RHODA Kadalie was a well-known radical, anti-apartheid South African feminist who worked as an academic and journalist. Yet, for the last few years of her life she moved to the USA and became a Donald Trump supporter, red MAGA cap and all. Those who knew her, or followed her writing, are still scratching their heads in disbelief. If her feminism was genuine, how could she support a misogynist with an appalling record with women (to put it mildly) like Trump? It’s a question that has regained relevance.

In the wake of his third, and second successful, presidential campaign there is a great deal of gloating and triumphalism. Some of it comes from predictable quarters; more from closet right-wingers who have masqueraded as liberals. Almost all are men, confirming that there is a crisis of maleness as women assert their rights in all spheres of society and seek justice for past wrongs. This bitterness must run very deep. Do so many people really approve of the circus that is another Trump presidency as each day brings news of the appointment of another clown? This has short-term fascination that will pall as the consequences become clear in early 2025.

But it would be a mistake to dwell too long on the person of Trump, tempting though this might be. His speeches have classic fascist characteristics: a lack of coherence, spat-out memorable words, phrases and smears, and lashings of invective that appeal to the craze for revenge against perceived enemies; basically anyone who is different. But Trump is just a cipher for deeper forces, an opportunist who despite his poor attention span and unhinged commentary has successfully read the political wind. Take him out of the equation – and he may well not last a four-year term for a variety of reasons ‒ and the malevolent forces that use him will still be in control of the US government and in the ascendancy elsewhere in the world. There seem to be three of these forces: fundamentalist religion; populism of all stripes, but particularly that of the right; and the social media enablers in the high-tech industry. All are basic to the politics of every country today.

Fundamentalist Christian religion is barely distinguishable from American nationalism; and has little in common with the belief of many Christians worldwide. It is heavily patriarchal and restrictive regarding the role of women. Between the attitudes of the Taliban who want to erase women from Afghan public life and those of American evangelists and cultists who see women as breeding machines there is no basic difference. Women are subservient. Fundamentalist religion is a prime cause of othering and the deliberate creation of divisiveness. The Hindu version is a serious threat to India’s Muslims and Sikhs, the Jewish to the people of Palestine, and Buddhist to the Rohingya of Burma; while Islamist groups are a major cause of international terrorism. It is reported that American Christian nationalists feel an affinity with the Russian Orthodox Church whose bishops bless missiles fired at the Ukrainians, the ‘little Russians’ that Vladimir Putin claims have no separate culture. The message promoted by all these extremist religious groups is that they are the elect and everyone else is inferior. And they are usually fuelled by aggressive alpha-male behaviour.

Populism is the presentation of simple answers to complex problems, or sometimes no problem at all; traditionally a speciality of men who prop up bars. But instead of remaining a quirkish fringe, this tendency has been populated by the far right and is becoming mainstream in many countries. This has been enabled by academia: those human science dilettantes who promoted post-modernism and the idea that truth is a relative concept. Now any crackpot conspiracy theory is as weighty as scientific and academic method and vigorously promoted by the right. Fascist movements have always thrived on chaos, confusion, lies and base feelings. It’s the infantile politics of the playground: smash a few things, and maybe a few faces, and a whole lot of people feel a whole lot better; for a while. Fascism no longer appears in jackboots, but now in the carpet slippers of unregulated electronic media.

This is under the near monopoly control of the world’s richest people. The most egregious example is that of the embittered South African and self-portrayed white victim, Elon Musk who believes homelessness is a hoax. The world’s richest man controls a social media network that he uses to further his own preferred political agenda, which is becoming increasingly right wing and unhinged. There is nothing preventing him promoting or enabling outright lies and the reach is global. This presents a clear threat to democracy.

We are in a new era not of post-modernism, or even post-truth, but of post-reason. Presented with facts increasing numbers of people dispute them in some way and say they do not tally with their feelings. In other words, rationality is being overwhelmed by emotion. This is tantamount to entering a primitive world of anarchy or even barbarism. For instance, reason and a host of other worthy traits tell us to respect our neighbours. But emotions whipped up by lies and propaganda might incite us to persecute them. The Holocaust and Rwandan genocide did not stem from reason … they derived from some of the very forces that are increasingly influential in today’s world and becoming part of accepted politics. One has to look and listen no further than the opinions of the MAGA party in the United States.

We are told that there is a great deal of anger and dissatisfaction out there, especially around the cost of living. Exactly what right-wing populism has to offer remains to be seen because its focus is on restricting civil rights and othering. Protectionist tariffs are by definition inflationary. Like Trump it is possible that the price of bread and milk is a symptom of something deeper. Major socio-economic forces such as patterns of employment and means of communication are creating alienation. The community of the workplace is becoming increasingly rare; and although interaction is theoretically easier than at any time of history, real communication is at a premium. People no longer compose letters, but resort to mindless graphic symbols. People no longer read and reflect on books, but spend their lives flicking idly from one picture on a little screen to another. Literacy is on the wane and brains are increasingly addled. Belief is more important than provable fact.

The world’s authoritarians in their increasing numbers could ask for no better. There are remarkable similarities between our current world and that which followed the first of the world wars and led to the rise of fascism. Naturally, the details and outcome a century later will be different. But one development is for certain and that is that individual liberty and the rights of women and minority groups are in for a battering. And if we do not abandon the tired fractured politics of the past and unite around a new dispensation of shared moderation, rationality, commonsense and a culture of democracy and the rule of law in their broader senses, the warnings of that most prescient of political thinkers, George Orwell, will be our reality.