Fyodor had lost absolutely all interest in REJOIN. The overwhelming majority of his time he was spending in the US, making appearances on television, giving speeches and attending academic conferences. His numerous appearances on Chris Dixon's show had brought him to the attention of American conservatives, who liked what he had to say about the radical left's extreme political correctness agenda which they were using to silence any people that had ideas that were different than theirs. The public events that he took part in revealed to Fyodor that he was connecting with an audience composed almost entirely of young white men. Fyodor took time to speak with some of them at his events and what he discovered was that they all felt disaffected because in their minds the relentless political correctness that Fyodor was always talking about had caused them to become vilified by society. Having learned this about them, Fyodor started spending increasing amounts of time talking about the issues that were causing these young white men to feel so out of place in society. In his speeches he railed against affirmative action as a disastrous attempt at enforcing racial equality that had only been successful in widening racial divisions. On gender, Fyodor talked about how the single most destructive phenomenon in the West was the breakup of the nuclear family for which women who had entered the workplace were singly responsible. He also talked about immigration and how it was undermining national identity which was a particular point of pride for men. But it was his statements about how women were the problem that his supporters really enjoyed hearing, so Fyodor started finding more ways to hold women responsible for society's ills. He warned about the decreasing percentage of whites as a portion of western populations and blamed lower birth rates on the education of women, he also claimed that there would not be as many women in the workplace as there were if western governments had not enacted laws seeking to enforce equality of outcome. Because of all of these statements that he was making about women, Fyodor was labeled a sexist, in addition to being labeled a racist for his comments about affirmative action and other comments that he'd made about crime, poverty, eugenics and The Bell Curve. Fyodor was embroiled in controversy like he'd never been before, which made his fans love him even more and made his second book, 10 more steps up the mountain: Purpose beyond Prosperity, a bigger bestseller than his first.
Fyodor was riding high, higher than he thought possible when he first got involved with REJOIN, but the fame that he had achieved through the controversy that he had courted had put a target on his back, a target that everybody that interviewed or debated him was aiming for. In the past it had been enough for Fyodor to respond with a no-nonsense pithy rejoinder or with an overly long rejoinder comprised of many big words that to the untrained mind sounded like something really smart and profound. He couldn't get away with this anymore. His tricks had become well known and those that came up against him were prepared. The other problem that Fyodor had was that with the snake being awakened he wasn't enjoying the benefits of its power as much as he used to. This all added up to an increasing number of embarrassing moments for Fyodor. He still had his fans who posted clips of him SLAYING or DESTORYING on YouTube, but an almost equal number of videos were appearing online with labels like 'Fyodor Milichenko FACEPLANTS when talking about race' or 'Fyodor Milichenko HUMILIATES himself by making MORONIC comparison between feminism and communism'. And in addition to this, the truth about how Fyodor had blown his family's fortune also came out, making him an object of even greater ridicule. Citing health issues, Fyodor cleared his schedule of all upcoming events for the foreseeable future. He made sporadic appearances on Chris Dixon's show, which continued to be a safe space for him, but aside from that Fyodor wasn't to be seen anywhere, leading to various theories about what his health issues were. One video that went viral featured somebody at an amusement park wearing one of Fyodor's trademark sharp suits and a Fyodor mask and riding one rollercoaster after another until they threw up and collapsed on the floor. The video was titled 'BEEF-BRAINED Fyodor Milichenko develops health issues from performing IDIOTIC proof of concept test' and racked up 15 million views in two weeks. The near constant derision that he was being subjected to online was becoming more than Fyodor could bear. He also felt bad for his fans, who were doing what they could to defend him but were outnumbered by the people online who thought he was a moron. One of his fans, in an effort to defend him, posted a link to a study done by an engineer that showed that rollercoaster tracks could be deployed in an urban environment much more efficiently than train or streetcar tracks. The study, it turned out, was a fake study that a critic of Fyodor's had posted online in the hope that one of his idiot fans would think it was real and hold it up as proof of Fyodor's genius. The fan was attacked mercilessly for being so stupid as to believe in Fyodor's beef-brained rollercoaster idea and ended up posting a video in which he was deeply distraught, pleading for Fyodor Milichenko to return to public life and show all of these people what idiots they were for thinking that they could call Fyodor Milichenko an idiot and get away with it.
Fyodor was touched by the boy's faith in him and decided that he couldn't keep hiding forever, he owed it to his fans to get back out there and show them that he was still the same Fyodor Milichenko who they had put their faith in as the man who would deliver them from the tyranny of the political correctness totalitarians. He got himself warmed up for his return to public life by appearing on Chris Dixon's show every night for a week, addressing the issue of his rollercoaster investment during one of the interviews by dismissing it as fake news conjured up by his opponents in a desperate and dishonest attempt to take him down. Fyodor felt great about being out there again, especially after he read a tweet from one of his fans that read 'Fyodor Milichenko, back from the brink and stronger than ever' with a picture of a death knight underneath it. He was feeling not just great but pumped when he accepted an invitation to be part of a debate about gender identity at Colgate University in upstate New York. Now, Fyodor was an economist who didn't understand very much about economics, and given the ridicule that he had received for his thoughts on race and other sensitive issues one would have thought that he would make sure he was as knowledgeable on the issue of gender identity as he could be. But no, he was Fyodor Milichenko, the man whose very presence was enough to make the agents of PC indoctrination start trembling.
The debate was between two opposing sides consisting of two people each. Fyodor was paired with Dr George Irving, professor of biology at Baylor College who had been dubbed the most influential anti-trans voice in America. They were going to be debating two women: Dr Helen Fielding, PhD, who was professor of gender studies at Berkeley, and Susan Thompson, a trans rights activist with whom Dr Irving had had many run ins in the past. Fyodor had only addressed the issue of trans people once before in the past and the only statement on the issue that he'd made then was that gender is a biological fact of life. He had been asked the question during the Q&A session after one of his lectures and his fans in the theater had been more than happy with his response. It became clear to Fyodor after listening to the two women's opening statements that this was going to be a totally different experience. Dr Irving's opening statement consisted of his favorite talking points on the issue such as the dangers involved in confusing children by asking them to identify which gender they identified with more and then compounding that damage by having serious life altering surgery done on them. When it was his turn to speak, Fyodor, in typical Fyodor fashion, framed the whole issue as yet another example of political correctness run amuck and blended his usual litany of complaints about political correctness with as much as he was able to borrow from Dr Irving's opening statement to make his point. Susan Thompson immediately took issue with Fyodor's characterization that this was all nothing but political correctness nonsense.
"I'm sorry, but you dismissing the entire trans community as being nothing more than the product of political correctness run amuck is downright insulting! You're basically saying that we shouldn't pay any attention to the issues affecting this community because it's all just political correctness and thus nonsense!"
Fyodor did not like being challenged by women, especially unattractive women like Susan Thompson. Her response to his opening statement and the tone of it got under Fyodor's skin and the debate for him immediately became about one thing: DESTROYING Susan Thompson.
"I did not say that they should be dismissed, I'm saying that we need to be careful not to confuse issues that are real issues with issues that have been manufactured by the radical activist left and promoted by the liberal media, because if we don't do that what is real becomes devalued by what is manufactured to the point where people believe that the whole thing is nothing but an exercise in political correctness."
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"So what in your opinion are the real issues that we are failing to separate from the manufactured ones?"
"My point is simply that the radical left has an agenda which the mainstream media is complicit in helping them to advance and that if we have a healthy skepticism of that then we can have a better understanding of what it is that we should be focusing on as important."
"You didn't answer my question; I asked you what you thought were the real issues that are confronting the trans community and you just spewed a bunch of nonsense about the radical left and the mainstream media, which has nothing to do with what we're talking about."
"If you think that the radical left has nothing to with what we are talking about then you are either incredibly naive or incredibly stupid."
The sections of the audience that had come to listen to Fyodor and Dr Irving speak loved what Fyodor had just said and erupted into loud applause.
"It is the goal of the far left," Fyodor continued, "to exercise absolute control over how we think and talk about everything, and it is no different when it comes to this issue, which is why I am urging people to adopt a healthy skepticism about anything that sounds like it has been specifically calibrated to provoke a response that is advantageous to the radical political correctness agenda of the far left."
The audience members that were fans of Fyodor's thought that he was killing it. Their applause grew louder and was accompanied by intimidating baying. Susan Thompson recognized what was going on and it made her sick to her stomach that people could be so stupid as to think that this man had in any way gained the upper hand in the debate.
"I don't think you understand what the point of this debate is. We are here to discuss the issue of gender identity and the challenges that are being faced by people with gender identity issues in today's society and thus far you have contributed absolutely nothing of substance on that issue."
"If you would listen closely you would notice that the point that I am making about how we define the parameters within which we conduct our processes of analysis is the most critical rule that needs to be observed because without it we just end up with a nihilistic framework that renders everything equally important, of course everything isn't equally important and by equating everything with everything else then what you are actually saying is that in fact nothing is important, in which case why bother having a conversation about anything?!"
More applause and baying from the crowd. The naked stupidity of this man and the even more profound stupidity of his supporters was becoming too much for Susan to take.
"What are you people applauding for? This man is saying absolutely nothing!" Susan turned to the crowd and said.
This time the sections of the audience that identified with Susan erupted into cheers and applause. Fyodor didn't like this and set his sights on DESTROYING Susan Thompson AND her fans.
"This is so typical of the radical left, when they don't like what you have to say they just ignore it and say that you aren't saying anything because any acknowledgement of the merits of the opposing side's argument causes their own argument to fall apart, and that is what we are seeing here, that is why this woman is getting so emotional," Fyodor said to the audience.
"It says a lot about you that you would use the word emotional to describe me."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Fyodor asked confrontationally.
This was no longer a debate, it was an all out battle between Fyodor and Susan; the other two participants were just spectators.
"The word emotional is used when speaking about women to dismiss them as people who are incapable of being rational and intelligent because they have a predisposition toward hysteria, that is what you are trying to say about me and what it reveals about you is that you have no respect for women."
"First of all, I never said any of the things that you are accusing me of saying about you; secondly, you don't know enough about me to label me as someone who has no respect for women; and thirdly, the word emotional is a word that has a defined meaning and if the use of the word is appropriate then I am free to use the word, and if you cannot keep a hold of yourself when somebody says something that you don't like then you need to think about whether debating is something that you should be doing."
"I came here to participate in this debate because the issue that we're supposed to be debating is one that I have dedicated my life to; what I'm wondering is why are you here? What exactly is your field of expertise?"
"Me? I am an economist."
"So you have no experience dealing with the issues that we are supposed to be talking about here?"
"What I have experience with is the radical left overrunning schools and universities and using their educational authority to indoctrinate children and young people into their worldview of only looking at things through the lens of group identities which only serves to drive us apart and makes it impossible for us to achieve any kind of understanding on any issue."
"You just repeated what you have already said five times; are you listening at all to what I'm saying about needing to actually say something substantive about the issue at hand?"
"If you want men to listen to you maybe you should present yourself in a manner that is going to make them think that you are somebody who is worth listening to."
"What?!"
Fyodor had been targeting her appearance since he first saw her with her big frizzy hair, large round rimmed glasses, brown cardigan that had seen better days and multi-colored skirt that went down to her ankles, and had been waiting for just the right moment to attack. There were laughs from the Fyodor section of the audience but groans and hisses from the Susan section.
"What does my appearance have to do with anything?!" Susan asked, too shocked and apoplectic to fully give voice to what she was thinking.
"Are you a lesbian?"
"WHAT?! Why are you asking me if I'm a lesbian?!"
"Because I think the only reason why this issue of gender identity is an important issue to you is because of your need to work through your own gender identity issues, which, if it is the case, makes you a very dishonest and selfish person."
"The only dishonest person here is you, because you're the one who is saying one idiotic thing after another to cover for the fact that you don't have anything to say about the issue that we are supposed to be discussing here today, and the longer this has gone on the more desperate you have become in your evasions to the point that you were willing to stoop so low as to rudely question my sexual orientation."
"You're right, I'm sorry for asking if you are a lesbian."
"You're admitting that you were wrong?"
"Yes, I was wrong, I don't think that you are a lesbian. I think that you are a woman who wants to be a man."
Laughter and audible gasps of disgust from the audience.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Dr Fielding asked him, her first contribution to the debate.
"What is wrong with me is that I am sick and tired of me and others being demonized as racists and sexists and xenophobes and homophobes and transphobes for telling the truth! If this woman wants to be a man she must stop trying to make a big movement out of this issue and just go and do it! In fact, I'll do it for you right now!"
Between the two sets of debaters was a table with a bowl of artificial fruit on it. Fyodor grabbed a porcelain banana out of the fruit bowl and lunged at Susan Thompson with it, attempting to shove it between her legs.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" Susan screamed when Fyodor attacked her with the banana.
Fyodor had lunged at her with so much force that the chair that she was sitting in fell over backwards and flipped Susan over onto the floor. There was no stopping Fyodor now. On his hands and knees he crawled over to her and continued his unrelenting assault on her with the banana, rolling around on stage with her in front of a stunned audience until one of the campus security guards ran on stage and pulled him off of her and dragged him off the stage, banana in hand.
Before grabbing the banana, Fyodor saw his name up in lights on the internet: 'Fyodor Milichenko BRUTALLY HUMILIATES STUPID gender identity activist' was what he thought people would be posting online. Instead the internet exploded with memes spawned by the image of Fyodor clutching the banana while the security guard had him in a full-nelson headlock. The incident with the banana made Fyodor radioactive; nobody would touch him. He tried to get in touch with Chris Dixon so that he could explain himself on his show but there was no desire on Chris's part to have him on. The only people that would agree to host Fyodor were a few hosts of obscure podcasts. Fyodor's appearances on these podcasts did nothing to help him, and one of his appearances only made things worse for him. During his appearance on Glenn Bould's 'From the outer reaches' podcast, Fyodor started sobbing while talking about the ordeal that he was going through.
"They want to cancel me," sniffle, "all of these people that can't take it when anyone disagrees with them, that hate free speech," sob, "they just want to get rid of everybody that's not like them," deep sob.
The video quickly went viral and was followed by a second avalanche of ridicule directed at him online, spelling the end for Fyodor Milichenko.