Vlad Vexler
@vladvexler
Philosopher - ethics, politics, music | Slowly writing a book on Isaiah Berlin | Born in USSR, home is London | Living with ME since 2003. (main channel) (chat channel)
Prepping for my wedding today - first task as long covid and ME patient, stabilise to get into wheelchair and breathe.
“The United States is particularly hospitable to illusion." Alasdair MacIntyre
Putin has teleprompter disaster in speech to address fuel and Crimea crisis
Don't reach for your Nietzsche, it can give you a bad micro-vascular crash
New main channel video just dropped - a message to European leaders on how to stand up to Trump.
Hit 200K subs in my main YouTube channel. I posted only seven videos there in the last year, due to health limitations. Meanwhile, I upload regularly from bed on the Chat channel, which is now over 100K. My message is about hope, democracy, truthfulness and how they go together.
The move journalists are missing is to stop treating people like Tucker as a holder of views and start treating him as an operator inside an attention market. A strong interviewer should not just ask, “What do you think?”. They need to ask: “What are you doing?”
It’s a sort of minor tragedy that generally intelligent and well educated people don’t read any philosophy at all. — Bryan Magee
Jurgen Habermas has died (1929-2026). He had an impersonal seriousness about him, and this was connected with how strenuously he took the responsibility of thought to public life. 1/3
Being bombed by an administration of post-truth political entrepreneurs does not tend to produce constructive change on the ground
New video just dropped on my main YouTube channel - The Real Reason Trump Will Lose His War With Iran
Farage - the political entrepreneur and post-truth populist - built his career on the language of sovereignty. Now he hovers around Mar-a-Lago like a courtier in Trump’s court, cheering a reckless Middle East war that harms Britain’s national interest.
The moral inversion Putin wants to cause in Ukrainians by freezing them
MAIN CHANNEL VIDEO UP - The Real Reason Putin Is Freezing Ukraine (and why he'll fail)
Reminds me of the Soviet Union - Trump’s America has some of the vibes of late Soviet decline.
A number of people asked for a written version of my video on Trump’s narcissism, as the video was necessarily dense. I’ve now published that on Substack, where the argument is laid out more carefully and in one place. open.substack.com/pub/vladvexl...
The snake oil in the latest US national security strategy is that yes, Europe is sinking in a technocratic centrism that has lost legitimacy, but the NSS proposes that we Europeans replace it with anti-democratic populism. It’s a demand for authoritarianism in the name of democracy.
Health update! Covid on top of ME and Long Covid. Day 5 has been the worst yet, with an episode similar to one that sent me spiralling in hospital 5 months ago. Didn’t get monoclonals as impossible to travel by ambulance. Didn’t take anti virals because of drug interaction, reactivity & rebound risk
Health update! Covid on top of ME & Long Covid. Day 4 has been the hardest yet. I wasn’t well enough to get to the monoclonal antibodies infusion we’d fought so hard for - not even with an ambulance. If you’re freaking out politically, I got you and watch this space for my return to the channels 💛
"The Coming Age of American Putinism". Putinism and Trumpism share ideological DNA. They are two versions of the same global ideology - a kind of consumerist monarchism that makes might into right. 🎥Watch now on the main YouTube channel
Slightly odd cameo on BBC, but glad my comments about normalising post-truth populists are getting traction -
"Trump despises Europe as a project" - my analysis quoted in @indiatodayfacts.bsky.social
I wheeled myself in my electric wheelchair to the kitchen and made tea. First time in two months. Don’t know what it will cost.
Is this an intellectually lazy left-wing meme? Yes and no. Yes - because claiming both are just “oligarchic tyranny” is childish. No - because neoliberalism has a structural risk of leading to and morphing into exclusionary authoritarianism.
Day 4 at home. Home feels survivable but not sustainable. Cement in chest. Just feels like drowning and suffocation. Can't stand can't sit. Mental health excellent. Lots of laughter and small victories within limits. Oxygen not offloading into cells and tissues. Speaking to twospecialists tomorrow.