Why Fascism is Rising Again (And What You Can Learn From It) [View all]

[Agnosticsherbet]

Why Fascism is Rising Again (And What You Can Learn From It)
by umair haque
Here’s a tiny thought. If I’d told you last Christmas that the leading contender for President of the richest and most powerful country on the globe had openly said that he was OK with armbands, internment camps, extra-judicial bans, and blood rights, unless you were a card-carrying member of Conspiracy Theorists International, you probably would have laughed at me.

And yet. Here we are, in precisely that reality. And it’s not just Trump. The darkest spectre of global politics, the one that we thought exorcised, has somehow been summoned and reborn: fascism is resurgent. What I’ll call in this short series of essays New Fascism is a global phenomenon. Marine Le Pen, the most openly extreme politician contesting national leadership since Hitler…triumphed, winning a third of the vote, in recent French elections. The world stands poised on the precipice of a Dark Age of New Fascism — it is rising, Cerberus-like, from Scandinavia to Europe to Turkey to Australia.

I believe New Fascism is the single most important political development in our lifetimes. It is a critical moment for global society — a turning point. Like every turning point, it is a test. A test of the best of us: whether or not civilized societies can in fact stay civilized, in the most essential sense of the word — or whether we risk plunging once again into an era of world war and genocide.