Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Violence, soaked in blood and stripped of shame, has become the defining language of governance in the age of Trump and the global resurgence of authoritarianism. Across the globe, democracy is in retreat, and with it, the very notion of moral and social responsibility. In its place, we find a brutal political grammar scripted by modern-day barbarians, disciples of greed, corruption, racial purity, ultra-nationalism, and permanent war. Compassion is mocked as weakness. The social state is vilified and hollowed out, derided in the language of a deranged anti-communism. And policies that produce mass suffering, engineered by the powerful and shielded by the myths of meritocracy and social Darwinism, are deemed not only acceptable, but inevitable.

Among the MAGA elite, democracy is no longer a cherished ideal but a target of scorn and contempt. Echoing Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, democracy is now replaced with illiberal democracy, with its call to eliminate racial mixing and unleash a torrent of repression against free speech, universities, the press, and organized dissent. In this case, fascist politics and strategies have become the new governing norm. Embracing the playbook of ruthless dictators such as Putin and Orbán, Trump expands presidential power, wages war on the rule of law and dismantles democratic institutions, especially those that nurture critical thought, all the while feigning uncertainty about whether the Constitution even applies to him.

Trump’s financial backers and ideological allies, like Peter Thiel, openly endorse authoritarianism, with Thiel bluntly declaring that freedom and democracy are no longer compatible. Trump’s sycophantic enablers Elon Musk and Steve Bannon pay hollow tribute to democracy by offering their followers Nazi salutes. As Judith Butler astutely observes, too many in positions of power, politicians, powerful lawyers, academic administrators, and the financial elite, surrender to fear, greed, or corruption, allowing cowardice to silence their conscience. In doing so, they “proclaim the inevitable end of democracy at the hands of authoritarianism, effectively giving up the struggle in advance.” Without any sense of irony, Theil, Musk, Bannon and others proclaim themselves to be champions of freedom, but the only freedom endorsed by this group is for white Christian nationalist and rich billionaires-a notion of freedom rooted in racialized authoritarian impulses. These are authoritarians drunk on power in the service of violence and domination. What they despise is any embrace or articulation of power as both a moral force and force for radical change.

We are not adrift in a moment of historical ambiguity, nor suspended in a mere transition between epochs, as some would have us believe. The notion of uncertainty has been shattered by an era fueled by the passionate mobilization of fascism. This intoxicating force has seduced millions with its lies and emotionally charged racism, redirecting their economic anxieties into a maelstrom of hate and the false swindle of fulfillment. Fascism from below does not merge with fascism from above, it thrives in the abyss of misplaced rage. The once-clouded vision of what America has become is now as clear as day. The ghosts of the past have returned, cloaked in bloodlust, armed with a language of........

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