If this doesn’t cause Tea Party heads to explode, I don’t know what will.

[Actually, I do know what will: Anything President Obama says; or showing that the health care law is working; or suggesting that billionaires be tapped for more taxes instead of poor people; or saying anything bad about Sarah Palin. Actually, lots of things make Tea Party heads explode]

Today the Russian Communist Party’s internal organ, Pravda, published an article extolling the virtues of American conservatism and its natural harmony with the politburo mouthpiece. The article by Xavier Lerma was titled “Why Conservative Americans Admire Putin.” This is a rather astute observation considering how the GOP has so lovingly embraced the Russian president during the Syrian crisis. They have hailed him as a true leader and even proposed that Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize be given to Putin instead.

It has long been recognized that the authoritarian Russian right shares much in common with their comrades in the Tea Party. From subjugating women and opposing reproductive freedom, to denying rights to homosexuals and forbidding marriage equality, to clinging to radical nationalism; to replacing education with indoctrination and science denial; and most of all, they share a common hatred for the U.S. government. Now we can add religious fundamentalism and Obama Derangement Syndrome to the mix. Here is how the Pravda article opened:

“America’s president has torn his land into a thousand pieces. The propaganda media machine covers Obama’s trail of blood and shows the president in a good way without a word of dissent.”

That could have been copied almost verbatim from a Rush Limbaugh broadcast. But it gets even worse. After Pravda laments that “The modern Tea Party’s success was short lived by Obama’s illegal interference,” they pivot to a conspiracy theory of election theft that would make the late Andrew Breitbart proud. The article swallows whole the phony IRS scandal and offers it as evidence of Obama’s corruption, despite the utter lack of any evidence connecting him to it. Then the author asserts that “Americans watch Obama destroying their own country and the world […and…] With no hero to save them they become frustrated and look to Putin,” whom they see…

“…kneeling at Christ’s Holy Sepulcher which Obama never does when visiting Jerusalem. They see him going to church when they know Obama favors Muslims who attack Christians and their churches. They see Putin establishing laws to protect the church and laws against homosexuality. This they admire and this brings them hope. Hope in their upside down world where there is a leader willing to follow Christ. They have no Reagan but they see Putin whom they wish was their president.”

There you have it. Obama is an anti-Christian, Muslim lover, while Putin is the Second Coming of Ronald Reagan. A devout, law and order Christian who can inspire the Teabagging masses. Putin is their 21st century savior who can restore America and the world. The article even includes emails that the author received from Americans wishing Putin could be the U.S. president. And to top it all off, it closes with an evangelical sermon lambasting the “lamestream” media and exalting Putin’s piety and the glory of Christ’s guidance to the “Truth.” [FYI: Pravda, in Russian, means truth].

“American conservatives hear only lies from their TV but what they see on the internet from Russia regarding Putin is true because Christ guides them to see the Truth. The Holy Spirit does not fail them and inspires them to see Russia. They know a tree by its fruit. Putin obviously respects the Christian Church but Obama and their American government does not.”

Apparently Glenn Beck has been moonlighting as a ghostwriter for Pravda. The lunacy of this article proves that the Russians are just as capable of composing dishonest blather as the world champions at Fox News and, especially, Fox Nation (see my ebook Fox Nation vs. Reality for a collection of documented falsehoods put out by Fox’s professional lie-mongers). But the ideological affinity expressed in the article reveals that, whatever distance separates Pravda from the American wingnut, the doctrine espoused is just their cup of tea.