The themes and tropes of fascism — crude but familiar — are exploding across the US, UK, and Europe, as far-right parties gather support from disenchanted and marginalised communities.

Violent and divisive, socially poisonous and environmentally destructive, they echo movements that emerged in Europe between the First and Second World Wars — destructive forces that fundamentally reshaped the continent’s political landscape.

They pose a grave threat to liberty, freedom, and justice, and are symptomatic of our fractured times — of a world divided between the many who long for change and the reactionary forces that violently resist it.

At the core of such movements lie authoritarianism, centralised control, and intolerance — it is the politics of hate and division. The nation and its past are glorified; racism is encouraged — overtly and covertly — while disgust and fear of immigrants are fostered; minorities and LGBTQ+ people are persecuted.

The methodology is plain: emotionally charged disinformation, the erosion of fact, and the systematic dismantling of independent institutions — courts, media, universities, and civil society. Human rights are eroded, ignored, and trampled upon; the use of state violence is normalised — from Mussolini’s Blackshirts and Hitler’s Brownshirts to Trump’s deployment of ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and the National Guard.

At the apex of such extreme movements lies the cult of personality: the leader is exalted — by himself principally, and by his followers — portrayed as the one and only saviour of the nation, a figure concerned for ‘the people’, to be loved and obeyed, yet ultimately serving the interests of the ruling elite and corporate power.

Fascism and the far right represent a moral and political darkness; they flourish amid economic suffering, social deprivation, and the erosion of public services. Collective anger and fear follow, creating fertile ground for exploitation; ‘the Other’ becomes the convenient scapegoat, the imagined source of all problems.

As Hannah Arendt observed in The Origins of Totalitarianism, totalitarian movements “make use of the misery and instability of the mass of people and of their atomization into isolated individuals; they appeal to feelings of fear, hatred, and revenge, and they promise a world that is simple, unified, and comprehensible.”

Tactics of Control

This global movement of division is powerfully embodied in the United States under President Trump: authoritarianism is becoming normalized, freedoms of expression, the press, and assembly are under attack, as is freedom within educational institutions, including libraries. Control of information — including ‘book burning’ — is a classic fascist tactic (employed, for example, by the Nazis, Franco in Spain, and Mussolini in Italy). And since 2021, around 4,000 titles addressing race, gender, and sexuality have been removed from US schools and public libraries.

At the same time, the judiciary is coerced, dissenting voices are hunted in the courts, and immigrants are illegally arrested, detained, and in many cases deported by ICE. With an annual budget larger than the total military expenditure of virtually every other country, this violent paramilitary force operates with total impunity.

Across Europe and the UK, similar patterns are emerging. Far-right parties and politicians are exploiting nationalism and feeding nostalgia for an imagined past. Xenophobia and division are deliberately stoked, instilling fear among minority communities, particularly asylum seekers and refugees.

Right-wing politicians in the UK have consistently portrayed migration as a national crisis and the cause of social ills. The Labour government, seemingly devoid of socialist principles, has echoed some of this rhetoric, albeit in a watered-down form. Anti-immigrant discourse has permeated the mainstream; racism, masquerading as patriotism, has been legitimised, and the national flag weaponised.

In France, Italy, Hungary, Poland, and Germany, far-right parties—once considered fringe groups with toxic ideas—have become mainstream political forces. Their approach is consistent and predictable: demonise migrants, trample on human rights, disregard minorities, and deny the environmental crisis.

These strategies of control, fear, and misinformation form a transnational pattern, with far-right voices increasingly coordinating across borders and mimicking one another. A notable example is Elon Musk, whose public support for far-right figures and parties in Germany, Hungary, and the UK has amplified extremist narratives and fueled political unrest.

Racism lies at the core of all far-right and fascist groups, deliberately used to fuel xenophobia and social division. Amplified by media and absorbed by fearful or frustrated populations, it becomes both acceptable and legitimised, creating conditions in which discrimination, harassment, and violence against minority communities can occur.

Progress vs Reaction

Extremism is the sign of a civilisation in decay — the death spasm of a frightened, broken order. It emerges when people are consumed by anger and fear, much of it legitimate, born of social deprivation and injustice.

Decades of colonial neoliberalism have brought us here: to a world where everything and everyone is commodified, every space seen as a marketplace, and the interests of capital — not people or the planet — are paramount. In such a hollow, reductive order, the good — social justice, compassion, freedom — is trampled on, division encouraged, and conflict stoked.

The struggle of our time is not a simplistic fight between left and right, but between evolution and regression; between the forces of progress and reaction — or, of light and darkness.

Fascism and all forms of far-right extremism must be called out for what they are — manifestations of evil — look no further than the Israel killing machine — and resisted. Resisted not just politically, but morally and spiritually, for this global crisis is above all a spiritual crisis, rooted in who we are, the values we hold, and the kind of world we want to live in.

The antidote and the seed of hope in this time of tremendous uncertainty lies in unity, social justice, and freedom. In demonstrations of tolerance in the face of bigotry, the cultivation of cooperation, and the building of solidarity where there is division. Against these Principles of Goodness, hate and division cannot stand.

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