Fascism is not a law of nature

The oligarchy has not only accumulated wealth on a historically unprecedented scale – it has bought political and media influence and is now reaching for the power to define reality itself. An intricately interwoven network of right-wing media, investors, and platforms is gaining increasing control over what content circulates, whose voices are heard, and which realities are perceived as true – organized transnationally and deeply impacting Western publics.

This allowed a narrative to take hold that replaces politics with humiliation: toughness instead of solutions, dominance instead of dialogue, devaluation instead of analysis. Violence, oppression, and ruthlessness are glorified as strength by the hollow male cult of the new right – while anger is deliberately channeled against feminist women, against queer people, and against men from other cultures: as a threat, as a projection surface, as an enemy image.

Social democratic parties have done little to oppose this development. Quite the opposite. By depoliticizing social conflicts as lackeys of the oligarchy and introducing neoliberal policies, they have opened the field for right-wing actors.

The rise of far-right parties like the Alternative for Germany is therefore not an accident of history, but a symptom of a societal constellation that, while fueling inequality like never before, systematically conceals this fact through a rhetoric of meritocracy and achievement.

The oligarchy sells humiliation as a solution: as an outlet for frustration, as a simulacrum of control, as a deceptive form of strength. But vulnerability is not a deficit. It is not hardness that makes us human, but the ability to allow pain and move through it. Just as we must move through this dark phase of human history to find a better world.

Fascism is not a law of nature. It arises – and it can be stopped.

Resistance is possible. And necessary, if our democracies are to have a future.