The Allure of Fascism (Vol. II), Part 17
Genocidal threats. Subverting electoral systems. The deputisation of ICE. Deporting migrants without charges. Murdering unarmed civilians. Reclassifying protest and dissent as terrorism. The endless evocation of threats, internal and external. Consolidating power in the hands of the executive. The corruption of the judiciary and the executive’s repeated refusals to obey the law. Relentless nationalism. Calls to restore and revive a dying country. Attempts to rewrite and erase the history of Black slavery and subjugation.1 Christian nationalism and white supremacy among the most powerful government officials. In 2026, this is the Trump administration’s political programme.
The political logic of Trump’s second term did not emerge from nothing. It has instead grown out of the failed political logic that has defined decades of governance in the United States as its hegemony has declined: the combination of neoliberal capitalism and racialised imperialism, conducted under the guise of counterterrorism. In some ways, the political logic of Trumpism is both a radicalisation and continuation of certain elements of this existing logic. In others, it departs from them.
This series has tried to trace a genealogy of this political logic. Our story began with the defeat of fascist Japan at the end of WWII, accomplished when the United States detonated atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After this triumph over the Axis powers, the US began its struggle for global liberal capitalist hegemony against the communist USSR. Occurring under the threat of nuclear annihilation, the Cold War was conducted through soft power mechanisms—economic and cultural influence—as well as “low-intensity” interventions. These interventions eventually created the conditions for the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, allowing for the rise of neoliberal capitalism, financialisation, globalisation and deindustrialisation. They also saw the US begin its “War on Terror” to thwart communist movements around the world, sometimes by supporting and arming Islamic fundamentalists.
After the USSR collapsed, leading to the relative stability of the 1990s where computing and internet technologies became widespread, the US faced the consequences of their economic and military actions: 9/11 and the Global Financial Crisis. The first crisis led to America’s disastrous interventions in the Middle East, the creation of a vast domestic surveillance apparatus, and the radicalisation of anti-Islamic and anti-Arab sentiment. The second led to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, resulting in years of economic stagnation and individualistic frustration, the rise of radical monetary policies and a rapid increase in inequality, further deindustrialisation, and the rise of Silicon Valley surveillance tech companies.
The MAGA movement emerged at the intersection of these competing crises. Trump promised to “Make America Great Again” by ending America’s “Forever Wars,” by reversing the trend of deindustrialisation and falling incomes, and by building a wall to stop Central and South American migrants from taking jobs and committing crime in the US. This racist agenda, which aimed in part to preserve capitalism in its time of crisis, failed to address a central cause of America’s crises. The COVID-19 crisis that marked the final year of Trump’s first term also generated a strange anti-authoritarian movement, deeply suspicious of mainstream institutions. When Trump was defeated in the 2020 election, MAGA capitalised on pandemic discontent and claimed that the election was stolen, leading directly to the January 6th Capitol Riots. Their failure to prevent the democratic transfer of power led to years out of office where the movement’s paranoia, narcissism, and political extremism rose. Redoubling their efforts, and attracting the support of incredibly wealthy and influential individuals who had themselves been radicalised, the movement managed to win the 2024 presidential election, allowing them to enact their radical right-wing agenda in the years after. That right-wing agenda combines and radicalises the illiberal, authoritarian, and anti-democratic components of the War on Terror, which has historically targeted Black, Arab and Muslim, and Central and South American individuals, and now targets other racialised minorities, antifascists and other leftists, and queer and trans people. All this now occurs alongside the oligarchic bid to preserve capitalism and deepen wealth inequality.
Since the millennium’s turn, then, the social crises that have afflicted the US have led to psychic, cultural, institutional and political changes that have manifested in the far-right politics of Trump’s second administration. Each of these crises has generated psychic distress, terror, and narcissistic woundedness, contributing to a polarised and increasingly violent political imaginary. Those crises have also threatened the viability of key signifiers within the American ego—whiteness, freedom, democracy, security, capitalism, patriarchy, Christianity, and individualistic power—leading people to radicalise their attachments to those signifiers and demonise their opposites, refiguring them as threatening and subversive.
They have also led to radical institutional changes. Each crisis has seen the US state concentrate more power in its hands, undermining democracy and accountability while increasing policing and surveillance. Together, these crises have contributed to the rise of a misguided anti-establishment, but not anti-capitalist, movement. This movement believes it is licensed to create an authoritarian, racist, dictatorial police state, which criminalises and attacks leftists, queer people, and racialised migrants as it works towards a nationalistic revival and secures the interests of the oligarchy at the expense of everyone else.
Knowing all this, we must seriously consider whether Trumpism is a fascist political programme, and whether the US has become a fascist state.