Georgi Lozanov's comment:
Russia must defeat Ukraine, and Bulgaria must leave NATO and side with Russia. This is what the political ideology of the “Revival” boils down to, because, only if this happens, they will be able to come to power and start the repressions for which they are now training “dry” in profiles, podcasts and studios.
It's like watching Volen Siderov
The public behavior of Kostadin Kostadinov creates a feeling of déjà vu – it's like you're looking at Volen Siderov, for whom we know where history has left him. While he still had political resources, he went on a rampage: storming newsrooms, organizing protests against media outlets and their management, not allowing anyone else to speak on air, insulting reporters and presenters in a way that gave the impression that he was drunk. Due to his obscene language and behavior, the broadcast "Referendum" became necessary. on BNT in its pre-election format from 2019 to be prematurely terminated – for the first time since it existed, and the public television to make a request to the CEC that Siderov and his party members be excluded from the campaign.
Kostadinov does the same today, without much change in the lexical baggage of the hostile speech abundantly used by nationalists: “foreign agents“, “Sorosoids“, “grant workers“, “gays“ etc. His goal is to undermine the dialogic form of his contributions in order to turn them into a tribunal over the journalists who dare to contradict him. The peak of his communicative strategy of the type "When you talk to me, you will be silent" were the unprovoked insults against Maria Tsantsarova in "This morning" on bTV from Monday.
The broadcaster felt obliged to stand behind its presenter with a statement saying: “bTV will absolutely not tolerate personal attacks and attempts at intimidation, as well as the purposeful discrediting of journalists for carrying out their professional duties”. Even SEM opened one eye and supported Tsantsarova, but the question is: why do Bulgarian nationalists need to intimidate journalists, and those who are not afraid of them, discredit them? Where does their undisguised rage against them come from? The answer is simple: so that no one will say that “the king is naked”. They scare because they are scared – not to be exposed.
Kostadinov and "Revival": nationalists, but not Bulgarian
The problem is that our nationalists are not Bulgarian, but Russian. They realize that they will look like political “misfits” even in the eyes of Russophiles, if this becomes known to the national audience. She must believe that Kostadinov et al are looking out for her interests, even as they protect Putin's, drawing water from a hundred ravines to justify the imperial pretensions of Russian nationalism and selflessly bashing its victims, declared enemies by Kremlin propaganda. It is easy for the most devoted Russian proxy in our country to inflate his communicative bubble with snarky opinions on social networks, liked and scolded by “factory trolls”, as well as with monologues from the parliamentary rostrum, complete with breaking cables and scolding with elbows. And the defeats they manage to inflict on public consciousness make their political opponents show populist caution and let them play their double game in peace, and even vote for Putin's laws together with them.
A dangerous risk for Kostadinov and his company are only the journalists who do not give up their professional critical function towards power and its contenders. And with their investigations and questions, they expose the discrepancy between rhetoric and motives, that is, political demagoguery, to which the Bulgarian version of Russian imperial nationalism is doomed by condition. This is exactly what drives its representatives into panicked aggression when they sense a journalist determined to fulfill his professional commitments. Kostadinov has learned in such a situation to give out verbal hooks in order to protect himself with them from a counter blow that could take away his demagogic mask. In Monday's show, it was seen that he still could not recover from the investigation of Tsantsarova for one of their initial Christomatheous acts of demagoguery - when, in order to please Putin, that the West was lying about the vaccines against Covid, they pretended to anti-vaxxers while secretly getting vaccinated.
Kostadinov wants the repressive tools of the dictatorship
However, the problem no longer rests with Tsantsarova, nor with an individual journalist or media, because the pathology in Kostadinov's public behavior has reached the point where it “contradicts democratic values”, as stated in the bTV declaration. The new “revivalist“ after the death of his Kremlin patron, he set out to replace these values with the sinister traits of dictatorship. The first two of them, which Kostadinov is trying to impose - for now, without yet having access to the state's repressive tools - are the cancellation of freedom of speech and the crackdown on those who disagree.
The only sure guarantee of freedom of speech is independent journalism, whose standards Kostadinov not only does not comply with, but demonstratively tramples them in order to pour Russian propaganda without anyone being able to prevent him, because he knows that for to the more uneducated public the strongman appears to be right. Peter Volgin, by the way, was doing the same thing in public radio, who was “tearing his shirt” for being an independent journalist until he treacherously joined "Vazrazhdane".
Anyone who thinks differently goes to jail
Kostadinov has long been threatening to revive nothing but the People's Court and the camps where he will send politicians, journalists, intellectuals and others, on charges of being traitors, as they want Bulgaria to be a Western, not a post-Soviet country. The curtain must have already "fallen" on him, when in Monday's program Tsantsarova mentioned an MP from the PP/DB with a negative attitude towards "Vazrazhdane", and Kostadinov judged that he is an MP today and will be a prisoner tomorrow. So that there is no doubt what will happen to the Bulgarians if they listen to the call of the new “revivalists” to vote for them.
When it comes to frankly anti-democratic messages, it is the civic duty of the media not only to declare their outrage, but also to deny access to their carriers. Here, the reference to the plurality of opinions does not work, because it is one of the democratic standards, and when you refuse to respect them, you cannot benefit from it either. You cannot invoke a law that you yourself have derogated from. It is time for the Bulgarian media to say “goodbye” of Kostadinov.