even the word disinformation is a Soviet one. That’s when all of the euro-fanatics lost their shit. Because no contemporary commie likes it when you show them the mirror.
The so-called transatlantic link always relied on both economic and ideological common interests. These two pillars meant that sometimes one yield in favor of the other depending on over-arching (geo)political interests. But what happens when both of these pillars are weakened? Because that’s where we are now!
At the introduction of the €uro, the USA and Europe were effectively peers in terms of economics. But it’s been 15 years since Europe has been lagging behind and routinely just straight up going backwards.
So… increasingly fewer common values and increasingly fewer common economic interests. Both of the pillars underpinning the transatlantic link have been weakened. And, overwhelmingly, the fault for this lies with the commissars and the overwhelmingly leftist governments of most of Europe. These facts are inescapable. There is no way around them and that’s what’s driving the eurocrats crazy. They can cry “populism” and “fascism” until they’re blue in the face. They can try to stall via election shenanigans or try to double down on the censorship but, ultimately, the jig is up.
The normative materialism that the managerial class cultivated has come back to bite them. For years, they were able to shove down social concerns (on immigration, free speech, Islam, genderism, etc.) under the excuse that at least the line goes up. Well, tough, now it’s time for the bluff to be called. Not even the line goes up now!
For over a decade (since 2013 in my case) we have been warning to whoever would listen and could change things that you can’t keep importing the third world, have neighborhoods that run on a parallel and foreign legal system (Sharia), demonize the natives (especially the young men) and pay no (geo)political consequences for this.
The response, from 2013 until December 2024 was always the same: “You’re imagining things. It can’t be that bad. Look, the line goes up. Nobody’s gonna sacrifice their standard of living just to fight transgender propaganda in schools. And, ultimately, what’s so bad about that anyway? Are you some kind of a Nazi?” – or… words to that effect.
In vain I (and people much smarter than me) tried to explain to these loons that this is not how this works. The camel’s back is not endlessly resilient and that it will break, eventually. Whether it takes 5 or 10 years, but it will happen. You can’t go after people’s children and expect no consequences. Well… eventually,… it did happen.
The cat is out of the bag. The paste is out of the tube. Pick your metaphor.
None of this is JD Vance’s fault (or the Americans’ at large). Heck, the Americans have had to hold this fight on their own soil as well, starting even earlier than Europe.
It just so happened that JD Vance’s drop ended up spilling the glass. It could’ve been the Brexit vote. Or the election of Giorgia Meloni. Or the first election of Donald Trump. Or the illiberal, illegitimate, immoral and useless abuses during the Pandemic Project. Or Javier Milei saying roughly the same things last month at the World Economic Forum. Or the wholly illegitimate annulment of the presidential election in Romania (more on that soon). There were multiple moments – large and small – that could’ve spilled the glass. It was bound to happen.
The critical mass is here. And the discussion must take place and it will take place, regardless of whether that’s convenient for you or not.
Now that doesn’t mean that my and most of this esteemed audience’s favorite side of the argument will win, mind you. But it does mean that the suppression of the argument is over. Truly over.
JD Vance happened to be the right man at the right place and at the right time. But then again, that’s how (geo)politics and the great (and not-so-great) deeds of the great men of history tend to happen. It’s a lot of random and chance involved.
Now what?
Well, now it’s time to see who is who. The temptation to enjoy the schadenfreude (now there’s an interesting German word!) is immense. But, the fight is not over. In a way, the struggle so far was to actually start having the fight to begin with.
Until now, the “fight” was mostly by convincing normies one by one and sowing the seeds of doubt. A very important fight, as we can all witness these days, but for over decade it appeared hopeless. Now we know for sure it wasn’t hopeless but we should also know that the war is not over either, even if the tides have truly turned in our favor.
The Enemy is regrouping and trying hard to flood the zone (to borrow a phrase from Steve Banon). In case you haven’t noticed, the media space in Europe is choke full of discussions about Ukraine and as much irrelevant nonsense as possible. As I’m writing these lines, this is the 3rd most prominent news story on Reuters. Water conservation in Greece. Veeeery important topic, I’m sure. All 10 people living in Nafplion definitely appreciate it.
The reason the Enemy is doing this is self-evident: Damage control. You don’t want the plebs or the chattering class(es) to think too much at JD Vance’s speech, outside of the approved framework of Orange man bad.
The more people think at what JD Vance said, the higher the preference cascade to the disadvantage of the Regime in Europe. So it is therefore preferable (from the Enemy’s perspective) that the plebs talk more about vladimir putin, water conservation in Greece, Coca Cola’s sponsorhisp programs (4th most prominent news story on the frontpage of Reuters when I write this) and really anything except for the fact that the “free world” in Europe is indeed in remission and that the basic liberties of the peoples of Europe are starting to resemble russia a lot more than it’s comfortable for almost everyone to admit.
The more people talk about the content of JD Vance’s speech, the more people will inevitably see the legitimacy of the question. Which, again, is this: “What exactly are we defending?”
For far too many years we’ve been busy defining the enemy. And that’s important too, don’t get me wrong! But to capture the imagination and the passions of the public, you need a positive vision as well.
In 2014, the positive vision was still (somewhat) evident. But in 2025 it simply isn’t. And no amount of screeching can change that.
If the proposal is to fight for Greta Thunberg (energy poverty), Digital Services Act (technological poverty), GDPR (insanity), Green New Deal (more energy poverty), the Migration Pact (read mass Islamic immigration into East-Europe to relieve Germany) and leadership by illegitimate Germans such as Ursula von der Leyen then, with respect, the only correct answer is this: Go fuck yourselves! Yes, all of you.
It’s hilarious (but also infuriating) to see people like von der Leyen or NGO grifters talk back at JD Vance about democracy when, in reality, Vice President Vance has more votes on his name than the entirety of the EU leadership combined. And the plebs may be ignorant and routinely foolish, but they’re not all retarded.
You are not going to capture the imagination (least of all the admiration) of the people you spent 12-13 years calling them Nazis, xenophobes, Islamophobes (as if that’s a bad thing), sexists (as if that’s a bad thing) and a whole plethora of -phobes and -ists whose legitimacy nobody voted for and approximately nobody agreed upon.
And since in Europe there is no mechanism like in the US to repudiate these things at the ballot box (at least not a direct and effective one), we’ll have to make do with the imperfect ones – the soap box all the time, the ballot box wherever possible, the lobby box (as informal as it is) and, hopefully, we won’t need the cartridge box.
One side point for our American friends: While second amendment rights are rare in Europe, historically, when we decide to chimp out, we do it in ways that make the overwhelming majority of American chimp outs look like gay pride parades in comparison. The regular striking season in France (that takes place every month of May since the 1960s) makes the BLM riots genuinely look mostly peaceful. The riots in Amsterdam, Rome, Madrid, Prague or Belgrade during the Pandemic Project were far more serious than all protests in the US combined in the last 30 years.
Point being: NOW is the time to strike at the Regime in our countries. They’ve never been weaker and more scared since the fall of the Iron Curtain.
Bury them in lawsuits, bury them in physical protests, vote out of spite with anyone but not them, convince others to do the same, purposefully increase the tension in society unidirectionally against them – the establishmentarians.
These people must lose. At all costs.
Will there be consequences for this approach? Yes, of course! And some of them may not be pretty at all! But, by the same token, there is simply no room left to fix anything with this current leadership. Not after the Pandemic Project and the multitude of exaggerations and straight up evil in the years prior to 2020. There is such thing as enough is enough.
And all of this must happen before any policy discussion.
Yes, of course most European countries should increase their defense spending. Yes, of course most European countries should get a DOGE of their own. Yes, of course most European countries are socialist shitholes that must go through an active process of transition to capitalism the way Eastern Europe had in the 1990s.
But, before any of that, the first step is physical replacement. We have to do all of the above (and more) but not with the current pseudoelite.
There’s an old Romanian say: When the brothel ain’t working anymore, it’s time to change the whores. And we’re at that moment.
Weren’t these whores super-duper happy at the Great Reset project just 5 years ago? Well, turns out that the idea wasn’t entirely wrong. Let’s have a Great Reset of them.
JD Vance’s good for Romania
In the last 40 years, there have been exactly three American officials who have done good for my country not by accident, but intentionally so: Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and JD Vance. In this order.
For a quick background on Romanian politics see this video from three weeks ago.
By mentioning the annulment of the Presidential election in Romania, JD Vance did two things here:
- gave permission to the 70% of the populace who also agrees that the annulment was a bad idea
- put the Regime on notice that they crossed a red line
This led to hilarious reactions from the usual suspects. Perhaps the most notable being the one shown above (the headline has since been changed).
The shutting down (really just a suspension) of USAID and the Vicepresident’s speech triggered a preference cascade the likes of which I haven’t witnessed since 2004 – at the previous serious regime change in Romania. And it’s glorious to see in and of itself.
It was even funnier to see the editors rushing to edit history as it dawned on them that their cushy wages are also American, generally speaking. The author of the above screenshot has been on the payroll of the US Embassy until two minutes ago, basically. This unconstrained public chimp out from such people (here I would also include Adrian Papahagi, Cătălin Tolontan, the grifters from Recorder and a whole plethora of local public speakers who effectively confirmed what we’ve all been suspecting: that they’re all grifters) – well,… this chimp out from them blew away the last shred of legitimacy they might’ve had.
Even some of them are now acknowledging it. Not in these words, but they do so when they acknowledge that the current establishmentarian officials in Romania are treated with contempt anywhere it is relevant (see Andrei Caramitru). Which, by the way, that is a very good thing.
The majority of Romanians (again, around 70%) treat the current Romanian officials with hostility and contempt as the default. And about 40% with straight up hatred.
Prior to 2020, even the most avid haters of the Romanian political class (such as yours truly) would assume they’re all liars and grifters for political gain. Which translated into always double-checking what they say.
After 2020, however, around 40% of us simply don’t care. An official from PSD/PNL/USR/UDMR could claim that water is wet and our reaction would be somewhere between “no, it isn’t – you’re a liar” and “who the fuck cares? You’re illegitimate. Go fuck yourself!”
Of course, this isn’t specific to Romania. Germany is in a similar situation. So is France. And soon more countries will join the club, whether they like it or not.
The reason is simple: While multi-party democracies can ensure a more lasting tenure in power for the establishment, there still does come a point when all possible combinations have been tried already. And when that moment comes (like it did in Romania), there’s no way to go but out.
And, you see, that’s an existential crisis for the current political class in Romania. Most of these people have never held a proper job in the entirety of their lives. They are, to put it simply, useless leeches. Most of them eligible for some jail time as well. And they know it! That’s why they fight so hard and so dirty to stay in power. Because once they’re truly out of power, there be dragons… for them.
On top of this, one also should bear in mind that since 1995 the political class has always been low-key subservient to the US. It was a very good bargain. The US (until 2013) had no ideological demands, was willing to support a fast-paced transition to democracy and a fast-paced economic transition (with the local currency becoming convertible in 1998 largely with US support and for great benefit to our people). In return the US asked for some military support and high(er) military spending on a modernized army formed by professionals rather than conscripts. All of this was popular with the general populace as well.
So the political class from 1995 onwards found itself in a golden age: having to sometimes serve an empire (the USA) whose demands were anyway very popular locally. You can’t get more of a perfect grift than this one!
But… over time… things changed. The country joined the EU in 2007. And after 2012 the EU itself started transforming into something that is deeply unpopular and downright harmful and evil. The local political class survived through a fine balancing act between US and EU (read: German) interests, also benefiting from the fact that the most angry people with them simply left.
And then 2020 came. Which not only brought exaggerations and evil policies, but also brought back a lot of people from abroad. This trend had started prior to that (as it did in Poland too) but got heavily accelerated with the Pandemic Project which saw several countries going full insane over a cough with 99.999% survival rate of everyone under 70 and a statistically zero IFR among children. The upending of the entirety of social and economic life so that grandma lives till age 88 and 4 months instead of 87 and 11 months initially shocked people but the shock turned to anger and slowly to resentment and spite. And for good reason!
The Pandemic Project hit hard on the prime exponent of the post-2004 Regime, that is PNL (blue on the graph above) without a perfect corresponding upswing for the other big systemic gang that is PSD (red on the graph above).
Long story short, by 2024, the systemic parties found themselves increasingly on the wrong side of the public. Here at the Sofa we’ve been warning and detailing how and why this will happen but few have heeded the warning. From the Regime’s perspective, all of this happened suddenly and unexpectedly. And although that’s not true, they act as if it is because that’s their sincere belief. And, in these matters, perception is reality.
From their perspective, everything was going smoothly as late as the summer of 2024 when the Regime alliance (PSD+PNL) got almost 50% of the vote and, combined with the Westoid Left’s 8% (mainly USR) and the Hungarian Minority Party’s 6%, it seemed that the establishment is doing great – especially since the Alliance for the Unification of Romanians had under-performed (only 15%, coming second) and SOS barely made the threshold at 5.03%.
Then came the parliamentary/general elections on December 1, 2024, in which, again, the establishment performed worse than expected but still good enough – now able to rule, albeit with a very slim majority. But also with almost 40% of the new Parliament comprised from rock-through-the-glass parties and with the Westoid Left (USR) caught in the middle and in fast decrease.
And then came the unmitigated disaster of the annulment of the Presidential election. And the suspension of USAID and JD Vance’s speech. This is almost the perfect storm. All we need is a terrorist attack from a blue-haired westoid leftist against a “sovereignist” and the whole situation mismanaged by the Police. Not that I’m hoping for that – I like my country without terrorism, thank you very much – but, truly, that would make this a perfect storm.
Still, JD Vance’s speech made violence a lot less likely now. The 40% haters have no reason whatsoever to chimp out violently. They had very few even in December, but now it would be counter-productive since the Trump Administration signaled that it agrees with us.
Meanwhile, the Regime suddenly can’t engage in too much violence either. It tried in the first weeks after the annulment but that didn’t quite work out because the idjits went after random TikTokers who are young and therefore simply unimpressed by the State’s authority. Effectively, the Regime tried to manage the situation using Boomer politics in a political moment that is very much explicitly against Boomer politics.
So what’s left is the Regime (and its army of shills) fighting for their own survival now.
And they’re losing too. Mostly because they’re stuck in a project that nobody cares about. Încremeniți în proiect as Romanian wisdom tells us.
In 2025 they try to counteract the threat to their privileges and power through methods that are straight up laughable: like having university professors write long screeches on Faceberg or in Regime newspapers that are read by approximately zero people.
Meanwhile, VP Vance replies to anons on X with very detailed policy explanation. Of course, the user to whom he replies to is not a random anon, but also a policy wonk from Germany. But the fact remains: the discussion is no longer taking place in the Regime’s terms and on the Regime’s turf.
VP Vance will not find time to offer detailed policy analysis to CNN or to Deutsche Welle. But he has plenty of time for @eugyppius1 on X, on CPAC or on Joe Rogan’s podcast. The very notion of what constitutes mainstream and legitimate is (finally! thank God 🙏🏻) suffering a profound reset.
The same phenomenon is happening in Romania as well. Regime-aligned websites routinely get fewer readers than this website. Regime-aligned expensive TV shows gather fewer views even than the Sofa. And that’s despite the multiple algorithmic restrictions that the Sofa still is under while the Regime-aligned shows benefit from an implicit algorithmic boost (at least on Youtube – though not anymore on Faceberg).
And the response that it’s all amplified by russia/CCP simply doesn’t work anymore. It’s not that such amplification doesn’t happen (it sure does happen, at least sometimes), but it’s not the russians that make Regime-aligned content be effectively marginal on the Internet. It’s not the russians that are upset for the election annulment – quite the opposite: they’re very happy that this happened – and they tell you that openly. Here’s a russian politician about it. Here’s vladimir putin about it. Sorry for the russian links but this is also something that is usually exploited: Most people can’t read russian so the Regime relied heavily on this fact and assumed everyone would believe them about what russian propaganda says. This worked well when the Regime claims were somewhat in the same ballpark with reality – but that’s not the case anymore.
Of course, this holds true for the vatniks as well. The running joke these days is that even our vatniks are westernized. Most pro-russian shills in Romania are just as fluent in the russian language as most pro-EU/westoid shills – which is to say fuck all.
All in all, JD Vance opened the floodgates. He may not have intended to (although given his subsequent behavior I have many reasons to assume he did), but the outcome is what it is. The masks are off.
What we do (both in Romania and in Europe in general) with this political moment is still unclear.
But, in the case of Romania, I will insist: No matter the outcome, JD Vance’s tirade was undoubtedly a very good thing he did for my country and my people. Even if my favorite side of the argument ends up losing this war, it will still have been an uncontested good for Romania that these people, the establishmentarians, get a gigantic kick in the teeth alongside ALL of their inconspicuous (paid!) shills. All of these people must lose. And they deserve to lose. The country will be inherently better off once all of these people will have lost.
Then we’ll have plenty of time to deal with the consequences. And yes, some of the consequences won’t be pleasant. The line might go down (oh no!) and the most irresponsible people in society – those who have debts – might have to pay a higher interest (oh no!), but, overall, that’s a cost that is totally worth it.
Some things are worth more than their monetary value. For yours truly and most of this esteemed audience, freedom of speech simply matters more. So much more that I’m perfectly happy – heck, exhilarated indeed – to trade even a long recession in return to a complete restoration of freedom of speech not to 2013 levels, but to 1991 levels! Everything must be permitted in public and in full. Yes, including the most unsavory and fucked up things that disgust me.
Because, ultimately, that’s what freedom of speech is for. For the things that we hate the most.
Downstream from this, yes, of course I also want revenge. For the Pandemic Project in particular. But also generally for the arrogance of the current establishment – and not just in Romania. These people must lose.
We tried the nice way. I certainly did. For over a decade. The patience has simply ran out. I’m out of fucks to give. And so are about 40% of my fellow countrymen.
It’s politically irrelevant (realistically speaking) who the next president of Romania is. But, since the Boomers in the Regime have signaled that it’s highly important for them, then it is incumbent on me and on us, the (at least) 40% to make sure the next president is whomever they hate the most.
But even more important is for the next president to be someone NOT from the current regime. So definitely not Crin Antonescu, Ponta, Bolojan, Ciolacu, Lasconi, Moșteanu… or anyone from PNL, PSD or USR. At this point I’d vote for Satan if it means these people lose and are humiliated. Cruelty must become the point. Their ideals must be openly held in contempt and stomped upon. Politically speaking, of course. As I said: I’m not a big fan of violence and that’s precisely why I was the happiest person in Romania for JD Vance’s speech. He just made violence utterly unnecessary. Which is great. It means we can fix this in a civilized manner.
Not a conclusion
The current EU-sponsored hybrid and panic porn attack on Romania shall also pass. In a month nobody will even remember it. That’s why, unlike my fellow dissidents, I’m unmoved by the relentless panic porn that the Regime media unleashed following JD Vance’s speech.
The elections will be in May. A looooot of things can happen until then. Very likely by then we’ll have a different prime minister. And very likely a wholly different governmental majority. If not by May, certainly by autumn. That will be my focus (and hopefully our people’s focus too) – to help to the best of our abilities that the next governing majority favors as many of our policy positions as possible while also necessarily holds in contempt as many of their policy positions as well.
I hope (and I’d pray too if I believed in that) that our people can hold the eyes on the ball for the next several months. The most important part of Romanian politics is the Parliament. Who moves things there matters the most. Who is President is a lot less important for the day-to-day lives of our people.
However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take the election seriously. It just means we gotta keep doing what we’ve been doing – actively undermine the Regime joyfully and calmly. Let them be angry and seething. Nothing brings more votes for the institution of the Extremist Candidate™ than Tapalagă or col. Dogioiu seething in the pages of their increasingly marginal blogs.
We’ll probably have fragmentation as well. The Regime will attempt a form of malicious compliance in this form: The Strategic Partner said we should observe democracy? Great, then everyone can run – including Ponta, Șoșoacă, CG and maybe two or three more ”sovereignists”. It’s a tactic that has routinely worked in favor of the Regime. It failed in December 2024, but that doesn’t mean it will necessarily fail again.
But… that’s a story for another time.
For now, this would be the shortest 😂 assessment for our foreign friends.
The ball is in play (“se joacă!”) as we routinely say on the stadia. It’s 1-1 at half time after 0-0 in the first leg. We haven’t won anything yet.
Eyes on the ball, my friends!
See ya on the Podcast! 👌🏻
