March 17, 2023 | Reading Time: 3 minutes

Trump’s alliance with Putin against America

Their best hope is helping each other.

Screenshot 2023-03-17 12.29.00 PM

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Donald Trump again blamed America for threatening the values of western civilization instead of the foreign nation that’s in fact threatening them. “The greatest threat to western civilization today is not Russia,” he said Thursday. “It’s probably, more than anything else, ourselves, and some of the horrible USA-hating people that represent us.”

The criminal former president seemed to be taking Vladimir Putin’s side over his own country’s. Indeed, Trump thinks we should stay out of the war in Ukraine. He thinks Russia is a victim of American aggression. This pattern might be the only thing about this lying, thieving, philandering sadist that’s steady, reliable and predictable.

In a sense, Trump is the president of Realamerica. He speaks for and represents this confederacy on the global stage. He seems to be taking Vladimir Putin’s side against his own country’s, but he’s not. Realamerica has an alliance with Russia against the real America.

There was a time when it was political suicide for a leader to blame America first. That time continues – but only if we are to believe what his followers say about liberals, which is that they blame America first. Yet here we are, with Donald Trump blaming America first, and he’s not yet died politically. It’s almost like his followers understand that by “America,” he’s not talking about them. They are Realamericans.

The Russo-Realamerican alliance
Realamerica is not the real America. Realamerica, according to its adherents, is a “nation” inside the real nation. It is a confederacy of the mind and spirit, made of pure makebelieve. Realamericans live according to God’s law. They share the goal of ruling, in God’s name, the real America. If Realamericans can’t dominate real Americans lawfully, they must take “the law” into their own hands. With the proliferation over two decades of semiautomatic rifles, they have.

I think it’s helpful to think about this confederacy of the mind and spirit when talking about Donald Trump’s treasonous remarks. 

In a sense, he’s the president of Realamerica. He speaks for and represents this confederacy on the global stage. He seems to be taking Vladimir Putin’s side against his own country’s, but he’s not. Realamerica has an alliance with Russia against the real America.

This Russo-Realamerican alliance is critical to Putin’s war. As the Financial Times’ Edward Luce said, his best hope of winning in Ukraine is “for Nato’s resolve to collapse and America’s supply of money and weapons to dry up,” he said. “A Trump or [Ron] DeSantis presidency would be Russia’s likeliest chance of disuniting the west.”

Conversely, Trump’s best hope of retaking the presidency of the real America is for Realamerica’s foreign partner to sabotage Joe Biden’s campaign the way it sabotaged Hillary Clinton’s, using the only thing the Kremlin is good at, which is spreading propaganda and lies.

As Luce said, “the risk is that the Kremlin leader will further cement the view on the Maga right that Russia is the global champion of their anti-woke cause. Russian flags and T-shirts proclaiming ‘I would rather be a Russian than a Democrat’ are a regular sight nowadays.”

Trump’s followers prefer to be Russian because Democrats are real Americans, which is to say, Realamerica’s enemies. Realamericans have more in common with Russians. Real Americans live in this plane of reality. Realamericans, however, live in a world of pure makebelieve that’s without legitimacy, much like the “presidency” of Vladimir Putin.

So be it
It’s helpful to think of Trump as the president of a confederacy of the mind and spirit, because it clarifies the role of Republicans like Mitch McConnell. He knows appearing to side with the enemy of the real America is bad for his party. So he says things like the following:



“Republican leaders are committed to a strong trans-Atlantic alliance,” McConnell said earlier this year in a speech in Munich. “We are committed to helping Ukraine. Not because of vague moral arguments or abstractions like the so-called ‘rules-based international order.’ But rather, because America’s own core national interests are at stake. Because our security is interlinked and our economies are intertwined.”

McConnell’s remarks may seem to represent a split in the Republican Party over war in Ukraine. But when you see Trump as the president of Realamerica, and representing on the global stage that “nation” inside a real nation, you see it’s not. It’s the consequence of needing to hide Realamerica’s intentions of dominating the real America from the inside. If Russia happens to lend a hand, as it did in 2016, so be it.


John Stoehr is the editor of the Editorial Board. He writes the daily edition. Find him @johnastoehr.

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