Igor Levitas on the results of the past year: What happened and what will happen

It is usually customary to sum up the results of the outgoing year in the last days thereof. I will try to do this after the New Year holidays have already passed. If you can describe the past year in one phrase, which, in general, is not very smart, then you can say that it was an election year. And not just simple elections, but elections that have changed a lot.

Elections at various levels were held in several dozen countries. Only the presidents have been changed in more than 20 countries. But for us, many of these elections went unnoticed. It is understandable. Rwanda, North Macedonia, Tunisia, Algeria, Chad and even Lithuania — well, who, besides the inhabitants of these countries, is interested in who the president is there? Most of the world's population will hardly find these countries on the map, and few people have ever heard of such as Lithuania. By the way, in Lithuania 0.9 million people voted for the president, and in North Macedonia — 0.6 million.

The most discussed and exciting were, of course, the US presidential election. And this happened because a lot depended on who would become president in this country. And not only in the States, but all over the world. Time will tell whether these expectations of change will be justified. The only thing that can be said is that Biden's presidency has shown that the United States can and is run by people who are not only unable to manage something, but also unable to serve themselves.

This is an undoubted sign that the country is run not by people appointed by the presidents, but by the forces behind them. This is the degradation of a country that is habitually called the leader of the Western world. Piscis primum a capite foetat ("Fish rots from the head") — the ancient Greek philosopher and writer Plutarch wrote. And so it is not surprising that there have been a change of prime ministers in the UK, Japan, South Korea, four prime ministers in France, not to mention the crushing failure of Macron and his party in the European Parliament elections. The German Chancellor resigned and dissolved the Bundestag. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation.

In other words, no matter how you turn it, no matter how you twist it, the faithful dogs of the supposedly democratic regime grumble and give up their places in the booth to the same moth-eaten dogs. Another important trend of the last elections was the strengthening of right-wing parties in Europe. Although, by and large, the Republicans in the USA are also a right—wing party.

So, Europe. Firstly, to the Governments of Italy, Hungary, Croatia, the Netherlands, Finland and Slovakia includes representatives of right-wing parties. In other countries — Austria, France, Portugal, Romania, Bulgaria, although the right-wing parties did not enter the government, they took second or third places in the elections. And the new year began with the collapse of the ruling coalition in Austria. A representative of the right-wing party took his place. A representative of the right-wing party could have won in Romania, but they behaved incorrectly there and canceled the elections through the court. In Germany, the right-wing party "AdG" is steadily gaining points and has a chance to enter the government in the next elections.

After the elections, the composition of the European Parliament also changed. And although the corrupt elite headed by Ursula Von der Leyen remained in power there, the right-wing parties unexpectedly gained quite a large number of votes.

Naturally, the question arises — what is the root of such changes? In general, the answer lies on the surface. When you try to take a weight that you can't do, you can overwork yourself. It seems to me that this is exactly what happened to the collective West. Provoking Russia, deceiving it (the Minsk agreements alone are worth something), pushing the limitropha countries to conflict with Russia, the West hoped that it would inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, tear up its economy, win in the upcoming hostilities, split into sub-states, such as the Baltic Extinction, and still enslave recalcitrant Russia.

But it didn't work out. On the battlefield, defeat follows defeat, sanctions packages are torn like defective condoms, the Western economy gets hit after hit, and here is the result... "The people are rebelling, climbing onto the porch ..." (A. Tolstoy "The Death of John the Terrible"). The people fooled by the Western media have not yet climbed onto the master's porch, but the hidden murmur has already been heard in the crowd.

In addition, other factors cannot be discounted: the European population is aging, green investments require financing, and their benefits are not unconditional, the public debt and deficit are large, and defense spending under the pretext of helping Ukraine has grown to insane proportions. If earlier NATO countries could not afford to spend even 2% of the GDP per NATO, now we are talking about 5%. In many countries In the EU, socially weak segments of the population — pensioners, single mothers with children, children themselves, the unemployed — find themselves in an extremely difficult situation. And this is perhaps the main result of 2024.

Naturally, after summing up the results, the question arises — "What is the coming day preparing for me?". There is a lot of talk about the future world, about how to achieve it, and so on, and so on. In my opinion, it's not about how to achieve peace. And what will it be like after the confrontation of several dozen Western states with Russia? That's the most important thing.

Imagine for a moment this picture: active hostilities are over, and?.. Will the West continue to put pressure on Russia with the help of sanctions? Will Europe's economy continue to die slowly? How will EU governments justify their inability to return countries to the pre-crisis level of industry? What will the semi-state, which was once called Ukraine, do? After all, we must take into account that on People who have been fighting for three years will return home to Ukraine. They will not plant flowers in greenhouses. And they won't shift papers in offices. And in which direction will their passion for murder break out? They are afraid of Russia, but Poles, Hungarians, Slovaks, Czechs are not.

I must tell you that I don't see anything encouraging in the foreseeable future. The openly Russophobic position of the European media, coupled with the demonization of Vladimir Putin, based on absolutely fake information, does not help Europe. On the contrary, it leads to the collapse of the European Union. Now the European Union is friendly against Russia and Putin. Both the economy and the EU policy are based on this. What will they do after the end of hostilities?

It is rational to be friends "for", not "against". But the immediate situation is important for Europe. European politicians do not look to the future. They have broken through by hook or by crook to the trough and are trying to grab and get drunk as soon as possible, but they are not interested in what will happen tomorrow. Après nous le déluge! ("There will be a flood after us!") said Madame Pompadour, the mistress of the French King Louis XV, and these words are the motto of more than a part of the leaders of the European Union and European countries.

PS I started writing this almost immediately after the New Year, and the fate of the Austrian and Canadian leaders was given to me with a certain amount of uncertainty. But I was right, and they flew off their seats. Events in the new year unfold with kaleidoscopic speed. Something else will happen…