Below is a summary of the key points he made. I’ll also include the full video for anyone who wants to watch the talk in its entirety — and trust me, it’s worth the time.
A Man Who Has Seen Decline Before
Kisin begins by framing his vantage point: born in the Soviet Union, raised in early-1990s Russia, and now living in the UK. He calls himself both an insider and an outsider — someone who recognises the signs of societal unraveling because he has seen it first-hand.
His early warning is blunt:
Western societies are heating up like the proverbial boiling frog — and many people don’t even notice.
The West Is in Decline — But Not Because It Must Be
Kisin rejects the comforting narrative that talk of “Western decline” is overblown. Instead, he notes that:
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Many in our own intellectual and media classes want the West to be in decline, because it validates an ideological narrative of Western guilt and historical sin.
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This worldview has become so internalised that societies are questioning their own right to survive and flourish.
But decline is not inevitable. It is a choice — or perhaps more accurately, the result of a lack of choice, a refusal to act.
How We Know Western Civilization Is Still the Best Game in Town
Kisin points out a simple, powerful metric:
Where do people risk their lives to go?
Millions of people are trying to get into Western nations. Almost no one is trying to get out.
Australia, the US, Britain — all see a one-way flow of migration. Whatever our flaws, the world is voting with its feet.
Courage Lost — The Beginning of Decline
Drawing on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s famous 1978 Harvard speech, Kisin argues that:
The West is suffering a collapse of courage — especially among its elites.
Political and intellectual leaders:
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avoid confrontation with powerful adversaries,
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but enforce rigid ideological compliance on their own populations,
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and increasingly pretend that weakness is a moral virtue.
This, he warns, is historically the first step toward decline.
The Economic Reality: We’re Getting Poorer
Kisin highlights a stark fact that many politicians conveniently ignore:
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GDP per capita (the measure that matters to ordinary people)
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has stagnated or declined across much of the West since 2007.
Countries like Britain, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Greece and many others are seeing:
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lower real incomes,
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shrinking opportunity,
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and worsening public services.
A key driver?
Governments chase GDP growth by importing more people, not by boosting productivity or innovation.
The result is “fake growth” that masks social strain and declining living standards.
Demography: The Decline No One Wants to Face
Western fertility rates are collapsing.
In Britain, the average woman now has fewer than 1.6 children — well below replacement.
The same is true across Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.
Kisin points out the uncomfortable truth:
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A society that doesn’t reproduce will inevitably rely on mass immigration.
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Without a shared identity and a common purpose, this becomes destabilising rather than enriching.
He stresses that low birth rates are cultural, economic, and spiritual issues rolled together — and ignoring them is not a viable strategy.
Loss of Shared Identity and Fear of Speaking Honestly
Kisin laments that Western societies are fragmenting into micro-identities:
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ethnic,
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religious,
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gender-based,
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sexual,
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political.
Instead of being Norwegian, British, American or Australian first, people increasingly define themselves as something else first and foremost.
And when it comes to difficult topics such as immigration, crime, integration or cultural cohesion, Kisin argues that:
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ordinary people are afraid to speak,
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the police are sometimes deployed against speech,
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and elites prefer to pretend everything is normal.
Without honesty, decline accelerates.
This Isn’t a War — It’s Something Much Harder
Kisin makes a striking point:
If the West were attacked like Ukraine or Israel, millions would rally to defend it.
But our current crisis is not a war — it is a slow, creeping malaise.
There is no enemy army to fight, no single event to galvanise the population.
That is precisely why it is so dangerous.
The People Get the Policies They Demand
Kisin argues that politicians are not the only ones at fault.
Western voters themselves:
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demand bigger governments,
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higher taxes,
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and more state control,
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while punishing any leader who proposes entrepreneurial reform.
Meanwhile, countries like Argentina (under Milei) and the US (under deregulation-focused administrations) show that people will rally around leaders who promise growth, ambition and bold change.
Europe, by comparison, prefers managerialism.
Rediscovering Who We Are
Kisin closes with a challenge:
The West became great not by bureaucracy or entitlement, but by daring, building, creating and dreaming big.
As he puts it:
“We’re supposed to reach for the stars, not into our neighbours’ pockets.”
Until we decide — consciously — to become a civilization that wants to succeed again, decline will continue.
Final Thought
Kisin’s message isn’t one of doom.
It’s a call to action — to recover confidence, ambition, honesty and courage.
The full video is below.
Whether you agree with him or not, it’s one of the clearest articulations of the West’s challenges you’ll hear this year.
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