The New Global Fascist Bloc: Part II; Culture, Aesthetics, & Political Shifts, a) Under the Radar Fascism.

Politics is becoming more like reality-TV everyday. The aestheticisation of our politics is changing the face of our political landscape & in so doing hiding much of the fascist messaging that is contributing to the rise of right-wing culture & the disintegration of our democracies & freedoms.

A Trump rally at Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2019. Image from Commonweal by Anthony Lanzilote at Bloomberg/Getty.

‘The most successful pop idols and demagogic political leaders understand that they are not simply objects of fascination, but vehicles for the audience’s own self-expression. To truly succeed, they must become a product and a platform on which their audience’s fantasies can be projected. Their power comes not from premodern distance or veneration but from an imagined intimacy. Whereas loyal subjects kneel before their sovereigns, modern audiences reach out to touch their stars. Stars don’t absorb: we don’t imagine them in a transcendent world that we might step into, forgetting ourselves in the process. Instead, they are absorbed, themselves becoming a kind of media through which we express and understand ourselves.’