Nancy Lindisfarne and Jonathan Neale, a 6 minute read. Let’s clear up some confusions. Trump and Putin are not negotiating with each other. They are on the same side. So Putin is not manipulating Trump. And Trump is not weaker than Putin. They are two of the most important leaders of a global alliance of far-right racists.

That global movement is made of up of mass movements all over the world, including those led by Modi in India, Netanyahu in Israel, the AdF in Germany, Le Pen in France, Farage in Britain, Millei in Argentina and others in many other countries.

That far right movement is going from strength to strength. They have now won elections in countries with a total population of more than three billion.

Their scapegoats vary from country to country. The far right is centrally, above all, racist. But they are also dangerous to every form of equality.

They hate immigrants, gays and lesbians and trans people, Blacks, Muslims, and climate action. Not everywhere, but almost everywhere, there is a smell of sexual violence.

Their racism is often white supremacy. But in some places it takes other forms. The most important example is India, where Hindu supremacy is central, and Muslims have now become in effect a racially oppressed people.

Trump and Putin are not friends because Trump is a fool. They are friends because Trump admires Putin. The Russian is a far more experienced practitioner of racist, far-right politics. Trump learns from Putin.

Putin’s strategy for Ukraine for the last two years has been to wait for the election of far-right leaders, particularly the AfD in Germany and Trump in the USA.

International Alliances

Sometimes both liberal and left thinkers write as if international politics was only about geopolitics and imperialism. But international politics can also involve the rise of powerful political movements.

That was true of the split between Protestants and Catholics in seventeenth century Europe. It was true when every kingdom in Europe went to war against the French Revolution. In the twentieth century there was a global communist movement, a global movement for colonial independence, and a global fascist movement in the 1930s and 1940s.

Global political alliances of mass movements are normal. The Spanish Civil War was not full of foreign fighters on both sides because they all coveted Spanish mineral rights.

Acknowledging this is hard-headed realism. JD Vance said it very clearly to the leaders of Europe at the security summit in Munich. He told them that war and peace was not the central issue in Europe. He told them that they would be defeated at the ballot box because their people wanted rid of the immigrants.

His audience sat silent, stunned, because they understood that was probably true and they feared that is what would happen.  

And What About Gaza?

For the last three years Labour in Britain and the Democrats in the United States told us that Ukraine was a war between “Western values” and “authoritarian values”.

But the myth of “Western values” died in Gaza. And the lie about “Western values” is not coming back any time soon.  

Still, there is still such a thing as human values, and they are found in every country in the world. They are for voting, freedoms, health care, feeding the hungry, dignity at work, and against police torture and killing children. In every country in the world a majority believe in those human values for themselves and for others.

The Enemy of my Enemy is Not my Friend

But Gaza has had an effect on feelings about Ukraine among many left-wing people, especially among non-white people, the large majority of the world.

There are some leftists who repeat Putin’s talking points because they are nostalgic for the Soviet Union or agree with his Islamophobia. There are others who support Putin because they consider that anything was better than American power. Given the nature of American global power over the long haul, this sentiment is entirely understandable.

But then came Gaza. Biden supported, encouraged, armed, funded and enabled a genocide. His brutality and his cold hatred were visible on camera.

Biden, and the liberals in North America and Europe who supported him on Gaza, all said that Ukraine was a war for freedom. They said that Russian bombing was savage, and sometimes they said it was genocide.

And people all over the world people watched and understood that only dead white babies matter.

Many people who did not want to be on the side of genocide, and who knew that Biden and the liberals were lying endlessly about Gaza, naturally assumed they were lying about Ukraine.

Which they were. But that didn’t mean Putin was telling the truth.

The Oval Office

And so the pattern of who is on what side has changed.  

Over Ukraine, Trump and Putin are now on the same side. We saw that when Trump and Vance bullied Zelensky in the Oval Office. Everybody in the world who has access to a cell phone has been able to see that.

Netanyahu has now joined their side. Last week, the US, Isreal and North Korea all voted for the Russian side at the UN.

Over Gaza, it’s more complicated. Back in last January, Ukraine voted for the Israeli side against the Palestinians at the UN. By September Ukraine was abstaining. Throughout 2022 Putin was strong in his support for a ceasefire and a Palestinian state. Now he has gone quiet.

Taking Sides

So whose side are you on? There is a real battle going on between the liberals and the far right of this world. But the liberals like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Keir Starmer brought us genocide in Gaza. Equally important, the reason that the far-right is growing is that the previous governments have been so awful – the Democrats in the US, Congress in India, the Tories and Labour in Britain.

They oversaw a great increase in inequality, the privatization of government services (paid for by our taxes), and the deregulation of all kinds of protections for workers, consumers and the environment.

Their words may sound as if they care, but they have made most people’s lives harder and far less secure. The inequality and increasing cost of living are enraging. And that anger, coupled with the neoliberal cruelty towards immigrants, has have pushed many people straight into the arms of the racist right.

Oddly enough, the liberal politicians don’t talk about the far right racist alliance either. They know it’s there, absolutely. And they are afraid. But they talk about “authoritarian politics”. They’re willing to say the word fascism. They won’t say the word racism, because they believe that will lose them votes to the right.

So if you want to side with Ukraine against the Russian invasion, good. And if you don’t want to side with either Trump or Biden, that’s fine too. That makes sense. But don’t blame Zelensky and the Ukrainians for that war, and don’t lie to yourself or anyone else about the genocide in Gaza, or about who Putin is, or about the future we all face.

Further Reading: This article builds on arguments we made in 2021 in Putin, Modi and Trump: Ukraine and Right-Wing Populism, and which we develop in more detail in our forthcoming book on The Sexual Politics of Capitalism with The New Press.