For all the horrors of fascism, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor argue, it used to provide something to the ordinary worker. For a while, 20th-century dictators offered guaranteed work, subsidised holidays and of course punctual trains. But the fascism of the 2020s – driven by the desire to replace costly human mental labour with data centres – is of a different order. It rewards a few men with unimaginable wealth. Most terrifyingly, it revels in an apocalyptic vision of the future in which only the strongest and richest survive.
This extraordinary alliance of religious fanatics, tech giants and grifters is set out in End Times Fascism, a book that will become key to understanding the politics of early 21st-century America. If, that is, history is still being written after Trump is dead, Musk has retreated to Mars and wildfires and floods have done their work.
Most British readers will be familiar with the power the big tech companies wield and the Trump horror show. What we think about less is the rise of Last Days evangelism in the US and how it fits into the rest.
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On the face of it, the Big Tech worldview – a teleology based on ever-increasing growth and consumption, powered by science – has nothing in common with evangelical Christianity. Yet Klein and Taylor are at their most terrifying when they tease out how Trumpism, the Rapture and AI cohere in parts of the American mind.
If you have wondered why Trump decided to start a war with Iran that he cannot win, the answer lies not just in America’s long-standing support for Israel, but in the evangelical belief that Muslims must be driven out of the Temple of the Mount in Jerusalem. This will prepare the ground for the return of the Messiah and the ascension of the faithful.
In other words, for believers in the Rapture, the point of Trump’s warmongering is not to stave off the end of the world but to bring it closer: “Prove your faith by staying the course and upping the ante.”
At the same time, some of the men driving artificial intelligence are convinced that it will eventually achieve god-like omniscience and bring about a post-human future. Questioned about whether he wanted the human race to endure, Palantir billionaire Peter Thiel was unable to answer. What appalls the ordinary person fascinates him.
Even among the vile excesses of the Trump era, End Times Fascism still has the power to shock. The authors describe the Apocalypse Ball thrown by Thiel in Miami two years ago: “Revellers arrived in a range of deliberately goading costumes. A ‘doctor of eugenics’, a ‘Haitian chief with a bloodied toy cat hanging out of his apron’”. They sang a song comparing Thiel approvingly to a Nazi.
In the person of Trump – who was initially unsure about AI but won over, according to the authors, by its huge energy demands and the excuse they gave him to go all in on fossil fuels – the apocalyptic fantasies of both the Rapture and AI have found a willing backer. It does not matter that these beliefs are impossible to reconcile, because Trump is not a philosopher.
It would be a relief to think that these apocalyptic fantasies are a problem for the US, not for us. But since big tech controls an increasing proportion of the media we consume – just try taking it away from a public hooked on short-form video and instant messaging – and because we share a common language, this alliance of religion, tech and politics in the service of the end of the world is our problem too.
Meanwhile, even if neither the Rapture nor the prospect of god-like AI come to pass, the fossil fuels that power many US data centres will accelerate the climate crisis. But if you believe the end of the world is nigh anyway, that won’t bother you.
Even if you don’t, there might be an upside. “Maybe climate change is a good way of dealing with overpopulation… the earth’s forest fire… potentially a good thing for the species,” the AI researcher Joscha Bach wrote to Jeffrey Epstein. The idea that global warming might serve to purge the world in a cleansing fire is just another facet of the doomsday cult.
No, End Times Fascism has little to reassure the reader, though the authors do their best to flesh out an alternative philosophy of ‘hereness’ and to convey the joy of campaigning for Zohran Mamdani. They urge the doomsday cultists to cherish life on Earth instead of waiting impatiently for its destruction. They are also very optimistic about the ability of the Green leader Zack Polanski to revive grassroots campaigning in the UK.
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Klein’s enthusiasm for charismatic left-wing leaders has led her to some dubious endorsements in the past, including Hugo Chávez. Mamdani is an inspiring and energetic mayor of New York, but he is a long way from the White House.
They have learnt a little from the excesses of the culture wars, nodding to the non-judgmentalism of Mamdami’s campaign, but are damning of mainstream Democrats like Kamala Harris and Joe Biden because of their caution and support for Israel. The authors are rightly horrified by the pollution and water shortages caused by fossil fuel-powered data centres, but have little to say about society’s broader dependency on big tech (Klein has a strong following on Instagram). They do briefly worry about what would happen if Meta decided to censor left wing voices.
If you are looking for a less US-centric and more hopeful account of the current times, you may find Natasha Walter’s recent Feminism for a World on Fire more uplifting. But for those who want to understand why America has gone down the path to fascism, End Times is a compelling polemic.
Perhaps the only comfort is that, however bad things look in Britain, they are considerably madder in the United States.
End Times Fascism is published by Allen Lane on September 15
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