{"id":617493,"date":"2026-09-16T04:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T04:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/617493\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T04:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T04:40:13","slug":"naomi-kleins-new-book-calls-out-end-times-fascism-what-is-this-and-whats-the-role-of-big-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/617493\/","title":{"rendered":"Naomi Klein\u2019s new book calls out end times fascism. What is this \u2013 and what\u2019s the role of big tech?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cA moment of reckoning has arrived for the West,\u201d reads a recent recruitment ad<\/a> for Palantir, a Silicon Valley firm that increasingly provides data-driven \u201cintelligence\u201d for intelligence, police and military agencies \u2013 as well as blue-chip corporations and non-profits. \u201cOn the factory floor, in the operating room, across the battlefield,\u201d the ad intones, \u201cwe build to dominate.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do we make sense of this convergence between advanced technologies and unapologetic violence, between \u201crational\u201d AI and a primordial view of the world that seems to revert to a language of blood and soil, friends and enemies, \u201cus\u201d and \u201cthem\u201d? In op-eds, talk shows, and political analyses, a single word has risen to prominence: fascism.<\/p>\n

Review: End Times Fascism And the Fight for the Living World by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor (Penguin); The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy by Gil Dur\u00e1n (Simon & Schuster).<\/p>\n

As a term, \u201cfascism\u201d is highly provocative, but seemingly untimely. It conjures up powerful images of jackbooted throngs of followers repeating chants and salutes, visions of black-lettered and blood-red banners. Yet these images are typically associated with political orders from a century ago in interwar Europe, a dusty relic from a previous age where \u201cevil\u201d was identified and annihilated.<\/p>\n

So what is fascism in the present? How can it help explain contemporary technological, social and political dynamics? Two recent books attempt to diagnose these conditions: End Times Fascism And the Fight for the Living World<\/a> by writer Naomi Klein and filmmaker Astra Taylor, and The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy<\/a> by journalist Gil Dur\u00e1n.<\/p>\n

End times fascism<\/p>\n

For Klein and Taylor, what we see now is not a repetition but an evolution. Fascist ideologies have been injected into a broader apocalyptic vision. <\/p>\n

\u201cEnd times fascism is a fascism embedded in an understanding that something immense is ending, and it responds to this discomfiting truth with unabashed cruelty,\u201d they write.<\/p>\n

In this vision, it is taken for granted that our economic, institutional and environmental systems are collapsing. Financial inequality is surging, with unaffordable houses and skyrocketing cost-of-living. Ecologies are crumbling, with earth systems hitting planetary limits. And that\u2019s just a few of these stacked crises<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"book<\/a><\/p>\n

But an apocalyptic mindset, grounded in fundamentalist religion, stresses that crisis is not to be fixed, but fast tracked. Dysfunction and disorder are necessary to arrive at something more glorious, the labour pains to a great rebirth. Here, apocalyptic religion and political fascism agree: the current world is corrupt and cannot be saved; it must be burned to the ground and remade from scratch \u2013 or escaped altogether, for a greater paradise.<\/p>\n

For its proponents, the end times are here \u2014 and only by embracing and accelerating this winner-takes-all transition will the chosen elite assure they can survive and even thrive. <\/p>\n

Klein and Taylor follow this thread across three core sections. <\/p>\n

Messianic Dreams traces the birth and rise of the Zionist dream, through to its present vision of genocidal reset in Gaza \u2013 where the glorious next stage<\/a> of one society is built on the ashes of another. The authors explain these moves are not just about \u201crighteous revenge\u201d or \u201cnational security\u201d, but have a distinct cosmological goal: to \u201cmove us all significantly closer to the prophesied end of times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Destruction in Sheikh Ridwan neighborhood following the Israeli forces withdrawal with the ceasefire agreement in Gaza City.
\n Mohammed Abu Samra Anadolu\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Escape to the Cloud unpacks big tech\u2019s fervent faith in AI superintelligence and the double-edged utopia or dystopia it would usher in. Here, claims of existential risk<\/a> resulting from \u201cthe singularity\u201d \u2013 where AI becomes sentient and human\/machine norms break down \u2013 are essentially self-serving, directing investment and attention to tech development. They prop up the power of the already powerful. <\/p>\n

(These claims of existential risk, which have been around for a long time, have been big news recently, with warnings from everyone<\/a> from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights<\/a> to former AI staff and the \u201cGodfather of AI\u201d.)<\/p>\n

And Prepper Nation steps through the push to bunker the United States against future threats and deport the alien others who are corrupting its purity. Here, elites ride out the apocalypse by establishing their own tech infrastructures, ethnostates, finance streams, and even their own (literal) bunkers. <\/p>\n

For Klein and Taylor, fighting end times fascism starts with fighting its core premise that the world is doomed: a sinking ship beyond saving. They locate hope in embracing \u201chereness\u201d and \u201cstaying\u201d, rather than leaving. Their plea is to embrace our broken reality and engage in the slow, messy work of improving it \u2013 rather than abandoning it (and democracy) to a scorched earth authoritarian order. <\/p>\n

Zohran Mamdani \u2013 the progressive mayor of New York City, who pulled off a remarkable grassroots campaign and embraces the city\u2019s diverse foods, festivals and communities \u2013 is held up as a champion of this \u201chere and now\u201d mentality.<\/p>\n

\"Zohran<\/a><\/p>\n

New York mayor Zohran Mamdani is held up as a champion of the \u2018here and now\u2019 mentality: improving our broken reality rather than abandoning it.
\n Adam Gray\/Pool\/AAP<\/p>\n

End Times Fascism is a thoughtful and engaging read that deftly weaves journalism into a cohesive premise about our current political condition.<\/p>\n

The authors deserve particular praise for making careful distinctions between the distorted versions of Judeo\u2013Christianity weaponised by fascist entrepreneurs \u2013 a blend of Holy war and culture war fought by the Chosen \u2013 and mainstream understandings of doctrine. <\/p>\n

Indeed, as the book explains, it was longstanding Christian injunctions to love thy neighbour \u2013 including the migrant \u2013 that partially motivated Minnesota\u2019s antifascist pushback to ICE deportations<\/a>. Churches and faith organisations took part in protests, set up community kitchens and offered aid. Far-right fundamentalists, by contrast, cherry-pick the Bible passages they like, while ignoring core injunctions to \u201cact justly, walk humbly, and love mercy\u201d (Micah 6:8): to embrace the stranger, rather than expel them as Other.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Astra Taylor.<\/p>\n

Yet if the book represents the best of popular journalism, it also comes with its limitations. Klein and Taylor are resolutely focused on people, places and events, rather than attempting to unpack their ideologies in a more systemic way. The result is that end times fascism becomes linked to the actions of egotistical and powerful men, from politicians to tech titans. US President Donald Trump in particular is the common thread, appearing over and over again throughout. <\/p>\n

So when Klein and Taylor suggest, at the end of the book, that end times fascism is not about Trump, and will continue when these men disappear, their claim runs against the book\u2019s premise. Place powerful elites to one side, and end times fascism becomes difficult to envision. What does it look like when it moves off the front page and out of elite hands in everyday contexts?<\/p>\n

Nerd Reich<\/p>\n

In Nerd Reich, reporter Gil Dur\u00e1n, a longtime San Francisco resident, looks to Silicon Valley. He focuses on how \u201cthe world\u2019s richest men are building a new political order.\u201d Dur\u00e1n\u2019s primary antagonist is Peter Thiel (who also appears in End Times Fascism), the billionaire co-founder of PayPal and Palantir: \u201ca man fusing business, politics and religion into one terrifying bundle of power\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"book<\/a><\/p>\n

For Dur\u00e1n and others<\/a>, Thiel is the lynchpin for a new breed of Silicon Valley-driven fascism, whether concretely (through donations) or ideologically (through his books and speeches). Thiel has increasingly moved beyond the tech world to offer political diagnoses and future visions that find sympathetic ears in elite circles.<\/p>\n

Where do these ideas come from? Dur\u00e1n suggests they can be traced back to the Sovereign Individual<\/a>, a 1997 book of future predictions based on the transition to the information age, by former Times (UK) editor William Rees-Mogg and financial advisor James Dale Davidson. Strangely, Dur\u00e1n never really carries out a close reading<\/a> of this book he regards as an ur-text. Instead, he chooses to highlight some key claims and its general reception.<\/p>\n

Dur\u00e1n\u2019s circle of rich fascists ranges from technologists to politicians. It includes well-known figures like Elon Musk, Vice President JD Vance and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. But it also features lesser-known figures, like cryptocurrency entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan, who wants Silicon Valley to carry out an \u201cultimate exit<\/a>\u201d from the US altogether, and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who elevates the acceleration of \u201ctechno-capital<\/a>\u201d and denigrates democracy. <\/p>\n

Each of them, in their own way, has leveraged wealth from the finance and tech industry to grab political and social influence and push forward their vision of society and the state. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

For journalist Gil Dur\u00e1n, Thiel is the lynchpin for a new breed of Silicon-Valley driven fascism.
\n J. Scott Applewhite\/AAP<\/p>\n

What exactly is fascist about these individuals and their ideas? For Dur\u00e1n, tech fascism \u201cbundles powerful technologies\u201d like AI, crypto and social media \u201ctowards authoritarian goals\u201d that benefit a \u201csmall, interconnected group of oligarchs\u201d. They wish to privatise what is public and \u201celiminate democracy\u201d, he writes.<\/p>\n

And yet the book lacks a deeper or more systemic unpacking of tech fascism. What are its core values? How do these technologies actually carry out authoritarian goals? And what might this mean beyond power games in a US bubble?<\/p>\n

The closest we get to answers is two breezy paragraphs on page 240. They tell us tech fascism \u201cupdates this ideology for the AI age\u201d by controlling \u201creality through algorithms\u201d and launching the \u201cnext generation of killer robot drones\u201d. And it\u2019s all driven by a venture capital system that has \u201crun out of unicorns and must now hunt Antichrists to meet its unquenchable thirst for acceleration\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Gil Dur\u00e1n.
\n Simon & Schuster<\/p>\n

The strength and weakness of Nerd Reich, then, rests on its journalistic approach. Drawing on a decade of newsroom experience, Dur\u00e1n weaves in insider knowledge of Silicon Valley. <\/p>\n

He provides a play-by-play of San Francisco City Council election manipulation, for instance, where a flood of Big Tech money<\/a> aimed to flip local politics from progressive to conservative. And he serves it all up with visceral language \u2014 like \u201can image dripping in fascist cosplay\u201d \u2014 that leaves no doubt as to how he views these men and their manoeuvrings.<\/p>\n

The downside of this approach is that chapters fragment into dozens of \u201chuman interest\u201d style vignettes, with only a gossamer-thin thread to connect them. <\/p>\n

The reader wades through a whirlwind tour of names, dates and places. Garry Tan, CEO of venture capital incubator Y Combinator<\/a>. Sam Bankman-Fried and his fraudulent FTX<\/a> cryptocurrency exchange. Michelle Stephens and her Acts 17<\/a> organisation, which hosts events hoping to bridge technology and Christianity. Bryan Johnson, who believes he can live forever via products like his own bespoke \u201csnake oil<\/a>\u201d elixir. And Curtis Yarvin<\/a>, the political blogger whose illiberal ideas have found traction in Washington.<\/p>\n

In each case, we get titbits without a deeper throughline. How exactly does a long backstory on Yarvin \u2014 including his love life and use of psychedelics \u2014 shed light on his increasingly influential ideas about remaking the state as a startup? The reader must draw their own conclusions.<\/p>\n

Technofascism and everyday people<\/p>\n

In both these books, the lens could be described as the Big Man \u2013 the powerful politician, swaggering tech founder, or deep-pocketed venture capitalist who can leverage their immense resources to transform their visions into fascistic realities. This cast of strong antagonists lends itself to strong storytelling \u2014 concrete people who can be pointed to and called out.<\/p>\n

But this focus on unsavoury elites leaves some key questions unanswered. Where did these fascist energies originate? How have they been updated? What are the grievances and desires at the heart of this ideology? And how are these values packaged, narrated and circulated in ways that make them compelling to everyday people?<\/p>\n

Today, we are surrounded by platforms, models and algorithms that hold up a vision of reason and rationality. Yet politically, we see a return to myth, bigotry and barbarism. These twin forces are not a paradox but a program. Technofascism leverages advanced technology to bolster authoritarian ideals and regressive values that carve up the world along bloodlines, gender lines and borderlines. <\/p>\n

But how do these twin forces prop each other up? What role does the \u201ctechno\u201d in technofascism play? I see three core functions<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Technology augments, providing a practical outworking of fascist visions by operationalising difference and domination. Palantir\u2019s data-driven deportation<\/a> partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a perfect recent example of transforming fascist ideals into a concrete program of platforms, software and servers that can be leased and run.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A protestor against against Palantir\u2019s collaboration with the federal immigration crackdown is arrested outside their New York office.
\n Olga Fedorovai\/AAP<\/p>\n

Secondly, technology alienates. It creates a vacuum of meaning that is filled by powerful mythologies that address grievances and reimpose order on the world. Meta-narratives like the Great Replacement Theory<\/a>, suggesting non-white immigrants are replacing white populations, translate complex crises into tangible figures. Anti-immigration marches in Australia<\/a> were a recent troubling example. They transformed a complex set of pressures \u2014 from rising costs of living to climate anxieties \u2014 into a powerful myth with a single scapegoat: the migrant.<\/p>\n

Finally, technology manipulates. It creates environments that leverage desire while cultivating fascist ideologies over time. Manosphere influencers translate misogyny, insecurity and xenophobia into viral packages of content. Ex-radicals describe a pipeline effect<\/a> where media played a key role in nudging them towards more right-wing stances. Eventually, they arrived at violent, dehumanising visions that can only be described as fascist.<\/p>\n

Together, these books shed light on the fascistic energies that increasingly seem to permeate our present moment. This is not a problem for other places and times, but one that confronts us here and now.<\/p>\n

As one scholar stressed<\/a> after three decades of researching authoritarian personalities: \u201cI study normal folks, not Nazis.\u201d Grasping the core logic of this fascist phenomenon is the first step in combating and countering it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cA moment of reckoning has arrived for the West,\u201d reads a recent recruitment ad for Palantir, a Silicon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-617493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}