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fascism
It Falls Upon the Left to Defeat Fascism Once Again
Neofascism is on the rise and the neoliberal establishment is a big part of the problem and very much the opposite of the solution.
May 11, 2026
The world is at a precipice, facing existential threats while fascism is on the rise. Yet we lack the proper governance structures to address global challenges, and it also seems that it falls upon the left to defeat fascism once again. So argues political scientist/political economist, author and journalist C. J. Polychroniou in the interview that follows with the French-Greek journalist Alexandra Boutri.
Alexandra Boutri: We live in a time of great uncertainty and profound disillusionment. We see a global escalation of violence and a lack of accountability. Even Israel’s genocide goes unpunished, which speaks volumes of the hypocrisy of western governments with regard to human rights and international law. There is a global wave of democratic backsliding, massive amounts of inequality by design, and extreme power concentration. Am I painting too bleak of a picture for the current state of the world?
C. J. Polychroniou: No, you are not exaggerating the current state of the world. The truth is that it is far worse than that. We are witnessing the resurgence of naked imperialism and the emergence of a new world of spheres of influence and, concomitantly, the death of international peacemaking institutions. The continued existence of nuclear weapons, which today are far more powerful than ever before, poses an existential threat to humanity while at the same time human beings are on a collision course with the natural world. To be sure, not only do we live in an era of polycrisis but in one in which developments are occurring at an increasingly rapid pace. We need polysolutions, yet neither the mechanisms are in place nor is there any detectable willingness on the part of current world leaders to pull humanity back from the precipice.
Political hypocrisy per se is not the major issue here. Pathological hypocrisy is a constant in the behavior of western governments. What I find most disconcerting is the sharp decline of rational thinking in contemporary society. Misinformation is spreading faster than facts and trust in science has virtually collapsed, especially in the United States. For example, scientific studies have concluded that climate change is mainly caused by human activity and scientists have documented the dangerous disruptions in nature. Yet you have the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, calling climate change “con job” and “scam.” Trust in healthcare and public institutions has also declined in recent years, and it is not a coincidence that these trends occur with the political ascendancy of right-wing extremism. Fascism is organized mass irrationality and leaders like Trump have been doing their best to design a society sustained by ignorance while at the same time normalizing cruelty and destruction. So, yes, we live in a world of increasing uncertainty, profound confusion, and maybe even civilizational decline. We are in the midst of a whirlpool of events and developments that are eroding our ability to manage human affairs in a way that is conducive to the attainment of a good and just world order. That being said, the world is not coming to an end any time soon, and we actually know that there are solutions for the world’s biggest problems. But paradigm shifts in political, social, and moral thinking are urgently needed for a sustainable future.
Alexandra Boutri: Is the nation-state at the present historical juncture a hindrance to the realization of a sustainable future for humanity?
C. J. Polychroniou: The general consensus among scholars about the nation-state is that it was a consequence of modernity and that it represents a progressive development in the course of human political history. It was an invention designed to unify people, the state, and the country. The Peace of Westphalia (1648), which marked the end of the Thirty Years’ War in Europe, established a new system of political order based upon the idea of co-existing sovereign states. Subsequently, the norm of Westphalian sovereignty became central to international law and world order. It shifted the balance of power, but it did not end conflicts. The nation-state sparked nationalism across Europe, and war over resources, driven by capitalist modes of production, remained predominant in the modern world. In fact, nationalism and capitalism have worked in tandem to make war a permanent feature of the modern world system. In any case, whatever benefits have accrued over the centuries because of the emergence of the nation-state (social solidarity, human rights, and democracy), it has become increasingly clear that the nation-state is not capable of managing, on its own, the globalized forces. And collective institutions in general have suffered a severe blow from the wrecking ball of neoliberalism. The climate crisis is a case in point.
Actions taken so far to combat climate change are insufficient. Moreover, while local and national climate policy efforts are important, the new energy infrastructure needed for establishing a zero emissions global economy must be global in scope. Economist Robert Pollin, who has done extensive work on building a green economy, has made a compelling case for the necessity of implementing a Global Green New Deal (GGND). Pollin has described in fine detail the impact of a GGND on economic growth and how it can be financed. But we are nowhere near to achieving such a goal. The problem is political in nature, not economic. Are nation-states capable of the type of international collaboration needed to secure a global green transition in order to save the planet? Are capitalist nation-states even able to sacrifice short-term interests for long-term benefits?
My own view is that the nation-state is indeed a hindrance to a sustainable future for humanity, but that doesn’t mean that the global governance structures needed to ensure that human civilization will endure despite the many existential threats it faces will inevitably happen. Such an outcome requires imagination, courage, and bold action. But it is not inconceivable that an alternative world order may emerge at some point in the future. After all, as sociologist Andreas Wimmer has convincingly shown, the creation of nation-states was mainly the result of external circumstances (geopolitical factors) rather than internal processes (ethnic homogeneity or nationalism). The climate crisis might very well become at a certain juncture a turning point for the emergence of new global governance structures. Hopefully, it won't be too late by then.
Alexandra Boutri: Where does the Left stand on the question of universalism and the nation-state?
C. J. Polychroniou: This is a very complicated issue, especially since the Left is not monolithic. Generally speaking, however, the traditional Left has always held internationalist principles and viewed the nation-state as a modern phenomenon tied to the emergence of the capitalist mode of production. That was pretty much Marx’s own view on the subject. Lenin also argued that Marxism cannot be reconciled with nationalism. Communists and revolutionary socialists opposed World War I as an imperialist war. But most socialist parties and trade unions abandoned the internationalist vision and backed their respective governments. On the other hand, communists defended their own countries during World War II. This is because they came to view World War II as a “people’s war” against fascism. Communists fought heroically in World War II but also against fascism everywhere. The International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War represented a remarkable expression of international solidarity, a response of anti-fascists to the emergence of a new tyranny.
In the contemporary period, a significant segment of the Left has been critical, even dismissal, of the nation-state but has also championed self-determination. Yet the question of how to circumvent the nation-state remains. The neoliberal hyper-globalization wave of the 1990s that envisioned the world becoming a global village transcended the boundaries of nation-states, but the new rules were made possible only through enforcement from the capitalist state itself. In fact, there was/is a symbiotic relationship between capitalist states and neoliberal globalization.
The Left is obligated to advance an alternative vision of a world order beyond capitalism and the nation-state. It must envision and fight for a world where the rights of labor reign supreme and the means of production are collectively owned by workers. There can be no socialism without collective ownership and democratic management of the means of production. The former USSR took a major step in the direction of collective ownership but a bureaucratic elite controlled the state and drained life out of society. Socialism in the twentieth-first century must be democratic, put average people at the center of society, and give priority to sustainability. And the rise of the socialist state must be of such socio-cultural nature that it inaugurates an authentic cosmopolitan horizon.
Alexandra Boutri: Today, the Left is in disarray while the far right is surging all over the world. Hard-right parties are most popular in many parts of Europe, although there is a ray of hope for reversing the trend on account of Viktor Orbán’s crushing defeat in last month’s Hungarian election. Why is the western left weak and disoriented when the problems caused to society by the policies of neoliberal capitalism are so destructive?
C. J. Polychroniou: There are no definite answers to that question. Moreover, the problematic of the political condition of the left in western societies is not new. The weakening of the western left has been long in the making. The traditional left undergoes a major ideological and political crisis with the collapse of communism in eastern Europe. Yet its decline had started as early as the mid-1970s and the 1980s. Take for instance the case of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). From the beginning of the 1960s to the end of the 1970s, the PCI was the largest communist party in western Europe, gaining a historic 34.4% of the vote in the 1976 parliamentary elections. Under the leadership of Enrico Berlinguer, the PCI had distanced itself from the Soviet Union and promoted “Eurocommunism,” an attempt on the part of certain western communist party leaders to reconcile parliamentary democracy with the transition to socialism and overcome the constrains of the Cold War. To further enhance the image of the PCI as a non-revolutionary party, Berlinguer also introduced the compromesso storico (the historic compromise), a proposal of an agreement between the Communist and Christian Democratic parties, for reforming the economy along capitalist lines and proclaimed his support for NATO.
Obviously, the leadership of the PCI felt that breaking away from the tradition of revolutionary socialism was the surest and safest path to power. But the experiment failed miserably. By the time of Berlinguer’s death, in 1984, the PCI was already losing support among the industrial working class and was officially dissolved in 1991 and then transformed into the Democratic Party of the Left. From the 1990s onward, left parties and conservative parties in western Europe became virtually indistinguishable. This is a key factor in explaining the decline of the western left. But this doesn’t mean that if the left had not become reformist and still clung to forms of socialism associated with the Soviet experience or with revolutionary Marxism that it would have become a hegemonic political power in advanced capitalist societies. Clearly, the western left needs to challenge capitalist social relations and hegemony but must also offer to the masses a convincing vision for an alternative socioeconomic order. It has yet to do so.
We must also recognize the fact that advanced capitalist societies are complex, multilayered systems, divided into several different classes. Class matters as much as ever, even if neoliberalism has reshaped the working class internationally. Moreover, while there is a widening social class divide, the class of the exploited remains fragmented. There is indeed a difference between a class “in itself” and a class “for itself.” In that regard, there can be no denying that the left has changed the way people think about exploitation, human rights, freedom, and personal identity, and has indeed “a great story to share about alternatives to capitalism.” But for various reasons, which include major structural factors, the ideological battle over capitalism and alternative worldviews has yet to be won. As Frederick Jameson once remarked, it appears that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”
Alexandra Boutri: What does the end of Viktor Orbán’s reign in Hungary mean for Trump and the far right in the US and globally?
C. J. Polychroniou: I do not wish to downplay the significance of this development but, at the same time, it is politically naive to think that it will have an impact on the way the Trump administration behaves. It is true of course that Hungary under Orbán provided inspiration for the MAGA movement and the far right across Europe. In fact, Orbán’s anti-immigrant ideology and immigration policy became the norms across Europe. But I would argue that Trump is far more dangerous than Orbán ever was. Orbán never denied election results, nor did he engage in acts of state-led violence. Orbán eroded the rule of law in Hungary and, for that, Trump thought he was a “fantastic man” and once even praised him as the “great leader” of Turkey. But Trump has already caused far more damage to US society than Orban caused to Hungary with his political shenanigans, and Hungary’s new prime minister is not a liberal. Nor do I think that Orbán’s defeat will have any impact on the political fortunes of the far right elsewhere. In Germany, the far right AfD has become the country’s strongest party. In France, Marine Le Pen’s far-right The National Rally (RN) is “already the biggest single opposition party in parliament” and its rise to power seems unstoppable.
Neofascism is on the rise, and the conservative/liberal/neoliberal establishment does not know what it will take to defeat it. It won't even address the very structural factors that gave rise to the far right. So far, the establishment in both France and Germany has confined itself to labeling RN and AfD respectively as “extremist” entities as if that will deter voters from casting a ballot for those parties. As far as I can see, it falls upon the left to defeat the rising tide of fascism once again.
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The Future of Democracy Requires an End to Fossil-Fueled Fascism
The fossil fuel industry is aligning itself with fascist forces to remain profitable. To survive, it is prepared to take the whole planet, as well as liberal democracy, down with it.
Apr 29, 2026
The fossil fuel industry is the most powerful and destructive industry in the history of the world. Right now the fate of our planet hangs on our ability to defeat the political power of that industry. It is ready to do anything, including making alliances with pro-fascist forces to maintain its ability to make profits. Understanding the insidious ways it has worked to undermine democracy will be helpful for protecting democracy and challenging the destructive actions of this industry.
Capitalism is the practice of putting profits at the center of how decisions are made about how to produce and distribute resources. Those with capital are able to shift social institutions to enable them to gain even more capital. Entities, such as corporations, come to be self-perpetuating agents whose only goal is profit making.
Capitalism existed long before fossil fuels. But for over a century, fossil fuels, and fossil fuel-based corporations, have been at the heart of capitalism. Fossil fuels have made energy plentiful, which has led to the development of forms of industry and approaches to agriculture that use a lot of it. As we are seeing with the war on Iran, fossil fuels have become the life blood that keeps the global capitalist economy running. Fossil fuel-centered corporations are some of the most powerful entities in the world.
Over time, and in many places, capitalism extracts profits, exploits labor, and despoils nature with very little force. It becomes a matter of course how the systems function. But the original forms of accumulation that allowed some companies to be enormously powerful, and to shape the regulatory world in which they operated, came from brutal expropriation. Capitalism began with slavery and colonialism and a willingness to do anything to make profits.
As the fossil fuel industry increasingly resorts to attacks on democracy to maintain its ability to profit, an important part of protecting democracy is exposing one of the biggest and most determined players behind the current attacks.
The fossil fuel industry has, from its beginning, supported violent overthrows and encouraged states to install authoritarian governments to ensure its ability to engage in extraction. Many of the places where fossil fuels are extracted have been controlled politically by brutal forces kept in power by so-called liberal democratic forces. We see this story in Mexico in 1911, in Iran in 1954, in Shell Oil’s despoliation of Ogoniland in Nigeria in the 1980s.
Outside of those extraction zones, for many years, and in many places, the fossil fuel industry was compatible with liberal democracy. The US was able to have a liberal democratic government, and most countries in the world could as well, as long as those governments supported political and economic practices that allowed for the profitability of powerful industries. The markets constructed to facilitate capitalist processes can generally function fine in collaboration with governments that allow for high standards of living, social safety nets, and civil liberties, as long as those governments have kept processes in place that allow for the extraction of profits. As soon as any government gets in the way of that ability, the so-called liberal democratic order that dominates the global economic system has been prepared to overthrow those governments to put new ones in place that are willing to act in its interests.
Retired General Wesley Clark has argued that US foreign policy has focused on keeping regimes in power that would support the continued use of the dollar as the currency used for trading oil—the petrodollar. By ensuring that regimes are in power that support the continued use of the petrodollar, the US is able to ensure that it has some control over the continued flow of the lifeblood of the global economic system.
Capitalism is compatible with democracy as long as that form of democracy allows the economic world to be dominated and controlled by markets, which are constructed in ways that make them immune from accountability. The fossil fuel industry has functioned in alliance with a nominally democratic US, as long as the US government has also engaged in military action when it was needed to keep the oil, and profits, flowing. It is new that the fossil fuel industry has been aligned with fascism in the US and other Western countries.
Fascism is a particular form of authoritarianism that grows when a capitalist elite worries that its power is going to be threatened by democratic forces. An authoritarian government is one that tries to control all aspects of society and close down dissent. It holds power closely in a small group and is not accountable to its people. Fascism is authoritarianism that runs on popular support. It emerges in contexts that require elections to hold governmental power, where the people are in danger of not acting in elite interests.
A fascist government generally creates in-groups and out-groups in order to get people to bond emotionally with its movement. It uses the power of the government, violence, and threats of violence to intimidate people into compliance. It acts in the interests of an economic elite while pretending to be anti-elitist. And it uses anti-intellectualism and attacks on media and other cultural systems to pull people into its way of thinking and feeling. It often harks back to a mythical past where the in-group had more power and prestige, and society was stable.
In the middle of the 20th century, Germany, Italy, and Spain had nominally democratic governments that were in crisis. The governments were not able to keep the economy functioning in the interests of elites. In the political chaos that comes from an economy that is not functioning well, parties emerge that use extreme racist nationalism to consolidate popular support for authoritarian regimes. It is that move, of using hatred to consolidate popular support, that distinguishes fascism from other forms of right-wing or authoritarian politics.
As the climate crisis has developed, people all around the world are working to shift how we meet our needs in society away from a dependence on fossil fuels. With clean forms of energy fully developed and ready to take over as the energy sources running our economies, the fossil fuel industry is in a fight for its survival. It is aligning itself with fascist forces to remain profitable. To survive, it is prepared to take the whole planet, as well as liberal democracy, down with it.
In the past, the industry has impacted US politics by donating to and leaning on both Democratic and Republican politicians. For example, the industry remains the largest donor to California’s politics, even as that state has a two-thirds Democratic majority. But as renewables become more economically competitive, and many forces are challenging their ability to profit, the industry is seeing a bleak future. And so, for many years, it has been participating in a broad set of challenges to democracy as a strategy to maintain the conditions needed to maintain its profitability.
The move toward fascism in the US has come as a result of the success of the Reagan Revolution’s attack on the New Deal and anything that remotely resembles socialism. The fossil fuel industry has been a part of that revolution every step of the way. There is a line of thinking that was crystallized in the 1971 memo "Attack on American Free Enterprise System," written by the soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. The Powell Memo outlines a blueprint for how to fight back against emerging challenges to corporate power. Oil barons and political activists the Koch brothers were influenced by the memo and went on to found the think tank the Cato Institute to promote a free-market ideology that argues against regulations on industry in general, and especially against environmental regulations that might impact the fossil fuel industry. It also argued against social safety net programs, such as the programs put in place under the New Deal. Other powerful think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation, have worked assiduously to promote that set of ideals. That organization was founded by Richard Melon Scaife, heir to a Gulf Oil fortune.
The work of these forces paid off with the election of Ronald Reagan and the triumph of the Reagan Revolution. That revolution challenged the power of unions, destroyed the social safety net systems developed under the New Deal, and rolled back environmental regulations and other limits on corporate power. It allowed inequality to flourish.
Part of what fueled popular support for the Reagan Revolution was the mobilization of racial resentments, used to encourage white voters to blame their precarious situation on people of color, especially on Black people. The Democratic Party decided to ride that wave, and Bill Clinton ran for the presidency on the idea that he would get rid of social safety net programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children and get tough on crime, coded in the public imagination as Black. The Reagan Revolution led to extreme pro-business decisions by the Supreme Court, such as Citizens United, which have further eroded our democracy. Many other court decisions over the past decades have allowed monopoly power to go unchecked.
The extreme free market form of capitalism engendered by the Powell Memo and the Reagan Revolution have led to a crisis in capitalist democracy in the US. As people’s lives have been made increasingly precarious by the lack of a safety net and by extreme inequality, they have been ripe for a revolt against the dominant system. In the 2016 election many voters favored populist Bernie Sanders and others favored right-wing pseudo-populist Donald Trump.
The democratic party decided to make its peace with the populists and began working for a return to support for some New Deal social programs as well as strong action to address the climate crisis. The Republican Party went all in on a pro-corporate fossil fuel dominated pseudo-populism, and won in 2016. That coalition won again in 2024. It did this by leaning hard on people's resentments against the system and elites, and by mobilizing people’s passions against imagined enemies, such as immigrants and trans people.
As the US has traveled this destructive path, the fossil fuel industry has walked right along with the Republican Party. The fossil fuel industry contributed heavily to the climate denial movement and the right-wing think tanks that linked climate action with the bogeyman of socialism. It has funded extreme right-wing politicians, including President Trump. It wrote the chapter on energy in the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 policy manifesto. It is pushing for legislation to make itself immune from lawsuits to hold it accountable for the destruction it causes. Many of its former industry executives are in Trump’s cabinet. The only way for this dying industry to maintain its hegemony is to hide behind the mask of nationalism, a way to get people to vote for politicians who clearly act against their interests.
As we fight to protect democracy, we need to challenge any attempts to distract our attention from the forces causing our precarity. We need to engage in deep forms of solidarity, where we encourage others to not fall for political rhetoric that blames the wrong people for why we are experiencing extreme inequality, ecological devastation, war, and the unraveling of the systems that support stable lives.
As the fossil fuel industry increasingly resorts to attacks on democracy to maintain its ability to profit, an important part of protecting democracy is exposing one of the biggest and most determined players behind the current attacks: the fossil fuel industry. The future of democracy requires an end to the political power of the fossil fuel industry.
At this crucial moment in world history, it is incumbent on all of us to fight for accountable democratic politics, and to challenge the political imperatives being driven by an industry that is flailing and causing unprecedented devastation to our planet and our politics. It is up to us to consign it to the dustbin of history before more damage is done.
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To Stop Trump, the Pro-Democracy Movement Must Center Workers
Marches alone won't beat authoritarianism; the movement has to fight where working people already fight.
Apr 19, 2026
Last month, 8 million people marched in the largest single-day protests in US history for "No Kings 3." More than 3,000 rallies were held across the country in a “record-breaking” display of opposition that an estimated 1 in 50 people participated in.
To translate that march into a movement, the fight to have your voice be counted is one working people have to take up every single day. The warehouse worker getting a Sunday night text saying they need to be in tomorrow even though she requested that day off for her daughter's physical therapy. The tenant whose rent jumps $200 with no explanation.
For working people, those fights start at work, in their neighborhoods, and at the polls. To have a successful pro-democracy movement in the United States, we must recognize working people's struggles as central to stopping authoritarianism, not separate from it.
I'm the founding executive director of Organized Power In Numbers (OPIN). Before that, I helped lead the campaign to win Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and organized car wash workers in Los Angeles. Lofty speeches about democratic norms don't move working people. Winning does. Fighting for power at work, increasing the minimum wage, lowering utility bills, and providing free healthcare are the same as fighting for democracy.
Our hope for defending democracy is in a movement of the multiracial working class that wins material gains and builds solidarity across race, industry, and immigration status.
Signing a union card is often where working people who have been systematically disenfranchised first experience democratic power. They vote on contracts, elect leaders, and make collective decisions. Winning stable schedules, workplace protections against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, or living wages teaches people that power doesn't only belong to employers and landlords. It can belong to them.
In LA, I helped organize car wash workers, mostly undocumented. No overtime, no breaks, and bosses stole wages constantly. At one shop, the owner refused to let workers use the bathroom, telling them to urinate in a drainage grate instead.
After years of organizing, hundreds of car wash workers won a union contract with bathroom breaks and better wages. They built a network where workers understood their rights. When one shop faced retaliation, workers from other sites showed up.
However, not all workplace organizing automatically builds that larger sense of power. Some unions negotiate good contracts and go quiet when ICE raids their members' neighborhoods, when states close polling places, or when Black women lose 319,000 jobs in the public and private sectors. Focusing only on workplace interests without connecting to the bigger fight against authoritarianism leaves those union members isolated and feeling powerless.
When President Donald Trump tells workers they’re poorer because immigrants took their jobs and no bold labor movement responds, the resentment goes toward scapegoats instead of the billionaires responsible. That’s how authoritarianism grows.
To win against fascism, candidates, campaigns, and movements will have to connect with and run on the agendas that matter to working people.
At OPIN, we've reached more than 27 million poor and working-class people in the Sunbelt over the last six years. Through thousands of organizing conversations, the common thread was that housing costs, groceries, and utility bills keep them up at night. We organize our campaigns around what workers need: clear pathways to dignified jobs and stronger communities, not lectures about civic duty.
That’s not just good organizing strategy. History shows that authoritarianism is stopped when labor and democracy are bound together. Our hope for defending democracy is in a movement of the multiracial working class that wins material gains and builds solidarity across race, industry, and immigration status.
Countering the power of bosses and landlords builds a base of people who won’t accept it from the White House either.
That’s the force that can beat fascism. And it’s the same force that showed up on March 28 for No Kings 3.
Now we need those movements to merge, for more of us to move, to take risks collectively, for all of our well-being.
Labor can’t advance while ignoring the assault on democracy. And the pro-democracy movement can’t ask working people to defend abstract principles while they’re still fighting for a voice of their own. We need higher wages, stable schedules, and a voice on the job alongside the solidarity and political power to beat authoritarianism.
That’s why labor and community organizations are planning for a day of action on May 1 around taxing the rich, protesting ICE and illegal wars, and expanding democracy, all together. It's the only way to win.
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