She heard the applause before she saw the audience.
It was a strange place, this room, even more than usual. Long, and with a high ceiling upon which hung a banner.
YOUR CAUSE. YOUR FIGHT. YOUR REASONS.
There was a hammer and sickle on the left side of the banner and a swastika on the right. This mirrored the crowd, which was divided down the middle with a thin canvass separating them from each other’s sight, muffling some of the sound.
On the left sat a thousand youths outfitted in black hoodies, keffiyehs, patched denim jackets, and T-shirts bearing slogans about anti-capitalist liberation. Several had painted their fingernails in the colors of the Ukrainian flag. One young man had a laptop open on his knees, displaying a spreadsheet titled “Bash the Fash: A Comprehensive Analysis”.
A queer sight, made all the queerer by the group on the right. A thousand more, this time garbed in black uniforms and combat boots, with shaved heads adorned only with swastikas, Celtic crosses, and sonnenrads. One wore a shirt proclaiming the need to defend European civilization. Another held up a banner that read “1488.”
In front of each group stood an instructors, each dressed like members of their respective audiences, with the addition of a kippah on top.
“Comrades,” announced the instructor on the left, a lean man with silver hair and a microphone headset. His name badge read DANIEL LEVIN — GENDERQUEER LIBERATION ENTHUSIAST. “We have gathered here today because history has placed a question before us. Are you going to let Vladimir Putin win?”
The left side of the room erupted. “NO!”
“Are we going to give in to fascism?”
“NO!”
“Are we going to let the forces of reaction destroy the queer future of humanity?”
“NO!”
Daniel smiled, and breathed in the adoration of the crowd. “Good,” he continued, “then we must speak honestly about Ukraine.”
Sarah’s gaze drifted back to the right side of the room, where the instructor on the dias began his speech. Above him was a sign that read ARI BEN-AMOS — WESTERN CIVILIZATION AND SECURITY INITIATIVE. He tapped his microphone.
“Friends. Patriots. Europeans.” The right side of the room came to attention. “We have gathered because Europe is under attack.”
A thousand roman salutes went out at once.
“Under attack from whom?” Ari demanded, more of a rallying cry than a question.
“Putin!”
The response came so loud and clear Sarah felt it in her teeth.
Ari shook his head sadly. “Putin is the architect of something far more insidious than an ordinary military threat. He, underneath his master, Alexander Dugin, is the architect of European humiliation.”
He clicked his remote. The screen displayed a photograph of refugees walking along a European highway. “Look at this,” he asked, and the recruits stared. “Your cities are changing. Your borders are dissolving. Your traditions are being treated as embarrassing relics. And who benefits from this chaos?”
“Russia!” someone shouted. An angry murmur passed through the room.
“Putin, and his master Dugin, hate the White race, and have been seeking its destruction, and conversion into a Eurasian mongrel. It is with this end goal in mind that they have thrown open Europe’s borders, and bring the Chechen hordes into Ukraine.”
As the group on the right vented their considerable anger Sarah’s gaze turned back left. Just in time to see their instructor, Daniel, click his remote to move to the next slide. A photograph appeared on the screen: Putin at a military parade. “Vladimir Putin’s plan for a pure white Europe.”
“Wow, just wow,” could be heard murmured by a thousand voices.
“Putler,” Daniel continued, “is a White supremacist who has fully rejected George Soros’ visionary plan, opening the borders of Europe. Putin has refused time and again to take in helpless refugee children from areas in conflict with Israel. Putin has even said, explicitly, that he views himself as the defender of a white, Christian Europe.”
Daniel waited just a second for the angry crowd to calm down. “He has weaponized traditionalism, nationalism, and religious reaction to create a fortress against LGBTQ liberation and racial diversity. He wants a world in which every minority knows their place, or is simply cleansed from his lily White ethnostate. And he wants to export this to all of Europe.”
A young trans woman in the front row raised xir’s fist. “Exactly!” she proclaimed in a deep voice that rose above the general murmur. “That’s what I’ve been saying,” she continued, before adjusting her pants because her dick usually rested on the opposite side.
“Putin’s Russia,” Daniel continued, “is a machine designed to crush queer people, intimidate transgender people, and export reactionary politics to every country unfortunate enough to share a planet with him.”
The roar of the crowd was deafening, their spirits animated, their hands, two sizes too small, waving wildly, accidentally spreading the collective odour of ten thousand man-days without a shower. Daniel temporarily flinched as he caught wind of the stench.
On the right side of the room Ari continued his diatribe. “And there is another front in this war. The demographic front.” With a click the screen changed to a photograph of a Russian hospital. “Russia has spent years undermining its own population. A society that cannot sustain its birthrate, that normalizes abortion, that treats the family as an optional lifestyle accessory, is a society in decline.”
Ari allowed the words to settle. “Putin talks about traditional values. He poses as the defender of Christian civilization. But in reality, Russia is a liberal paradise where degeneracy runs rampant. Not only that. Russia has always been behind the migrant crisis, seeking to undermine Europe through replacement migration, low birth rates, and Korean rape soldiers.”
Sarah turned back to the left side of the stage just in time to catch the end of what Daniel was going on about now.
“Russia, through its dictator, Putin, has banned feminism, transexualism, and even thrown many of our bravest human rights freedom democracy activists in prison. This is a Christian nationalist state where Pussy Riot feminists get years in prison for righteous protests inside of fascist churches.”
“Russia,” Ari continued on the right, “is secretly an anti-Christian Islamic caliphate where Putin throws patriotic Russians in jail for burning the Koran. It’s also a haven of feminism, and sexual degeneracy.”
Sarah looked back to her left. “But Putin’s worst crime,” Daniel said, “is his anti-semitism.”
“Putin’s worst crime,” Ari belted, “is that he’s a pawn of Jews.”
“When Putin took power in Russia,” Daniel continued, “many innocent Jewish billionaires had their wealth confiscated from them and were thrown in jail. Even just last week he confiscated $1.3 billion from Vadim Moshkovich, a poor Jew who had to work hard for every meal he ever ate. He reinvested his wealth in anti-capitalist projects, such as the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, a bastion of liberalism.”
On the right, Ari had picked up in pace. “There are those who say that Putin has cracked down on Jew oligarchs. But in reality, he’s surrounded by Jew oligarchs, and works entirely for them.” The crowd roared, but Ari waited only a second before cutting over them. “In fact, Putin donated a month of his own salary to the construction of the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, a hive of liberalism.”
“There’s no question about it,” Daniel shouted, “Putin hates the Jews.”
“There’s no question about it,” Ari exclaimed, “Putin is a secret Jew.”
The audiences went absolutely buck wild, whipped into a righteous frenzy. The left group was calmed first, as a man with purple hair stood up. “Can we be sure that Ukraine is fighting for trans and immigrant rights?” he asked. “Are we certain that Zelensky and his friends who all flee to Israel aren’t just another batch of neo-liberals serving oligarchs.”
There was much concerned nodding among the crowd, but Daniel regarded him warmly, as a father does to a precocious child. “Ukraine,” he said, “is fighting not just for its sovereignty. They are fighting for the entire liberal world order, which is the very foundation of transgender liberation and endless migration.”
Concurrent with his speech, a man in the right group wearing a Black Sun biker patch stood up. “But Ari,” he started, “can we be sure that Ukraine is fighting for traditional values and the White race when Zelensky and all his pals are all Jews?”
Ari chuckled. “Ukraine,” he said, “is fighting not just for its sovereignty. They are fighting against the entire liberal world order headed up by Russia, which is the very foundation of sexual perversion and third worldism.”
The group on the right began nodding to each other. Meanwhile, to Sarah’s left, the man with purple hair sat down, satisfied that they were fighting for immigrants and trans rights, and Daniel advanced to the next slide. It showed a rainbow flag superimposed over a photograph of a Ukrainian soldier.
“Some of you have reservations. You may have been told that Ukraine has its own complicated internal politics. You are thinking about nationalism, corruption, far-right organizations, or the inconvenient fact that countries are not morality plays in which every actor has been assigned a permanent role by your favorite podcast.
“You may also have heard the claim that Ukraine is nothing more than a proxy for United States capitalist imperialism. That Zelensky has openly supported Israel, which currently has troops in five different countries. But first of all, that’s anti-semitism. And secondly, Zelensky has to do that. This great leader’s hands have been tied by the forces of history into receiving aid from these countries, and we need to have a nuanced, measured understanding of this. Russia wants you fighting each other instead of Russian imperialism. Don’t give them the satisfaction.
“The ignorant may further claim that Ukraine is a den of ethnonationalists. You may have even bought into some Russian fearmongering about so-called denazification. Pat yourself on the back for ignoring such tripe. Ukraine has a Jew leader, a minority Muslim head of the intelligence services, and a transexual spokesperson. Russia is such an evil country that they consider Sarah Ashton-Cirillo a man. There is simply no debate. Ukraine is fighting for a world where women really can have penises.”
As the audience on the left nodded and cheered, congratulating themselves on understanding the nuance of the situation, Sarah’s gaze shifted back to the right. “I understand,” Ari said, “that you may have some reservations when it comes to Ukraine.”
Some in the audience shifted uneasily, but he smiled as he continued. “Yes, of course, Zelensky is a Jew. Yes, of course, all of his closest allies are Jews. Yes, of course, they steal money meant for the defense of Ukraine and then flee to Israel. To the outside observer it might seem like a speedrun of neo-liberalism, promoting various minorities to important Governmental positions, shutting down anti-corruption investigations, pushing LGBTQ legislation as if their lives depend on it, and openly talking about bringing in ten million African migrants to Ukraine after the war.
“To uninformed and simple minded may be tricked into believing Ukraine is a left wing cause celebre that has nothing to offer us. Please pat yourself on the back for having too much intellectual sophistication to believe such nonsense. Reality is nuanced shades of grey, and beware the blackpillers who want to take one small, unimportant fact about Russia or Ukraine out of context, in order to maliciously subvert your opinion. I trust that you’re too intelligent to fall for such tricks. The Russians want us European patriots fighting each other instead of defending our civilization.
“It may look from the outside that Ukraine is nothing more than a cabal of Jews destroying a people, but there are guys in the security apparatus who have totempkompf tattoos. The patriots are in control, and installing a tranny as spokesperson is only to con the low info into not understanding how utterly based Ukraine is. Trust the plan.”
The crowd in the right nodded their heads. They were far too sharp to believe any nonsense about Ukraine not being secretly based.
“Also,” Ari continued, “the Donbas separatists are all antifas. Russian disinfo agents might use the fact that they are ethnonationalists who oppose gay marriage and openly criticize the Jews who run Ukraine to hoodwink you into supporting them, but,” he clicked again and a new slide appeared, “look here at this antifa symbol that they used.”
Ari waited a few seconds for the audience to catch up. “Our Governments will throw you in jail for winning a fight against a domestic antifa who started it. Our revenge can be found in Ukraine.”
A roar went up from the crowd. The common intellect may have been confused, but these European patriots understood that they were truly fighting their oppressors by fighting on the same side as their own Governments.
Across the room, Daniel was wrapping up his own presentation. “Remember, comrades: solidarity does not require you to agree with every person on the battlefield. It requires you to understand the historical stakes.”
Ari, speaking just after him, declared, “Fellow sons of Europe: national survival does not require you to approve of every person fighting alongside you. It requires you to understand the historical stakes.”
Sarah slowly turned her head from one instructor to the other as they basked in the glow of their respective groups. Behind each a portal opened up, and after a few seconds the instructors addressed their crowd, using the same words, speaking in sync.
“Everyone must remember something important. You are not here because someone told you what to think. You are here because you have done the research, examined the evidence, and arrived at your own conclusions. To any lackadaisical cowards thinking twice I say, stay. Stay here, safe. Let your brethren steal your glory. Let them make history while you make excuses.
“But to those who understand that this is their fight, for their reasons, I say the future lies beyond this portal. Life may be struggle, and struggle may be pain. But the purpose of our lives is to spend them in service to a higher power, our ideals.
“And above all else, remember this.” The instructors both waited for a few seconds, chins in the air, basking in the anticipation of the crowd.
“Fuck Putin.”
Something between a roar of triumph and a laugh thundered out from each crowd. Without any further ado the neo-nazis and the antifas each began moving towards their respective portals. Willing, eager, and ready to get killed by Russians. It was their fight, after all, they were doing it for their reasons.
Sarah leaned out from behind the pillar, but quickly ducked back as Daniel and Ari walked towards each other struck up a conversation.
“Outstanding turnout,” Daniel said.
“Very receptive audience,” Ari replied.
“They seem to understand the stakes.”
With that Ari chuckled. Then they both turned to the portals, now closing, bowed to their respective audiences, and departed through a side door. Sarah waited until the door closed, then snuck in behind them. They lead her to a private dining room, lush and opulent, but empty except for the three of them. Floor-to-ceiling windows, linen tablecloths, and a view of the Pacific that in addition to being breathtaking, lead Sarah to wonder what exactly the architectural layout of the building was.
“How did your lot take the imperialism angle?” Ari asked, unfolding his napkin.
“Beautifully. I gave them the white-supremacy material, then moved into civil liberties. Once they heard the word authoritarian, I could have shown them a photograph of Zelensky stealing a child’s lunch money and they’d still have demanded sanctions on Putin.”
Ari laughed. “Mine needed more work. The refugee angle got them, but the abortion statistics really brought them home.”
“Are those statistics accurate?” Daniel asked with a frown.
Ari looked at his coworker for a second, confused, before he broke out in a laugh as he saw Daniel was just kidding.
A waiter, in the form of a Guatemalan girl half dressed and with a chain around her neck, arrived with a selection of wines. After some haggling over the vintage they picked one.
Ari lifted his glass. “To Ukrainian sovereignty.”
Daniel clinked his glass against it. “To the right of self-determination.”
They drank through their smiles.
Sarah was about to leave when Daniel pulled out his phone. “Shit,” he said, looking at the screen, “we’re getting a new batch of Sunnoids and MAGAtards.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Fuck.” Ari paused for a while, rotating his glass between his thumb and fingers, then turned back with a grin. “So, which one do you want to be this time?”
Not even a minute later Sarah found herself back behind the same pillar, watching the two instructors giving yet another spiel. On the left was Daniel, dressed in traditional Islamic garb, speaking to a group of Wahhabis. On the right, Ari, with a “Checkmate, Liberals,” shirt on, talking to a sea of red MAGA hats.
“And we see,” Daniel screamed, “again the Iranian proxy of Ansrah Allah attacks the most sacred of our Islamic spaces, Mecca. For the Iranian shia menace knows no bounds. Disgusting fake Muslim infidels who the majority of our nations rightfully oppose.”
“Iranians,” Ari screamed, “are nothing more than third world jihadi Islamists who chant death to America. To them you are nothing but Christian infidels, to be hated for your freedoms.”
“The great Muslim Caliphate,” Daniel spat, “has been our project for centuries, and nothing stands in our way but the Persian menace. A vile conglomerate of fake Muslims who set aside seats at parliament for Christians and Jews. Their women are whores walking about without burkas. Freedom, degeneracy, it goes by the name Iran.”
“They want your daughter wearing a headscarf. They oppose sports gambling, the lifeblood of the American economy. Islam is a black flag raised against Western, Christian civilization, and the leaders of the Caliphate are none other than the Ayatollah and his three year old granddaughter who we rightfully killed. Look at this statue of Christ that they forced Israeli soldiers to destroy because the terrorists hid explosives inside after cutting off the heads of Christian babies. But you can put an end to this jihadi menace, by signing up for Pete Hegseth’s Department of War.”
Sarah had seen enough. She felt like going on a school shooter style rampage, but there were too many of them. Instead she waited, followed Dan and Ari into the building again, shot them in the head, and then wandered through the bowels of the building until she came to another portal.
Without a second’s hesitation she walked through. Was it risky? Sure, but time was of the essence. She had a boyfriend to save, and Johnny GigaChad couldn’t hold out forever. It was a daunting task, fighting against ZOG instead of for it, but at least she knew she was doing it for her reasons.
