B Warzybok

Midnight in the Garden of the Political Neanderthals How Charlie Kirk’s death, Jimmy Kimmel’s silencing, and corporate capitulation reveal America’s slide into primitive politics.

We are told that politics is a game, a sport, a show. After our lived experience over the last decade, who could doubt that? But this week has shown something more primitive; a kind of politics that does not argue, persuade, or even entertain. It simply bludgeons.

It is the politics of the cudgel.

From Minnesota to Kyiv: When Sanctuaries Become Killing Grounds Yesterday, as news broke of two children murdered in their Minnesota church, the world stopped for a moment to absorb an impossible truth…

There comes a moment when the violation of sanctuary demands more than elegant speeches about peace. When churches become crime scenes and bedrooms become graveyards, eloquence becomes complicity. What Ukraine needs — what those dead children in Kyiv needed — is not our sympathy but our weapons.

The Gold-Plated Presidency: Trump, Poshlost’, and the Hollow Grandeur of Fake Tradition The Russians invented a word for this vulgarity because they had to live with it. Sadly, we may need a new English word to convey it too.

The Russians invented a word ("по́шлость") for this kind of vulgarity because they had to live with it. Sadly, as we now enter similar waters, we may need to find new English words to convey these same concepts.

#Trump

A Testament to Courage, A Witness to Betrayal In the smoke-filled rooms where empires are carved and nations are sold, the screams of the dying never quite reach the negotiating table.

To jest mój artykuł:

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#Ukraine #Zelenskyy #Trump #UkraineWar

11/
They don’t love it.
They just want to own it.
So they can tell someone else they don’t belong.

Voilà.

10/
They shout about “preserving Western culture,” but rarely read, study, wrestle with, or truly live in it.
Because loving a culture means engaging with its contradictions—not just posting YouTube clips with misty eyes.

9/
This isn’t about beauty or history or art.
It’s about ownership.
A vague aesthetic of “civilization” that lets them claim an identity and weaponize it against outsiders.

8/
They don’t want heritage.
They want a Potemkin village of Europe: safe, white, curated nostalgia they can use to exclude others.
(Also funny: most of them have no idea what a Potemkin village even is.)

7/
They don’t study Bach’s sacred music written for Lutheran bureaucrats.
They don’t know Dante’s Italy didn’t exist.
They don’t know Strauss’s Vienna was a multicultural empire on the brink.

6/
Scratch the surface and the irony multiplies:
They’re praising the polished presentation of liberal Western culture—while rejecting the liberal Western tradition that produced it.

5/
André Rieu himself? A Dutch showman critics call the “King of Kitsch.”
His orchestra puts on classical-themed stadium spectacles, full of castles, ballgowns, and foam props.
It’s cosplay for people who want to feel cultured without engaging with culture.

4/
But here they are, sharing a sanitized, instrumental version of Voilà—no context, no lyrics—because it feels like the kind of culture they think they’re defending.

a man with a beard is sitting in a crowd with the words play ja ja ding dong written below him Alt: a man with a beard is sitting in a crowd with the words play ja ja ding dong written below him

3/
Yes, that Eurovision.
The campy, queer, multicultural celebration of European weirdness these same people usually dismiss as degenerate globalist trash.

2/
First, the song Voilà was written by Barbara Pravi—a French Jew of Serbian, Algerian, Polish, and Iranian descent.
She represented France at Eurovision 2021, singing about identity and self-expression.

1/
Every so often, this video of André Rieu’s orchestra playing Voilà makes the rounds on right-wing Twitter, captioned something like:
"A magnificent example of the European culture we’re told doesn’t exist."
Let’s talk about how unintentionally hilarious that is. 🧵

Poland, Ukraine, and the Long Shadow of Volyn By Brandon Warzybok Poland’s new president-elect Karol Nawrocki is going to be a bit of a jerk to Ukraine. That much is clear from both his political background and rhetorical style. A former head …

If you want to understand more about Volyn, its legacy, and how Poland and Ukraine can move forward together, I wrote about it here:

bgwarzy.wordpress.com/2025/06/03/p...

That’s why historical reckoning matters. Not just for moral clarity — but to deny Russia the ability to weaponize the past.

Poland and Ukraine must stand together. Unity in truth is the strongest resistance to disinformation and division.

Today, the Russian Embassy in South Africa used this solemn anniversary to push bad-faith, inflammatory propaganda aimed at deepening historical wounds.

Moscow wants Poles and Ukrainians to resent each other. That’s the point.

The statement also warned of a real danger:

“Russia is actively seeking to divide Ukrainians and Poles by exploiting the most sensitive chapters of our shared history.”

And sure enough, they are.

“Our nations have a moral obligation, not only to the memory of the victims, but also to present and future generations, to preserve the legacy of cooperation, mutual trust and strategic partnership.”
—

A welcome and courageous message.

The legacy of this atrocity has haunted relations between Poland and Ukraine for decades. Facing it honestly is hard — but necessary.

Yesterday, Ukraine’s MFA issued a thoughtful, conciliatory statement that deserves to be acknowledged.

Today is Poland’s national day of remembrance for the victims of the Volyn massacres — one of the darkest and most painful chapters in Polish-Ukrainian history.

Tens of thousands of Polish civilians were murdered in Volyn and Eastern Galicia between 1943–45.

Robed Retreat I’ve called myself a judicial conservative for as long as I’ve thought seriously about the Constitution. In some ways, I have remained a judicial conservative even as my politics have taken on new …

The executive branch can be powerful and unitary without the judiciary being required to grovel or tiptoe in its presence. For the Court to pretend that its powers are diminished when the subject is government overreach is a disingenuous excuse for inaction.

bgwarzy.wordpress.com/2025/06/27/r...

God, Israel, and the Danger of Bad Theology in American Politics I keep thinking about that text Mike Huckabee sent Trump (the one Trump proudly posted) where Huckabee says God spared Trump in Butler, PA to become the most “consequential president in a cen…

I refuse to pretend that modern politics is biblical destiny. Israel's government makes political decisions based on national interest not divine command. To suggest otherwise is dangerous confusion. I wish leaders who claim Christ would remember the difference. bgwarzy.wordpress.com/2025/06/20/g...

We have seen this spectre before, in darker lands and darker times. We must not see it here.

Such is the hour.

Let no man deceive himself, nor pretend surprise: such deeds are not the stray excesses of overzealous underlings, but the bitter fruit of a system grown hostile to dissent and afraid of its own people.

These are moments of terrible and unmistakable clarity, when the iron fist shows itself beneath the velvet glove; when those who rule forget they are but servants, and the shadow of tyranny shows itself across the threshold of liberty.

Senator Padilla being forcefully removed by DHS agents.

Once again, the mask has slipped. In the clear light of day, before the eyes of a free people, a sitting United States Senator was seized, thrown to the ground, and shackled like a common felon—for no crime but the speaking of plain and inconvenient truths to power.

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