Episode 4162: A WarRoom New Year Special 2025

Summary

Bannon's War Room: Episode 4162 - A WarRoom New Year Special 2025

Released on January 1, 2025, Bannon's War Room delves deep into the tumultuous political and societal shifts anticipated for the year ahead. Hosted by Stephen K. Bannon of WarRoom.org, this New Year special brings together experts in generational theory, geopolitics, and national movements to dissect the complexities of the current era. Below is a comprehensive summary of the episode, highlighting key discussions, insights, and notable quotes.

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1. The Cycle of Generations: Understanding the Fourth Turning

[00:01 - 04:34]
The episode opens with a foundational discussion on the Fourth Turning theory, introduced by William Strauss and Neil Howe. This generational framework posits that history unfolds in cyclical "turnings," each lasting roughly 20 years, culminating in a crisis period that reshapes society.

• William Strauss compares these turnings to natural seasons, emphasizing their inevitability:
  "Turnings are like the seasons. Every turning is necessary."
  [00:01]

• Neil Howe expands on the crisis phase, describing it as a period marked by significant turmoil and transformation:
  "A series of turnings that are launched by a so-called crisis war... that's really the key to understanding what happens next."
  [01:05 - 01:32]

The hosts elaborate on each turning:

• The High: A period of stability and consolidation, reminiscent of post-crisis recovery.
• The Awakening: A phase of intense social and cultural change, often leading to upheaval.
• The Unraveling: Characterized by increased individualism and weakened institutions.
• The Crisis (Fourth Turning): A transformative period that redefines societal structures.

[04:34] Strauss underscores the significance of the Fourth Turning in American history, citing pivotal moments like the American Revolution, Civil War, and World War II as examples of crises that reshaped the nation.

2. The Impending Fourth Turning and Its Implications

[08:14 - 13:50]
Transitioning from theory to contemporary analysis, the discussion shifts to the present crisis and the role of political movements in shaping the future.

• Steve Bannon introduces the idea of a "dying regime" facing existential threats:
  "This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies because we're going..."
  [08:14]

• Raheem Kassam and Ben Harnwell engage in a heated exchange about the state of media and public perception, highlighting frustrations with mainstream narratives:
  "All these networks lying about the people. The people have had a belly full of it."
  [08:22 - 08:32]

• Ben Harnwell emphasizes the internal struggle within the MAGA movement, particularly with President Trump's leadership and policy decisions:
  "Now, 2025 is going to be the most intense, consequential year in modern world politics."
  [10:39]

3. Geopolitical Tensions and the Role of the United States

[11:57 - 20:29]
The episode delves into the intricate geopolitical landscape, focusing on the United States' role in global conflicts and economic systems.

• Ben Harnwell discusses the overlap between domestic policies and international relations, particularly emphasizing the Ukraine conflict and U.S. economic strategies:
  "Ukraine will lose this war. But you know, the press has been repeating that now over the course of the last 12 months."
  [17:23]

• Raheem Kassam draws parallels between historical geopolitical tensions and current events, referencing the Thucydides Trap to illustrate potential conflicts within the U.S.:
  "That's why the replacement of our sociopathic overlords is so dangerous."
  [20:29]

4. Internal Political Dynamics: MAGA and the Deep State

[21:38 - 40:51]
The conversation shifts to internal U.S. politics, examining the contentious relationship between the MAGA movement and entrenched governmental structures.

• Ben Harnwell applies the Thucydides Trap domestically, framing the MAGA movement as an emerging power challenging the "deep state":
  "Donald Trump was elected by the people with a popular mandate to do certain things. And you never really have that in American history."
  [25:18]

• Raheem Kassam underscores the urgency of the political struggle, highlighting the potential for intense societal conflict:
  "The fight now in 2025... this fight is going to be within MAGA."
  [16:40]

• Ben Harnwell warns of the resistance from established elites who may employ extreme measures to maintain control:
  "What a regime will do to keep its hands on its trillion-dollar budget every year, that is something that we're going to see."
  [25:18]

5. European Politics and the Future of the European Union

[33:04 - 37:32]
The focus broadens to European geopolitics, analyzing the rise of nationalist movements and their implications for the European Union.

• Ben Harnwell draws historical parallels between the fall of empires and current trends in Europe, suggesting that the European Union may face a transformation akin to the fall of the Roman Empire:
  "We're in a situation where there is... a replacement of our sociopathic overlords is so dangerous. Who knows what they are going to do to make it as difficult as possible for Donald Trump?"
  [33:04]

• Raheem Kassam reflects on the potential for a "Constantinople moment," indicating significant cultural and political shifts:
  "Is the European Union and NATO all of it going the way of the Holy Roman Empire?"
  [35:53]

6. Cultural Shifts and Religious Influences in Europe

[41:56 - 48:34]
The hosts explore the cultural and religious dynamics in Europe, particularly the influence of Islam and its historical significance.

• Ben Harnwell emphasizes the importance of history in Islamic societies, contrasting it with Western secularism and predicting that Europe's cultural fabric may irrevocably change:
  "Islam is growing ever stronger... nature abhors a vacuum, we have pushed Jesus Christ out of our culture."
  [43:58]

• He further elaborates on the symbolic significance of historical events like the fall of Constantinople and their lasting impact on contemporary geopolitical identities:
  "Constantinople fell in 1453... history for them isn't just something that happened five years ago."
  [43:58]

7. Anticipating 2025: Challenges and Strategic Responses

[37:32 - 49:30]
As the episode nears its conclusion, the discussion synthesizes the theoretical frameworks and current events to forecast the challenges of 2025.

• Ben Harnwell outlines the stakes for the United States, portraying the year as a pivotal moment where the nation must confront systemic imbalances and entrenched elites:
  "If you're talking about the United States... the fix is going to be like the Ancien regime fought and fought and fought in pre-revolutionary France."
  [37:32]

• Raheem Kassam reinforces the urgency, encouraging listeners to prepare for intense political and social upheaval:
  "How's that sound? Get yourself a big war room, a warpath coffee right now. Get jacked up like we are."
  [37:32]

• The episode concludes with well-wishes and a call to action, urging the audience to stay informed and engaged:
  "Let me close by wishing you and the war room posse and the great team... very Happy New Year."
  [49:20]

---

Notable Quotes and Attributions

• William Strauss on generational cycles:
  "Turnings are like the seasons. Every turning is necessary."
  [00:01]

• Neil Howe on the aftermath of crises:
  "Once one of those is over, everybody... make a vow that was so horrible it should never be allowed to happen again."
  [01:05]

• Steve Bannon on regime change:
  "This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies because we're going..."
  [08:14]

• Ben Harnwell on the internal struggle within MAGA:
  "Donald Trump was elected by the people with a popular mandate to do certain things. And you never really have that in American history."
  [25:18]

• Raheem Kassam on geopolitical urgency:
  "Why do you think the replacement of our sociopathic overlords is so dangerous?"
  [35:53]

---

Conclusion

Episode 4162 of Bannon's War Room provides a profound exploration of the cyclical nature of generational change, the intricate balance of geopolitical forces, and the intense internal political battles anticipated in 2025. Through the lens of the Fourth Turning theory, the hosts and guests articulate a vision of a nation and world on the brink of transformative upheaval. This New Year special serves as both a warning and a call to action for listeners to engage deeply with the impending challenges and to prepare for the significant shifts that lie ahead.

Transcript

[William Strauss]

Turnings are like the seasons. Every turning is necessary. We discovered a recurring pattern. And implicit in that pattern of generational recurrence. The idea of a rhythm, a pattern, a sequence of events that comes around again. Nature like cycles. Cities are founded, cities collapse, states rise, states fall. Families can prosper, families can wither, all follow certain repeating cyclicals patterns. We end up inventing new cycles. So we have the financial market cycle, we have traffic cycles, we have all kinds of modern high tech cycles which we simply create. There are four turnings, each one roughly 20 years or so long. So an entire four turnings, or a saeculum, lasts about 80 to 100 years.

[Neil Howe]

A series of turnings that are launched by a so called crisis war. It's a time when there's a lot of genocide, a lot of killing, a lot of starvation, usually a lot of disease. It's the worst times in history. And once one of those is over, everybody, both the victors and the losers, make a vow that was so horrible it should never be allowed to happen again. That's really the key to understanding what happens next.

[Unknown]

The first turning is the high, like the fift that comes after the crisis. It's a period of consolidation. It's a period of stable families and stable family structures. Lots of kids are born, lots of infrastructure is built. But emotional life becomes more or less dead, begins to die out.

[William Strauss]

Baby boomers have no memory of World War II. Their childhood was the American high.

[Unknown]

Next comes the awakening. The perfect little children of the high, like the boom generation, become young adults.

[William Strauss]

They came of age during that period of rapid social and cultural change. When we changed everything about how we fel, how we thought, how we talked, how we dressed. We changed America's feelings about itself, our moral agenda.

[Unknown]

Suddenly their emotions break out and all hell breaks loose.

[William Strauss]

This became a generation of great passion of youth, anger that marked a rise at every age in drug use, teen pregnancy, crime risk taking, suicide.

[Unknown]

Then comes the unraveling in the awakening, the eternal trut, the verities that build up in the high. The values are questioned, that process accelerates during the unraveling. And restraints are broken down in personal life and economic life, in political life. Unravelings in America have certain common characteristics. They tend to be eras of a lot of economic speculation and more and more stronger boom and bust cycles.

[William Strauss]

For example, line that up with the 1920s or go back to the 1850s in America, go back to the 1760s. Consider in the 1990s, a decade of cynicism and bad manners and public authority seemed to Be pretty weak. You notice repeatedly recurring again these eras that feel very similar. Now, history teaches that usually third turnings finally issue into a fourth turning. The fourth turning is the crisis. And history shows that if an event doesn't trigger a fourth turning, a fourth turning leader will actually encourage to happen. Or one will simply hit us because of all the deferred public decisions that weren't made during the recent third turning. This comes to a head in the fourth turning. These fourth turnings become new founding moments of our nation's history. Obviously, one fourth turning was the period of the American Revolution. Another fourth turning was the Civil War era in which we redefined who we were as a Nation. World War II and the new Deal. Think of everything that changed in that era. We reestablished mankind's relationship with technology, government's relationship with the economy, America's relationship with the world.

[Unknown]

Should old acquaintance be forgot and never cross to mind? Should all acquaintance before God and days of old lang sy.

All.

Hang my dear for all lamb sing all.

Day.

For all thine sign and here's a hand my trusty friend and here's a.

Hand of mine will tell.

Thanks I.

For all.

My dear. We take a cup of kindness yet forever.

[Steve Bannon]

This is the primal scream of a dying regime. Pray for our enemies because we're going.

[Raheem Kassam]

To medieval on these people. I got a free shot. All these networks lying about the people. The people have had a belly full of it.

[Steve Bannon]

I know you don't like hearing that.

[Raheem Kassam]

I know you try to do everything the world to stop that, but you're not going to stop it. It's going to happen.

[Ben Harnwell]

And where do people like that go to share the big lie? Maga Media I w in my soul.

[Neil Howe]

I wish that any of these people had a conscience.

[Steve Bannon]

Ask yourself, what is my task and.

[William Strauss]

What is my purpose?

[Steve Bannon]

If that answer is to save my.

[William Strauss]

Country, this country will be saved.

[Ben Harnwell]

War Room here's your host, Stephen K. Band.

[Raheem Kassam]

It's Wednesday one January in the year of our Lord 2025. How's that sound? It's got a flow to it, doesn't it? 2025, you're here in the war room and it's our New Year's Day special. And I'm going to be joined today by our own Joe Allen. We're going to talk about this whole techno feudalism and we're going to talk about the singularity and what's happening in the convergence of all these different sciences and what to look forward and how big an issue it's going to become in 2020. 5. Sir Raheem Kassam is going to join us also. We're going to get into this whole thing that's going on with, really with tech feudalism and this underpinning on the maga.

[Ben Harnwell]

Right.

[Raheem Kassam]

We'll get into that in updates. And Sir Ben Harnwell is going to join me. We're going to talk about geopolitics and all of it. But in our New Year's Day show, we try to both summarize kind of where we take off on the New Year's Eve show, summarize where we've been and where we're going. Ben, just pull the camera back for a second. You've been with us for a number of years now. We are going to begin, I think 2025 is going to be the most intense, consequential year in modern world politics. It's going to be upon us as this populist nationalist movement worldwide starts to get traction. But we still have a massive fight against the, as you call them, our sociopathic elite, globalist tech overlords. Sir, can you frame it for us? 2025?

[Ben Harnwell]

Yes, Steve, I think you set that up perfectly. Only I would add that the fight now in 2025, seeing as Maga has pretty much won the revolution inside the gop, this fight is going to be within maga, I think within the America first movement. President Trump has all the cards in his hand to do what he needs to do, to do what he wants to do. The question is, what does he want to do? That's, I think, the issue that that's going to evolve over the course of the next 12 months. And if you look a couple of days ago over the fighting over this H1B visa issue, and then of course, again a couple of days ago, President Trump came out and fully endorsed Mike Johnson. And looking at the resistance of these things from within, looking at the comments threads or on get and what have you, these things are not going down well with the base, with the movement. And I think that's setting up this issue for the whole of this year. Now, 2025, not next year, this year, we're going to work out exactly what this movement intends to do with, not only with this administration, but also for the next generation's fight that this administration is going to lead the way on.

[Raheem Kassam]

Let's pull it back. When you look at the geopolitics and the world stage, we've got a minute or two here in this block. You've been our closest because you're the outpost in Rome following the Ukraine situation. But President Trump, because we have three kind of things he's got to do simultaneously. One is end the third World war is now in its initial kinetic phase. He's got to step in and end that. He's got the deportations of the 15 million and ending the legal migration, I think, or quote, unquote, legal migration, just a joke, and then deal with all this massive debt problems. And quite frankly, he's doing it for the United States and our currency because it underpins the entire world system of $300 trillion of debt. Your assessment?

[Ben Harnwell]

Well, two of these issues, Ukraine and the budget. President Trump in endorsing, fully endorsing, I might add, Mike no, Johnson, he's keeping in the key position the head of the apex, a person who's singularly responsible for two of these issues, Steve, which you have been repeating for months and months and months now unchanged. And as we know, personnel is policy. So look, I go back to what I said before. These issues will need to be worked out. And I'm sorry to have to say this to the war in Posse. You know, I'd like to say, look, go and have picnic, relax, chill. We won the election in November. So look, you know, we can relax. It's not going to be like that. I think really now more than ever before, more than the election itself, the war in posse, we're gonna have to all of us collectively keep our shoulder to the wheel. You know, we won the important part, getting Donald Trump back into the White House.

[Raheem Kassam]

You thought you were gonna get a vacation. Hang over a second. Ben joins us. Eternal city. That would be Rome. We've got Raheem's going to join us. Joe Allen's going to address. I couldn't think of a better group to kick off the most intense, the most important, the most impactful. Don't even know if that's a word. Year in not just our nation's history, but the world's history. We started with my film Generation Zero about turnings. We're in a fourth turning now. Talk more about that. We'll drill down all of it. I think this is the Dublin Girls Choir. Amazing. We're gonna play a lot of different versions of Auld Line Zion today. Short commercial break.

[Unknown]

Back in a moment.

[Steve Bannon]

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[Raheem Kassam]

Okay, that's the Robert Shaw Chorale. And I love, I've always loved the sound of acapella with male voices. And Robert Charcarra has always been my favorite or one of my favorites. Ben joins us from the Eternal City, from Rome. Ben, when I say this is going to be the most consequential, the most urgent, the most intense, and I believe the most dangerous year, and I say this after a stunning victory, a Sweeping Victory on November 5th. Why, why do you think? One, do you agree with me? And two, if so, why?

[Ben Harnwell]

Yeah, I do agree with you. And let's use the Thucydides trap analogy in within a single country, what you have within a single territory here is a declining hegemon, that is to say, our sociopathic overlords being replaced by an emerging power. And that's the America first movement. And as you introduce this concept to wide popular comprehension, I think it's a perfect way to illustrate this declining regime is not going to go peacefully into that dark night, not by any means. It's going to fight and fight and fight and make it as difficult as possible. That's why it is so dangerous. It's not just a. Kate, we're not just in any other election year here or off the back of any other election year. We're in a situation where there is, as you, as you are pointing out, the seeds, the threads of this third World war dynamic are clearly already well woven into the fabric of international politics. That is why the replacement of our sociopathic overlords is so dangerous. Who knows what they are going to do when I say they're going to make it as difficult as possible for, for Donald Trump? Who knows what the limits are if there are limits to things that they can do. But to give, to give just One example, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Prime Minister, said a couple of days ago that Russia was going to remove its moratorium on its medium and long range miss following acts that it causes similar acts of aggression led by the United States. All I can say, Steve, is that January 20th cannot come quickly enough to try and bring some de escalation to this. But then by, you know, we know that the tentacles of the military industrial complex are still very much alive. They operate throughout NATO, which is its effectively international puppets. So there's much to be attentive of. I'll just say this point again. A couple of days ago we saw on the news that Joe Biden in a single day had authorized $6 billion worth of new military and budget aid support to Ukraine. This is a regime which is, which is losing the war. There's an article in Bloomberg and I don't know if you saw this, that saying, that saying literally that Ukraine is losing this war. But you know, the press, even the mainstream press have been repeating that now over the course of the last 12 months, Ukraine will lose this war. The question is, what will our sociopathic overlords do off the back of that to create a situation for Donald Trump where I suppose what they really want to do is to make it sit in the Oval Office late at night with his head in his hands and say, God, I wish I'd never won this election. That's their agenda.

[Raheem Kassam]

The kinetic part of the Third World War concerns me. I want to go back though, to what you said. It's quite brilliant you made this analogy. Thucydides trap was Graham Allison's construct in talking about the relationship or the geopolitical tension between China and the United States. He went back through history and came up with 14 examples, or 12 examples where you've had a declining power and a rising power. He went back. His principal thing was Athens and Sparta. And the one fallacy he forgot is I had lunch with him one day, I said, hey, has there ever been an example where the declining power, the elites in that country were making more money in consolidating power more in their own country on the way down than they were on the way up? And he kind of went hubba hubba to hubba hubba da hubba. And I said, well, that's the situation we have here in the United States, which he didn't disagree with, but you took it and put it towards our sociopathic overlords, which I think is quite brilliant. Well, I just wanted. This is a very important construct for the Warren posse to start to get their arms around. Walk me through that again.

[Ben Harnwell]

So as I understand it, this principle of the hypothesis of the Thucydides trap is that you have a hegemon, a dominant territorial power. And then you have. Because as you know, as you were talking about in the introduction as we were showing the four turnings, but various themes, civilizations rise, they fall like bubbles in a lava lamp. This happens throughout human history. But when this large hegemonic power is overtaken, taken by an emerging power, then there's normally the declining hegemon does not go peacefully but resorts to war as a last attempt to hold its grip on power. And what I was suggesting is, you know, you might see this even within a single territory. The Thucydides trap is normally applied to different states, competing states, rival states. And I was just sort of applying it within a single territory to describe that this movement between to power scheme, if I can call it that, within, within one country you have our sociopathic overlords, the regime, capital T, capital R, the deep state, call it what you will, this entity that is always in control, no matter which party is notionally in control of the White House or Congress. It's a huge amorphous entity, but that is always in control. And what we see now, I think this is one of the, one of the truly epoch changing natures of the America First Maga movement. Catapulting Donald Trump for the first time in his political career, 2016 into the White House and again in 2024, is a relationship between a movement and a person. Donald Trump was elected by the people with a popular mandate to do certain things. And you never really have that in American history. You have this sort of of the buggins turn, like whoever's next in line will take up the mantle of nominee. And they don't really do very much different. They don't really challenge the system. Donald Trump because his power base, and this is one of the, I think it was inevitable after the invention of the Internet and certainly after social media. But Donald Trump's power base is not the political party, it's the people specifically and directly. And America hasn't really, I don't think had this before, not even say in our Andrew Jackson. And so he is in a uniquely primed position to defeat, to drive a stake through the heart of the regime of the deep state. And we know Steve, from human history. People will kill for very little. They will murder for very little. It might be like a drug addict will kill someone, that he's robbing on the street for a few dollars up until sort of sort of people killing to get their hands on a million pounds or something. Inheritance. People are dark. They have, you know, they have dark hearts. What a regime will do to keep his hands on its trillion dollar budget every year, that is something that we're going to see. But we saw it. We saw, I think, elements of this in Butler in Pennsylvania. They shot the man in the face and thanks to the grace of God, did not succeed. That is, I think, what I mean to say referring to this Thucydides trapped within a single territory.

[Raheem Kassam]

Hang on one second. We're going to hold you to the break. Raheem's going to join us. Joe allen, we're here with Ben Harnwell. We're going to take a short commercial break. A couple of things. Number one, Birch Gold, it's out now, the end of the Dollar Empire. For your holiday reading now through the weekend, Modern monetary Theory. Need you to get we're we put big ideas out there for you to understand. And the reason is you're the tip of the tip of the spear in driving political and social change in the United States of America and henceforth the world. So you've got to be up to speed on all this. This is a new free installment. Enter the $empire birchgold.com BEN and also check out all the free information they have about your 401s RAs. Maybe you want to start the New York by rethinking your asset allocation. Talk to Philip Patrick and the team about that. We give you the macro, they give you the micro. That's birchgold.com Bannon how do we get up and stay up early in the morning in the dark hours when we're working on Warpath Coffee? Go to Warpath Coffee. Got my French roast there, my dark Roast Mariners blend, which is my my favorite 60005 star reviews from fellow posse members. Go check it out. Warpath Coffee, war room. You get your 15 discount. When we come back, we're gonna play a little footage from the movie Waterloo Bridge. Now, why am I doing this? It's a beautiful rendition of Auld Lang Syne. We come back, it's about Vivien Leigh. Vivien leigh was in three movies in three years. Gone with the Wind in 1939 opposite Clark Gable. Waterloo Bridge, a tearjerker, brilliant film in 1940, across from Robert Taylor, huge star at the time. And that Hamilton woman, probably my favorite, one of my favorite films, along with 12 o'clock high, opposite her husband at the time Sir Lawrence Olivier about my hero Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton play It's will be a. This will be for Waterloo Bridge when we return. We'll take a short commercial break right now. Leave you with the music. I think she's a Norwegian singer. Sissel. Absolutely brilliant. On a New Year's Day in 2025 here in the war room back in male moment.

[Unknown]

But more to live anew 10 living that twere mind should all acquaintance be forgot in the days of old lands on for old lands I my dear for all the land.

[Raheem Kassam]

Your.

[Unknown]

Own.

It.

[Raheem Kassam]

Okay, that's from Waterloo Bridge in 1939. Talk about a young woman on a roll. 1939, gone with the Wind. Totally completely unknown actress carries at the time the most important film Hollywood had made. And she's virtually in every scene. Just a absolute masterpiece. As Scarlett O'Hara in 1940 under Mervyn LeRoy, one of the great directors in Hollywood makes Waterloo Bridge a tearjerker about a army officer in a ballerina that if you haven't seen it, I strongly recommend it. Black and white, but absolutely stunning. And Vivian Leigh at her best. And then in 1941, my favorite. That Hamilton Woman. About Lady Hamilton, a kind of a notorious figure. And Admiral Nelson. Horatio Nelson. The love affair they had. And of course what he did for the British Empire. That movie is quite controversial because later there was going to be a congressional investigation after the war had started. I think it was actually after the Pearl harbor commercial during the Pearl Harbor Commission because they wanted. The British intelligence had gone a long way to make sure that film was distributed in the United States. Winston Churchill's favorite film. He played it at Checkers all the time. The country estate that he had and used to show it to every dignitary or person that came out there for a weekend meeting. Absolutely. I heard he watched the film like 200 times. Screened at one time, I think on the transit, the first transit that he did to come over here off of Nova Scotia for the first meeting that they had, I think before Even World War II commenced for US at Pearl Harbor. That Hamilton woman. So Ben Harnwell on a. Now why am I doing that? I don't know. It's. It's a New Year's. It. The film's kind of based around New Year's and beginnings. It's always been a People know. I'm a Vivien Lee fan and I've always been amazed at when people have runs like that. 1939, 1940, 1941. To make three classics of what she carries against the top leading men of her day, Clark Gable, Robert Taylor, Sir Lawrence Olivier. She carries all three films and steals every scene. And that Hamilton woman, absolutely central kind of how the British thought about themselves because they have this brilliant speech in the middle of it where Laurence Olivier, playing Hamilton, is trying to explain to the British Admiralty how a little nation like Great Britain can stand, can beat off Napoleon, which is really the analogy Churchill was trying to have made at the time of Great Britain standing in the breach against Adolf Hitler. Your thoughts, sir?

[Ben Harnwell]

Well, Steve, you want to segue, right, I'll give you one. I'm going to pick leap off you talking about Checkers, which is the, is the weekend country retreat of British prime ministers historically. Let's talk about who might be a future tenant of Checkers. You asked me, Steve, you remember a year ago, exactly a year ago on our New Year's Eve show. Not, not literally a year then, sort of 364 days ago, you asked me to identify the, the story from 2023, which I thought was going to be the big issue in 2024. Then I picked the story. I picked. I know Raheem's going to be on later. The story I picked was the replacement of the Tory party, the British Conservative Party, the world's oldest political party, by Nigel Farage. And over the course of the last 12 months, I have to say that prediction has been pretty spot on. Just recently, a couple of weeks ago, the latest polls basically put all three major political parties on around 25%, give or take. The margin of error reforms are slightly ahead, if you want to know, specifically slightly ahead of the Tories and Labor, slightly ahead of reform. But it's all margin of error stuff. It's all banging around 25%. If this, right. If this trend continues next year, that will be, I think Nigel Farage will be prime minister if this trend continues. You ask me just a short while ago, other things in Europe and other developments in Europe. I cannot talk about the growth and strength of Reform UK without just mentioning what's happening with the AfD in Germany. Now they have have an election in, in February. It's February, I think the 23rd or something like that. And they are looking to increase in the polls by about 8 or 9. They are presently 9% ahead of where they were in the last election. And they're looking to gain about 50% of their seats from about 80 something up to about 110, 120 seats. And that will have massive repercussions for the whole of the European Union because Germany is the largest economy, largest population by far in the European Union. And if the growth and strength of the AfD in that country that will manifest itself, then that will have as I say, repercussions across the rest of the European Union.

[Raheem Kassam]

Is the European Union and NATO and all of it going the way of the Holy Roman Empire?

[Ben Harnwell]

That was thanks to Napoleon, right? A thousand year effectively the Holy Roman Empire thousand year long reign that's kicked off on Christmas Day 1800 by Charlemagne and all of those Habsburg finally ended. They all disappeared by Napoleon, right? More or less. And then the First World War in that 100 years stretch, is this going the way? You know, I would sooner say he of the famed addressing he of the famous T shirt. I would sooner say that occupied Europe is going to go the way of Constantinople because you know, at the end of the day the Holy Roman Empire dissolved into its various sub nations pretty much led at the end hanging on the Austro Hungarian Empire at the end of the day by the Habsburgs. And then that Peter that the First World War. But the country stayed intact, more or less. What we're going to see in Europe, I think is a far more substantial change to the whole fabric of the nation. It'll be more akin to the fall of the Roman Empire, I think, than the Holy Roman Empire.

[Raheem Kassam]

Why do you think before I know you got to bounce. But on this New Year's Day and looking forward and we have all the things that have to converture from President Trump. Why do you think? I mean, what's your argument for the intensity and the complexity and the urgency, but most important, the consequences of this year?

[Ben Harnwell]

Well, probably I'd put it like this. If you're talking about the United States, which is culturally, economically, militarily the most powerful nation on the planet, it's intense both within the United States and because of the importance of the United States for the rest of the populist nationalist movements. I can only go back to what I said before. This movement, this America first movement has a lot of work to do this year in 2025 to to see what the potential of the Trump administration is, what direction that goes in. There are some good things to look at. There are some less positive things, but that's to be expected, right? That is entirely to be expected. We're not going to ever get everything that we want, but in four years we can move a long way towards it. Which is why I was saying that this movement needs to stand as attentive as it has been doing over the last few years. The reason it's so intense, Steve, looking at, specifically addressing myself specifically to the United States, but it's pretty much the same across the European Union, is that half the population draws its sustenance, its income, its pensions off the backs of the other half that actually have normal, ordinary, regular working jobs in the private sector. And they're not going to give up their privileges willingly. That's why it's intense. And they've never really been threatened seriously in the past. What Donald Trump has with it, with this popular mandate behind him, with his, let's even mention, let's even mention on this subject, Elon Musk, what he has with Twitter with X at his disposal, at Donald Trump's disposal, is something that this system has never had to confront before. And they are going to be fighting for their livelihoods. This half of the nation which exists off the back of the other working half. That's why it's intense and that's to be, that's entirely human nature. It's entirely to be expected. But these people are going to fight to protect, to protect their prerogatives. Just like the Ancien regime fought and fought and fought in pre revolutionary France didn't give away any of its privileges and in the end, well, we know what happened in 1789. It was swept aside. And you've used this analogy yourself in America, Steve, in the States, your famous quote, I'm telling the billionaires all the time that we're heading into a French Revolution period. That's absolutely the case. That is the dynamic. And, and it's not a consequence of the free market, it's a consequence of the system having been gamed in favor of the plutocracy, in favor of the billionaires. And there's no evidence that this system is willing to bend and yield to someone like Donald Trump. So we'll see not just in the course of this year, but in the course of the whole term, the whole four year term, we will see who wins that in the end.

[Raheem Kassam]

Can you hang on for one second? I want to talk to you about Constantinople. There's a something my family put up on Christmas Day that's gone mega viral throughout the world. We'll show you and have Ben and I'll even have Raheem comment on it. This is the Dublin Girls Choir, I think Dublin College Girls Choir. Quite beautiful rendition of Auld Lang Syne Birch. Go sit, go over and make yourself a big old pot of coffee for the second hour or for the D block in the second hour, Warpath coffee. Warpath coffee. Check out the reviews. If you put in more room, you get a 15 discount. But don't take it from me. 6,000 five star reviews from posse members just like yourself. When you drink Warpath, you'll never go back to your regular coffee. Coffee. Taj Gil and the team of Navy seals. A coffee as great as the weapons of the Navy SEALs. Short commercial break. Ben's gonna stick around, I think. We're trying to get Sir Rahim up. We're going to talk about Constantinople, the Ottoman Turks and the Caliphate.

[Unknown]

Next on a New Year's.

Should old acquaintance be forgot and never cross to mind. Should all acquaintance be forgotten.

[Raheem Kassam]

Thank you. Beautiful. Make sure you get the birch gold into the dollar empire. We try to make sure you're up to speed on all the big ideas because ideas have. In the world of the war room, ideas have consequences, earth shattering consequences. Ideas like the fourth turning, ideas like techno feudalism. Ideas like what is a pandemic, what is herd immunity? In ideas like modern monetary theory, an idea that was never really debated but ended up breaking the world monetary system. You're going to find out why in the new free installment birchgold.com Bannon get it today. It's a weekend, it's a holiday weekend assignment. We need you up to speed on this. So, Ben, at the Christmas dinner that we do every year with the Bannon clan, I was given a gift from my beloved younger brother, kid brother, Navy pilot. And he gave me the T shirt and I just held it up. Free Constantinople. And I think Raheem Rahim had dinner with us. Raheem was with sir. Raheem was with us. And it went viral, millions of hits, and particularly in Turkey and Greece sucked up a lot of media time. Why is this such a, why is this such a hot issue in Turkey, brother?

[Ben Harnwell]

Because only in the secular west is history considered to be something that has very little relationship to today, the rest of the world. And especially in the Islamic sphere, history is a key part of. It's not just yet. It's not just yesterday's politics. It's the directional arrow that explains where you are, how you got there and where you're going. Look, Constantinople fell in 1453, right? Almost a thousand years, slightly more than a thousand years after the fall of Rome itself. Second, Rome, Constantinople, it's a big issue in, in Turkey because the Turks are, you know, there are people via Asia Minor that go back to at least the New Testament times. They have a history. They have a very proud history, a noble history. Via the Ottoman Empire and they're conscious of that we in the west, thanks to the progressive education we brainwashed the last three or four generations into being absolutely ashamed of all the good points of our, of our history that doesn't really exist elsewhere in the world where they'll take elements that they're proud of and there'll be vibrant points throughout the culture. So yeah, I mean it was a problem. Your T shirt is a provocation. I mean you know, free content to no concentrate. But I don't know who we would free it for. They're in a couple, 2002 and a half thousand practicing Orthodox Christian left in Istanbul. What I mentioned earlier that Europe is heading to perhaps a Constantinople point rather than a collapse of the Holy Roman Empire. What I meant is a full on cultural change. Nature abhors a vacuum, Steve. We've pushed Jesus Christ out of our culture. We haven't been interested in a supernatural sense, in divine revelation, in the true faith probably since the 60s, not in any serious capacity. And as I say, nature. Applause of any. For the last 30 years, 35 years, the fastest growing religion in the UK is Islam. Whilst we have conceptually hamstrung ourselves, Islam is growing ever stronger. In fact it does encourage by the weakness that we Christians seemingly show at the highest levels and that is the fate that faces occupied Europe. And I've mentioned this before on the show and I always say America is not yet in the dire situation that we are in occupied Europe. And I said it before, I say it again, you guys, you can still turn things around and I don't think we can in Europe. And I always say that fundamentally what our last dying act as a civilization in Europe will be to convince America not to walk down the path that we, we have walked down and, but to come back to Constantinople. You know, history for them isn't, isn't just something that happened five years ago. Look, when 9 11, right? 9 11, when Osama bin Laden flew those planes open brackets, perhaps with the CIA's help, perhaps with Mossad's help into the Twin Towers, right? That date 9 11, that represents something Islam. It was the day after Jan Sobieski lifted the siege of Vienna And I think 16, 1683 or something, that was the last. When the Poles lifted the siege of Vienna, that was it for the, for 400 years. At an institutional level that was the end of the Islamic Empire's attempts to take over continental Europe and the, that date by Osama Bin Laden was picked because I say in the Islamic sphere, history is isn't something dead and forgotten and of of interest only to some obscure existence eccentrics. It's part of their living identity and we are not realizing that we try.

[Raheem Kassam]

To do that here in the war room. The past is not even the past. If I can draft off one of the great writers in the United States of America, Ben Social media Where do people get you over the holidays?

[Ben Harnwell]

I am always on get to Steve as my social media platform of choice. Choice either on on Twitter there at Ben underscore Harnwell. I might start using that profile a little bit more in 2025 but but fundamentally I'm on Getter at Harnwell where I do read. I don't respond but I do read every comment posted on my stuff on Getter. Thanks Steve. Let me close by wishing you and the war in posse and the great team in the production teams both in D.C. and in Denver, very Happy New Year.

[Raheem Kassam]

Happy New Year to you sir, in the Eternal City. Thanks brother.

[Ben Harnwell]

God Bless.

[Raheem Kassam]

Robert Shaw is going to take us out next hour. Joe Allen and Raheem are going to join me. We're going to mull over some important topics, think some deep thoughts. How's that sound? Get yourself a big war room, a warpath coffee right now. Get jacked up like we are. Short commercial break. Back for the second hour. Just a moment.

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[Steve Bannon]

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