[ad_1]
This is an version of The Atlantic Daily, a publication that guides you thru the most important tales of the day, helps you uncover new concepts, and recommends the very best in tradition. Sign up for it right here.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev wrote some Twitter fan fiction over the weekend by which he hallucinated the autumn of the West and the rise of the Fourth Reich. Elon Musk thought the thread was “epic.” But first, listed below are three new tales from The Atlantic.
Dima Trolls; Elon Rolls
I don’t miss the Cold War. The United States’ nice battle with Soviet communism dominated the primary 30 years of my life and decided the trail of my early profession, and I’m glad it’s over. And but, right here I’m, in a wierd reverie concerning the Cold War on the finish of 2022, greater than 30 years after the decreasing of the Soviet flag. Why? Well, permit me to introduce you to Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Russian Federation’s Security Council, and his new dialog companion, the Twitter CEO Elon Musk. The debates of yesterday, the banter between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev, and the frosty competitors between Ronald Reagan and Yuri Andropov have been changed by the equal of Bill S. Preston, Esquire and Ted “Theodore” Logan shouting “Excellent!” and high-fiving one another over freaky Russian fan fiction.
In case you missed it this weekend, Medvedev—a crony of Russian President Vladimir Putin who was additionally as soon as the precise president of Russia—went on a protracted Twitter rant along with his predictions for 2023. I have no idea if Little Dima (as he’s typically known as in Moscow) is a consuming man, however I can solely hope that he was fully swacked when he went on this tirade. In any case, let’s check out what a man who was as soon as the supreme commander of all Russian forces thinks will occur subsequent yr.
Medvedev is a lawyer by coaching, however he had some deep ideas on economics. He predicts that oil will rise to $150 a barrel—which is after all Moscow’s dearest want now that the Russian financial system is seemingly primarily based on nothing however petroleum, exit visas, and coffins. For some motive, he thinks the United Kingdom will rejoin the European Union, which in flip will destroy the EU and finish the euro as a foreign money. (He additionally thinks that the “largest stock markets and financial activity will leave the US and Europe and move to Asia,” and that the euro and the greenback shall be changed by—no, actually—“digital fiat currencies.”)
When it involves battle and politics, Medvedev’s visions get even weirder.
“Poland and Hungary,” he writes, “will occupy western regions of the formerly existing Ukraine.” (I suppose this comes after Russia magically defeats and partitions Ukraine.) After this, a “Fourth Reich” shall be created “encompassing the territory of Germany and its satellites, i.e., Poland, the Baltic states, Czechia, Slovakia, the Kiev Republic, and other outcasts.”
I’m sensing just a little cultural resentment right here. But let’s press on.
“War,” Dima continues, “will break out between France and the Fourth Reich. Europe will be divided, Poland repartitioned in the process.”
If you’re protecting rating on this trippy sport of Risk: Russia defeats Ukraine, Poland and Hungary seize the western areas of Ukraine, Germany then subdues Poland and every thing else in East Central Europe and declares itself a brand new Reich. France then defeats this Fourth Reich and proceeds to partition the identical Poland that’s now a part of a joint Polish-Hungarian occupation of Ukraine. Or perhaps somebody spilled a bottle of Stoli all around the board, and that is how we’re placing all of it again collectively now that the items are soaked and the map is blurry.
But he’s not completed. “Northern Ireland,” he predicts, “will separate from the UK and join the Republic of Ireland.” Hmm. The U.Ok., in Medvedev’s world, would have simply voted to rejoin the EU, which is about to disintegrate, however in any case, how would Northern Ireland …
Look, cease asking questions. Medvedev was as soon as a average and comparatively pro-Western Russian president, however he’s modified his thoughts. As William Hurt’s character says in The Big Chill, “Sometimes you just have to let art flow over you.”
The actual enjoyable begins when Little Dima foresees the tip of the United States: “Civil war will break out in the US, [with] California and Texas becoming independent states as a result. Texas and Mexico will form an allied state.” Medvedev may not be the keenest observer of American politics: Texas Governor Greg Abbott doesn’t appear to have any apparent want to transfer the Texas border south in order that extra individuals from Mexico and even perhaps Central America could transfer freely by means of Texas as residents and allies.
Little Dima’s ultimate flourish was a careless, racist pirouette: “Season greetings to you all, Anglo-Saxon friends, and their happily oinking piglets!” Russian chauvinists going again centuries have all the time been a tad salty about “Anglo-Saxons” and their supposed sense of superiority over the Slavic peoples. The reference to piglets is a throwback to old-school propaganda about worldwide capitalists (whose ethnicity Dima leaves unstated however which, in Russian and Soviet utilization, is usually an anti-Semitic reference).
No Twitter thread this nutty could be full with out trolling the gargantuan ego of the self-described Chief Twit, Elon Musk. According to Medvedev, Musk will “win the presidential election in a number of states which, after the new Civil War’s end, will have been given to the GOP,” no matter which means.
Musk’s response? “Epic thread!!” He even made certain so as to add that additional exclamation level. You can virtually see him nodding and hitting the facility chords on an air guitar when he says it, in all probability in an try and be sarcastic and generate consideration on the similar time. Several hours later—maybe after the intervention of an grownup—Musk clarified his place and wrote, “Those are definitely the most absurd predictions I’ve ever heard, while also showing astonishing lack of awareness of the progress of artificial intelligence and sustainable energy.”
Great. That must do it. Thanks very a lot, Elon.
This is the place the nostalgia creeps in. I don’t care that Dmitry Medvedev feels like a man in a musty Soviet beer joint railing concerning the United States. I care {that a} senior Kremlin official—a person who was as soon as on the prime of the Russian nuclear chain of command—is tweeting out vile nonsense and persons are merely shrugging, prefer it’s simply one other day in our bizarre century. I care that one of many richest males on this planet, an industrialist who controls a big swath of the general public sq., responded to those unhinged tweets like a goofy teenager.
I sit up for the brand new yr. I’m glad that the damaging twentieth century is lengthy over, and I’m satisfied we stay in higher occasions in the present day. But I admit that I discover myself ruefully nostalgic for a world that was dominated by severe adults who believed in severe issues.
Related:
Today’s News
- At least 30 individuals have died in western New York from the extreme winter storm.
- China has introduced plans to calm down its COVID-19 restrictions for entry into the nation. Beginning January 8, individuals with a detrimental nucleic-acid check won’t be required to quarantine upon arrival.
- Adam Fox, one of many males convicted of plotting to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, was sentenced to 16 years in federal jail. Prosecutors say he led the plot.
Dispatches
Explore all of our newsletters right here.
Evening Read
I Love My Clutter, Thank You Very Much
By Burt Solomon
A confession, first: I really like muddle.
The horizontal surfaces in my household room are lined with newspapers, magazines, books I’ve began, books I intend to learn, books I wish to learn however by no means will, erasable pens, a sweatshirt or two, a soccer ball, a bucket of toy automobiles, and wayward Legos that gouge my stockinged ft. In addition to a pc, two telephones, and a TV distant, my desk at house is strewn with notebooks, folders, unfastened papers, birchbark, a modem, scraps of paper with notes to myself, pictures of my spouse and youngsters, flash drives, nail clippers, pens, cash, a stapler, a thesaurus, procuring receipts, a hand-grip strengthener, a blood-pressure cuff, two- and three-dimensional likenesses of Abraham Lincoln, 4 baseballs, three baseball caps, two 1909 baseball playing cards, two flashlights, a pair of AirPods, a miniature boxing glove my father gave me earlier than I can bear in mind, one Pokémon card, and two Tibetan bowls.
More From The Atlantic
Culture Break
Read. “A Black Birch in Winter,” a poem by Richard Wilbur, which was printed in The Atlantic in 1974.
“You might not know this old tree by its bark, / Which once was striate, smooth, and glossy-dark, / So deep now are the rifts which separate / Its roughened surface into flake and plate.”
Watch. Stream Glass Onion on Netflix, after which learn an interview with the director Rian Johnson about why the Knives Out sequel is louder and angrier than the primary film.
P.S.
I’ve just a few New Year’s resolutions, and so they are usually the identical as all of my earlier New Year’s resolutions: I wish to cease getting older and put on the identical garments that match me in faculty. Failing that, I often hope for world peace, after which I accept a basic hope that no matter form of an individual I used to be final yr, I can do a bit higher this yr. (At least I don’t fall down the Steve Martin rabbit gap, though his epic bit from Saturday Night Live in 1986 might be a extra sincere set of needs than most of us will admit.)
What’s your New Year’s decision? Tell us! Send me an e-mail at emailnewsletters@theatlantic.com, or simply hit reply to this text. I ask solely that you just maintain it quick—one sentence!—and that it displays one thing you’re really resolving to do or hoping for or making an attempt to realize in 2023. Funny is nice too, however I’m curious to see what you’re all striving for within the coming yr. I’m going to nudge a few of the Daily staff so as to add their resolutions as properly; we would even get my colleague Isabel Fattal to resolve to see a few of the Nineteen Eighties films we maintain referencing right here within the publication, however we are able to’t promise miracles. We’ll accumulate your entire resolutions over the following few days, and we’ll shut out the yr on Friday by discussing them.
— Tom
Isabel Fattal contributed to this text.