Yesterday I pointed to the Left’s pro-crime and pro-chaos policies as evidence that they are nihilists in the historical sense of the word invented to describe wild-eyed radicals in 19th-century Russia — who sought to destroy the existing order, without any sound, sober plan for how to replace it.
Nihilists don’t just hate the social order, be it the Orthodox Christian autocracy of the tsar or the Anglo-Protestant liberal democracy in America. The dark impulses that drive them go much deeper and are fed by malevolent spirits. A true nihilist is overwhelmed with hatred for the world as it exists, the structure of reality as God saw fit to create it.
What else but weapons-grade nihilism can explain the Left’s fondness for criminals and visceral loathing of order? How can we account for its reactions to the latest appalling criminal act captured on video on a commuter train in North Carolina? The Times of London reports:
The murder of a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee in North Carolina who fled Russia’s invasion but was stabbed to death on a train has fuelled a debate about crime rates in the United States.
The killing of Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte on August 22 has garnered national attention, and right-wing commentators have accused media outlets of failing to report the crime. Elon Musk pinned a post on X contrasting the coverage of George Floyd’s murder in 2020 to that of Zarutska’s with the caption: “Divide by zero ratio.”
He reposted a screenshot of The New York Times website apparently showing no search results for Iryna Zarutska. “Yes, The New York Times is an utter lie,” he wrote.
Video footage released by the Charlotte Area Transit System showed Zarutska boarding the Lynx Blue Line train just before 10pm and sitting in front of the suspect, Decarlos Brown Jr.
Four minutes later, in a seemingly random attack, the suspect stabbed her three times, including at least once in the neck, with a penknife. Other passengers rushed to help Zarutska and one man wrapped his shirt around the wound, but they were unable to save her. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The response of our media and Charlotte’s mayor? Silence and censorship. Wikipedia editors are trying to delete the entry that even acknowledges Zarutska’s existence:
The left is cancelling Iryna Zarutska for the crime of embarrassing them by d*ying
People who die due to Democrat crime or open borders policies are always cancelled
It’s the penalty for embarrassing the party #Charlotte #vilyles #IrynaZarutskaSayHerName #GeorgeFloyd pic.twitter.com/E3hASAls02
— Tara Servatius (@TaraServatius) September 8, 2025
Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles preemptively thanked the media for covering up the story:
The video of the heartbreaking attack that took Iryna Zarutska’s life is now public. I want to thank our media partners and community members who have chosen not to repost or share the footage out of respect for Iryna’s family.
This was a senseless and tragic loss. My prayers…
— Mayor Vi Lyles (@CLTMayor) September 6, 2025
Then Lyles promptly reminded the public they have no right to be angry at the criminal:
It took an uprising by X users to force an end to activists crowdfunding for the killer’s defense:
GREAT NEWS: After RELENTLESS pressure from users, the GoFundMe campaign supporting the man who KlLLED Iryna Zarutska has been REMOVED by the platform
Decals Dejuan Brown will not receive a DIME from donors
This guy needs to rot in prison. pic.twitter.com/4T4fk6ICZx
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) September 7, 2025
This Judge Just Decided to Trust the Schizophrenic
Why was Brown running loose on the streets of Charlotte and turning a commuter trains into a death chamber? We can thank the judge who turned him loose without bail after 14 prior arrests. According to KFOX14:
North Carolina Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes granted the release of Decarlos Brown, a homeless man charged with the brutal stabbing death of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zaruska, following his arrest in January based upon a “written promise” that Brown would return for his court hearing, a court document reviewed by the National News Desk revealed.
Brown, 34, was arrested January 19 for “misuse of the 911 system.” He had called 911 in the middle of police officers conducting a welfare check on him. During the encounter, Brown, diagnosed with schizophrenia, told officers that he believed there were “man-made” materials inside his body controlling his eating, walking, and talking.
Yep, that’s just the kind of solid citizen we want on our streets, whose “written promise” to come back for trial we can trust as rock solid.
Blame the Messenger
Left-wing news site Axios knows who’s really to blame in this case: Angry MAGA citizens and the security cameras that allow them to even see crimes like these:
Axios finally decided to pick up the story of Iryna Zarutska. And they’re blaming surveillance cameras and MAGA!
The big picture: The rising number of surveillance cameras in public spaces, including on Charlotte’s light rail, has become a big accelerant in these cases.… pic.twitter.com/W13kRXN0gm
— Lorrie Ann (@LorrieAnn25) September 8, 2025
Poor Iryna Zarutska. She was safer in war-torn Ukraine.
Turning Terrorists Loose with Good Wishes
Meanwhile, across the Pond, British judge just turned loose one of the masterminds of a 2005 terrorist attack on British soil, who still threatens to murder Christians and Jews. The BBC reports:
A man who plotted to set up an extremist training camp will be allowed to move home after his release from prison – despite experts concluding he “remains a risk to national security.”
Haroon Aswat, from Batley, West Yorkshire, was jailed for 20 years in 2015 after he admitted conspiring to set up the camp in the US state of Oregon.
Having served his sentence in the US, the 50-year-old was deported to the UK in 2022 and detained under the Mental Health Act, although a court heard his release was “expected in the relatively near future” after effective treatment.
A judge approved a notification order for Aswat, meaning authorities should be kept up to date with details such as his address.
The Nihilists Are Just Tools in the Hands of Wannabe Tyrants
The nihilists seeking destruction and chaos for their own sake aren’t really driving the madness we see. They’re what the Communists used to call “useful idiots” for other, saner people with a clear, rational agenda. They’re bringing on chaos as a pretext for imposing an autocratic order, where all our traditional freedoms have been stripped and they can rule by decree.
Remember the fear and desperation we were all made to feel during COVID? It quickly gave way to detailed micromanagement of our movements, our medical decisions, and even our freedom of worship. Every terror attack by a transgender person becomes the pretext for stripping us of our gun rights.
And now in Great Britain, those architecting the country’s mass colonization by Muslim “refugees” are using the chaos, mass rapes, and ethnic strife they invited to impose strict digital surveillance of every citizen:
The UK government is desperately trying to roll out mandatory digital ID, under the guise of tackling the same migrant crisis it is instrumental in facilitating in the first place.
Digital ID is THE hill to die on. All the other totalitarian technologies, including CBDCs,… pic.twitter.com/TV24kHOZax
— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) September 3, 2025
The new Muslim Home Secretary of Britain, Shabana Mahmood, promises that such systems will solve the refugee crisis:
“I’ve always been in favour of Personal ID Cards”
“Will it be Mandatory?”
New UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood speaks on Digital ID:-
“We have started the conversation in Government about how we roll out Digital ID”
“It can help with illegal working and cracking down on… pic.twitter.com/TULFh9Jp5T
— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) September 8, 2025
Meanwhile, on the Continent, the European Union is trying to outlaw all private messaging, giving governments access to every text that any citizen of an EU country ever sends. The pretext? Eliminating child pornography, of course. The real impact? Another tool governments can use to repress their increasingly desperate and rebellious native populations, which are constantly inundated with Muslim colonists.
We know what time it is. It’s the tipping point in the Anarcho-Tyranny playbook where the first word gives way to the second.
Along The Stream…
Later this morning, learn about the life-and-death spiritual warfare that marked the life of a former Playboy model on her path to redemption.
Don’t miss this thoughtful essay on how our vision of loving relationships has been skewed when pop psychology replaces biblical wisdom.
John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or coauthor of 14 books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. His newest book is No Second Amendment, No First.