Vulnerable scapegoats
I’m watching Naomi Klein’s video How Modern Fascism Works on YouTube and she has just described how fascism directs anger toward the weak. This isn’t the first time I’ve come across this, so I’m noting it down:
Fascism always emerges from moments of crisis. It combines state power with popular passions to protect elites from the threats of redistribution and accountability. It does this by directing mass anger and frustration downward, away from the politicians and oligarchs at the top and toward vulnerable scapegoats.
Klein goes on to say that this puts the left in the crosshairs: Trump targets it as “the communist menace,” while Vance describes it as “poisonous resentment cloaked in the language of equality and justice and liberation to wreck what is beautiful and what is right.”
This perspective feels important now that the left-wing party Die Linke has won the election in Berlin and Elif Eralp is seeking to become mayor. These days, Eralp is facing somewhat similar accusations.
