Naomi Klein, Astra Taylor, and End Times Fascism

The dynamic duo of Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor have shot a compelling flare into the darkened sky over Gotham City (“The rise of end times fascism,” The Guardian, 4/3/25). Yes, there’s a lot of authoritarian apocalyptic cant in the air these days. These bat ladies sort it out into two largely distinct but colluding camps—one religious, the other secular, and both “apocalyptic” birds of a feather. But not so fast.

Although we can appreciate the unfolding scary narrative details, the point is as easily summarized as is the predictable “Donnie Two Dolls” rationale of the coming sacrifice to be demanded of the so-called spoiled children under his reign. The Donald was of course, and continues to be, a hybrid Elmer Gantry/Wizard of Oz fraudy-pants gaslighting CPDAJ Dusk of Everything nonsense out his fat ass. Unfortunately he’s even more dangerous than the two bat ladies credit him—he’s actually a true believer in both the CPDAJ dogma that preceded him and the Orange Jesus reality TV role he’s assigned himself in his own ultimate Passion Play. To wit, we can’t just pull open the curtain and expose him as fake news to the MAGA faithful although again, once more, video after video after video overwhelmingly confirm otherwise. As with Harpo Marx, who you gonna believe? The tired old establishment media and academic drones? Or your own eyes?

And we can also add to the Clear and Present Danger Army of Jesus the inevitable domestic right-wing fringe elements that cling to the coattails of the social, cultural, theological, and political evangelical rebellion of the last half-century, as they did on January 6th. (Which isn’t to suggest they aren’t believers also. Re: prints of the iconic Warner Sallman “Head of Christ” painting hanging on the walls of their meeting venues {Paradise Joe’s, p. 290¹/ “Oath Keepers somewhere in Arizona. . . ,” The Dusk of Everything. . . . , p. 212²}.) Just pinch any of them, as I have; virtually nine out of ten buy into the biggest lie of all, with slippery slope baby turtle falsehoods trickling down the rest of the way.

And so what about this other so-called secular stream of authoritarian “Fascists”? From the get go I quite naturally wondered, secular? About “secular Silicon Valley elites” and other billionaire “bunker” builders we’ll have to give the bat ladies the benefit of the doubt, for now.

But here’s what a quick glance tells us about two of the most infamous of these “secular” autocrats.

Hungary’s Viktor Orban, at whose altar Tucker Carlson worshipped, from Wikipedia:

Since 2010, when he resumed office, his policies have undermined democracy, weakened judicial independence, increased corruption, and curtailed press freedom in Hungary.[1][2] During his second premiership, several controversial constitutional and legislative reforms were made, including the 2013 amendments to the Constitution of Hungary. He frequently styles himself as a defender of Christian values in the face of the European Union, which he claims is anti-nationalist and anti-Christian. His portrayal of the EU as a political foe—as he accepts its money and funnels it to his allies and relatives—has led to accusations that his government is a kleptocracy.[3] It has also been characterized as a hybrid regime, dominant-party system, and mafia state.[4][5][6][7] {emphasis added}

And Romania’s George Simion (“Hard-right candidate Simion set to secure decisive win in 1st round of Romania’s presidential redo,” The Associated Press, Seattle Times, 5/5/25), also from Wikipedia:

According to the party's website, AUR's ultimate goal is to achieve the unification of all Romanians "wherever they are located, in Bucharest, Iași, Timișoara, Cernăuți, Timoc, Italy or Spain.” It has four self-described pillars: family, nation, Christian faith, and liberty. [107] [48] AUR supports the unification of Moldova and Romania and has been accused of being ultranationalist, far-right, opposed to same-sex marriage, anti-mask, anti-vaccine.[48] and Magyarophobic.[51] {emphasis added}

As with Vladimir Putin, they despise the Western enlightenment, principles of Laïcité, and liberal democracy—all dismissed as scourges upon the earth, particularly in comparison with their own Eurasian ethnocentric orthodoxies. Together, they spew vomit over democratic egalitarian globalisms, over any powder-puff New Testament universalism. Not their bracing full metal jacket CPDAJ. (As outlined in my own “Sowing The Seeds of Love: The Real Conspiracy Theory. Why have Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, Tucker Carlson, and their MAGA Republican Party accomplices become the willing dupes and apologists for Vladimir Putin? And how do Ginni Thomas & Mark Meadows fit into the mix?” {original 3/7/2022} )

All told, digging deeper, we discover a common ideological dynamic in play here. We see it in the seemingly inexplicable bond between Donald Trump and evangelicalism, however odd that shotgun marriage appears at first glance from the outside. For instead observe how the very same personal grievances and resentments, dysfunctions and drivers, mirror the larger social and cultural grievances of disenchanted MAGA followers. They a healthy portion of the American electorate. Microcosm and macrocosm fitting like a glove. As Max Weber might frame it, the very same ideological complexes of meaning and motive generating a shared complex of significance. As in two terms now of the evangelical-driven-and-infested administration of Donald Trump. And so the individual disease and dysfunction of the Orange Jesus reflects the larger national ideological dysfunction and disease of American evangelicalism, and vice-versa. They are one and the same. E.g., Paula White, the prosperity-theology televangelist, who few realize occasionally held court for years in her own Trump Tower suite (along with Putin’s assets), now occupies a similar redoubt in the White House. But, of course, he’s just using those evangelicals. Right, and if chickens had lips they would sing. Look up Jay Sekulow, the only lawyer Trump’s kept around and actually’s paid in full. As in that film, Don’t look up. Certainly not the establishment media and academia.

Similarly, although to a lesser degree, our uniquely American cancer has metastasized. “Armageddon complexes,” have, like polio, spread, surfacing here and there elsewhere. Note “complexes” pregnant with meaning and motive, venting shared grievances against the pleasures and practices, the life-enriching cultures, of the Western “World.” Christian and Judaic Zionism, Islamic Shiism, Indian Hindutva, along with the Eurasian gangsters mentioned above. Weber again, our best diagnostician: these ethics of ultimate ends, hovering on the cusp of the deepest black hole of all, poised to push everyone and everything over into the darkness largely of their own making. For this is what ideologies do, accelerate things.³ And hypostasize the dangers—the omnipresent “others”—lurking around every corner. They marshall and unleash Clear and Present Danger Armies of Jesus in all their various ultimate ends strains. Accordingly, to my way of thinking, religion—not money—is the root of all evil.

What a wonderful world we could have without it, without them. Think Scandinavia, The Nordic Theory of Everything. . . . Leaving your infant in a pram outside your flat on the sidewalk for as long as you’d like, not a care in the world. Or in my marvelous Spain, daughters out walking around past midnight in working-class Tetuán. Immigrants everywhere. Just about as good as the human species is capable.

Then again, I recall someone—perhaps it was even Bill Gates, personal hijinks notwithstanding—a couple decades ago observing that globalization had actually shrunk world poverty in half, with perhaps even an encore to follow. Too bad we can’t go back there and then, start all over again, armed with what we know now.

Unfortunately, it could very well be that we may confront, as R.E.M. sang it, The End of the World as We Know it.

Actually, my money’s still on AOC and/or her ilk. Here’s hoping for a female FDR rising from the ashes of MAGA Trump—from out of our midst, from a restaurant in the heart of Brooklyn no less—to the White House. And Sara Bareilles making another musical about it. The really New Green Deal. As one fellow confessed long ago, caught weeping in the street by a reporter upon news of the death of FDR: “Did you know him, you are so upset?”

“No, I didn’t know him. [But] He knew me.”

These days, here’s hoping for “No, but she feels me.”

1. Paradise Joe’s: A Cultural Sociology of a Christian College Community—An Exploration into the Meaning and Significance of American Evangelicalism (Bookbaby, 2020 / 2nd revised edition 2024)

2. The Dusk of Everything: Understanding the Social, Cultural, Theological, & Political Origins of the American Evangelical Rebellion of the Last Half-Century (2024). Appendix: “The Myth of the Great Replacement Theory: Why Robert Pape Is Wrong.” {In submission}

3. “Now I should explain what I have in mind by the phrase ‘ideological heart.’ The term, ideology, has been used so loosely and carelessly at times to render it almost meaningless. When I write of an ideological dynamic I am referring to an acceleration of meaning and motivation. For our purposes ideology represents an extraordinary source of meaning and motivation employed in the aggressive promotion and/or defense of a particular group, community, society, or ‘worldview.’ To my way of thinking, a worldview is not in and of itself ideological.” (The Dusk of Everything. . . , op.cit., 80.)