Resisting Youth in the Age of Fascist Dream-Worlds

Hyper-capitalism is the death knell of democracy. It reduces everything to a commodity, monetizing and pathologizing every aspect of life. The blind faith in markets and unfettered individualism has dismantled the social state, ravaged the environment, and fueled staggering inequality. By divorcing economic activity from its social costs, liberals have obliterated civic culture, creating a vacuum filled by despair and alienation. Into that vacuum emerged a band of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, radical Christian nationalists, and a cruel band of misogynists and neoliberal fascists.

Let’s be clear: liberals have never escaped the shadow of Reagan, whose anti-government rhetoric and racist spectacles reshaped the political landscape, nor that of Milton Friedman, whose dogmatic worship of capitalism and contempt for social responsibility set the stage for decades of exploitation.[1] Liberals have not only failed to dismantle these legacies—they’ve deepened them. They accelerated the war on Black women, expanded the carceral state, gutted the working class with NAFTA, and under Obama, cozied up to bankers while millions of Americans lost their homes and livelihoods in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.[2]

 Instead, liberals clung to the isolating ethos of individualism and a myopic fixation on electoral wins at all costs, turning a blind eye to the loneliness and despair consuming millions of working-class people yearning for community and solidarity. In their neglect, they left an open wound, one that Trump exploited with his grotesque theater of hate. His fraudulent promises of “making America great again” cloaked a cynical swindle in the language of bigotry, lies, and the comforting rituals of spectacle, offering a hollow illusion of unity while solidifying a totalitarian nightmare rooted in the very structures of domination liberals refused to confront.[3]

Liberals bear significant responsibility for the rise of Trump and the MAGA movement. Their complicity lies in more than their failure to challenge the “manufactured ignorance” churned out by today’s totalitarian digital disimagination machines.[4] It is also rooted in their refusal to engage with how youth, people of color, and the displaced experience their suffering and name their realities.

For too long, liberals have failed to recognize education for what it truly is: not merely a service or a tool for economic adaptation, but the very foundation of democratic life. By reducing education to a set of instrumental skills needed to “compete in the global economy” and privileging standardized tests over critical thinking, they have stripped away the radical potential of learning while sabotaging any viable notion of critical pedagogy.[5] Education is not simply about preparing individuals for work; it is about preparing them for the struggle to shape the world. When we turn education into a factory for producing compliant workers rather than active, informed citizens, we sabotage the very principles of democracy.

In their haste to placate the demands of neoliberalism, liberals abandoned the transformative power of education as a vehicle for collective consciousness. They relinquished any serious commitment to the idea that education could—and should—be a force that fosters social awareness, critical inquiry, and solidarity. Instead, they celebrated the hollow rhetoric of “school-to-work” and embraced policies that treated students as nothing more than cogs in a corporate machine.

Too many liberals remained silent as the media—a crucial pillar of democratic society—was surrendered to a far-right agenda and a corrupt corporate elite. In the process, the media has become a tool of misinformation, distorting reality to serve the interests of the powerful. Right-wing media has not just fostered ignorance; it has crafted a society incapable of distinguishing fact from fiction, truth from lies, democracy from authoritarianism.

This is the legacy of liberalism’s failure to defend education as a critical practice for political engagement. By abandoning the radical potential of the classroom and turning a blind eye to the growing monopoly over information, they have paved the way for the erosion of democratic values and social relations. In an age marked by the resurgence of fascism, especially with the election of Trump, Americans find themselves in a world where ignorance is weaponized, and truth is under siege. Lost in the veil of spectacularized stupidity and lies promoted by the likes of Fox News, Newsmax, One America News Network, and Elon Musk’s X, it is almost impossible to image education as both a defense and enabler of democracy.[6]

Meanwhile young people act not only as cultural critics but also as cultural producers across a variety of platforms—from social media and podcasts to online documentaries, blogs, and art installations—creating new pedagogical spaces to educate and mobilize the public. These spaces are crucial in both raising awareness of the growing threat of fascism and advocating for the dismantling of entrenched systems—such as the influence of money, the Electoral College, gerrymandering, and other elements of a corrosive capitalism—that distort the promise of a radical democracy.

What is unforgivable is the liberal retreat into the mythic fantasy of an America that never existed. Historical amnesia has become a mass pedagogical weapon of depoliticization. This denial left the path wide open for a regime that embodies the darkest truths about the nation’s past and present. Now, we are left with a pedagogy of terror and ignorance—a cultural framework that normalizes violence and enshrines cruelty, allows the planet to destruct, accelerates the war on people of color and women’s reproductive rights. This is the “Third Reich of Dreams” Charlotte Beradt warned about, where the nightmare is both lived and embraced.[7]

Carlos Lozada, writing in The New York Times, captures a stark truth when he declares that neither Trump nor Trumpism are passing fads.[8] Trump and his MAGA movement are not outliers on the fringe of American identity—they are a reflection of what America has become. As Lozada insightfully observes, “Trump has changed us by revealing how normal, how truly American, he is.”[9] He adds that for far too long, the political establishment has clung to the comforting illusion that Trump’s behavior is abnormal, a deviation from the national norm. This belief is reflex, “a defense mechanism, as though accepting his ordinariness is too much to bear.”[10] It is a psychological mechanism meant to shield us from the uncomfortable reality that if Trump is ‘normal,’ then America must be, too. And who among us wants to be roused from the comforting fantasy of American exceptionalism? “It’s more comforting to think of Trumpism as a temporary ailment than a pre-existing condition.”[11]

Trump’s fascist dreamscape is on full display in his administration’s appalling plan to deport between 15 and 20 million undocumented immigrants from the United States. This policy is not just about immigration—it is an act of racial and class warfare, targeting people of color, the poor, and millions fleeing poverty and violence in Latin America. There is more at work here than the long tradition of xenophobia in the United States.[12] There is also the affirmation of the carceral state, which intensifies the criminalization of vulnerable populations, carried out by a state machinery designed to dehumanize and eradicate those deemed unworthy of citizenship.[13] This a form of domestic terrorism writ large as a white nationalist fantasy of exclusion and elimination. As Greg Grandin states Trump’s deportation policy amount to a “nationalization of border brutalism” that have the potential to become a murderous policy of  “extremism turned inward, all-consuming and self-devouring.”[14]

Leading this heinous project are Tom Homan, Stephen Miller, and Kristi Noem—hard-right ideologues determined to weaponize the power of the state against entire communities. For instance, Stephen Miller embodies the ideological extremism driving this policy. His declaration that “America is for Americans” chillingly echoes Adolf Hitler’s assertion that “Germany is for Germans.” This is not immigration reform—it is racial cleansing. It is a deliberate strategy of disposability, rooted in white supremacy, and executed through the machinery of the carceral state and the criminalization of everything considered other and disposable.

This policy envisions a dystopian reality: families torn apart, children ripped from their parents, and communities shattered. Immigrants are reduced to mere bodies—loaded into boxcars, shipped to prisons, or expelled from the country altogether. The parallels to Nazi Germany’s genocidal regime are undeniable. The projected image of trains deporting people to prisons and detention camps is a harrowing reminder of where such dehumanization and racial politics inevitably lead. This is not hyperbole; it is history repeating itself.

Trump’s immigration policy is the embodiment of anti-democratic values, a dystopian fascist nightmare that weaponizes fear, hatred, and dehumanization. It strips away any facade of justice or humanity, laying bare the raw brutality of racial exclusion and state violence. This is not policy—it is vigilante terror—crafted to solidify a fascist vision of America built on the ruins of dignity, compassion, and freedom.

At its core, this policy targets the most vulnerable people defined by Trump and his allies as vermin, criminals, and rapists, threatening an imagined America that is white, Christian, and ultranationalist.[15] It feeds off a volatile mixture of racial anxiety and hatred, bolstered by the rhetoric of superiority and power. This is a politics that normalizes cleansing, expelling, imprisoning, and ultimately erasing entire populations, all with chilling efficiency.

This fascist dreamscape echoes the darkest chapters of history. We have seen this before: the language of dehumanization, the machinery of disposability, and the moral collapse, silence and complicity that permits such atrocities. It is a story that must rouse every ounce of outrage and resistance within us. The stakes could not be higher. We must confront this assault on humanity with unrelenting urgency—before it is too late.

Hope may be under siege, but it is not lost. No nightmare of oppression endures unchallenged. The weight of tyranny always carries within it the seeds of resistance. Frederick Douglass’s timeless truth echoes powerfully today: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”[16]  Resistance today is more complex, demanding, and urgent, but I believe this generation of young people will find a way forward. Young people in social movements extending from Black Lives Matter Fridays for Future to March for Our Lives and Extinction Rebellion are already forging a new language of resistance—one that speaks of solidarity, hope, and transformation. Their voices and actions signal a reckoning on the horizon, one we cannot afford to delay.[17] The clock is ticking, but the possibilities for liberation and justice remain alive. Time is short, but the possibilities remain alive. Once again, the promise of a real democracy and forceful resistance may be injured, tattered, and apparently shredded  but it is not lost.

This generation of youth recognizes that education and culture are vital battlegrounds where fascist ideologies wage war through manufactured ignorance, systemic racism, and the deliberate erosion of imagination. They understand that culture and power are not abstract notions but concrete forces that shape agency, politics, and the possibilities for liberation. For these young activists, the relevance of education goes far beyond academic settings—they see it as central to shaping the broader political landscape.

They are acutely aware of what pedagogical terrorism looks like: the suppression of critical thinking, the distortion of history, and the imposition of ideologies designed to stifle dissent and dehumanize the oppressed. At the same time, they understand the transformative potential of an emancipatory pedagogy, one that challenges authoritarianism, fosters critical consciousness, and empowers communities to reclaim their voices and futures. Education, in their eyes, is a democratic space where the fight for justice and freedom begins.

Youth resistance has become a powerful force for the revitalization of cultural politics and the role of free speech and the building of social movements, while stressing the importance of education as a democratizing force. The current wave of protests across the country, particularly in support of Palestinian rights and sovereignty, illustrates this growing momentum. Young people are crafting a critical pedagogy that not only resists the encroachments of authoritarianism but also actively promotes civic engagement and reclaims culture as a site of power, resistance, and empowerment.

In this struggle, they have become “border crossers,” bridging divides between academia and society, theory and practice, education and action. Their work is transformative, mobilizing social movements and redefining education as a tool for resistance and liberation. They remind us that the classroom is not a retreat from politics but a crucible for imagining and building a more just and democratic world.

Unlike liberals, they are keenly aware of how neoliberalism has transformed universities into market-driven institutions that prioritize profit over democratic values, civic responsibility, and critical thought. They have voiced concerns about the rise of “neoliberal fascism,” a fusion of corporate power and authoritarianism, which erodes academic freedom and marginalizes public intellectuals. Given their critiques the corporatization of universities, which reduces education to careerism and consumerism, while silencing dissent, they have not only criticized higher education for investing in the war machine and Israel’s genocidal war, but they have also called  for universities to reclaim their democratic mission by fostering critical thinking, resisting authoritarianism, and addressing social and environmental injustices.

Against the rising tide of fascism in the United States and across the globe, young people have bravely asserted their voices, pushed up against the forces and pedagogical instruments of domination, and crossed boundaries to share their hope and the possibilities for a new world. In doing so, they offer not just hope but a defiant call to dismantle the vast machinery of pedagogical terrorism wielded by the financial elite—figures like Elon Musk. They have not merely critiqued the disimagination machines and cultural apparatuses that churn out lies, conspiracy theories, and assaults on critical agency and resistance. They have envisioned something greater: the reinvention of democratic practices and collective struggle, emphasizing cultural transformation as indispensable in the battle against fascist ideologies.

Their call for an unflinching critique of neoliberalism and its entanglement with fascist politics is a clarion demand for a new language of resistance—one that recognizes culture and education as pivotal battlegrounds in the fight against Trump’s ominous vision of a “unified Reich.” This moment calls for more than critique; it demands a revolutionary imagination capable of forging a massive social movement that reclaims democracy as a radical, participatory project.

We must respond to their urgency with a collective determination to reshape mass consciousness through critical pedagogy, cultural politics, and bold, decisive action. Now is the time to disrupt this totalitarian machinery of misery, destruction, and death—to build a future where democratic practices thrive, and the specter of authoritarianism is irrevocably defeated.

Notes.

[1] Rick Perlstein, Reagan Land (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2020).

[2] Thom Hartmann, “Left Behind: How Neoliberalism’s Legacy Cost Democrats the 2024 Election,” The Hartmann Report (November 8, 2024). Online: https://hartmannreport.com/p/left-behind-how-neoliberalisms-legacy-5f0

[3] Daniel Dale, “Analysis: Donald Trump’s campaign of relentless lying,” (November 1, 2024). Online: https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/01/politics/analysis-donald-trumps-campaign-of-relentless-lying/index.html.

[4] Henry A. Giroux, Pedagogy of Resistance: Against Manufactured Ignorance (London: Bloomsbury, 2022).

[5] Kenneth J. Saltman, The Corporatization of Education (New York: Routledge, 2024); Henry A. Giroux, Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2019).

[6] Michael Tomasky, “The Right-Wing Media Takeover Is Destroying America,” The New Republic (January 19, 2024). Online: https://newrepublic.com/post/178256/baltimore-sun-liberal-billionaires-media-failure

[7] Charlotte Beradt, The Third Reich of Dreams: The Nightmares of a Nation (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2025).

[8] Carlos Lozada, “Stop Pretending Trump Is Not Who We Are”  New York Times [November 6, 2024]. Online: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/opinion/trump-wins-harris-loses.html

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Erika Lee, America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2021).

[13] Tony Hester, “Deportability and the Carceral State,” Journal of American History, 102:1,(June 2015), pp 141–151.

[14] Greg Grandin, The End of Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2020), p. 13.

[15] Maggie Astor, “‘Poisoning’ the Country,” New York Times (March 17, 2024).  Online: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/us/politics/trump-fox-interview-migrants.html

[16] Frederick Douglass, “If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress” (1857) Black Past (January 25, 2007). Online: https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1857-frederick-douglass-if-there-no-struggle-there-no-progress/

[17] Mark Edelman Boren, Student Resistance in the Age of Chaos: Book 2, 2010 – 2021 (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2021).

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