“Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the post cold-war era. Such a decision may be expected . . . to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.”
– George Kennan, 1997
March 6, 2025— On Monday, a news nugget revealed Vice President JD Vance was heckled in Vermont over the weekend. Vance was on a family ski outing. A fellow skier shouted while Vance as Vance fumbled his way by: “Hey, JD, how does it feel to be in Putin’s pocket?”
Not all that surprising. Vermont, home to Senator Bernie Sanders, the self-identified Socialist who twice ran for President as a Democrat, prides itself on being a bastion of the progressive movement.
The Vance family ski trip to Sugarbush had been planned far in advance of the spat heard ’round the world between Vance, President Trump and Ukrainian wartime chief, Vlodymyr Zelensky.
Along the street near our Baltimore house, a politically active neighbor sports a chalkboard on the sidewalk where she parrots the left talking points. Perfect. Who needs headlines when we’ve got the local clarion telling us what way the political wind is blowing?
On Tuesday, her chalkboard read “Mafia Don Needs A Time Out!” followed by “I Heart Zelensky” in comic letters.
The two anecdotes point to one (just one) of the spectacular conundrums now facing the Democratic Party after Kamala Harris lost the election in November: How did the Democratic Party become the party that supports war?
The conservative gadfly Michael Shellenberger asked in his post on Public yesterday: “Why won’t the party of open borders, transgender rights and the climate apocalypse defend its agenda?”
Then goes on to answer it on X:
Democrats have a terrible night in a Joint Session of Congress, Tuesday, March 4, 2025
We don’t have a dog in this fight, per se.
In fact, we remember explicitly writing during the 2015 primary season: “The worst thing Donald Trump ever did is make people care about politics again.”
Ironically, we happen to agree with Bernie Sanders, who appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press the day after an assassination attempt on then-candidate Donald Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2025.
Sanders suggested trying to kill the man was a bad idea. Specifically, he said, “Politics is supposed to be boring.”
And so it is. Most of the time.
We share the dog we do have in the fight with every other tax-paying citizen.
We support DOGE’s efforts to reign in government waste, fraud and abuse. It’s absurd that people keep pointing out that Elon Musk is unelected… when unelected busybodies staff all the Federal agencies he’s looking into.
We also happen to agree with a point of contention that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made repeatedly.
Way before it became a social media meme, we discussed NATO’s outlandish goals and ambitions after the fall of the Soviet Union.
In one interview we did on our podcast, The Wiggin Sessions, our friend and military historian, Byron King, outlined the gross mission creep of the bureaucracy NATO became following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Later, one of the most widely viewed episodes of the Wiggin Sessions is one from 2022. The iconoclast economist Martin Armstrong felt strongly enough about artifacts of Cold War expansionism to make a coffee table book out of his research.
Martin had sent me a copy out of the blue.
Martin Armstrong’s 2022 coffee table expose of the Plot To Seize Russia (Source: Addison Wiggin)
Here’s an animated .gif from Reddit that illustrates one of the premises of Armstrong’s book:
Growth of NATO in the 75 years since its inception (Source: Reddit)
Of course, as you might expect from a coffee table book, Armstrong digs into the many plot twists and points of intrigue that align over the years since the Wall came down in 1989.
Back to Vance getting heckled.
If you disagree with NATO mission creep…
If you disagree with a defensive alliance slowly encircling Russia…
If you are aware of Putin’s warnings to keep Ukraine out of NATO…
And if you disagree with your taxpayer money being used to fuel that mission creep… and a destructive war halfway around the planet… does that really mean you support the bloodthirsty megalomaniac Vladimir Putin?
Really?
The idea is as patently absurd as the oft-repeated trope that the 2024 election would be the last election of the U.S. Republic.
Politics as an enterprise is really about controlling money and resources.
Realpolitik, or, as we call it on occasion, metapolitics, is the art of calling a spade a spade and practicing diplomacy to achieve aims in one’s own national interest.
Like the proverbial pucker hole, everyone’s got a national interest.
Alas, war is the extension of failed politics.
People die.
Here’s the real question: When the United States has $36 trillion in debt and a deficit track destined to add trillions more each year, is it really in the nation’s best interest to support a hot war, even one where American lives are far from the front lines?
That’s just a tiny point, but it doesn’t do anything to help explain why the vice president is getting heckled as a traitor on a ski trip to Vermont.
Oy vey.
It’s really kind of astounding, isn’t it? How twisted and absurd the politics of a geriatric empire have become?
Regards,
Addison Wiggin,
Grey Swan
P.S. On Tuesday, BlackRock announced it will buy Hutchinson Port Holdings in a deal valued at $22.8 Billion. They operate 43 ports in 23 countries, including two of the four major ports that exist along the Panama Canal.
The deal will give the BlackRock consortium control over 43 ports in 23 countries, including Mexico, the Netherlands, Egypt, Australia, Pakistan and elsewhere.
The deal will allow BlackRock to acquire 90% of the interests in Panama Ports Company, which owns and operates the ports of Balboa and Cristobal in Panama.
We present it here as exhibit A in the argument we outlined yesterday in our email titled: “Trump Eats World, or Or, The Willful Destruction of the Old Order.”
P.P.S. Today, we’re releasing our latest research on 7 MAGA stocks we expect to do very well under the current Trump administration. Whether you’re a paid subscriber or not, we’re taking a close look at how Trump’s policies could play out in the next four years.
If you’re a paid member of the Grey Swan Investment Advisory, you’ll receive an email later today with access to our latest reports. If you’re not yet a paying member, you can click here to get access to all our research.
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