Beyond the Illusion: The Dark Dream of a Totalitarian Empire - CounterPunch.orgBefore even taking office, Trump has conjured grotesque visions of what he once called the dreams of a “unified Reich.” His delusions of grandeur, disdain for reason and truth, sycophantic worship of billionaires and despots, militarism, and embrace of white supremacy signal the rebirth of authoritarianism on a scale that recalls the horrors of the Third Reich, Pinochet’s Chile, and Putin’s Russia. The true outrage lies not only in Trump’s madness but in the cowardice, corruption, and complicity of the press, politicians, and pundits. These enablers-from Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos to the legacy media and Vichy Republicans, among others—are part of what Arwa Mahdawi in The Guardian calls the “obsequiousness Olympics,” all of whom are defined through their hollow platitudes and refusal to confront the sinister revival of history’s worst atrocities. While they offer cosmetic commentary and reporting, the world burns—children are slaughtered in Gaza, the specter of nuclear war grows, and fascism spreads like wildfire across the globe. Trump’s rhetoric of military invasions and mass incarceration of immigrants has been normalized, ignoring the historical consequences of such virulent messaging. This indifference underscores the erosion of democracy and the abandonment of democratic rights and civic responsibility.
The Machinery of Neoliberal Authoritarianism Silence, civic illiteracy, and the G.O.P.’s embrace of ruthless dictatorships have plunged the United States into a moral abyss. Algorithmic authoritarianism and neoliberalism’s “disimagination machines” have gutted the public sphere, eroding critical thought with conformity and turning truth into the enemy of politics and everyday life. Historical consciousness is now deemed as dangerous, and dissent is branded as treason. The impending horrors of Trump’s presidency are starkly evident in his escalating rhetoric of vengeance, labeling critics and political opponents as “the enemy within.” This is not governance—it is a declaration of war on democracy itself. Donald Trump is not the cause but the culmination of America’s descent into authoritarianism. As Chris Hedges aptly observes, “Donald Trump is a symptom of our diseased society. He is not its cause. He is what is vomited up out of decay.” This decay has been decades in the making. Since the 1980s, neoliberalism has unleashed a legacy of relentless misery, staggering inequality, systemic corruption, and an unapologetic allegiance to white supremacy and Christian nationalism. For generations, the United States has been willing to place a For Sale sign on its politics, institutions, and professed ideals. But today, we are witnessing a consolidation of power into “an ever-smaller set of hands”—a deepening and betrayal not just of democracy but of the very possibility of justice. Trump represents the endpoint of this trajectory: the embodiment of an unrestrained gangster capitalism that now clings to fascist politics as its final stronghold—a desperate, violent grasp for unchecked power amid a collapsing moral and social order. Democracy, once a beacon of promise, has been hollowed out. To many Americans, it no longer symbolizes collective aspiration but serves as a thin veil for the crimes of the financial elite. Trump is not an aberration but the inevitable endpoint of gangster capitalism—a system defined by moral rot, unbridled corruption, and the erosion of civic rights. Under its reign, everything—public goods, human dignity, even the future itself—has been reduced to a commodity, bought and sold to the highest bidder. It bears repeating: Trump is not the cause but the symptom of democracy’s unraveling. As Wendy Brown so astutely observes, the Democratic Party has failed to grasp the profound ways neoliberalism has corroded the very foundations of democratic life. She eloquently writes: Trump did not turn the nation in a hard-right direction, and if the liberal political establishment doesn’t ask what wind he caught in his sails, it will remain clueless about the wellsprings and fuel of contemporary antidemocratic thinking and practices. It will ignore the cratered prospects and anxiety of the working and middle classes wrought by neoliberalism and financialization; the unconscionable alignment of the Democratic Party with those forces for decades; a scandalously unaccountable and largely bought mainstream media and the challenges of siloed social media; neoliberalism’s direct and indirect assault on democratic principles and practices; degraded and denigrated public education; and mounting anxiety about constitutional democracy’s seeming inability to meet the greatest challenges of our time, especially but not only the climate catastrophe and the devastating global deformations and inequalities emanating from two centuries of Euro-Atlantic empire. Without facing these things, we will not develop democratic prospects for the coming century. Rise of the Totalitarian Subject What we are witnessing today is the rise of a reengineered “totalitarian subject,” forged in the wreckage of institutions that once upheld the common good, basic rights and civil liberties, replaced by machinery designed to sustain authoritarian rule. This subject is governed by fear, surrendering their agency to the grip of cult-like devotion and the iron hand of strongman figures. They are ensnared in a culture of ignorance, enveloped by the fog of anti-intellectualism, and animated by a disdain for difference and the Other. They are imprisoned in what Zadie Smith calls the dreams of a language of autoimprisonment and the blinding poison of consent. Their worldview is reductive, confined to rigid binaries of good and evil, where complexity is obliterated in favor of simplicity. This is a subject that values emotion over reason, exalts a toxic machismo that glorifies violence, and harbors a seething contempt for women, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, Black people, and anyone who does not conform to the narrow, exclusionary ideal of white Christian nationalism. Their identity is an unsettling fusion of economic, religious, and educational fundamentalisms, designed to crush critical thought and enforce conformity. The totalitarian subject thrives in a milieu of manufactured crises and engineered divisions, where cruelty becomes virtue and the lust for domination is mistaken for strength. This is not merely a political condition but a moral disintegration—a retreat from shared humanity into the sterile, unyielding embrace of authoritarianism. Under the GOP, the creation of the totalitarian subject—shaped by regressive values, stunted agency, and a warped sense of morality—intersects with a broader assault on the very meaning of citizenship. As Susan Rinkunas observes, the far-right’s xenophobic rhetoric has seeped into mainstream discourse, legitimizing calls to abolish birthright citizenship and redefining citizenship as a privilege reserved for white men. This authoritarian agenda is unmistakable in the GOP’s relentless efforts to dismantle foundational protections and rights, including the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and even the hard-won freedoms secured under Roe v. Wade. Together, these attacks hollow out the democratic ideals of inclusion and equality, leaving behind a fractured and exclusionary vision of America defined, as professor of constitutional law Michele Goodwin notes, by “a coalition of Christian fundamentalists, white nationalists, and power-hungry Republicans displeased that women and Black people have made gains in the modern fight for full citizenship.” The Struggle for Youth and Democracy Our fight is a generational one, waged for young people who are being systematically sacrificed at the altar of greed and authoritarianism. They are slaughtered by wars that enrich the few, brutalized as mere consumer pawns, shackled by oppressive debt, robbed of historical memory, and rendered disposable by a society that treats them as surplus. These are not isolated injustices but part of a broader assault on democracy itself, now hollowed out by gangster capitalism and reduced to a mere swindle of fulfillment. Oligarchic gangster capitalism, with its brazen consolidation of power and wealth, has overtaken neoliberalism as the dominant force masquerading as democracy. This ideological and economic rot will persist until the public rejects the false equation of capitalism with democracy. When money drives politics, and human rights are subordinated to capital accumulation, democracy crumbles—along with morality, justice, and the rule of law. Yet, even in the face of such devastation, hope endures. Hope and resistance, though wounded, remain the flames that keep the possibility of a better world alive. Without hope, there is only fear, complicity, and the stench of death. We must nurture this hope, transforming it into a collective will for justice, a vision for a multi-racial working class rising like a phoenix from the ashes of despair. This is not a struggle for the faint of heart—it is a ferocious battle requiring courage, vision, and mass action. The New Year’s Call to Resistance: Hope in the Face of Fascism As we step into a new year, the shadows of fascism loom large, threatening to extinguish the very essence of democracy, justice, and human dignity. Yet, in these dark times, we must cling to what Antonio Gramsci so aptly described as the “optimism of the will.” We are called not merely to resist but to envision and enact a transformative movement—a grand narrative of collective power capable of dismantling the death machine of oligarchic gangster capitalism and resurrecting the promise of a meaningful democracy. This is no time for passive despair. The horror we face must be named, confronted, and transformed into a collective force of resistance. The stakes have never been higher, and failure is no longer an option. The year ahead must be one of fierce struggle and unyielding militant, collective hope—a time when justice finds its voice again, the working class unites with social movements in acts of defiance and imagination, and a radical democracy rises anew from the ashes of authoritarian decay. Only through relentless resistance and the rekindling of solidarity can we stem the tide of despair and reclaim the dream of a just and equitable world—a democracy built on equality, justice, and freedom. The time to act is not tomorrow, not someday—it is now. We must wield the educational force of culture, universities, and every platform of communication to expose the machinery of fascist power, policies, and values, rendering them unmistakable and unignorable. Education must become the heartbeat of a politics committed to shaping ideas, transforming mass consciousness, and envisioning futures beyond the chains of domination. This is particularly urgent at a time when the left seems clueless about the role of education in shaping a subject vulnerable to the poisonous lure of fascism.[i] We must breathe life into the general strike, making it a weapon of both national and international resistance. We must bring the gears of militarization to a halt, dismantle the networks of domestic terrorism, and confront the oligarchic systems driving this march toward authoritarian ruin. Silence is not neutrality—it is complicity. Inaction is not prudence—it is surrender. This is not a time for hesitation but for mass struggle. The moment demands that we fight, reclaim the transformative vision of radical democracy, and revive solidarity as a political and moral force. We must unite to build a world where shared humanity triumphs over division, and where hope rises above fear. The stakes could not be higher: the future of democracy, the survival of justice, and humanity itself hang in the balance. The time to act is now. Notes. [i] While figures on the left, such as Cornel West, Robin D.G. Kelly, Jeffrey St. Clair, and Angela Davis, recognize the critical role education plays within dominant cultural apparatuses, there remains a noticeable gap in broader left discourse on this issue. Many progressive conferences, for instance, often overlook the inclusion of prominent leftist educational theorists in their programs. Similarly, only a handful of online platforms—such as Counterpunch, Truthout, Fast Capitalism, Rise Up Times, Common Dreams, and Uncommon Thought—consistently emphasize education as a vital political force. Bridging this gap is essential if the left is to fully engage with education as a transformative tool in the struggle for justice and democracy. Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. His most recent books include: The Terror of the Unforeseen (Los Angeles Review of books, 2019), On Critical Pedagogy, 2nd edition (Bloomsbury, 2020); Race, Politics, and Pandemic Pedagogy: Education in a Time of Crisis (Bloomsbury 2021); Pedagogy of Resistance: Against Manufactured Ignorance (Bloomsbury 2022) and Insurrections: Education in the Age of Counter-Revolutionary Politics (Bloomsbury, 2023), and coauthored with Anthony DiMaggio, Fascism on Trial: Education and the Possibility of Democracy (Bloomsbury, 2025). Giroux is also a member of Truthout’s board of directors. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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