I hate to be the bearer of dire news on a Friday. But after last night’s GOP debates, I’m pretty sure 2025 will be a year to forget.

And it won’t be Putin’s fault. Nor Emperor Pooh Bear.

It’ll be the American and European electorates, once again, acting as turkeys voting for Christmas.

Let me elaborate.

Yesterday, Turin

Pam and I had a few free hours yesterday, so we drove to Turin to eat lunch and shop.

We sat in Baratti & Milano, a lovely old-style café just off the Via Po. You may recognize the name from their excellent chocolates.

Their café is lovely; you can forgive yourself if you feel like you’re in Vienna. (Turin, whose Royal family was the Savoy, had quite a few connections to the Habsburgs. They seem to have enjoyed a similar style.)

Pam and I shared the tuna with tartare and egg with fondue for starters. She ate the guinea fowl for her main course, and I ate the veal. Molto delicioso!  We ended our excursion with perhaps the best chocolate cake I’ve ever tasted.

During the meal, I received a message from M, an old acquaintance of mine. Though he no longer lives there, I met M through friends in Hong Kong at the Captain’s Bar in the Mandarin Oriental. We drank beers out of their old pewter tankards for a delightful evening. Like me, he’s an American expat who’ll never return to live in America.

M is a quant - one of the brilliant numbers traders - who used to work at the same old defunct bank as I did. However, we didn’t know each other then.

Last month, I noticed he listed his yacht for sale. I told Pam, “Look darling, M is selling his yacht for more than our farmhouse!” We giggled.

M messaged me asking about moving US pensions offshore. Immediately, my alarm bells were ringing. If this brilliant guy is asking about this, perhaps he thinks the poop will hit the fan soon.

He wrote:

Between the population cull from covid, mass govt debt, and multiple wars I would say soon. There are not enough working people to support anything. Grow your own food.

I mentioned Europe was in as much trouble as America.

He wrote:

Yep. No sure things anymore.

While I share M’s pessimism, it got me thinking. We’re walking into a storm, but we’re a whole year away.

Here’s why.

The Porous Southern Border

Before I rip America over its southern border, I want to remind you that I watched this movie before. It was 2015 in Europe when Angela “Mutti” Merkel let in 2,000,000 migrants who were dressed up as Syrian refugees.

It was insanity.

In a 2021 Rude piece titled “Mutti’s Legacy Continues to Divide,” I wrote:

We headed to Kos Town [on the Greek Island of Kos, just 45 minutes from Turkey] a few days early to make sure we knew where the ferry terminal was. And there, we saw what happens when a country is unprepared for mass migration.

Credit: Sean Ring

I took both pictures on September 8, 2015, and it says so on my iCloud account.

Mutti Muffed It

When you’ve got your feet on the ground, however unintentional that may have been, you see what a disaster Angela Merkel’s policy was.

On August 31, 2015, Merkel had announced, “Wir Schaffen Das.” It translates to “We’ll manage this.”

But only 29% of those migrants were Syrian refugees.

And that, my friends, is the problem.

Open borders mean no borders at all. And who bears the cost of that? Not the government. But the populace.

Unfortunately, Joke Biden took a page out of Mutti’s playbook. And again, the Mexicans, like the Syrians in Europe, weren’t the problem. It’s everyone else who sees the government’s weakness (or plan) and exploits it.

Let’s see what’s happening on America’s southern border.

According to Pew Research:

Credit: Pew Research Center

Not only are Mexicans no longer the majority crossing into America, but most are single men.

Credit: Pew Research Center

Do you think any of these guys are members of Hamas or any other group with the intent to harm Americans? Let’s get back to that.

Israel-Hamas Connection

I understand entirely that Israelis want to get their own back for the Hamas attack that deliberately (and stupidly) targeted civilians. It’s unforgivable.

I also feel for Palestinians who had nothing to do with this but are targeted under the “Well, they voted for Hamas” policy. (Imagine the same approach applied to all Americans for Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria, among others.)

But what I expect from elder statesmen is poise and calm and calls for peace. And the only person we’ve got that from is Dominique de Villepin. If the name is vague, he was France’s prime minister under Chirac, who opposed America’s invasion of Iraq.

If you’re wondering why he isn’t getting any press, he’s embarrassed the world’s diplomatic corps over the past few weeks.

Here’s the end of his first interview:

Israel has a right to self-defense, but this right cannot be indiscriminate vengeance. And there cannot be collective responsibility of the Palestinian people for the actions of a terrorist minority from Hamas.

When you get into this cycle of finding faults, one side's memories clash with the other's. Some will juxtapose Israel's memories with the memories of the Nakba, the 1948 catastrophe, which is a disaster that the Palestinians still experience every day. So you can't break these cycles. We must have the strength, of course, to understand and denounce what happened, and from this standpoint, there's no doubt about our position. But we must also have the courage, and that's what diplomacy is... diplomacy is about being able to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel. And that's the cunning of history; when you're at the bottom, something can happen that gives hope. After the 1973 war, who would have thought that before the end of the decade, Egypt would sign a peace treaty with Israel?

The debate shouldn't be about rhetoric or word choice. The debate today is about action; we must act. And when you think about action, there are two options. Either it's war, war, war. Or it's about trying to move toward peace, and I'll say it again, it's in Israel's interest. It's in Israel's interest!

Compare that to the numbskulls in last night’s debate.

Last Night’s GOP Idiocy

My God, it must be nice to be Nikki Haley.

She’s never been to war. She’ll never go to war. And if she wins the presidency, it’s not like her kids will be sent to the front lines.

Vivek Ramaswamy was right to call her “Dick Cheney in 3-inch heels.” For the unfortunately short Ron DeSantis, he got caught in this crossfire as well.

The Wall Street Journal painted it like this:

Growing global disorder thrust foreign policy to the forefront of this debate, and it is quickly separating the men from . . . the woman. Donald Trump caters to the “America first” contingent, vowing to end the Ukrainian war in 24 hours and reward Vladimir Putin’s onslaught against civilians with whatever land Russia has seized up to now. Mr. Ramaswamy goes further left, resurrecting a 1930s-style isolationism that envisions abandoning even allies like Israel and that smears Ukrainians as “Nazis.”

The more vivid contrast on Wednesday’s stage was between Ms. Haley’s unwavering support for Ukraine and Israel—her clear vision of a “strong America” that “prevents wars”—and Ron DeSantis’s clear desire to duck the whole topic.

The problem is that if peaceful Trump gets convicted, Haley may be the President. She crushes Biden even more than Trump. And I think she’d thump Governor Gruesome if he’s the Democratic frontrunner.

But the problem isn’t so much her convictions as her rhetoric. She’s not an impartial peace broker and can never claim to be if she’s elected President.

And that means all those folks who came through the southern border already - and will continue to do so throughout 2024 - will have no qualms about setting off bombs.

But the Mexicans… no, not them.

Here’s a special report from the Daily Caller:

Federal officials are warning that members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Hezbollah could be crossing through the southern border, according to an internal Oct. 20 memo exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The San Diego Field Office Intelligence Division of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sent the memo warning that due to the war between Israel and Hamas, there could be encounters of terror-tied individuals who are seeking to travel to or from the Middle East via transit across the southern border. Hamas, PIJ, and Hezbollah, all of which are U.S.-designated terrorist organizations, have been committing attacks on Israel in a war that began with a surprise attack on hundreds of civilians on Oct. 7.

So now you’ve got a couple hundred thousand single men crossing the border of unknown origin who may be the very terrorists you’re antagonizing.

Not a good plan.

Wrap Up

The Rude’s Four Pillars of Financial Freedom are to have a second passport, start an online business, get a bit of crypto, and get in shape.

In short, get and stay mobile.

If you’re in an American or European city, the invading army is already here, lying dormant until the right moment to attack.

It’s incumbent upon you to be able to move quickly.

Luckily, you’ve got another year of Joke Biden before the attacks start.