No I’m not catastrophising.
The world is slowly lurching towards a fully fascist led America, India, Hungary, Russia, Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Argentina.
Instead people are either ignorant or blaming “wokeism”* for their problems.
I have no clue what to do and this is literally a car crash in slow motion.
I’m despondent because I’m going to be crushed under the boot when the time comes and my morals get in the way of my survival instinct.
Humans are repeating the mistakes of the past. It’s just so anxiety inducing.
*Woke is a useless term promulgated by fascists to dog whistle the things they really want to hate - feminism, socialism, LGBTQIA+, immigration, brown/black people, equality and diversity.
I hate to say this but I’ve honestly just gotten used to the idea at this point. I’ve been watching the people around me howling in support of fascism since about 2015 now and the more egregious these politicians crimes become the louder these idiots seem to howl for them. It’s been going so long that it’s just part of the background noise of day to day life now, and I’m tired of caring anymore. It’s fucking depressing.
How can we convince people now is the time to act? What more information do we need? I think most people are clinging to the idea everything is business as usual. As long as they can keep the lights on they wouldn’t want to upset the stability they’ve managed to make for themselves.
As a Russian who’s been thinking about what could’ve been done about Putin’s many moves towards authoritarianism, I say this: I don’t know. I dint think anyone knows either.
indsight is 20/20, so good luck trying to convince people to act now, before the far and distant future is here; it’s probably part of our nature to not be that much concerned with the long-term, as it’s the short- to mid-term that keeps us alive, i.e. fed, sheltered, hopefully healthy etc.
At this point, it feels like history is indeed very cyclical, at least society is, and now anyone left of outright fascism seems to be in minority, with many others either failing or refusing to recognise what’s likely coming. I don’t think it’s new, either - I’m sure people of our ages had things to compare their situation to during the Nazis’ rise to power and subsequent events, just like we look back to their times and wonder how in the world could we possibly let that happen.
It’s probably best to vote and to protest and to be politically active and all that, before the right-wing or some other authoritarian group manages to manipulate its way into your government, local or higher, and start doing all it can to make you not even think of voting or protesting or being politically active. The caveat is you just don’t have any guarantees that any of that is going to work.
What’s even more important to remember is the fact that we cannot come up with some universal solution that’s going to always work the best way possible in every political and economical and social circumstance. This is what makes recording history and experience so important - it will allow us and those that will be after us to analyse the multitudes of factors and tendencies that lead to things and hopefully figure out reliable and effective and predictable mechanisms for society to function and prosper in mutual respect, egalitarianism, support, etc.
My last take is probably a little controversial: I think we shouldn’t ostracise people we see as fascist or right-wing or authoritarian, etc., but rather be welcoming and supporting, giving them respect, community and opportunity to speak and be listened to with kindness and understanding; many turn to violent and inhumane ideologies because, well, they don’t value themselves, feel threatened, humiliated, afraid, or something along these lines. It doesn’t have to be true, because it’s about how people feel, and we must work with how people feel and influence that on emotional level so they feel like they being in a group that’s based on being “anti-woke” or just “anti-” something - that’s a dead end; they should feel like they belong to groups that envision future and prosperity, where people know they can be trusted and can trust, where they can respect and be respected. You may not like it, but you have to understand that the human psyche can be very flexible and eventually turn a person you could easily turn into a human-loving ally into a bloodthirsty fascist just because they couldn’t find their place anywhere else, so instead they’re easily picked up by a group that manipulates confused and lost people into a sense of community and belonging.
Fascism has to be the unappealing option for them, and that requires a mind healthy from trauma and loneliness, the lack of that feeling like you’ve been played and robbed of something you own - like some great historical period the mouthpieces promise to get you back into if you yell at teenage girls for wearing bright-colored hair and rainbow pins.
I agree with your controversial take, however it’s important to note that a lot of this fascist rhetoric relies on misinformation which is spread far quicker and further than the truth. And the neofascism that has taken hold is very in-group oriented (i.e. the concepts that the in group is by definition morally virtuous and thus can do no real harm, whereas the out-group is the opposite) which is difficult to break down with logic and rhetoric. That’s not to say it can’t be done, but in terms of conversion (purely as a metric, i don’t mean to be oberly reductionist) it will always be one step forward three back. And if they people don’t approach a conversation in good faith it can be downright impossible to get them to even fathom a differing perspective. What I’m saying is that the new breed of fascists rely solely on dogma and groupthink, and have been trained to reject any rebuttal or outside perspective. They took what the old fascists did well and optimized it and trained people in it for the past 70+ years.
Just look for people on the fence for voting and help convince them that it’s worth it.
That’s all you can do until you have to start shooting Nazis coming to murder you.
You can always go extreme and start guerrilla warfare ala IRA. Political murder has always gone a long way up until civil war starts. Just don’t be surprised when they start murdering back. It’s why voting is so important.