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Trump’s tariff war is not about economic nationalism, it’s a desperate attempt to prop up a failing system through class warfare, digital authoritarianism, and mass repression. As capitalism stumbles deeper into crisis, the dominant class turns to protectionism, billionaire governance, and algorithmic control to maintain its grip, ensuring that workers, migrants, and the global precariat bear the cost.
Choice is meant to liberate us, but what if it does the opposite? In the shift from physical to digital media, the promise of having everything at our fingertips has eroded the way we engage with culture itself.
As the American empire stumbles towards decline, Mark Fisher’s analysis of capitalist realism, the slow cancellation of the future, where crisis is managed rather than solved, finds its ultimate expression in Trumpism, the rise of the billionaire tech elite, and the ruling class’s increasing reliance on authoritarianism and reactionary culture wars to sustain its grip. This article traces the roots of US decline back to the 1970s, when Nixon and Reagan dismantled the post-war social contract, paving the way for financial speculation, deindustrialisation, and the monopolisation of power by tech oligarchs, before examining how today’s political and economic landscape is setting the stage for fascism.
The age of algorithmic authoritarianism is here: governance has been outsourced to billionaire-controlled social media and AI systems that manipulate reality, suppress dissent, and enforce ideological obedience through predictive algorithms and digital surveillance.
America’s War on Terror may have ended, but its brutal legacy lives on as Trump resurrects its worst excesses, using Guantánamo Bay to detain migrants in a grotesque expansion of the carceral state.
The Trump administration’s second term is proving to be not a resurgence of American power, but a chaotic acceleration of its decline, marked by incoherence, reactionary bluster, and an open invitation for geopolitical adversaries to fill the void left by its retreat.
The UK government’s attack on dissent and protest rights echoes a long history of state suppression, revealing a deep fear of the power of a mobilised working class.
From silencing dissent to expanding state powers, the Conservative government is pursuing an increasingly authoritarian agenda that should deeply concern all who value human rights and democracy, argues Simon Pearson. Their inflammatory rhetoric and restrictions on protests, speech, and accountability mechanisms reflect a dangerous slide towards illiberalism.
The ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas has sparked heated debate globally, with some accusing critics of Israel’s actions of being antisemitic. This argues for nuance in understanding the crisis, differentiating between legitimate critiques of state policies and bigotry, and calling for ethical consistency in advocating for human rights on both sides.
On a seemingly ordinary Thursday, at the time-honoured Glyndebourne opera festival, an unexpected interlude of protest emerged. In the sanctuary of the arts, amid the melody of Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, a dissenting chorus brought the opera to a standstill. Sparked by the cause of Just Stop Oil, the interruption blended a traditional form of high culture with the pressing concerns of our era. This is the narrative of that day, a symphony of dissent resounding from the grand opera house to the streets of London.
In the vanguard of dissent, demanding justice, a new breed of rebels is rising, and their fight is our fight. Their actions carry the echoes of a movement that stood firm in the face of oppression more than a century ago—the Suffragettes. Today, we draw parallels between these trailblazers and the Just Stop Oil protestors, not to dilute the significance of either struggle but to highlight the enduring power of civil disobedience in the quest for justice.
Amidst the relentless hum of an oppressive state, the silenced voices emerge, defiant whispers cutting through the smoke of the Molotov, a testament to the indomitable spirit of resistance.
In a world reminiscent of Kafka’s nightmares, the arrest of a French publishing executive has cast a long, ominous shadow over the fragile nature of free expression. Ernest, the foreign rights manager for Éditions la Fabrique, found himself entangled in the suffocating coils of the state’s overreach as he was arrested. This ensnarement occurred at the behest of the French government, employing British anti-terror legislation as their instrument of control.
In the twilight of the Fifth Republic, France is engulfed in a crisis sparked by President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform, which has faced widespread opposition from unions and the public. Despite the Constitutional Council’s validation of the reform, the people’s fury burns bright, igniting massive protests and calls for broader social and wage reform, the end of the Fifth Republic, and radical democratic measures. The future of France remains uncertain as a new dawn awaits.
In the pulsating heart of a divided France, the shadow of Damocles looms as the nation braces for a verdict on President Macron’s contested pension reform plans.
As the neoliberal order crumbles beneath the weight of its own contradictions, a chorus of global protests heralds the birth of a new era, forged by the indomitable spirit of a disillusioned generation.