The Civilization They Claim to Defend

Konstantin Kisin’s Scarlet Letter to the West

There are few spectacles more contemptible than that of an intellectual who has convinced himself that his principles require him to abandon his principles. Yet this is precisely the performance we have been treated to by a certain class of self-appointed defenders of Western civilization, who have spent the better part of a decade warning us that pronouns and diversity training represent existential threats to the Enlightenment, while providing sophisticated justifications for supporting political leaders whose entire project involves dismantling the international order and institutions that have defined the West since 1945.

Konstantin Kisin, the British-Russian comedian turned public intellectual, has made a lucrative career out of this particular form of moral myopia. His social media feeds overflow with solemn declarations about defending “core values of individual liberty, personal responsibility and basic common sense” against the supposedly civilization-ending threat of campus activism. Yet when it comes to his calculated support for figures like Donald Trump—couched in the language of “least bad options”—Kisin reveals how easily his commitment to those Enlightenment principles dissolves when confronted with political inconvenience.

This is not mere political disagreement. This is the intellectual bankruptcy of men who claim to champion Western civilization while providing cover for leaders explicitly committed to tearing down the very institutions and international frameworks that have sustained that civilization for nearly eight decades. When confronted with the contradiction between his stated values and his political calculations, Kisin retreats into the comfortable delusion that leftist excess within liberal coalitions represents a greater threat to the West than leaders who actively seek to dismantle NATO, abandon international law, and replace democratic institutions with personalized authoritarianism.

The question presents itself with uncomfortable clarity: incompetence or malice? Either Kisin genuinely fails to comprehend that supporting leaders who want to destroy the post-war liberal order undermines his claims to defend Western values, or he understands perfectly well and has simply decided that his distaste for campus progressives justifies enabling the dismantling of everything the West has built since 1945.

To be clear: there are genuine concerns about illiberalism on the left. Academic freedom faces real threats when universities become hostile to intellectual diversity, when professors face harassment for exploring uncomfortable ideas, when students are denied exposure to challenging perspectives. These are legitimate issues that deserve serious attention. Academia should tolerate even the most objectionable opinions, if for no other reason than to teach students how to reason and debate, to defend what is true from what is not.

But Kisin and people like him will argue that this political and cultural excess was about to sink the entire Western project until Trump and his MAGA movement came along to save the day. This is where legitimate concern transforms into delusional analysis. Anyone who could take a full accounting of the facts and believe that America and the West are now stronger than they were six months ago must be greeted with some modicum of suspicion—suspicion that they clearly don’t know what they’re talking about, or that they’re willfully blind to the catastrophic results of their preferred leadership.

The evidence is overwhelming: America is now in a trade war with its allies. Europe is terrified of America and looking inward and eastward for security and partnership. Tourism to the US has collapsed from abroad due to fear of coming to the United States. There are soldiers on the streets of Los Angeles. The country is experiencing increasing civil strife. According to a Cato Institute report, the administration has deported at least fifty innocent people to a foreign gulag in El Salvador with no due process. America’s soft power apparatus has been completely dismantled, resulting in worldwide chaos and a catastrophic undermining of America’s image around the world.

But Konstantin will tell us that Trump is saving America and the West? Are you fucking kidding me?

Let us examine what Kisin and his fellow travelers in the “intellectual dark web” have identified as mortal threats to Western civilization: university speech codes, corporate diversity training, land acknowledgments, critical race theory in schools, transgender athletes, pronoun usage, and the general phenomenon they’ve termed “wokeism.” These, we are told with the gravest intellectual seriousness, represent the undoing of centuries of Enlightenment progress.

Now let us examine what the political leaders they support as “least bad options” have actually achieved: the systematic destruction of America’s alliance system, the collapse of international trust in American leadership, the militarization of domestic space, the abandonment of due process in immigration enforcement, the complete erosion of America’s moral authority, and the transformation of the United States from a beacon of democratic values into a source of global instability and fear.

But the institutional destruction is only part of the moral catastrophe. Consider the systematic corruption that defines Trumpism: the launch of Trump Coin, a cryptocurrency that functions as a transparent conduit for purchasing political favors, allowing anyone with sufficient funds to buy influence from the American president in full public view. The brazen acceptance of foreign gifts in direct violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause, turning the presidency into a profit center for personal enrichment. The disgraceful parade of pardons—not acts of mercy or justice, but political payoffs to friends, allies, and anyone willing to pay the right price or provide the right services.

This is not governance—it is organized crime with a presidential seal. It represents the complete abandonment of every norm that separates democratic leadership from banana republic authoritarianism. The presidency has been transformed from a public trust into a personal ATM, with policy decisions auctioned to the highest bidder and executive clemency sold like indulgences in a medieval marketplace.

Yet somehow, in Kisin’s moral calculus, this systematic corruption and international catastrophe represents not just a lesser evil than campus speech codes, but an actual salvation of Western civilization.

The contrast is not merely striking—it is morally obscene.

The West that Kisin claims to defend was not built on opposition to diversity training or concern about pronoun usage. It was built on the ruins of fascism and authoritarianism, constructed deliberately as an alternative to the politics of ethnic nationalism, personalized rule, and institutional destruction. NATO prevents the return of great power conflict. The EU enables unprecedented cooperation and prosperity. International law constrains the exercise of power. Democratic institutions prevent the concentration of authority in individual leaders. Press freedom prevents the manipulation of information. Judicial independence prevents the weaponization of law for political purposes. And crucially, ethical standards in public office prevent the transformation of democratic governance into personal enrichment schemes.

The political leaders Kisin and his fellow travelers of this intellectual dark web support as “least bad options” have made their hostility to these institutions explicit. They have systematically dismantled America’s alliance relationships, attacked international cooperation, ignored international law, assaulted press freedom, sought to control judicial systems, and openly monetized public office for personal gain. The result is not a stronger West, but a weaker, more divided, more dangerous world where America’s allies no longer trust its leadership and America’s enemies no longer fear its strength.

The “least bad option” framework is particularly insidious because it allows intellectual cover for catastrophic failure. By framing support for institutionally destructive and systematically corrupt leaders as reluctant pragmatism rather than principled choice, figures like Kisin can maintain their self-image as defenders of Western values while the world burns around them. They need not defend the cryptocurrency grifts, the emoluments violations, the pardon auctions, or the complete collapse of American international leadership directly—they need only argue that the alternative was worse, that leftist excess forced their hand, that they had no choice but to support leaders who have turned the United States into a source of global instability.

This represents the complete inversion of moral reasoning and strategic thinking. Instead of judging political leaders by their commitment to the institutions and international relationships that define Western strength, they judge them by their opposition to campus progressives. Instead of evaluating policies by their effects on democratic governance and international stability, they evaluate them by their potential to spite the left. Instead of defending the West against its actual enemies—those who seek to corrupt and destroy its institutions from within while isolating it from its allies—they focus their fire on college students and corporate training sessions.

The essence of intellectual independence lies not in what one thinks, but in how one thinks. By this standard, the intellectual independence of Kisin and his fellow civilization defenders has been revealed as thoroughly dependent—not on principle, but on partisan calculation. Not on universal values, but on tribal grievance. Not on strategic wisdom, but on tactical convenience.

They failed the only test that matters for anyone claiming to defend Western civilization: when faced with leaders who want to dismantle the institutional foundations of that civilization while openly corrupting public office for personal gain and destroying international relationships built over decades, do you maintain your principles, or do you provide sophisticated justifications for supporting them because you dislike their domestic opponents more?

The record is clear. When faced with actual threats to Western institutional order and international strength—the kind that involves abandoning alliances, attacking democratic norms, replacing rule of law with personalized authoritarianism, turning public office into a criminal enterprise, and transforming America from a trusted leader into a source of global chaos—they chose comfort over courage, tribal grievance over institutional defense, political convenience over strategic wisdom.

This represents more than mere hypocrisy. It represents the complete intellectual and moral bankruptcy of their entire project. For years, they warned us that hurt feelings on college campuses would lead to the end of Western civilization. Now, while providing cover for leaders whose policies have actually weakened the West, isolated America from its allies, and undermined democratic institutions, they have revealed that they never understood what Western strength actually required.

Western civilization is not a cultural aesthetic or a set of abstract principles. It is a collection of institutions, norms, relationships, and international frameworks built deliberately to prevent the return of the barbarism that nearly destroyed it in the twentieth century. It requires not just domestic institutional health, but international cooperation, alliance relationships, moral authority, and the trust of democratic partners around the world.

On every one of these measures, the leaders Kisin supports as “least bad options” have been catastrophically destructive. They have weakened NATO, divided the EU, isolated America, destroyed international trust, corrupted domestic institutions, and turned the United States from a beacon of democratic values into a source of global instability. They are not imperfect defenders of Western values—they are their systematic destroyers.

Yet Kisin and his intellectual cohort have convinced themselves that this catastrophic weakening of Western civilization represents its salvation because the leaders responsible share their cultural grievances and offer them the satisfaction of spiting their domestic opponents. They have prioritized their tribal allegiances over the institutional foundations, international relationships, and moral authority of everything they claim to defend.

The Kremlin could not have asked for more useful idiots: intellectuals who provide sophisticated cover for the systematic weakening of Western institutions and international relationships while claiming to defend Western values, who offer elegant justifications for supporting leaders who have isolated America from its allies and undermined its global influence while warning against the civilizational threat of campus activism.

Kisin’s tragedy is not that he has been captured by authoritarianism—it is that he has been captured by it while maintaining the delusion that he represents its opposite. His scarlet letter to the West is not that he has abandoned civilization, but that he has done so while claiming to defend it, providing intellectual respectability for leaders whose policies have objectively weakened everything the West has built.

The civilization he claimed to defend deserved better advocates. The institutions he claimed to champion deserved more consistent defenders. The international relationships that have maintained Western strength and security deserved his strategic wisdom more than his tribal calculations. The moral authority that has made the West a beacon of democratic values deserved his intellectual honesty more than his sophisticated justifications for its systematic destruction.

But perhaps this is fitting. In the end, the greatest threat to Western civilization has proven to be not the campus activists these men spent years denouncing, but the intellectual cowardice of those who claimed to stand against them while providing cover for leaders whose policies have objectively weakened the West and isolated America from its allies. The barbarians were never at the gates. They were inside the walls all along, writing eloquent justifications for their preferred institutional destruction and international isolation.

When the history of this period is written, it will record that Western civilization’s most articulate defenders were among the first to abandon it when defending it required opposing the political leaders they preferred as “least bad options.” That the men who warned most loudly about civilizational collapse were among its most sophisticated enablers when that collapse was implemented by politicians who shared their cultural grievances and offered them the satisfaction of tribal victory over strategic wisdom.

This is Konstantin Kisin’s true legacy: not as a defender of Western civilization, but as a monument to its intellectual betrayal. Not as a guardian of institutional order and international strength, but as evidence of how easily both can be abandoned when they conflict with tribal allegiance. Not as a voice of moral and strategic clarity, but as a case study in sophisticated blindness in service of civilizational decline.

So how could one fault me when I open myself up to the idea—not commitment, but at least the notion—that Kisin functions as a psyop on social media? Do I think that? No. But to his rejoinder, and suggestion that he stands for a “strong, confident West that is united around its core values of individual liberty, personal responsibility and basic common sense”—one might be forgiven for questioning him a little more curiously, given that the political leaders he backs have quite flexible notions of all of these virtues.

The civilization he claimed to defend will remember.