If John the… Revelator, also known as Saint John the Theologian, had not fallen into the well-known sin of religious frenzy and the ensuing mental haze, he might—given his undeniably rich and penetrating imagination—have approached the political future of the world through the eyes of an Orwell. In such a different “Revelation,” the dictator of Oceania in “1984” could easily, in our own days, bear the face of Putin or Trump. And their names could correspond to those of the Antichrist—the Beast—or Abaddon (Apollyon in Greek). This is not a play on words; it is a historical formulation. And regardless of analogies, allegories, or synonyms, we are obliged to stress that the existence and conduct of these two protagonists of contemporary history constitute a tragic symptom of our era. This is not a harbinger of “Armageddon.” Evil is already here. A vast portion of the global community has suffered—and continues to suffer—the consequences of the criminal policies of these paranoid, far-right leaders of the two superpowers. Let us recall the millions of dead and displaced in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria, victims of the pogrom unleashed for years by the New Hitler of Russia. And he will not stop. European security—and by extension global security—hangs by a thread if the “Russian bear” feels cornered or truly threatened with the collapse and overthrow of his criminal designs. The other Cappadocian, Trump, may—for now at least—not carry as much blood on his hands as his friend and ally Putin, but he is the MORAL PERPETRATOR of the scourge threatening Europe. Through his equivocal stance (in reality openly favorable to Putin), he untied the Tsar’s hands and nurtured the paranoia that breeds arrogance and a new political doctrine as a “value”: THE MORALITY OF POWER. The big fish eats the small one. Likewise, the American president is the MORAL PERPETRATOR of the crimes committed and still being committed by the equally far-right war criminal Netanyahu in Palestine. All these foul crimes are charged to the name of Trump. Not to mention the “witch hunt” he has unleashed domestically during his time in power against half of the American population. Those who do not share his views, who resist his plans, or who fail to meet the specifications of the “Trumpian sub-human,” are enemies—not of him personally, but of the homeland, religion, family, and ultimately of “reason” itself, as perceived by a paranoid leader such as the American president. Sadly, 2025 is about to depart, yet it leaves firmly enthroned two erratic and extremely dangerous leaders who, by threatening that they would not hesitate to press the “nuclear button” if necessary, have long since embarked on a race to drag history back into its darkest pages. And if they fail, they threaten once again to turn the world to ashes. Heavy is the burden left behind by the old year as it sets, for the new one that is about to rise.

It is time for Diotima to continue our present historical reckoning of the year 2025, which is now departing.

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Diotima:

2025 does not merely leave; it withdraws heavily, like those eras that know they have left behind more questions than they dared to answer. It was not a year of rupture; it was a year of consolidation—the moment when the exceptional became normal and the unthinkable turned into political routine.
The greatest debt it bequeaths is not financial. It is the normalization of violence as a political tool, of threat as a mode of governance, of cynicism as a new “realistic” virtue. The year 2025 entrenched the notion that the world is no longer ruled by rules, but by the nerves, fears, and personal obsessions of leaders.
History has seen us at such junctures before—not when tyrants rose, but when they ceased to shock. That is precisely when the greatest danger emerges: not barbarism itself, but tolerance of it.
Europe in 2025 was not defeated militarily; it was wounded existentially. It was forced, harshly, to remember that peace is not a law of nature but a historical achievement—fragile, reversible, demanding. And that democracy does not always die through coups; often it erodes through irony, fear, and “realistic” compromises.
America, on the other hand, leaves 2025 bearing a deeper wound: the fracturing of its moral narrative. Not because it ceased to be powerful, but because it ceased to know why it should be. When power detaches from responsibility, it turns into a threat—first to others, and then to its own bearer.
Above all, 2025 hands its successor a poisoned question:
Can the world go on without believing that justice must precede power?
If the answer is no, then the years ahead will not simply be difficult. They will be dark.
Yet history—and this is the final reminder Diotima must offer—is not written only by the powerful. It is also written by those who refused to grow accustomed to evil, who kept memory, language, and critical thought alive.
2025 is leaving.
Its debt, however, has just been delivered.
And responsibility now belongs not to time—
but to us.