We are living in a Digital Gilded Age of Fascism
Winter Solstice came and went this past weekend. Now, light returns in small increments to our day until spring, when the sun will once again own the sky above us. Yet whether it is winter we now exist in or the summer to come, the darkness of fascism remains. Unlike a physical law, only humanity can return society to the daylight of a functioning democracy. That can't happen without a revolution, which would leave many of us dead because history teaches us that the entitled don't relinquish their plunder without a fight.
The Great Democracies of the West are down for the count, knocked to the canvas by the greed of their entitled classes who put profits before the well-being of society.
Democracy was asphyxiated by neoliberalism and the corporate right-wing news media that normalised fascism, racism, genocide and hate for the vulnerable.
Five or ten years ago, there was a creeping sense that things that made life pleasant: fair wages, affordable housing, and public health care, were near their end. But there was also a delusion which imitated hope- a political system corrupted by the influence of society's top tiers could be reasoned with, if the people mobilised around political parties in the centre. It was dumb fuckery produced by complacency and people who viewed themselves more as consumers rather than citizens of a democratic society.
After almost 365 days of 2024, hope that change for the better will come from the ballot box has been extinguished. Things aren't going to get better politically or economically in 2025 because we are now at the dawn of a new fascist age where people vote for revenge or a fear manufactured by the status quo that the most vulnerable in society will harm those who are better off.
Like in 1933, when Brother Can You Spare a Dime was at the top of the record charts, our suburbs and downtowns teem with homeless people. But unlike the 1930s, this time, there will be no Keynesian New Deal to fix the problem and save democracy. Instead, society has been conditioned by the press and the politicians that the “tramps, bums, hobos, drug addicts" did this to themselves and must be criminalised for the sin of going homeless during a digital gilded age where the wealth of nations is being trousered by the 1% as if it was the 1890s.
The Robber Barons of old have nothing on the conspicuous consumption of 21st-century Oligarchs like Jeff Bezos, who is reputed to be spending 600 million dollars for his upcoming wedding to a trophy wife. To be able to afford something so repugnantly lavish, you've got to be suppressing the wages of millions of your employees, destroying efforts to unionise your workers, and screwing your customers over with price fixing of Olympian proportions.
Since COVID-19, the World's elites have conditioned its citizens to accept mass death at home and abroad. They have conditioned us to accept less happiness in our lives. They have conditioned us to accept the dismantling of public healthcare. They have made us believe the housing crisis can be solved whilst housing remains a core wealth asset for the middle classes. They have convinced us that climate change can be stopped without changing capitalism's eternal need for growth. We were led to this dystopia we now call home in 2024 by a series of lies told to us by our so-called betters.
What is coming for ordinary people not in decades but over the next 36 months will be worse than that of the working classes in any past era. We will be under the boot of an authoritarianism Stalin could only dream about.
Remember, civilisation didn’t stumble into this shit hole called 2024. It was pushed into it by the elites and a corporate news media who acted as their pied piper. We are now in the muck and stuck fast in this encroaching authoritarianism. We, the meek, the anonymous, the many, can free ourselves from this political and economic darkness. But first, we must have the gumption to accept capitalism is killing us and the planet.
Thank you for reading my sub stack. Your help is needed because the cost of living crisis has become a merciless grind. During these past 36 months, I have posted over 500 essays, as well as excerpts from the unpublished works of Harry Leslie Smith - along with chapter samples from my book about him. My newsletter has grown from a handful of subscribers to 3000. Around 6% of you are paid members. I appreciate all of you but ask if you can switch to a paid subscription because your help is NEEDED to keep me housed and Harry Leslie Smith's legacy relevant. But if you can't all is good because we are sharing the same boat. Take care, and enjoy the holidays as you can this year. I did see good things coming in 2025. So, be kind to those you love.
Thanks for this John. This is the most cogent, simply stated descriptions I’ve seen, of what we face in coming years. Nonetheless, I hope you find some moments of peace and joy over the holiday. In the new year, the struggle continues!
Mr. Smith, you've written quite clearly and cogently here. I only hope that the "citizens" (i.e., consumers) who voted for this trumpery will wake up and see the evil put into action by their choice. When the trumpery (and I mean that both in the sense of Trump and his entourage and "philosophy" of fellow authoritarians, and in the sense of "showy but worthless finery; nonsense, rubbish; and deception, trickery, and fraud" - American Heritage Dictionary, 5th ed.), starts affecting people, especially trumpery voters, it is my sincerest hope that they look around and notice that EVERYONE *not* wealthy and entitled is in the same boat, regardless of race, creed, color, gender, etc. The people who are actually gaining at their expense are the 1% (or fewer) who dominate the political sphere via what a friend of mine has called "the corporate capture of the government."