Fighting Fascism at The End of The World

Tell the truth these days, and you instantly get accused of being "negative." Sometimes, I'm tempted to sugarcoat everything and make promises I have no evidence to support. Then I remember…

If we can't even tell each other the truth, then what chance do we actually stand against any of the threats we face?

The answer is simple:

None.

That's why I continue to talk about Covid. It's why I continue to talk about the plausibility of industrial collapse within the next 10-15 years, as well as the likelihood of human extinction by the end of the century.

Before we get too far, let me offer a preface. When "doomers" like us talk about these uncomfortable subjects, we're not telling anyone to give up. We're asking them to do better. We're asking them to be more honest. We're asking them to try harder. When someone responds by calling us names or accusing us of being "negative," we see that for what it is—an excuse.

For me, there's no point in talking about resistance to capitalism or fascism without acknowledging several core realities. First, there's an airborne virus circulating around the world that has already disabled tens of millions of adults and children in the U.S. alone. These aren't just facts pulled from articles. I know dozens of people who are grappling with Long Covid, who simply won't talk about their condition with anyone, because they see what happens when you do. That’s not even counting those among this newsletter’s 20,000 readers.

Imagine fighting fascism as if the very planet we're living on isn't burning down before our eyes. Back in the 1940s, ecological collapse hadn't entered the chat yet. It's one thing to fight Nazis. It's quite another to fight them when you're running out of fossil fuels and millions of acres of forest are burning, not to mention biblical storms and floods destroying tens of billions in infrastructure every year.

What's the point of making bold claims about the inevitable demise of your fascist opponents if you're not going to address that? What's the point of beating fascists if someone's just going to continue spouting delusional claims that solar panels and wind turbines alone will save us?

Climate scientists have made it abundantly clear what we're facing over the next few decades. We're looking at 2-3C of warming, probably more in worst-case scenarios. That means a collapse of our agricultural systems and supply chains. If we're lucky, we'll be living with intermittent access to water and electricity by the middle of the 2030s. Does that strike you as fearmongering?

Read my tone.

Do I sound panicked about it? I'm not. I simply prefer not to live in denial of my own likely future. That's just being honest. That's choosing to face your circumstances rather than lying to yourself.

Look at what happens to anyone who chooses to swaddle themselves in comforting lies. It does terrible things to their mental health. Once someone starts accepting lies, there's no end to what they can rationalize and justify. The lies they tell themselves have to get bigger and bigger.

When someone encounters the truth and instantly accuses us of giving up, here’s what I think they’re really saying:

“If I can’t pretend to fight fascism, then I’m giving up.”

Look, it’s fun to cheer on Gavin Newsom for mocking Trump with AI memes or rooting for late night talkshow hosts. None of this is going to prepare us for the next pandemic, the next hurricane, or the next famine. It won’t stop the genocide in Gaza, or prevent it from happening in the U.S. when the tech oligarchy decides this or that strip of land belongs to them.

Here’s the biggest downer of all:

As history teaches us, fascist regimes cling to power for decades without overwhelming, violent intervention. Nobody on the right or the left in the U.S. wants to admit we probably wouldn’t have beaten the Nazis without Russia. They spilled immense amounts of Nazi blood, at immense cost.

There’s so much science, psychology, and history that goes unacknowledged when this or that pundit or influencer talks about beating fascists in the U.S. They don’t acknowledge our long, deep eugenic roots. They don’t acknowledge the appalling heritage of slavery and genocide that go back to this country’s very founding. Of course, it’s quite difficult to bring that up.

The minute you tell someone that our founding fathers were actually kinda fascist, they get angry and call you names.

They don’t want the truth.

Once again, it’s an excuse. It’s them saying that if they can’t pretend to fight fascism in a way that makes them feel good about themselves, if it’s harder than just showing up at a couple of protests, they’re not going to do it at all. And if that’s the kind of fighting they plan to do, then they’re the ones giving up.

Or maybe this is the biggest downer of all:

It’s gotten popular to tell people to physically throw themselves in front of ICE agents to stop arrests. Allow me to pose a rude question: If someone won’t even wear a piece of cloth on their face for a few hours a day, are they going to get thrown in jail to protect someone they don’t even know?

It seems doubtful.

Arguably, we could bring down this regime in a couple of weeks if everyone stayed home like they did at the beginning of the pandemic. Look at what that did to the stock market. But nobody is doing that…

In the end, how hard is it to buy less stuff? How hard is it to keep an eye on your water and electricity use, to at least try to use less? How hard is it to understand that even if it doesn’t make a concrete difference in the face of a billionaire’s private jet, it’s the rhetorical positioning that matters?

How hard is it to at least acknowledge that our founding fathers not only committed genocide against the Native Americans, but bragged about it? How hard is it to understand that Hitler used American history and political oppression as the blueprint for his own Holocaust plans?

How hard is it to agree that if you ignore or condone genocide in one part of the world, the very logic you mount to justify it will one day be used on you and your children, especially as resources become more scarce, especially as the climate crisis pushes governments over the edge?

How hard is it to put pressure on your own party, instead of defending every single thing they do and attacking anyone who expresses criticism?

Not very.

None of this is very hard to do. The hard part is always getting millions of other people on board. It’s getting them to realize that beating fascists won’t stop the collapse. That’s going to happen anyway. Fighting fascism doesn’t end with Barbenheimer summers when we go out and party while ignoring all of the deep, everpresent problems in the world. When everyone does that, the fascists win. Fascists feed off collapse. They feed off inflation and supply chain problems. They feed off poverty and loneliness.

That’s one fundamental difference between today’s Nazis and the Nazi’s of yore. Thanks to the climate crisis, there will never be a shortage of dire economic circumstances to fuel fascist takeovers.

Of course, collapse will be much more bearable for many of us without overtly fascist governments breathing down our necks, actively impeding every single thing we do to try and survive. That’s where you see the real difference between the two political parties. One of them will mostly ignore you and leave you to fend for yourself. I’ve reconciled with that. I’m okay with it, if we can’t do better.

The other…

The other will never stop finding ways to make life harder and more dangerous. They feel a genuine, sadistic pleasure in killing.

One party will mostly let you collapse in peace.

The other will never leave you alone.

This is where the future unravels into the governor of California shitposting and calling it resistance. Hey, if that’s all we get, a few belly laughs on the way to extinction, I guess I’ll take it. But don’t ever believe you’re the one who gave up, just because you were among the few who decided to be honest.

You’re not.

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