By Liam McCrorie
If I were to tell you 10 years ago that fascism would be on the rise again soon, I am sure you would not believe me, or at least have a hard time believing me. I would have a hard time believing that as well, 10 years ago I would have said that we are living in one of the most progressive times in history. People in marginalized groups were getting more rights and gaining better standings in society. But with all this progressiveness, came push back from the far-right. And by today this has manifested itself as fascist and far-right groups popping up all over the world. These groups that seem to be all about taking rights away from people seem to be gaining a lot of traction, but why?
Fascism, and fascist parties have always had their supporters, but not to this degree. Typically, far-right groups would only have small followings of mainly white men, but now we can see men and women of all nationalities supporting far-right movements. For example, the Latinos for Trump movement, a large group of Latinos who supported and voted for Trump, even though Trump had so many anti-immigration policies which affected many Latino people in a negative way, such as building a wall across the Mexican-U.S. border, and separating families at the border. Women are also supporters of these far-right movements, typically Christian women who want to block other people from access to rights, to be more in line with the Bible. Think of what happened with the Supreme Court back in June when they overturned Roe v. Wade.
By now far-right political parties are part of the norm and are seen everywhere, we can definitely say that there is a rise of fascism sweeping the world. Lately we have seen the Italians elect the first fascist leader since Benito Mussolini. Giorgia Meloni leads the Brothers of Italy party a far-right political party with neo-fascist roots. Although she denies the party is fascist, her policies and actions speak otherwise. The party is fervently against same-sex marriage and for LGBTQ couples to adopt children. They are anti abortion and hold up other Christian values they believe to be important. Meloni is also extremely anti-immigration, just like other right wing parties, and she even is a believer and spreader of the Great Replacement Theory, which many fascist parties rely on to attract a base of white nationals who hate immigrants.
Meloni is just one of many far-right leaders who are gaining a lot of popularity, and in her case becoming leader of her nation. There was Donald Trump a few years ago, who was extremely far-right and used populism to gain popularity with the voters, promising to ‘Make America Great Again’ by fixing the economy and getting rid of immigrants and ‘others’, who are a threat to society. And in Sweden the Sweden Democrats are one of the biggest parties, and they have Neo-Nazi roots, and have similar policies to Meloni and Trump, mainly to stop immigrants from coming to their country and ruining it for the white people who already live there. There are many other far-right populist leaders like Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, and even in Canada far-right groups are beginning to get some traction. The Peoples Party of Canada is a fairly new party, only founded in 2018 by Maxime Bernier, who is also their current leader. While not as extreme as some other parties, they are still looking to reduce immigration in Canada, as well as doing less to combat global warming, all in the name of a better economy.
The economy seems to be the biggest factor in why people seem to be attracted to the far-right, and if the economy is working good for them then they can look past the more extreme policies some of these parties want to implement. This is seen everywhere like the Latinos for Trump, who by all means should hate Trump, but instead will look past all his racist and anti-immigration rhetoric, because he is building a better economy which could help them as individuals, even if it is damaging to Latino communities as a whole. These far-right leaders are on the rise all over the world for a variety of reasons and are gaining more and more popularity by the day. Its hard to say what will happen in the coming years but the rise of Fascism is making the future look very worrying.
Hate 2.0 