Over the last few weeks, Tesla has become the target for a growing, largely social-media-organised campaign across the United States. This past weekend alone, CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/01/business/tesla-takedown-musk-doge/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>:
“Demonstrators gathered at more than 50 Tesla showrooms across the United States on Saturday in protest of CEO Elon Musk’s role in slashing government agencies as part of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency established by President Donald Trump.”
This was probably an undercount. If you follow the mainstream media alone, you’ll miss out on some protests. Our protests in <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/568634392836661" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Chicago</a> have received no media coverage, and there has been scant coverage of protests in the suburbs. While many protests have been organised by <a href="https://indivisible.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Indivisible</a>, a nationwide campaigning group of liberal and progressive Democrats, the outpouring of protests at Tesla showrooms is much greater than one organisation.
Musk is despised by millions of people around the globe. The world’s richest man and best-known Nazi, Musk personifies everything that is wrong with the world today. <a href="https://www.teslatakedown.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tesla takedown</a> is a positive development in the struggle against the Trump regime and fascism in the United States. <a href="https://www.americanjewisharchives.org/snapshots/henry-ford-and-antisemitism-the-notorious-dearborn-independent/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Henry Ford</a> comes to mind as the last major auto industrialist who was identified closely with fascism. In many ways, Ford thrusted political antisemitism into the mainstream of US society through his newspaper the Dearborn Independent. But Ford was on the wrong side of the New Deal and preparations for WWII.
Today, <a href="https://prospect.org/power/2025-01-06-ford-musk-made-cars-backed-fascists/">according to Harold Meyerson</a>:
“Fast-forward now to Elon Musk, who today has no qualms about neo-Nazis ruling Germany. Quite unsolicited, Musk has tweeted (X-ed?) his way into Germany’s parliamentary election, which will be held next month, beginning by arguing that ‘only the AfD can save Germany’. 
“The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Alternative for Germany</a> is a far-right, vehemently anti-immigrant and racist party that has grown in strength, particularly in the economically depressed states that were formerly part of East Germany, since it was founded a dozen years ago. Musk has argued that it’s not a neo-Nazi party, but a number of self-professed neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers have been in the party’s leadership, while the German government views it as a potentially violent threat to German security.”
Yet, unlike Ford, Musk had attained political power that a few years ago would have been unimaginable. Musk is, however, vulnerable. His interventions in European politics have led to plummeting Tesla sales. Tesla’s stock has declined significantly. Major pension funds have dropped their ownership of Tesla stock, and prominent people have sold their cars. The various Tesla models have gone from being seen as saving the environment to being viewed as Nazi vehicles, like the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/hitler-and-his-volkswagen-tracing-the-80-year-history-of-the-beetle/a-43942998" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Volkswagen</a> in the 1930s.
Like Henry Ford, Musk is a fanatical opponent of unions in his workplaces from California to Sweden to Berlin. We see Tesla workers as our allies. Ford was the last of the Big Three US automakers to be unionised by the United Auto Workers (UAW) in 1941, following a bitter strike on the eve of US entry into the Second World War. Musk’s political power can ultimately only be curtailed if the workers in his car and battery plants are organised.
There is still much to do in the United States to combat Elon Musk, but more needs to be done internationally. Tesla takedown is a rare opportunity for anti-fascists, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0XLGvH8h7U" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">climate change activists</a>, and supporters of trade unions and democratic rights across the globe to come together with one target. We should make the most of this opportunity now. Organise or join protests at Tesla outlets in your country. Our international unity will make a difference.
Joe Allen is the author of The Package King: A Rank and File History of United Parcel Service.
Bill V. Mullen is Professor Emeritus of American Studies at Purdue. He is co-author, with Jeanelle K. Hope, of The Black Antifascist Tradition: Fighting Back From Anti-Lynching to Abolition, and, with Christopher Vials, of The US Antifascism Reader.

Joe Allen

Bill V. Mullen

An appeal for an international anti-fascist campaign against Tesla

The University of Technology Sydney has marked International Women’s Day by banning a poster asking the question: “Why are teenage boys so misogynistic?”. 
The meeting was called to discuss rising sexist attitudes among, and the broader right-wing drift of, young men. Numerous indicators point to this reality, including a recent King’s College London survey showing that young men are far more likely than young women, and even older men, to say that men have it tougher than women today. In the United States, Donald Trump increased his support among young men by 15 percentage points last year compared to the previous election; in Australia, young men support Liberal leader Peter Dutton in much higher numbers than young women. Also, a recent Monash University study found that female teachers are facing a rise in misogynistic behaviour everywhere—and many are quitting the profession because of it. 
One woman who attended the meeting told the audience that in her first-year business tutorial, the tutor had to tell off men in the class because they were rating every woman who spoke in the discussion in the zoom chat.
Most universities have put up posters celebrating women and our contributions to society. But the UTS administration has sided with Andrew Tate and Donald Trump stans. 
UTS was alerted to the poster by at least one male student on campus, who also emailed the UTS Socialist Alternative club complaining that he feels “unwelcome and stereotyped” by the mere presence of a poster advertising a campus meeting about the growth of the far right and its expression in the political attitudes of young men. 
For years, the political right called the left “snowflakes”. People wrote hundreds of books and articles lamenting the “coddling” culture in universities and about how the political left and progressives can’t cope with ideas they don’t agree with. Right-wing provocateurs such as Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson made famous phrases such as “facts don’t care about your feelings”.
How the tide has turned. It seems that young men from the political right, like those at UTS, are now the ones who might start campaigning for safe spaces and trigger warnings. 
The Centre for Social Justice &amp; Inclusion handles complaints relating to sex, gender identity, race and disability discrimination. According to its equity policy, it seeks “diversity, fairness, social justice and ethical treatment of others”. The policy seems to have been written with oppressed groups in mind, so it’s remarkable to see it being used against women on campus. 
The directive to remove the poster is also related to the university fad of introducing policies to protect the “psychosocial safety” of staff and students, which were initially designed to silence Palestine solidarity activists. The feelings and emotions of those in positions of power are being protected while those trying to address injustices face disciplinary hearings. 
A staff member from Activate, which manages campus life, instructed the club to remove the posters during a phone call with Yasmine Johnson, UTS Socialist Alternative club president and the woman who hosted the meeting.
“He said to me, ‘You followed all the correct procedures, but unfortunately you are going to have to take these down. This has gotten around the uni top level very fast—the deputy vice-chancellor, the equity department, everyone knows’”, Johnson recounted to Red Flag. “He even said that the deputy VC instructed that the posters be removed as they violate the UTS equity policy.” 
That university management is worried about some men being distressed because people are discussing sexism tells you something about the political shift that is happening. 
Johnson reported being mobbed by Trump supporters while she handed out leaflets for the meeting. They loudly professed their love for the racist and sexist president of the United States. They were precisely the sort of young men who have been politically drawn to the far right and influenced by the violent misogyny of the sex-trafficker Andrew Tate. They are much more confident to express their bigoted attitudes, which will only become worse as institutions like UTS support them.
By not wanting to trigger any boys on campus who have trouble distinguishing between fact (young men are pretty sexist) and their feelings (a poster made me sad), the UTS administration has silenced the free speech of young women who are trying to fight back against the growth of a global far right.

Anneke Demanuele

University of Technology Sydney stands with boys with big feelings

One of the great myths of US President Donald Trump’s political career is that he’s an anti-establishment warrior, fighting on behalf of the everyman. 
The corporate media have pushed this narrative, publishing hundreds of articles arguing that Trump represents the revenge of the “white working class”—a term used by elites of both the liberal and right-wing varieties to refer to either dumb uneducated masses or salt-of-the-earth patriots, respectively. 
Indeed, this is the way he’s pitched himself since 2015. “Today we are not just transferring power from one administration to another”, Trump said in his first inauguration speech. “We are transferring power from Washington, DC, and giving it back to you, the people.” His early calls to “drain the swamp” (remove nefarious lobbyists and insiders from Washington) have evolved into Elon Musk’s DOGE: they claim they are ending the wasteful spending of taxpayer money on programs designed by a DEI-obsessed urban elite. Or, in Musk’s words, “@DOGE will reprogram the base code of the matrix”.
The claim that an army of billionaires taking state power somehow represents a victory for factory workers, nurses, receptionists and agricultural labourers is absurd. They have climbed their way to the top by trampling on those below. 
Musk, who has fast become something like an unelected co-president, is the richest person on the planet. Just half of his US$360 billion net worth could end world hunger by the end of the decade. He made his fortune after getting a hefty leg up from his emerald-mine-owning dad, and protects it today by resisting unionisation inside his companies (Tesla workers make 30 percent less than members of the United Auto Workers). In 2023, Musk said: “I disagree with the idea of unions ... I just don’t like anything which creates a lords and peasants sort of thing”. What?
Trump has a net worth of US$6.4 billion, according to Forbes
magazine (though he claims it’s much higher). His wealth comes from a substantial inheritance and a career in real estate, although his most valuable asset is Truth Social, his hard-right Twitter knock-off. He first gained super stardom by telling a succession of people “you’re fired” on reality show The Apprentice and for twenty years owned the Miss Universe pageant organisation (in which creepy old men like him leer at bikini-clad young women). He owns a multimillion-dollar Manhattan penthouse plated with gold. 
Man of the people he is not.
Trump has assembled the wealthiest administration in history, with thirteen billionaires appointed to government posts. His cabinet is worth at least US$7 billion. These people have made their wealth by exploiting millions of workers and the environment and hoarding profits in offshore tax havens. 
In case there is any illusion that they might be forgoing their own interests to rule in the interests of American workers, just take a look at what the Trump administration has done since taking office.
In late February, the House of Representatives moved forward a mammoth budget blueprint that contains much of Trump’s legislative agenda. In it are massive tax cuts—worth up to US$4.5 trillion—and deep cuts to social spending. The tax cuts, which mostly extend those made during Trump’s first administration, mostly benefit the already wealthy. Medicaid and Medicare (which provide health insurance to poor and elderly Americans), student loan repayment plans and school breakfast and lunch programs that serve low-income children have all been slated for cuts. 
This is what the administration is really about: taking from the poor to give to the rich. Trump is Robin Hood in reverse. 
The DOGE cuts will also have a terrible impact on working people, not least the tens of thousands of public sector workers who have just lost their livelihoods after being fired by Musk. Public education is under attack, as are whatever measly regulations exist to put a check on corporate power.
There’s nothing new in this political strategy. Former Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan claimed to represent the “silent majority” of everyday Americans, who supposedly shared their conservative world view. During their bid for power, the Nazis said they wanted to serve the German people who had been betrayed by the elites. They even went so far as to call themselves socialists, just “national socialists” interested only in the good of the German masses. When winning an election requires securing the votes of a substantial section of the population, overtures must be made to the issues they care about. But once the political right takes power, it’s a different story.
The “anti-elite” message can ring a little true because the Democrats indeed come from another wing of the US elite. When in power, they rule for the rich. The squabble between the major parties does not represent a battle between opposing class interests, but simply different strategies for managing capitalism.
The MAGA crowd are picking on the vulnerable to stoke divisions among workers, all of whom will be oppressed by Trump’s administration. He’s using hyper-nationalist rhetoric to try to bind a section of the population to his project: generate fear about and loathing towards a purported enemy within—migrants and progressives, among others. 
Like many of Trump’s business ventures (google “Trump University”), it’s a con job to enable his wealthy capitalist friends to get even richer than they already are.

Eleanor Morley

MAGA’s elite ‘anti-elites’

German politics has shifted strongly to the right following the federal election on 23 February. The conservative Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union alliance will now lead a coalition government, after support plummeted for the parties that formed the previous coalition government. They have vowed to introduce hardline anti-migrant policies, attacks on workers and a massive expansion of the military. Even more menacingly, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) achieved its best result ever, coming in second place with 20.8 percent of the vote.
Since the AfD formed a decade ago, parties from across the political spectrum have insisted they will never work with the far right. The conservatives recently softened this “firewall” by working with the AfD to pass an anti-immigrant bill at the end of January. For years, sections of the conservatives, particularly those in the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, have flirted with the far right, but this was a significant step in normalising the AfD in mainstream politics. The Social Democrats, along with most other political parties, have contributed to this normalisation by drawing on the same anti-migrant rhetoric espoused by the far right. 
The election results reinforce this shift. The conservatives and the AfD hold a clear parliamentary majority. The AfD is campaigning hard for the conservatives to break with the firewall and form a coalition government. The conservatives have ruled this out for now, but there is a very real possibility that it could happen in the years ahead. 
The AfD’s rise is not, however, going unchallenged. Over the last fourteen months, a movement has emerged to resist the far right. Widespread protests broke out in early 2024 after it was revealed that a secret meeting in Potsdam discussed plans for the “remigration”—deportation—of large numbers of migrants and German-born citizens from migrant backgrounds. Alongside the AfD were members of the ultra-right-wing faction of the conservatives.
Protests outside AfD offices grew from the thousands to hundreds of thousands. On 3 February, an estimated 300,000 marched in Berlin alone. By April, the German daily newspaper taz reported that more than 1,800 protests involving around 4 million people had taken place across the country. These protests were the biggest since those opposing the Iraq war in 2003, and among the largest in postwar German history. 
Once the initial wave of protests subsided, left-wing activists continued to organise and mobilise. New organisations emerged, including the Studis gegen Rechts (Students against the Right), and older anti-fascist organisations found new life as thousands of young people got involved. 
Last June, tens of thousands descended on the city of Essen to protest the AfD’s annual conference. Police were drafted from around the country to try to stop the 70,000 protesters from disrupting the event. This year, the conference was moved to the regional town of Riesa, Saxony, to try to avoid demonstrations. Nevertheless, 15,000 protesters travelled there to take a stand against the far right. 
A new wave of protests erupted after the conservatives and the far right teamed up on the anti-migrant bill. Thousands blockaded the offices of the Christian Democratic Union in Berlin. At an AfD event in Freiburg, 25,000 out of a population of 230,000 came out to protest. 
A significant section of people taking part in these protests have gravitated towards the left-wing Die Linke party. In the federal election Die Linke, which had suffered a crisis for several years, revived and won 8.7 percent of the vote. Around 30,000 new members joined the party over the last year, numbers accelerating following the conservative-far right collaboration.
Heidi Reichinnek, one of Die Linke’s parliamentary leaders, stridently attacked the Christian Democrats for “paving the way for the resurgence of fascism” in a video that was viewed more than 30 million times on TikTok. Thousands of new activists joined Die Linke’s campaign in the West Berlin district of Neukölln. They won a landslide victory for Ferat Koçak, a pro-Palestine activist with a Kurdish background. 
Die Linke did particularly well amongst young people, becoming the most popular party for those aged 18 to 24, and securing the votes of more than a third of young women. The party also came first in Berlin. 
It’s positive that the AfD’s high vote isn’t the only story coming out of the election. However, there are significant problems with Die Linke. This is not a new radical party: it has existed since 2007 and is led by veteran moderate reformist politicians. It has participated in coalition state governments in Bremen and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and it led the government in Thuringia for a decade. In these states, it oversaw neoliberal budgets and allowed refugees to be deported. 
While Die Linke positions itself as an activist opposition party, it is also open to forming a future coalition government. There has long been a Zionist wing of Die Linke. and moderate leftists like Reichinnek emphasise that they support Israel’s so-called “right to defend itself”. Last December, Die Linke expelled the pro-Palestine activist Ramsis Kilani for “bringing the party into disrepute”.
This is not a radical anti-capitalist party by any stretch of the imagination. However, despite these serious problems, the electoral support for the left, as well as the activism against the far right, reveals that there is a polarisation to the left in Germany, centred on young people, that cuts against the grain of the overall conservative shift. 
This is vital. The far right is winning ground in country after country. It can be easy to despair in the face of this, particularly when there doesn’t appear to be a spontaneous revolt against Trump and his ilk. As in the past, though, it is the actions of a radical minority that can begin the process of creating the larger left-wing opposition we need. Hopefully, that is what we are seeing amongst young people in Germany.

Jordan Humphreys

The right gains ground in Germany, but not without challenge

Last Saturday was a cold, blustery but sunny day in Chicago, when 25 of us picketed Tesla’s showroom at 900 N. Rush Street. Located just west of Chicago’s famed “Magnificent Mile” shopping district, the streets on the weekends are crowded with the wealthy who live in the area and tourists from around the globe. But, plenty of people work in the many retail shops or are out window shopping. It’s a perfect location for a Tesla showroom whose <a href="https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/how-much-do-teslas-electric-vehicles-cost#:~:text=The%20Plaid%20variant%20has%20a,your%20Tesla%20Model%20S%20yours:" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">pricey cars</a> are for the rich or those who want to appear to be rich.
It was the second weekend of <a href="https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/anti-elon-musk-protest-san-francisco-tesla/3797640/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">protests</a> targeting Tesla, whose notorious CEO is Elon Musk, the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#47167e3b3d78" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">world’s richest man</a> and best-known <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/21/the-gesture-speaks-for-itself-germans-divided-over-musks-apparent-nazi-salute" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nazi</a>. Sitting at the right hand of Donald Trump, Musk has been the president’s hatchet man, destroying the United States’ already ragged welfare state, savaging the federal workforce, paralysing agencies designated to protect unions and the environment, and the list keeps expanding daily. The wide variety of federal workers across the country and their unions face the brunt of the offensive, but resistance has been building.
<a href="https://nycclc.org/news/federal-workers-rally-new-york-protest-musk-jobs-purge" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Protests and rallies</a> by federal workers have taken place, and a new rank-and-file federal workers’ network has emerged; it will take some time for workplace struggle to meet the challenge thrown at them, which is historically unprecedented. When President Ronald Reagan fired striking federal air traffic controllers in 1981 (represented by <a href="https://isreview.org/issues/49/patco/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">PATCO</a>, which endorsed <a href="https://lhrp.georgetown.edu/collections/the-1981-patco-strike/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Reagan for president</a> the previous year), it was seen as historically unprecedented and the signal for a rollback of the US trade union movement for two decades that followed.
The Trump administration’s blitzkrieg attack has caught many off guard, despite plenty of <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/09/16/pete-hegseths-mein-kampf/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">forewarning</a> of what would come if he won the election. However, Trump’s policies have not proved popular, while the <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5114095-most-in-new-poll-disapprove-of-musk-role-in-trump-administration/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">conspicuous</a> role of the super-billionaire Musk has added to their unpopularity. Republican congressional representatives who have held “town hall meetings” have faced the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/23/us/politics/republicans-congress-town-halls-trump.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawIp_vNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHRvfpdFq5R81QTXWrIk_IAEb1UxBefvtPJj6D7snEAOZOQ2OzkTursfONQ_aem_LGAfF-B96-vryPkfnArsGw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wrath</a> of their constituents, and the milquetoast Democrats are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/us/politics/democrats-trump.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">catching hell</a> from theirs as well. Meanwhile, Musk and Vice President <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/us/politics/vance-far-right-germany-munich-afd.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">J.D. Vance’s</a> interventions in European politics bolstering far-right and straight-up Nazi parties, like the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/02/20/musk-germany-election-afd-x-twitter/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Alternative for Germany</a>, have also shocked many people.
Tesla takedown
Musk derives much of his wealth from his stock ownership of Tesla and Space X, along with his faux reputation as a “genius inventor” and innovative “clean energy” businessman. Despite his swagger and arrogance, Musk has weak spots that we should be punching as hard as we can right now. Tesla is the prime target. Tesla’s sales have plummeted in Europe and one of the major reasons is Musk’s promotion of the far right. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/business/tesla-germany-elon-musk.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">According</a> to the New York Times:
“In Germany, home to Tesla’s only factory in Europe, only 1,277 new Tesla vehicles were registered in the month, the German Federal Motor Transport Authority reported on Wednesday. German consumers turned instead to domestic and Chinese automakers for electric cars, which recorded a 54 percent increase in demand in January.
“Tesla’s sales plummeted 63 percent in France in January from a year earlier, and 12 percent in Britain, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/06/world/europe/starmer-musk-uk-child-sexual-abuse.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">where Mr. Musk riled</a> Prime Minister Keir Starmer through inflammatory social media posts. Sweden, where <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/11/business/tesla-sweden-labor-dispute.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a mechanics’ strike</a> against Tesla is now in its second year, saw demand for its cars slide 44 percent last month, while sales in Norway dropped 38 percent.”
Meanwhile, in the United States, the Times reported:
“The decline is also noticeable in the United States, although not as steep. In California, the largest U.S. market for electric cars, Tesla’s sales have been declining for months. Registration of new Tesla vehicles fell 11.6 percent there in 2024 even as overall sales of electric cars and trucks climbed 1.2 percent, according to the California New Car Dealers Association.”
We can do better here in the United States. Musk must be made into a pariah and buying his cars and pickups made socially unacceptable. Inspired by actor, director, and documentary filmmaker <a href="https://alexwinter.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Alex Winter</a>, protests have taken place at Tesla showrooms all over the United States. Largely organised through social media, especially at Bluesky’s <a href="https://bsky.app/hashtag/takedowntesla" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">#takedowntesla</a>, many have drawn a handful to many dozens of people. Winter explained in Rolling Stone how the call against Tesla happened:
“On Monday, Feb. 10, the<a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/12/04/1217086770/disinformation-researcher-says-harvard-pushed-her-out-to-protect-meta" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> fearless</a> and<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/10/meta-factchecking-donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> brilliant</a> sociologist Joan Donovan made a simple post on Bluesky: ‘Come out and participate in an international picket #TeslaTakeover locally. Stand up and be counted!’ I’d met Donovan when I was touring for my<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/youtube-dangerous-alex-winter-the-youtube-effect-documentary-1234805077/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> documentary</a> about the role of YouTube in the rise of the far right, and I like the idea of <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/t/tesla/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tesla</a> store <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/t/protests/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">protests</a>, so I sent her a direct message asking if I could do some organizing to help drive turnout. 
“She said yes, and I immediately cleared time from my day and got busy. First, I reached out to organizers and allies I’ve met in the 15 years that I’ve been trying to raise the alarm about the rising power of Silicon Valley oligarchs. Next, I made a quick database and sign-up form using online tools. Then I posted it all to Bluesky. And that was it. What I assumed would be a relatively small, one day event.”
The burst of activism is refreshing and exciting. Winter calculated:
“There have now been protests outside of Tesla locations in over 100 cities, and the movement is picking up speed and going global. Our<a href="https://www.teslatakedown.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> website</a> has thousands of visitors a day, signing on for protests, creating their own and downloading our resources. Just as many people are showing up in front of Tesla real estate through entirely separate organizations, like<a href="https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/?tag_ids=25871" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> Indivisible</a> and a new formation of rank and file federal workers called the<a href="https://www.federalunionists.net/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> Federal Unionists Network</a>. Another massive day of action is planned this weekend. There are<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/02/14/telsa-employees-investors-musk-trump/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> reports</a> that Tesla’s shareholders are already souring on the company’s CEO and chairperson. The stock is<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=tesla+stock+price&amp;oq=tesla+stock+price&amp;gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqDQgAEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyDQgAEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyDQgBEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBwgCEAAYgAQyCggDEAAYsQMYgAQyCggEEAAYsQMYgAQyBggFEEUYQDIGCAYQRRhAMgYIBxBFGEDSAQgyNDQ3ajBqNKgCALACAA&amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;ie=UTF-8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> dipping</a>.”
Global war against unions
Targeting Musk and Tesla is an important development in the struggle against the second Trump administration and fascism in the United States. Yet, for the movement to become sustainable it has to move beyond appeals to <a href="https://www.teslatakedown.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“Sell your Tesla. Dump your stock.”</a> Most of us will never own a Tesla or own stock in the company. One of the most important lessons we can learn from the struggle against the last, infamous auto-magnet fascist Henry Ford is the importance of union organisation. Ford was the last of the Big Three auto companies to sign a contract with the young United Auto Workers union in 1941, ending a long, dark era for Ford workers.
Elon Musk is waging a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_and_unions" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">global war</a> against unions from Fremont, California, to Sweden to Berlin. His promotion of the far right is part of a plan to keep his plants unorganised and his workers under his thumb. The struggle against fascism and for organising the Tesla plants are one and the same struggle. Driving him from the White House would be a huge victory, while organising his plants could push him into oblivion.
First published at <a href="http://www.joeallen-60224.medium.com/">Joe Allen at Medium</a>. Joe Allen is a socialist based in the United States. He is the author of Vietnam: The (Last) War the US Lost.

‘Don’t buy Nazi cars!’: taking on Tesla from the showrooms to the plants

Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the far right portray themselves as radical outsiders at odds with the political establishment, upending norms and breaking all the rules. But in reality, far-right politicians are slavish servants of power—indeed, extreme embodiments of it. 
They personify everything cruel and exploitative about capitalism and are determined to make the system even worse for workers and the poor. Rather than being radical outsiders, the most prominent far-right leaders and their backers are the ultimate insiders: capitalists and those who aspire to be their political representatives. 
Trump made his fortune among the milieu of property speculators and casino operators. Musk, the world’s richest man, is a defence contractor, car manufacturer and media baron. Alice Weidel, leader of the fascist Alternative for Germany, is a banker who has occupied high-ranking positions at some of the world’s most powerful financial institutions, such as Goldman Sachs and Allianz Global.
Whether they own or manage car factories, defence firms or banks, they have the same basic interests: compete with other capitalists for profits and market dominance and fight to secure the best conditions in pursuit of that goal. The political programs they present aren’t in the least bit radical—they are utterly pro-capitalist.
Massive tax cuts for the rich and the pledge to “drill, baby, drill” are quite obviously about direct profit-making for sections of capitalists. But the war on “woke” and the return of machismo also need to be understood as part of an integrated pro-capitalist agenda. 
By attacking limited social gains such as anti-discrimination provisions, the far right is attempting to make open bigotry more acceptable. Mass deportations of undocumented migrants play a similar role. If people can live with these abuses directed against their communities, it normalises the idea that certain groups deserve fewer rights than others. 
In place of anti-discrimination programs, Trump has vowed to “create a society that is blind to colour and based on merit”. But the idea that those at the top of capitalist society are there because of their intelligence and hard work is bullshit. 
Trump, for example, is a trust fund baby who has bankrupted half a dozen companies. He owes his political power to wealthy tech industry backers like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. 
Likewise, Musk is from a wealthy South African family that made their wealth under apartheid in property development and emerald mines. He has built his vast empire off loans from his parents and off the backs of the workers he exploits. This is not unique to Trump and Musk but common to many people in positions of power who inherit their wealth and achieve their status through the opportunities afforded by class privileges.
Musk in particular personifies how economic power under capitalism is transformed into political power. Those with enough money can buy their way into government or bankroll political parties that promote and pursue their interests. Musk donated $246 million to Trump in the 2024 elections, becoming Trump’s biggest donor and most influential promoter. In return, he has been appointed as the head of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk has declared that DOGE—which is tasked with restructuring the government, cutting programs, firing workers and investing in high tech to increase the productivity of the remaining workforce—is nothing less than a “revolution”. 
But there is nothing remotely radical about any of this agenda. Republicans have long dreamed of gutting the federal bureaucracy (except for the bloated military and security apparatuses). Democrats claim to be different, but they have spent decades carrying out a milder version of that same project. Cutting government expenditure on social programs while funnelling taxpayer money into the means of destruction is mainstream capitalist politics across the globe. 
There is perhaps no greater illustration of whose priorities dominate the US government than the obscene spectacle of the world’s richest man slashing aid to the poor, sick and elderly under the guise of eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse”.
Musk is now leveraging his massive fortune to finance far-right forces worldwide and to promote them through his social media platform, X. He has endorsed Germany’s fascist party in the upcoming elections and spoke at its recent conference about the need for the country to get beyond “Holocaust guilt”. He recently hosted an X interview with Alice Weidel, which drew an audience of up to 210,000 people. Weidel thanked Musk for the mainstream exposure, saying: “Elon, it’s a completely new situation for me that I can just have a normal conversation, and I’m not interrupted or negatively framed”.
Musk is also considering bankrolling Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform UK party in Britain (although he has expressed his wish for the party to be led by jailed fascist street agitator Tommy Robinson instead). Among the other fascists he has befriended is Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, with whom Musk has met repeatedly since she came to power in 2022. (Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party traces its origins to Mussolini.) 
Musk has praised far-right Argentinian president Javier Milei’s model, which aims to dismantle public services, labour protections and all regulations on corporate exploitation. He has stated that the “Milei model” is the inspiration behind DOGE.
All big capitalists do this to varying degrees, putting their vast wealth into media empires and behind political parties that will promote and pursue their interests. Gina Reinhart has recently declared that she wants to use her wealth to bring Trump-style politics to Australia; Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has been working tirelessly to create favourable conditions for decades.
Capitalists, in particular, can quickly fall in love with the far right because it supports an extreme manifestation of the system they already benefit from and preside over: a dictatorship of the rich built on exploitation, competition, social hierarchy and bigotry.

Robert Narai

Why the capitalists have fallen in with the far right

The next chancellor of Germany will be the former Blackrock consultant Friedrich Merz. His election comes alongside a surge in votes for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and 93 years after a similar figure, Franz von Papen, ascended to the German chancellorship. Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister, the Christian Social Union (CSU), <a href="https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2025-02/bundestagswahl-2025-wahlergebnisse-wahlkreise-live">picked up 28.5 percent</a> of the vote, more than any other party but still one of its worst results in the history of the German Federal Republic.
Germany’s former ruling “traffic light” coalition—consisting of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Greens and the economically liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP)—collapsed in November 2024, prompting this month’s elections. The former ruling parties all suffered heavy losses. The SPD received just 16.4 percent of the vote, its worst result in more than 60 years, while the FDP lost all 91 of its Bundestag seats and the Greens lost more than one-quarter of their representatives.
The biggest gains were made by the AfD, a far-right ethnonationalist party that has been <a href="https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/49924">radicalising</a> and gaining ground in regional parliaments for more than ten years. The party dominated the eastern states of the former German Democratic Republic, earning one out of every three votes there and more than 20 percent of votes nationally. The AfD is the spearhead of fascisation in Germany, pulling almost all other parties toward the right, especially on migrant and refugee politics.
In a surprise turnaround, Germany’s far-left party Die Linke soared past expectations to win 8.8 percent of the vote, buoyed by an influx of 30,000 new party members this year. It is now the strongest party in Berlin, the capital, and won its first-ever district west of the old Berlin Wall: Neukölln, the heart of the Palestine solidarity protests. 
Political polarisation
With the exception of Die Linke, the election campaign was dominated by a full-spectrum lurch to the right as parties tried to keep up with the AfD’s racism and anti-migrant politics. Underneath the official party positions, though, political polarisation has continued in German society.
A pivotal moment came at the end of January when the CDU introduced a harsh anti-migrant bill, knowing it would require AfD votes to become law. Although the bill failed to pass, the attempt broke a consensus among parties never to cooperate with the far-right party. Despite an outcry in the media, Merz subsequently <a href="https://x.com/AnAudretsch/status/1886053338052956376">made it clear</a>
that the CDU would continue to operate with the tacit support of the AfD, signalling the end of the “firewall” against fascism and, thereby, also the end of a basic binding consensus in German politics since the founding of the federal republic after the defeat of the Nazis in World War Two.
While all other parties were complicit, either by directly voting for the bill (FDP, BSW) or by implementing almost identical policies while in office (SPD, Greens), only Die Linke put forward an alternative. <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@dielinkebt/video/7465417523383799063">Footage of Linke chancellor candidate Heidi Reichinnek</a> excoriating Friedrich Merz on the floor of the Bundestag went viral, tapping into a deep wellspring of disgust with fascism and with the other parties for failing to do anything about its rise. “The firewall in this country remains us, and all of us will go to the streets”, Reichinnek declared, “to the barricades!”
Tens of thousands of young people joined Die Linke in the aftermath, forming a veritable electoral army of doorknocking activists. Despite its stunning results, Die Linke’s prior record of helping to administer austerity in regional governments, its contradictory approach to foreign policy, and the many failures of its leaders to stand with the Palestine solidarity mobilisation leave questions for the future of the party.
Germany’s polarisation proceeds according to the same dynamics as in the United States, Brazil, France, or any number of other countries today: the dynamics of class conflict.
How we got here
Germany has an <a href="https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-254-crazy-rich-germans">extremely wealthy elite</a> and high levels of inequality—the two richest German families own more wealth than the bottom half of the population. As the economy slows, the ruling class increasingly sees the path back to profitability running to the right.
The old “export model” of German international competitiveness has <a href="https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/51534/the-german-economy-is-at-a-crossroads">faced roadblocks</a> for some time, but it entered a crisis under SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s watch. The German economic model was upended by the combined effects of the Covid crisis, China’s mass exports of electric cars, and the energy price shock caused by the loss of cheap Russian gas. (Russia invaded Ukraine just two months after the traffic light coalition took office.) The country entered a recession that led to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/be1460c6-7d10-4518-8cc3-82bda78ab179">rapidly falling industrial output</a>, layoffs in auto, chemicals and other industries, and skyrocketing energy and housing costs for residents.
Employers called for scrapping green energy transition plans and adopting traditional means of reviving the economy. Despite some <a href="https://zeitschrift-luxemburg.de/artikel/halt-auf-halber-strecke/">inconsistent social reforms</a> instituted during his administration, Scholz’s government responded to employers primarily by slashing social services and the climate fund. 
Further, despite rhetorical denunciations of Merz’s dalliance with the AfD, Scholz’s coalition was central to implementing extremely harsh European-wide anti-migrant and anti-refugee laws in the last five years through the Common European Asylum System. As the Green Foreign Minister Baerbock put it bluntly to Merz on the floor of the Bundestag: “What can you get with the AfD that we didn’t already do through the CEAS?”
The CDU and AfD are both fiercely committed to serving the wealthy. Their common program <a href="https://www.surplusmagazin.de/merz-weidel-koalition-wirtschaftspolitik/">includes</a>
lowering taxes on the rich, strictly adhering to the “debt brake” (which limits government borrowing and therefore leads to covering costs with cuts to social welfare), slashing wages and basic income protections and reasserting heteronormative nuclear families by cutting parental support subsidies and parental leave and further dismantling childcare infrastructure.
Within the CDU, Merz has been central to a shift away from former leader Angela Merkel’s “soft conservatism” towards a more far-right platform. The refashioned Christian party <a href="https://www.marx21.de/ampel-regierungskrise-rechtsruck-und-die-notwendigen-konsequenzen/">seeks</a>
to re-cement a German cultural identity centred on belonging to the homeland. It aims to get rid of asylum rights, raise the retirement age and re-equip the German military. In all of this, it follows the AfD, the ethnonationalism of which has masked its leaders’ willingness to meet <a href="https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/494120.wirtschaft-und-wahlversprechen-die-wirtschaft-w%C3%BCnscht.html">the demands of German capitalists</a> for a new employers’ offensive to restore German global competitiveness.
Although the AfD has reduced its internal disputes significantly, competing wings remain within the party. The neo-Nazi wing around Björn Höcke and Maximilian Krah is aiming to destroy the CDU and inherit its role as the largest party on the right. The market-radical wing around Alice Weidel (the AfD candidate for chancellor in this election) quickly shed its US scepticism after Donald Trump came to office and is committed to dramatically increasing military spending. As Elon Musk’s appearance at the AfD convention and US Vice President JD Vance’s outright campaign for the AfD at the Munich security conference indicate, the AfD is aligning more and more with Trump’s push to split Europe and make deals with individual countries while shifting some of the military burden.
The next government
Merz’s party has a few options to cobble together a ruling coalition, which he has promised to do by Easter, but the negotiating process will be messy. Merz has invited the SPD to talks, and a “Grand Coalition” of the two parties could technically manage a majority in the Bundestag. But as Ingar Solty has <a href="https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/kultur-vergnuegen/gruene-und-afd-sind-einander-sehr-aehnlich-auch-wenn-sie-das-nicht-hoeren-wollen-li.2293416">pointed out</a>, a CDU coalition with the SPD and/or the Greens will be effectively instrumentalised by the AfD in opposition, feeding its narrative of the interchangeability of all establishment parties.
A CDU/AfD coalition could command a majority and a largely shared program. But it is highly unlikely as it would cause massive outcry and position the CDU against the cross-party political consensus, risking defections from the more liberal upper classes. Then there is the (also unlikely) option that Merz forms a minority government supported by the votes of the AfD, which is nevertheless not formally part of a governing coalition.
Merz does not have a long-term vision. His project is to assert the short-term needs of capitalists against social majorities and the long-term sustainability of the country (and the planet). As Adam Tooze has <a href="https://www.surplusmagazin.de/tooze-globalisierung-trump-musk-merz/">pointed out</a>, Merz has no real plan for Europe when confronted with Trump’s dramatic new challenges. The CDU leader’s unswerving commitment to “balanced budgets” means any investments in infrastructure, research or other means of capitalist growth will have to be paid for by cutting spending in other areas.
As such, the CDU election platform envisioned incentives for capitalists at the cost of the environment and social welfare. A CDU-SPD-Green government may face difficulties implementing such a program, given that these were precisely the lines on which the former coalition government split. In a<a href="https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article255475792/Bundestagswahl-Merz-nennt-Koalitionsbedingungen-Scholz-will-CDU-Chef-mit-AfD-Frage-in-Bedraengnis-bringen-TV-Duell-zum-Nachlesen.html">
televised debate</a>, Merz also made agreement on attacking migrant rights a condition of entering a coalition.
Regardless of its composition, the new government will be anti-worker and anti-migrant. Any opposition to this course will come not from the other parties of a coalition government, but from the left.
Prospects for the left
Despite the bleak years to come under a conservative government, the revitalisation of Die Linke as a social force in Germany has led to at least some celebrations before the true work restarts. 
After Sahra Wagenknecht split from the party to form the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), Die Linke achieved a meagre 2.7 percent in the 2024 European elections. The BSW, by contrast, won 6.2 percent of the vote. In the intervening period, however, the BSW joined state governments in Thuringia and Brandenburg, and took on increasingly anti-migrant positions in a <a href="https://jacobin.com/2017/03/die-linke-germany-immigration-sahra-wagenknecht-oscar-lafontaine-afd-merkel">failed attempt</a> to appeal to AfD voters. In these new elections, Wagenknecht’s party fell just short of the required votes to enter the Bundestag, a result that is likely to be contested.
Die Linke’s principled stand on migration and its socialist platform allowed it to speak confidently to hundreds of thousands of Germans and become the <a href="https://www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/2025-02-23-BT-DE/umfrage-werwas.shtml">strongest party</a> among young and first-time voters.
However, many challenges remain. Until now, Die Linke has operated as a left-reformist organisation with small groups of revolutionaries fighting for a movement- and worker-oriented party from within. But the parliamentary fraction and the party apparatus are dominated by careerist reformists <a href="https://www.counterfire.org/article/where-is-germany-s-die-linke-heading/">more interested</a> in participating in coalition governments with the SPD and Greens than in building mass movements to change German society. Participation in various state governments led Die Linke to implement austerity, carry out deportations, attack workers and compromise on a range of issues.
While the Die Linke stronghold in Neukölln, Berlin, has been a militant pro-Palestine presence, other parts of the party have sided with apartheid Israel; Die Linke’s parliamentary fraction voted in 2023 to stand unswervingly with Israel as well. Just like in the US, Germany’s unconditional support for Israel has created a <a href="https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-boomerang-comes-back/">boomerang</a>
of colonial violence that is coming back to the metropole in various forms. Insofar as Die Linke <a href="https://www.sozialismus-von-unten.org/ramsis-kilani-ausgeschlossen-die-linke-gegen-aktive-solidaritaet-mit-palaestina/">actively participated</a> in Germany’s severe culture of repression against Palestine solidarity movements, it <a href="https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/germany-election-afd-israel-palestine-free-speech?utm_source=post-email-title&amp;publication_id=2510348&amp;post_id=157681412&amp;utm_campaign=email-post-title&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=79ysj&amp;triedRedirect=true&amp;utm_medium=email">helped pave the way</a> for some of the success of the AfD.
But Die Linke shows signs of potential change. Its base is expanding from the old strongholds of the east toward the entire country. Emerging figures show that Die Linke performed well not only in large cities, but also in many smaller towns, laying the basis for party organisations to potentially re-form there. Neukölln was won by Palestine solidarity organiser Ferat Kocak, who the German press <a href="https://archive.ph/x8kq1">denounces</a> as an anti-police activist with ties to the Trotskyists. The slogan under which Die Linke campaigned during this election was “everyone wants to govern, we want to change things”, a nod towards the importance of building an opposition outside of government power.
Most importantly, the 30,000 new party members could substantially overhaul the previously stagnating inner-party life. Incorporating these mostly young members into party and movement structures is by no means an automatic process and will take a conscious effort and some time, during which a process of mutual political education can be expected. 
One thing is certain: if Die Linke has any hope of avoiding slipping back into the social democratic swamp, it will have to forthrightly articulate a mass socialist alternative to the rightward drift in Germany, including on questions of imperialism and Palestine. As many party organisers know well, it will also have to develop stronger ties to Germany’s working class and supplant the “brown neoliberalism” of the AfD with a vision and a plan for socialist internationalism and workers’ power. 
Pressured by both geopolitical shifts and the profit-making priorities of its own ruling class, the conservative politicians at the helm of the German state have limited options within their self-defined capitalist paradigm: either eliminate the restrictions on issuing new debt (which is the position of Die Linke) or succumb to the capitalists’ demands to redistribute tax revenue away from social programs towards capital subsidies and an increased military. 
If it’s the latter, the social balance that has teetered since 2022 will no longer hold. Social upheaval is coming to Germany. Whether it is organised and rooted in the working class will determine the outcome: socialism or barbarism.
Sean Larson is a member of the Tempest Collective in the US and a founding editor of Rampant Magazine.

Sean Larson

Far-right surges, but left surprises, in German elections

The hard right is making serious ground globally. But, while increasingly powerful, their ideas are not hegemonic. Now is not the time to despair, but to fight for a better world.
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There’s an undeniable sense that a right-wing vibe shift has taken place over the last eighteen months. Bashing migrants, trans people and women’s rights is “in”, as is climate denialism and the unfettered right of billionaires to accumulate as much money as possible. The hard right have become normalised; they are the mainstream in politics.
Donald Trump’s re-election and his rapid-fire assault on the oppressed and regulatory departments are the pinnacle of this new political era. He campaigned on assertions that migrants are “poisoning the blood” of US society and eating pet cats and dogs in Ohio. He celebrated his success in appointing Supreme Court judges who overturned national abortion protections. He vowed to abolish the Department of Education and Environmental Protection Authority. And now that he’s taken office, he’s holding good on many promises, while threatening US territorial expansion.
But it’s not just the US. The far right is on the march across Europe, surging in France, the United Kingdom and Germany, on the verge of taking power in Austria, and ruling Italy and several Central European countries. Many trace historical links to 1930s fascist parties. In Australia, Liberal leader Peter Dutton has borrowed elements of the MAGA playbook, lashing out at the “woke agenda”, lamenting that young men are “disenfranchised and ostracised” by diversity initiatives and setting up his own DOGE-inspired shadow minister for government efficiency. 
Unsurprisingly, corporate America is also going MAGA. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has inserted himself into the heart of the Trump administration, while using his control of X to promote far-right parties internationally. In a speech to the fascist Alternative for Germany party, Musk encouraged Germans to move beyond “a focus on past guilt” less than a week after performing a Nazi salute during Trump’s inauguration. 
The titans of Silicon Valley—where many of the richest men in the world made their billions—have embraced Trump. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg now sports a gold chain, encourages companies to embrace “masculine energy” and recently dropped diversity initiatives. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is spending $40 million for the right to make a documentary about first lady Melania Trump, live streamed Trump’s inauguration and, along with many other tech billionaires, donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. There was a revolving door of corporate leaders bending the knee at Mar-a-Lago in the months before Trump took office.
It’s unsurprising, because these are the people set to benefit the most from an administration that is gutting regulations seen as impediments to the rich making money. In a world that feels more unstable (economies are stuttering, climate change is wreaking havoc and the threat of global war is looming), Trump promises a more ruthless administration focused only on “making America win”. Be under no illusion: it’s corporate America he is referring to. 
Diversity, equity and inclusion programs fitted the vibe of the 2010s and early 2020s, when millions of people mobilised to demand racial justice and the #MeToo movement excoriated misogynistic corporate culture. Companies adapted to try to maintain relevance amongst their consumer base. But that moment has passed, and the naked pursuit of profit and power, the preferred state of affairs for the billionaires, is making a comeback. “I feel liberated”, a top banker told the Financial Times. “We can say ‘retard’ and ‘pussy’ without the fear of getting cancelled ... It’s a new dawn.”
Right-wing politics also feels ascendant in broader society and popular culture. Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson have infected a growing section of young men with their noxious brand of hyper-misogyny and hustle culture. Trump received loud cheers during the Super Bowl live stream. Joe Rogan rules the airwaves. #YourBodyMyChoice trended immediately after Trump’s election. UFC fighter Bryce Mitchell received barely a slap on the wrist for a pro-Hitler rant that called the Nazi leader “a good guy”.
This all amounts to a dangerous new normal in world politics. For anyone who cares about the plight of the oppressed, this is serious cause for concern. It also raises a few important questions: How did we get here? And what can we do about it?
The first thing to note is that it’s not the case that everyone is now a bigot. Trump did not win by a large margin—at 1.8 percent, it’s the smallest since 1968—and nearly 90 million eligible voters stayed home. Only one newly elected president has had a lower approval rating than Trump since the end of World War II: himself, in 2017. Across Western Europe and the UK, a majority of voters still reject the far right. If Dutton wins the upcoming federal election, it will be because of the ALP’s failure to help ordinary people during the cost-of-living crisis: every Australian poll conducted in the last twelve months shows more than two-thirds of respondents do not support Trump.
Polling also indicates that many of the key right-wing talking points are not very popular. Nearly two-thirds of Americans support legal access to abortion in most or all cases (which has increased since the Dobbs decision), according to the Pew Research Center. In June last year, Gallop found that more than six in ten Americans opposed banning access to gender-affirming care for minors. Only 37 percent of US adults support Trump’s call to deport all undocumented migrants, according to a survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
In the cultural sphere, Chappell Roan, who loudly promotes LGBTI rights and supports Palestine, is the pop star of the moment. And apparently Trump’s cheers at the Super Bowl were challenged by loud jeers—Fox sport just edited those bits out.
The next thing to understand is that the right has not risen to power because the masses turned fascist. The story of electoral politics in 2024 was the crisis of incumbency: parties that have overseen the rising cost of living of recent years were booted out of office. For instance, in the United Kingdom the Labour Party defeated the Conservatives, but now that they’re just dishing out more of the same, the far-right Reform UK party has surged in the polls. Politicians of all stripes are being punished for rising inequality.
In addition to that, official politics has for years been shifting to a harsher, more racist edge. For the last fifteen years, everyone from the traditional conservatives to the social democratic parties has tried to deflect anger away from themselves and on to migrants—it’s a classic case of divide and rule. Fortress Europe—the decade-long effort to keep migrants out of Europe by building barbed wire fences and letting at least 25,000 refugees drown in the Mediterranean—was not constructed by the fascists, but the political “centre”. Last year, deportations under Biden surpassed Trump’s record. When all we are hearing from politicians and the mainstream media is that we can’t afford a house because migrants are flooding the borders, is it any wonder that people start to believe this?
Popular consciousness is not only hardening to the right, but polarising to the left as well. There are countless examples of this: from young people demanding action on climate change, growing acceptance of trans people and outrage over attacks on abortion rights, not to mention the popular response to Luigi Mangione assassinating a health insurance CEO in New York last year. As the world becomes a nastier place, many are looking for a progressive alternative. 
So how do you square this circle with the rise of the right? For one thing, it’s easier for the right. Despite their anti-establishment rhetoric, they fit much more neatly into the system, venerating hierarchies, national divisions, racist scapegoating and profit making. They’re not trying to overthrow capitalism and create a society of genuine equality—quite the opposite. When it comes to electoral politics, the right has the advantage: for instance, the left doesn’t have the support of the richest person on the planet (and nor would we want it).
But mistakes have also been made by the left. Many have tried to transform the centre left parties into a weapon for economic and social justice. This means that organising efforts are wasted on hopeless projects like the Democrats or Labor-type parties. When these parties continue to betray their hopeful supporters, people become demoralised and withdraw from politics entirely. We saw this with Bernie Sanders in the US, Jeremy Corbyn in the UK and even more left-wing, but limited, electoral projects in Europe. 
The other mistake is thinking that the bosses can be compelled to right society’s wrongs. “Woke capitalism” and diversity programs still gave us soaring inequality, accelerating climate change and the genocide in Gaza. 
Left-wing people feel defeated while the right is ascendant, which has a broader impact on society. The right-wing trolls who were hiding in subreddits five years ago are now brimming with confidence.
Instead, we need to look towards forms of organising that history has shown can push back against the right and the ills of capitalism more broadly. Protests are an essential part of that strategy. At the start of last year, support for the German far right fell after mass protests swept the country. The Black Lives Matter uprising—the largest protests in US history—helped put the final nail in the coffin of the first Trump administration. They’re also a way to gather those who share a common outrage and vision for society, cutting against the atomisation and demoralisation that the system relies on. 
Working-class power is the other necessary element. Imagine if every teacher in the US stopped work to stop Trump from gutting the Education Department. Or if every doctor and nurse went on strike against cuts to public health or the health insurance vultures. Without the labour of ordinary people, their system would come to a standstill.
But we also need a political alternative: socialist parties that fight this shitty system, instead of capitulating to or compromising with it. Politics that fights for workers, for migrants, for trans people and women’s rights, against war and genocide and greenhouse-gas-emitting corporate criminals. 
We’re living in an increasingly dangerous world. The rich want to stamp down harder on workers, the oppressed are having hard-fought rights stripped away, and the threats of war and climate catastrophe loom large. Standing on the sidelines is not an option for anyone with a shred of decency. It’s time to join the fight.

Resisting the right-wing vibe shift

The promise of mass deportations. Pardons for fascist militia leaders. Nazi salutes. Turning Guantánamo Bay torture camp into a migrant prison. A war on federal anti-discrimination provisions. On and on it goes, in US President Donald Trump’s shock and awe campaign to remould US politics decisively.
His right-hand man, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, is charged with making swingeing cuts to government expenditure. But he is just as focused on building support for jailed British fascist Tommy Robinson and for the Alternative for Germany, a fascist party that, with Musk’s backing, is now polling second in the lead-up to a federal election later this month. 
Far-right parties are in government in seven EU member states—Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Slovakia—and are surging in France and Britain, among other places. Austria’s Freedom Party, founded by an SS-Brigadeführer and former member of the Nazi Reichstag, is on the cusp of forming a government. 
None of this is coincidental. The new right is building a global movement. A victory for one is viewed as a victory for all. And no victory has been celebrated as much as Trump’s return. There could have been no greater boost to the forces of global fascism than having a far-right figure running the world’s most powerful country. At fascist and far-right rallies everywhere, people wear the distinctive Make America Great Again caps and hold pictures of the bigoted billionaire while cheering their local equivalents.
Capitalists and establishment politicians are not only doing little to impede the growth of this toxic new far right; in many cases, they are cosying up to and encouraging it. 
During his first term, Trump faced significant resistance from many quarters and mass protests from the public. Indeed, his administration turned out to be weak and somewhat ineffective, embroiled in turmoil from one week to the next and with a revolving door of staff, one day praised by the president, the next derided as dumb as rocks. 
This time around, so far, it has been different. Since 5 November, establishment arse kissers have lined up to visit Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to ingratiate themselves with a man who has basically promised to carry out mass human rights violations across the country. The financial pages have been a sea of articles about “the Trump trade” as all attention turns to money making, to hell with humanity.
After Trump entered office in 2017, the Washington Post, owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, changed its masthead motto to “Democracy dies in darkness”. This time, Bezos forbade any election editorial against Trump (a “hypocritical, chicken shit move”, according to one former US diplomat) and was a guest at the presidential inauguration, along with a who’s who of America’s most influential and wealthy people.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong also attended, personifying Australia’s imperial cringe: a hack basking in the glow of power. More than that, Wong exemplified the useful idiocy of the political centre left. While the far right coordinates globally, all the ALP can offer is smiles and photo ops that help normalise the brewing reaction. 
Not a peep of opposition can be heard from this so-called party of labour, just the sound of it sucking up to the rich and powerful here and abroad. Indeed, if Trump had strolled over and taken a crap at Wong’s feet, we’d probably have gotten a bumbling DFAT media release about the president’s attention to Australia’s representative being yet another indication of the two countries’ “enduring mateship”. 
So what’s left? And what can we do?
“No-one saves us but ourselves.” That saying is attributed, perhaps apocryphally, to Buddha. A few years ago, the global climate movement adopted it. Hundreds of thousands of young people started to recognise that lobbying was a dead end. Clearly, those in power—politicians and capitalists—have zero intention of doing what’s required to avert environmental catastrophe. In fact, pursuing profits, they continue to green-light destructive coal and oil extraction projects worldwide. 
It’s also clear that the established political forces will not save us from the far right. If gaining office means adopting parts of the far-right program or capitulating to far-right leaders, they will do it. If being close to power means being close to and friendly with fascists, then they will dress for the occasion. 
They are scum.
No-one will save us but ourselves. We have to build a socialist alternative to this global horror show and a socialist alternative to the useless ALP. We need a party willing to fight, not capitulate—a party that fights for workers, not billionaires; a party that fights against bigotry and racism; a party that fights against war and imperialism; a party that fights against the whole rotten system of capitalism, and for a society run according to Karl Marx’s maxim, “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need”.
If you want to resist the far right, and build a better, socialist society, join Socialist Alternative. We have a world to win.

‘No-one saves us but ourselves’: we have to resist the far right

Capitalism’s new era of brutality found no greater expression this week than in the world’s richest man, Elon Musk—a supporter of European fascist organisations—openly and emphatically invoking the most reactionary of political doctrines. 
At an event celebrating Donald Trump’s swearing-in as the 47th president of the United States, the multi-billionaire unmistakably performed Nazi salutes. Yet this provoked little consternation among the mouthpieces of capitalism—the media that relentlessly smear anti-war protesters as antisemites. 
“Standing ovation for Elon Musk”, observed news anchor Erin Burnett during CNN’s live coverage. “You saw him come out with that odd-looking salute.” The New York Times
adopted the posture of a media establishment utterly unperturbed, with a headline that conjured a shrug: “Elon Musk Ignites Online Speculation Over the Meaning of a Hand Gesture”. 
For many years, the global ruling classes’ only defence against Trump’s right-wing electoral populism took the form of repeated warnings about the danger of fascism. Now, presented with the most culturally recognisable symbol of fascist politics from a member of Trump’s administration, they feign ignorance. 
This is no mistake. It is the wilful legitimisation of far-right filth by a system built on exploitation, oppression and militarism.
Big bank CEOs, industrialists, politicians and diplomats have brushed off Musk’s obscenity as they flock to embrace Trump. Salivating over the promise of tax cuts, deregulation and renewed imperial might, the profit-seekers are kneeling before their new master like so many Pavlovian dogs. 
On ABC News, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong congratulated the president and described the “honour” of attending his inauguration as “such an important event, the peaceful transfer of power in our democracy”. The Hitler salutes that featured in the celebrations—not to mention the reactionary programme of the incoming administration—weren’t worth mentioning, let alone condemning. 
Defenders of the status quo might try to deny reality. But the far right fully grasps the facts. Australian neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell posted a video of Musk’s salute, declaring it a “Donald Trump White Power Moment”. Right-wing US political commentator Evan Kilgore <a href="https://x.com/EvanAKilgore/status/1881431216181985720">wrote on X</a>: “Did @elonmusk just Heil Hitler at the Trump Inauguration Rally ... We are so back”. 
Among the global leaders of the parliamentary far right, Argentina’s President Javier Milei was first in line to stand with Musk. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Milei claimed that the Tesla CEO “has been unjustly vilified by wokeism ideology of recent days for an innocent gesture that simply reflects his enthusiasm and gratitude for people”. On X, Milei was <a href="https://x.com/JMilei/status/1881887233516482610">more forthright</a>: “Tremble, leftist motherfuckers”.
One of the most disgraceful defences of Musk came from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a US-based nonprofit that presents itself as an antisemitism watchdog. As footage of the rally circulated, the organisation offered <a href="https://x.com/ADL/status/1881474892022919403">an instant apology for it</a>:
“It seems that [Musk] made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute ... In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt ... Let’s hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead.”
The ADL, of course, has been unwilling to extend the same level of understanding to activists opposing genocide. Even Jewish opponents of Israeli war crimes have been labelled antisemites by the group. Mondoweiss, a US news website, reported last June that ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt had stated at a corporate panel event: “Saying ‘free Palestine’ to a Jewish person out of context is antisemitism, plain and simple”. In a previous address to an ADL leadership summit, Greenblatt insisted: “When campus organisations like SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] interrupt speeches, disrupt events ... that is extremism”. 
If there’s one thing that should be simple to identify as extremism, it’s a Hitler salute by a man who recently wrote on X: “Only the AfD can save Germany”. (The AfD­—Alternative for Germany—is a fascist party led by a man <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-69012813">convicted for knowingly using a Nazi slogan</a> at a public rally.)
Musk himself clarified the situation by <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1882406209187409976">posting a sequence of puns</a> containing the names of high-ranking Nazi officials, capped off with, “Bet you did nazi that coming”. This is from a man who thinks UK far-right leader Nigel Farage ought to be <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/1/6/musk-turns-on-uk-politician-farage-over-jailed-far-right-activist">replaced by fascist street agitator Tommy Robinson</a>.
Yet Musk escapes official rebuke because of the power bestowed on him by wealth and his proximity to the incoming US president. Almost every institution of Western capitalism has declared its eagerness to work with Trump’s team. 
Nazi sympathies were no barrier to lucrative partnerships earlier in the twentieth century, as the <a href="https://www.thehistoryreader.com/historical-figures/hitlers-american-friends-henry-ford-and-nazism/">compatriots of Henry Ford knew well</a>. The US ruling class seems to be returning to the sensibilities of those times. Reservations are being voiced in some establishment circles—but the desire to make money is trumping the idea of putting up any serious resistance to the reactionary political tide. 
This episode is a grave forewarning about what our current rulers will tolerate. Our only hope in pushing back the far-right surge is to build radical opposition against the system that created this monstrosity in the first place.

An appeal for an international anti-fascist campaign against Tesla

University of Technology Sydney stands with boys with big feelings

MAGA’s elite ‘anti-elites’

The right gains ground in Germany, but not without challenge

‘Don’t buy Nazi cars!’: taking on Tesla from the showrooms to the plants

Why the capitalists have fallen in with the far right

Far-right surges, but left surprises, in German elections

Resisting the right-wing vibe shift

‘No-one saves us but ourselves’: we have to resist the far right

The salute that was

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