The rise of the far right and fascism and raises big questions of why this has happened, how and to what extent mainstream politics has failed, and what can be done in the short and longer-term.
The rise of the radical right is a symptom of bitterly divided, unequal, insecure societies and failed democracies. We have been let down by mainstream politicians and politics. Unless we hear the alarm bells and wake-up and start creating in Scotland, the UK and the West a politics of activism, deepening and defending democracy, anti-racism and a new international solidarity, then the demagogic politics of Trump and Orban and others are harbingers of a new age of darkness and brutality.
Journalist Paul Mason believes the forces of the left have to draw from the lessons of the Popular Front which fought fascism in the 1930s in France and Spain and again “turn anti-fascism from a tactic into an ethos”, but that cannot be about defending the failed democracy and economic and social status quo of the present.
A world that prioritises, and gives free rein to a handful of outrageously privileged individuals (typically ageing men) who can indulge their fantasies of global domination, blatantly denying human rights and global warming, while the rest of humanity tries to make the best of it and to survive as best we can. We have already been warned.