Youth Progress Index 2025: Europe dominates. The Nordics lead. America’s famous exceptionalism finishes 33rd. Another international ranking, another clean sweep for Europe, with the Nordic countries doing what they seem rather good at: building societies that actually work. 🇳🇴 Norway takes first place, followed by 🇩🇰 Denmark and 🇫🇮 Finland, with 🇮🇸 Iceland and 🇸🇪 Sweden also among the world’s leading performers. Meanwhile, the United States, a country practically founded on the conviction that it is exceptional, finds itself in 33rd place. Behind countries including Slovenia, Estonia, Portugal, Lithuania and Cyprus. And this is a particularly revealing ranking. The Youth Progress Index 2025 examines what life is actually like for young people across 169 countries. Using 61 social and environmental indicators, it measures access to healthcare, education, housing, employment, personal safety, fundamental rights, political freedoms, social inclusion and opportunities to build a decent future. So pretty much the opposite of MAGA. It measures outcomes, not patriotic speeches, military spending or the number of billionaires a country produces. The findings are especially uncomfortable for America. The report identifies the United States as one of the countries experiencing the largest declines in youth progress, citing increasingly unaffordable housing, deteriorating mental health, weakened academic freedom and rising violence. The lesson is rather straightforward. A country’s greatness is not measured by how often its politicians announce it. It is measured by the opportunities and quality of life it provides for the next generation. The Nordics appear to have understood this rather better than the people selling American exceptionalism. Source: European Youth Forum, Youth Progress Index 2025⁠.

Trump: "Why do we always have to take people from shit house countries? We can't we take people from Norway and Sweden and Denmark? By the way, Denmark gave us Greenland ... what do you take, Venezuela or Greenland? We got them both!"

In January, a senior Pentagon official summoned Pope Leo XIV’s ambassador and lectured him on American military power. Then someone in the room invoked the Avignon Papacy, when the French Crown used force to bend a pope to its will. Vatican officials read it as a threat. The pope has not given an inch since. thelettersfromleo.com/p/the-…

I've come to believe that one of the greatest myths Americans are taught from childhood is American exceptionalism. We're told America is the greatest, freest, and most prosperous country on Earth. The shining example the rest of the world supposedly envies. Let's look at some facts. According to the FBI, America's murder rate fell to 4.1 per 100,000 people in 2025. That's a significant improvement, yet still roughly 4.7 times the EU's 2024 homicide rate. The United States incarcerates people at several times the rate of most Western European countries. School shootings remain a recurring national tragedy. Meanwhile, millions of Europeans enjoy affordable healthcare, accessible higher education, stronger worker protections, paid leave, and comprehensive privacy protections. And despite decades of immigration, including from the Middle East, Europe's homicide rates remain dramatically lower than America's. Yet Americans are constantly told nobody enjoys greater freedom or opportunity. And that brings me to MAGA. I see a movement increasingly defined by ultranationalist rhetoric, with deeply concerning influences from white nationalism and Christian nationalism. A movement where questioning the national mythology is treated as betrayal. The responses to my posts have been revealing. MAGA accounts repeatedly accuse me of being a bot, despite the fact that my X account is publicly ID-verified. Others call me a traitor. A traitor to what, exactly? I'm a U.S. Army veteran who served his country. I live abroad, exercise my constitutional right to free speech, and advocate for Americans to enjoy better healthcare, education, public safety, and individual freedoms. Which part of that constitutes treason? Meanwhile, their president has reopened Russian diesel imports, with the first shipment reportedly heading toward New York. His administration's negotiations with Moscow have also included a proposed multibillion-dollar acquisition of Russian-owned Lukoil assets involving investors with business connections to his family and senior negotiators. Where's the outrage over those dealings with Russia? I'm not negotiating business arrangements with Moscow. I'm not facilitating Russian energy purchases. I'm not participating in proposed transactions involving Russian oil assets. I'm an American living in Europe who wants better living conditions for his fellow Americans. And somehow, I'm the traitor? Here's what I've learned. Patriotism isn't blind allegiance to a politician, a political movement, or a national mythology. It's having the courage to recognize your country's shortcomings and demand better. America has accomplished extraordinary things. But believing that makes it inherently superior to every other nation isn't patriotism. It's exceptionalism turned into dogma. You cannot improve a country when you've been conditioned to believe it has already achieved perfection. And criticizing America because you want it to improve doesn't make you a traitor. It makes you an American exercising the very freedoms you were taught to cherish.

Culpar al feminismo de la infelicidad del hombre moderno es admitir que su felicidad dependía de la sumisión/opresión femenina

After weeks of rioting in Paris no one was killed. Which technically means your child is safer attending a riot in Paris than a school in America.

Ok, America belongs to Britain because Americans speak English That is how this works, right?

Vi måler ikke danskhed på folks holdning til homoseksuelle. Hold nu op med det pjat 🤦🏼‍♀️ I Danmark må man gerne have dumme holdninger. Man må gerne mene, at homoseksualitet er forkert - ligesom man også gerne må mene, at kommenost burde forbydes. Vi lever i et liberalt demokrati. Vi må ikke svigte forsvaret for friheden til at mene, tro og ytre sig - uanset hvor uenige, vi er! DET ville være udansk. Danskhed er ingenting og alting. Vi er cirka 6 mio. danskere, som hver især har vores egen aktie i Danmark. Og alle med en dansk aktie er danske på vores egen måde. Det er hverken liberalt eller demokratisk at ville definere hvad man må mene om homoseksuelle. Men vi vedtager demokratisk hvilke rettigheder homoseksuelle skal have. Og det skal alle respektere!

It's utterly ridiculous that we have all these supposed billionaire geniuses running around, and their greatest innovation of our lifetime has been stealing our personal data to sell us targeted ads.

🇳🇴 🇷🇺 🇺🇦 Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre is emerging as a potential candidate to lead negotiations with Russia on Europe’s behalf. Interestingly, voices in Russia are also portraying Støre as a credible and potentially acceptable negotiator. With his diplomatic experience, deep understanding of European security and Norway’s long history of managing relations with Moscow, Støre could offer Europe something increasingly essential: a strong, independent voice at the negotiating table. gandalv.substack.com/p/washi…

Many Americans struggle to understand European speech laws because they don't understand European history. Europe isn't one country. It's dozens of nations, hundreds of languages, and countless ethnic communities, with centuries of religious, ethnic, and national conflict. Europe has witnessed what happens when organized hatred, dehumanization, and extremist propaganda become instruments of political power. We've seen the wars, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and millions of deaths. Europe's approach to free expression didn't emerge from some irrational hatred of liberty. It was shaped by the catastrophic consequences of allowing hatred to become a political weapon. Freedom of expression is a fundamental European right. But it comes with responsibilities, including respect for the rights of others. You can criticize governments, challenge institutions, and express unpopular opinions. What you cannot automatically claim is an unlimited right to incite hatred or violence against entire communities. There's a historical reason for that distinction. Europe has already paid an unimaginably high price for learning it.

I live in a small MAGA town. I know MAGA people. I drink with them. I talk to them. I study them. They’re not the loud Twitter yappers, at least most of them. They’re quieter. Slower. But the delusion runs deep, just bottled up in passive smiles and soft voices. A few weeks ago, one of them tried to convert me at a bar. He knew I wasn’t into the Trump cult, but he started soft. Calm voice. Friendly tone. “Mario, you’re white. You can drink a lot, you eat meat, “he was just surprised that I was eating rare burger” and drinking vodka chasing it with Guinness. He also said, “You’re one of us. You should feel proud.” That’s their seduction tactic. Not facts. Not logic. Just subtle tribal grooming. “You’re white. You drink. You belong.” It was almost sweet, in a sad, culty way. Like a Jehovah’s Witness trying to sell you eternal life with a shaky brochure and cheap suit. But let’s talk about the whole ecosystem. The truth. MAGA men? Most are not warriors. They’re out-of-shape, insecure, jealous small-town boys who peaked in high school, still clinging to stories from when they “almost went pro” or “should’ve been in the military.” They’re proud of being able to drink a case of light beer, drive a truck, and scream about freedom while their knees buckle from sugar and rage. They’re easy to manipulate because they don’t ask questions. They don’t read. They react. They memorize memes like scripture and repeat them like gospel. They think being loud equals being right. They think the world is laughing with them. It’s not. The world’s laughing at them, when it’s not just ignoring them entirely. MAGA women? They’re caught in a brutal paradox, constantly screaming about how proud and strong they are, while reshaping every inch of their body to meet a fake beauty standard pushed by the very system they claim to hate. Plastic lips. Inflated cheeks. Eyelashes thick as windshield wipers. Trying to look rich while shopping clearance at Walmart. They scream about “natural family values” while injecting Botox and collapsing into MLM scams that promise empowerment through overpriced lipstick. They mock liberals for being “gender confused” while wearing more synthetic parts than a Barbie made in a Russian factory. Here’s the thing: MAGA America isn’t just backward. It’s boring. MAGA folks are simply subsimple. There’s nothing imaginative about it. No new culture. No innovation. No ideas. They don’t invent, they imitate. They don’t challenge, they chant. It’s the same five phrases over and over. The same flag. The same truck. The same outfit. Patriot cosplay. And that’s why the world doesn’t just hate MAGA. It forgets it. Because once the shouting stops, there’s nothing under the hood. Just cheap beer breath, fake smiles, and a belief that whiteness and loudness are still enough to matter. You want the brutal truth? Even without Trump, even without the cult, most of them would still be irrelevant. Not because they’re evil. But because they chose comfort over growth. Tribalism over truth. Imitation over imagination. They don’t want to understand the world. They want the world to stay small enough to understand them. And that’s the saddest, most humiliating part.