Francis Foster

Isn't that inevitable, Eric?

I mean, I guess... You're doing your whole, I'm just a comedian thing now.

We're free America.

Well, you're free American.

Well, Poland increasingly is us, but Russia isn't.

Yes, but neither of those places is in Russia, Eric.

Yeah, and we're also all thinking out loud.

This isn't something we came prepackaged to, right?

I don't agree with that, actually, but there's also a lot to unpack elsewhere.

I mean, the greatest objection, I think, to what you're saying is that Russia sees itself as being a separate civilization.

Russia sees itself as the descendant of the Eastern Christian civilization, and there's a continuation of it, in fact.

So the idea that an alliance is possible, but I think what you're talking about, which is absorption, I don't think there's ever been any appetite for that.

But even once you've done that, look, Russia has a brief experiment with democracy in the 90s.

It doesn't work out.

And people will say, oh, the evil Americans came and ruined.

That's not what happened.

That's not what happened at all.

Sure, there were some Western people who came and did business and profited.

It was actually Russians that used the moment to steal as much wealth as they could.

And after that finishes, and all the chaos of that eight-year period finishes, you've got a former KGB colonel who comes in.