End Times Fascism

Naomi Klein, the bestselling author of The Shock Doctrine and No Logo, and Astra Taylor, a writer and activist who co-founded the Debt Collective, a debtor-organizing union, argue that the global far right has entered a dangerous new phase they call "end times fascism." Unlike twentieth-century fascism, which promised its followers a stable, purified future, this iteration has abandoned the idea of a shared future altogether. Its leaders have made peace with permanent crisis and are waging a supremacist war over who will survive the coming collapse, a collapse they themselves are accelerating.

The book opens at the January 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Trump envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff presented AI-generated images of "New Gaza," a Dubai-like resort city to be built on the ruins of a territory devastated by Israeli bombardment. The authors treat this scene as a distillation of the end times fascist worldview: a gated paradise rising from apocalyptic destruction, available only to the chosen few. They connect this vision to ancient narratives in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in which catastrophe precedes redemption, but argue that when people with immense power treat these stories as literal blueprints, every atrocity becomes a sign that a new world is on the way.

Klein and Taylor identify three allied factions, each pursuing a different apocalyptic dream. Religious end timers, strongest in the United States, Israel, and Latin America, believe humanity has entered the biblical end of days. Tech end timers in Silicon Valley are racing to create artificial superintelligence, willing to sacrifice the planet's habitability to feed their machines. Ethno-nationalist end timers seek to turn the nation-state into a purified bunker through mass deportation, border fortification, and resource stockpiling. What binds them is a shared conviction that the common world is ending and only a select group deserves to survive.

In Part I, "Messianic Dreams," the authors trace apocalyptic religion's rise from the margins to the centers of state power. They open with Denis Michael Rohan, an Australian farmhand who experienced a psychiatric crisis and became immersed in an apocalyptic church. In 1969, Rohan traveled to Israel and set fire to al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third-holiest site, to clear the way for the Third Temple, the foretold rebuilt Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Rohan's act was condemned as that of a lone fanatic. The authors contrast it with the actions of Israel's Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, who in October 2025 led over 1,000 settlers in prayer at the same compound, framing the destruction of Palestinian society as a religious victory.

The alliance between US Christian Zionists, who believe supporting Israel will hasten Jesus's return, and Israeli messianic Jews, religious Jews who see current events as advancing messianic prophecy, has moved from the fringes into government. The authors trace this through Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and the penetration of apocalyptic theology into the US military under Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, whose tattoos reference crusader slogans. They argue that apocalyptic politics intensifies during genuine crises: The Covid-19 pandemic radicalized previously apolitical Christians by turning public health measures into perceived religious persecution, and the January 6, 2021, insurrection is described as a uniquely Christian uprising catalyzed by this radicalization. Meanwhile, the violent suppression of liberation theology in Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s destroyed a left-leaning Catholic tradition that married faith with economic justice, leaving a vacuum that Pentecostalism's prosperity gospel rushed to fill.

Part II, "Escape to the Cloud," argues that the pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), the hypothetical point at which machines match or exceed human cognitive ability, drove tech oligarchs to align with Trump. The technology's vast demands for energy, water, and deregulation required a leader willing to override public opposition. A pivotal June 2024 fundraising dinner at the mansion of David Sacks, a tech investor and Trump ally, sealed the deal: Executives promised that deregulated AI and cryptocurrency would burn massive amounts of fossil fuel, benefiting Trump's energy allies, and Trump agreed to lift regulations. Upon returning to office, Trump revoked Biden's AI safeguards, declared a national energy emergency, and launched the $500 billion Project Stargate AI infrastructure initiative.

The chapter on Elon Musk's Colossus supercomputer in Memphis grounds these dynamics in a specific community. Musk built the facility adjacent to Boxtown, a working-class, majority-Black neighborhood with cancer rates four times the national average, operating dozens of unpermitted methane gas turbines that spewed pollutants into surrounding areas. KeShaun Pearson, executive director of Memphis Community Against Pollution, connects the fight to the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers' strike, arguing that today's struggle is for human life to be deemed valuable against a tech elite that views people as raw material for machines. The authors document growing global resistance: 48 US data-center projects totaling over $156 billion were stalled or halted in 2025, with opposition spanning conservative rural communities and progressive urban campaigns.

Part III, "Prepper Nation," analyzes ethno-nationalism as the coalition's third pillar. The authors use Hurricane Helene's devastation of western North Carolina to show how fascists exploit real disasters: While survivors needed help, Trump and Musk amplified conspiracy theories claiming the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had diverted funds to immigrants. The administration slashed nearly $1 trillion from healthcare and social programs while pouring resources into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Klein and Taylor trace the Great Replacement conspiracy, the baseless claim that elites are deliberately importing immigrants to displace native populations, from a 2011 French pamphlet through its adoption by mass shooters to its entrenchment in Trump's 2025 National Security Strategy. The far right, they argue, grasps that the planet is warming and millions will be displaced but plans to fortress borders rather than reduce emissions.

The book's turning point comes with the federal occupation of Minneapolis, where up to 4,000 ICE agents descended on the Twin Cities after a misleading viral video about Somali-run daycare centers. Instead of the disorganized opposition the Trump movement, known as "Make America Great Again" (MAGA), expected, the resistance drew on decades of multi-faith, multi-racial coalition building. Workers, parents, clergy, and even some Trump voters mounted a general strike of 100,000 people, and two-thirds of Americans said ICE had gone too far. The influencer-driven MAGA movement also proved incapable of sustained collaboration, as each figure's brand depended on out-transgressing rivals. After the assassination of right-wing media figure Charlie Kirk, commentator Candace Owens and congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene broke ranks, and the movement's intensifying misogyny prompted pushback from women within its own base.

Part IV, "Let's Stay," presents alternatives rooted in what the authors call "hereness," drawn from the Eastern European Jewish socialist movement known as the Bund and its Yiddish concept of doikayt: a commitment to fighting for freedom and safety wherever one lives. The campaign of Zohran Mamdani, a little-known New York State legislator and democratic socialist, for mayor of New York City serves as the book's central countermodel. Beginning at one percent in the polls, Mamdani built a volunteer army of over 100,000 people, knocked on more than 3 million doors, and won with over 50 percent of the vote by offering concrete policies: free buses, universal childcare, frozen rents, and modest tax increases on the rich. When billionaires threatened to leave, the threats backfired, revealing their extractive relationship with the city.

The book concludes by calling for a new disarmament movement targeting three concentrations of power: nuclear weapons, unregulated AI, and extreme wealth. The authors propose "AI Containment," including prohibitions on AI in warfare and mass surveillance. They advocate for a wealth cap, noting that the United States maintained effective maximum wages through 90 percent marginal tax rates during the postwar era, and call for strengthening international legal institutions such as the International Criminal Court. They cite nuclear disarmament as proof of concept: Between 1986 and 2015, approximately 54,450 warheads were decommissioned through mass organizing. End times fascists insist the human story is hitting a wall; Klein and Taylor counter that what is failing is the story of limitless growth, and that two paths remain: abandoning the world or building systems that honor life and prioritize care and repair.