The golden age of fascism begins right now?
- Marta Tiana
- Feb 3
- 7 min read
Updated: Feb 4
Two weeks ago, Donald Trump became the first president of the United States found guilty of sexual abuse. "The golden age of America begins right now" , he promised to the world at the beginning of his inauguration speech. ''America', as in the United States alone –as if the other 34 countries on the continent didn't exist. Many conservatives, including war criminal and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, celebrated his victory, calling it “history’s greatest comeback.” However, his return to power is not just a political comeback, neither the 'greatest'; it’s a full-scale assault on democracy, human rights, and the very fabric of justice.
Trump's agenda? To criminalize migration, erase trans existence, and strip reproductive rights. This isn’t just conservatism; it’s authoritarianism wrapped in the patriotic 'stars and stripes'– the U.S. flag. The evidence is undeniable: skyrocketing mass deportations, trans and LGBTIQ+ bans, and anti-abortion legislation. The 'golden age of America' premmieres in an ecosystem where crimes are on the rise, and human rights violations are becoming normalized. The right wing playbook – the white supremacy reactionary discourse gets helped by the internet to spread worldwide. But here’s the truth: resistance is not futile. It’s urgent. And civil organization, more needed than ever.
Welcome to the New Dark Age
In his first term, Trump’s "Remain in Mexico" policy, forced nearly 70,000 asylum seekers into a dangerous limbo. Now, in 2025, the nightmare came back—but worse. In only two weeks of presidency, deportations doubled. The CBP One app, which facilitated asylum appointments, has been scrapped, leaving 270,000 migrants trapped in border towns, Borders got militarized. ICE raids (operations conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest individuals suspected of being in the country illegally) are sweeping through major cities. Hundreds of families are being ripped apart in broad daylight and if not, sleep terrified at night.
Trump has always claimed that "millions" of immigrants in the U.S. illegally have criminal records or mental illnesses. That's how he managed to justify to get to prepare Guantanamo Bay's facility for more than 30,000 'ultra-dangerous criminal migrants'. FactCheck.org reports that there is no evidence to support his claims. Rather, they smell like rotten hate speech and open racism. The Pew Research Center estimates that the number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. is around 11 million, and studies indicates that migrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens. On the counter-hand, Mr. Trump was found guilty in 2023 for one case of sexual assult. But so far, he holds more than 25 accusations of the same felony against him. So here you have it, the 45th president of the United States of America is a world-wide known criminal himself.
But "let it be heard loud and clear" –as Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexican president, said recently: "mexican migrants sustain the economy of the U.S. on the fields, on the service industry (...) the U.S. would not be what it is if it weren't for a hard-working people who come to help"
The Mexican government has established shelters to accommodate the massive influx of deported migrants at the border cities and towns. However, these facilities are overwhelmed, leading to inadequate living conditions and heightened security risks. The designation of Trump's administration of Mexican cartels as "foreign terrorist organizations" along the deployment of military forces to the border have escalated tensions at the border towns, affecting both migrants and local communities.
Authoritarianism Loves a Scapegoat
Beyond the immediate incalculable human costs, the broader geopolitical landscape grows ever more volatile, as nation-states adopt more conservative policies and form alliances based on shared far-right ideals. Trump’s dehumanization of migrants is not just policy—we are in front of a political strategy that comes within a very specific narrative. One, that is dangerously rooting into our societies. Or at least, adopting a new authoritarian form. And this time, the Internet (digital media) took the leading role.
The same formula is playing out well across the world. Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Viktor Orbán in Hungary. Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. Javier Milei in Argentina, for instance, has initiated a radical reduction of the state (public sector), eliminating numerous public positions and dismantling regulatory frameworks, limiting access to vital public services and protections, and targeting trans* and queer communities and reproductive rights. .
As journalist and writer Yoav Litvin points out: "Their motivations centre on domination, personal gain and the thrill of victory, driven by an insatiable desire to inflate their own grandiose egos." Across the world, the rise of ultra-nationalist leaders and far-right politics is somehow part of a disturbing trend: fascism seems to be no longer confined to history books, but being rewritten in real-time.
"Their motivations centre on domination, personal gain and the thrill of victory, driven by an insatiable desire to inflate their own grandiose egos."
The War on Reproductive and Trans* Rights
According to the FBI’s Hate Crime Statistics Report (2024), anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes spiked in the U.S. by 25%, with trans* individuals being primary targets. Attacks on immigrants and people of color (BIPOC) increased by 15% in just one year. And these are not isolated events, neither just numbers. They are only the tip of an evil iceberg that Trump's administration is helping to unveil.
The former U.S. president's seige on bodily autonomy didn’t stop back in 2022 at the Supreme Court, when, during his first term, he effectively ended the federal constitutional right to get an abortion allowing individual states to regulate or ban the procedure. This time, Trump's policies became a full-scale attack on reproductive rights, setting the stage for a broader crackdown on personal freedoms across the nation.
His administration has reinstated the global gag rule, "a policy that risks women’s health and lives by forcing nongovernmental organizations outside of the United States to choose between receiving U.S. global health assistance and providing comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care". By this, Trump slashed all funding for organizations providing reproductive healthcare. The National Abortion Federation reports a record number of clinic visits and hotline calls, as access disappears in dozens of states.
Calls to LGBTQ+ crisis hotlines have risen dramatically, with organizations like The Trevor Project reporting a 40% increase in calls for suicide prevention among trans and non-binary youth following the public debate over transgender rights. Similarly, the National Abortion Federation has reported a record number of clinic visits and hotline calls in response to the continuous attacks on abortion access.
A World (and Narrative) Built on Colonialism
Now, seeing Trump's agenda and his 'very powerful friends' attending all together to his fulll-of-hate inauguration speech, makes me a little bit terrified – as a journalist and as a bisexual woman, I might say (but about them and who's behind the media we consume, I will write another article). Mark Zuckerberg (Meta's CEO), Jeff Bezos (Amazon's CEO), Sundar Pichai (Gioogle's CEO) and Elon Musk (X's and Tesla's owner).., teaming up with Donald Trump. You see, now, what I mean when I call it 'the golden era of fascism'? Hey, somebody go tell them that trying to erase trans* or migrant's existence through mass deportation, state-sanctioned discrimination or forced detransitioning is not conservatism. It is called extermination by policy.
Systematic elimination, some academics call it. We've done it, seen it and learned how to normalize it since forever. We saw it in Ruanda during the 90's and in Germany, during the Holocaust. In both cases, we promised we'd 'never again', but we went blind anyways. Bad journalism carries part of the burden. Palestine, Congo, Sudan, or Myanmar. We learned to live with genocide. And as it isn't a novelty in the world, it is not in the U.S. either. Jim Crow's laws, the late 19th century until the mid-20th century, mandated separate public facilities and services for Black and White people, institutionalizing a system of apartheid, enforcing racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans. Rings a bell?
Colonialism courses through our veins as it does to our lands. We see its hostile legacy still alive in our frontiers, and the immigration laws we abide by. It’s as though we never truly escaped its grasp—we merely learned how to evolve from it, to adapt it to the changes of our realities and to justify it through our blind and selfish needs. In this system where the planet is a mere source of exploitation, where there are humans and then, 'aliens' (that's how Mr. Trump calls undocumented migrants) years of history lessons seem to be forgotten and social disobedience is more needed than ever.
How We Fight Back
Fascism thrives when we normalize its presence. Resistance thrives when:
1. Frontline organizations actively fight Trump’s policies get support and grow their communities:
RAICES – Free legal aid for detained migrants.
The National Network for Abortion Funds – Direct assistance for abortion seekers.
Trans Lifeline – Crisis support and financial aid for trans people.
!! This list will remain open and will be updated over the coming months to include additional organizations.
2. Lies are exposed (and information is contrasted and fact-checked):
For Instance, Trump claims immigrants are criminals. Here's a FACT: Studies from the Pew Research Center confirm immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than U.S.-born citizens. Trump is the criminal, with over 25 women accusing him of sexual assault. Beware of fake news, contrast information and be critical. Remember that rest (even from information) is necesary and, in this world, sometimes it is even radical.
3. People vote, protest, disrupt and strengthen their off-line communities:
Don't loose your trust. People are fighting back and you can do it too. Wherever you are in the world. Get in touch with your community and organize yourselves. In recent months, a surge of global protests has underscored the world's collective stand against far-right ideologies. In Germany, for instance, approximately 160,000 people rallied in Berlin against a proposed immigration bill backed by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
On Saturday, February 1st, thousands of Argentines took the streets in Buenos Aires and other cities to protest President Javier Milei's remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos. A protest, that became a world-wide phenomena as collectives in Europe and America organized in solidarity and marched against facsism in different cities and countries during the same day.
Direct civil action in the U.S. has stopped ICE buses before. Social and civil organization and the fight against misinformation on and off-line, are our strongest weapons. The far-right is organized. Resistance must be too. Our history has shown us this: every authoritarian regime can fall if there is people willing fight back. Diving into the way we build this resistance, though, that we will also leave for the next chapter..
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