this post was submitted on 26 May 2026
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Trump is not a Russian ally, he is interested in harvesting Ukraine for minerals. The Russo-Ukrainain war is not one of imperialism on Russia's part, annexation is not imperialism. This is just BlueAnon, sorry to say, it's blaming the Russians on Statesian failures.
As for nationalism in the global south, it is not opposed to internationalism. It is nationalism in the global north that is opposed to internationalism. I highly recommend reading Fanon, who wrote extensively on the psychological aspects of colonialism and the class outlook of national liberation.
Trump has been an explicit supporter of Russian business interests for a lot longer than he has been involved in politics: this is not a conspiracy theory, it is a statement of fact.
Be wary of making such generalisations about nationalism, even in the global south. Like I said, I have personal experience of Latin American nationalists partaking in racially motivated violence against indigenous people, and so therefore very much opposed to internationalism.
Trump being a Russian ally is a conspiracy theory, and is used to justify pushing problems from the US onto Russia. Trump's problems and interests are of American origin.
As for Nationalism in the global south, it's necessarily an oversimplification. Trade unions can also be violently racist, it's wrong but not indicative of trade unions being wrong. And for indigenous peoples, they are the ones whose nationalism would be progressive, not the nationalism of those not indigenous.
See, this is the point where you start to deny manifest reality and/or move the goalposts to deny examplles which contradict your claims. Trump first started agitating to end NATO about thirty years ago, immediately after his first business trip to Russia.
Also, these Chilean nationalists that I'm talking about are very much working class people, you can't suddenly decide that they don't come from the global south just because that doesn't fit your narrative - they sure as fuck don't come from the global north.
Edit to add: as for your statement that 'Trump's problems and interests are of American origin': this habit of viewing the elites through the lense of their national origin is fatally flawed, as the elites themselves do not see the world through this lense. The reason the billionaires are winning the class war is because they are the only ones that are actually fighting it from a class perspective. As I have tried to get across, nationalism only exists to divide and conquer the working classes.
Again, you're confusing Trump's position as a nationalist with being pro-Russian. Trump is not a Russian ally, he already would have pulled out of Ukraine and NATO, and would not be attacking Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela.
As for the Chilean nationalists, I never said they weren't working class. I am specifically saying that individual groups can be bad, but if they are fighting against indigenous peoples then this is definitely reactionary. This is why I recommended reading Fanon, I of course oversimplified the situation, and gave the trade union example to illustrate that exceptions exist.
Trump isn't a nationalist though. He is deliberately gutting the United States. The lense of 'nation vs nation' is constantly promoted to us through capitalist mass media because seeing the world in this way prevents us from effectively fighting for our own interests. Divide and conquer, it is one of the oldest tricks on the book.
Trump is absolutely relying on nationalism, white supremacy, and more, and is using it to support imperialism. I think your understanding of what constitutes nationalism is different from mine, and again, I recommend Fanon.
Yes, he uses nationalism to manipulate the masses, but that doesn't mean he himself believes (and the fact that you bundle white supremacy with nationalism only supports my point that nationalism is a xenophobic ideology).
Is there a particular work of Fanon's that you would recommend?
You're mixing belief with Trump's actual positions, which are nationalist in character. Whether or not Trump believes white supremacism is correct is irrelevant to the fact that his positions are those of a white supremacist. Nationalism is often opposed to the outer, for example Algerians slaughtered any Europeans they saw on sight during the Algerian revolution. It is nevertheless true that this violent national liberation was a progressive movement against colonialism, and was created by colonialism.
As for Fanon, his masterwork (and the one most relevant to our discussion) is The Wretched of the Earth.