The Social Roots of Right-Wing Extremism
Beyond Symptom Management in Today's West
Morning Comrades.
I am away this week for a little rest and research prior to the celebrations for having survived another year around the sun. Whether or not I will write this week will remain to be seen, but I wanted to share a piece that I have been working for a little while last week, namely, on the reality of what many of us experience here in the West on the daily.
The subject deals with two interwoven realities: one, the materially obvious and clear danger of White Supremacy and its active proponents in the shape of Neo-Nazis that march on our street. Secondly, with the more acute and yet silent danger of the radicalised much larger group of people that silently, but still deadly, support this extremism through their inaction, or more poignantly, their invisible support of this insanity.
The rise of right-wing extremism across the Western world has been extensively analysed in contemporary scholarship, with researchers emphasising that the majority of rank-and-file adherents are not ideologically sophisticated zealots but rather ordinary people seeking community, identity, and emotional validation. This perspective does not excuse their actions but provides a necessary framework for understanding how right-wing extremism spreads and sustains itself. Social and psychological factors—rather than deep ideological commitment—often drive individuals into extremist spaces. Furthermore, the amplification of extremist rhetoric by tech billionaires such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg facilitates radicalisation, while the passive complicity of broader conservative or apolitical audiences ensures that extremism remains embedded within the social fabric. The phenomenon can be likened to the "Good German" syndrome, where ordinary citizens allow extremist movements to flourish by looking away. Examining these dynamics through contemporary research on fascism and right-wing extremism helps to clarify how and why these movements persist.
Fascism as a Social Phenomenon, Not Just an Ideology
As Robert Paxton argues in The Anatomy of Fascism, “fascism does not rest so much on explicit philosophy as on a series of emotional impulses—resentment, fear, and the desire for belonging.” This suggests that many who engage with right-wing extremism do so less out of a coherent ideological program and more because these movements provide a sense of community and purpose.
Jason Stanley, in How Fascism Works, expands on this idea, noting that fascist movements offer a form of emotional catharsis: “Fascist politics identifies the enemy, promotes a sense of victimhood, and gives people permission to express their resentment and rage.” Online and offline, right-wing extremist spaces validate emotions that mainstream society may otherwise condemn, particularly anger, fear, and aggression. These spaces function as an outlet for those who feel alienated, offering them both a scapegoat (immigrants, minorities, feminists, LGBTQ+ people) and a support network that affirms their grievances.
The Role of Digital Platforms in Radicalisation
The amplification of right-wing extremism by major social media platforms has been well-documented. The algorithms designed by companies like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube prioritise engagement, which means that sensationalist and inflammatory content is pushed to the forefront. As Becca Lewis notes in Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube, right-wing extremism thrives in digital spaces where “content creators build parasocial relationships with audiences, fostering a sense of community and legitimacy.”
Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter/X has only exacerbated this problem. Under his leadership, the platform has reinstated far-right figures, rolled back content moderation, and amplified reactionary culture-war rhetoric. Musk himself engages with right-wing extremists, further legitimising their presence in mainstream discourse. Similarly, Facebook’s algorithmic preference for outrage has been linked to radicalisation; as Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower, testified to the U.S. Senate, “Facebook’s own research shows that its algorithm promotes polarization and extremist content because it is more engaging.”
This structural amplification means that while the most visible spearheads of bigotry are the extremists themselves, their ideas are given undue weight and reach by Silicon Valley’s profit-driven model of information dissemination. The tech elites who control these platforms are not necessarily ideologically committed to fascism, but their pursuit of engagement and revenue inadvertently strengthens it.
The Role of Passive Enablers: The “Good German” Syndrome
Perhaps even more concerning than the vocal extremists are the rank-and-file supporters and passive enablers of right-wing movements. Many of these individuals do not actively promote bigotry but tacitly allow it to flourish. This dynamic closely parallels what scholars call the “Good German” syndrome, referencing the phenomenon in Nazi Germany where ordinary citizens did not directly participate in atrocities but remained complicit by looking away.
Historian Claudia Koonz, in The Nazi Conscience, explores how many Germans in the 1930s did not see themselves as extremists but rather as upstanding citizens preserving social order. They may not have engaged in outright violence, but their silence and passive acceptance allowed the Nazi movement to solidify its power. Similarly, today’s right-wing extremism does not exist in isolation; it is enabled by millions of people who do not challenge the movement’s violence or bigotry but rather dismiss it as exaggerated or irrelevant.
Paxton reinforces this point when he describes fascism as a process that “depends on the silent complicity of the majority” and that “many of those who benefit from fascism are neither militants nor ideologues, but people who find it easier to conform than to resist.” In the modern context, this means conservative voters who may not explicitly support neo-Nazis but vote for politicians who embolden them, or social media users who claim neutrality while engaging with extremist content.
The Need for Active Resistance
Understanding right-wing extremism as a social phenomenon rooted in community, emotional validation, and passive complicity forces us to rethink how it should be countered. As history and contemporary research show, combating extremism requires more than just deplatforming its most vocal figures—it requires dismantling the networks that provide these individuals with a sense of belonging and challenging the passive enablers who allow their ideas to spread. The “Good German” syndrome of silent complicity must be directly confronted, both in online spaces and broader society.
Ultimately, right-wing extremism is not just about a few fringe extremists shouting the loudest. It is a product of broader social dynamics—of alienation, digital amplification, and quiet acceptance. If these underlying conditions are not addressed, extremism will continue to find fertile ground, no matter how many individual extremists are deplatformed or de-radicalized.
Beyond Symptom Management: Capitalism as the Root of Right-Wing Extremism
While deplatforming, education, and grassroots resistance are necessary in combatting right-wing extremism, these approaches only address the symptoms of the disease, not its root cause. The fundamental driver of mass alienation, social fragmentation, and economic precarity—the very conditions that push ordinary people into right-wing extremist movements—is capitalism itself. As long as capitalism persists, it will continue to produce the crises that drive millions into reactionary politics, seeking community, identity, and emotional catharsis in bigotry and authoritarianism. Only through the abolition of capitalism and the construction of socialism—transitioning towards communism—can we dismantle the underlying structures that fuel far-right radicalisation.
Capitalism Breeds Alienation and Precarity
Karl Marx described alienation as one of its core effects: the separation of people from the products of their labour, from their own humanity, from each other, and from any sense of collective belonging. Under capitalism, work is not a source of fulfillment but a means of survival, reducing human relationships to market transactions. As automation, globalization, and financial speculation have intensified, this alienation has deepened, leaving millions feeling disconnected, powerless, and adrift in a world they cannot control.
At the same time, capitalism has eroded the social safety nets that once provided stability. The rise of gig work, stagnant wages, and the dismantling of labour protections have created widespread economic precarity. People who experience downward mobility or see no future for themselves are more vulnerable to reactionary politics. As historian Enzo Traverso argues in The New Faces of Fascism, contemporary fascism is “the child of neoliberalism,” preying on the anxieties created by an economic system that offers only insecurity, competition, and isolation. Rather than recognizing capitalism as the problem, disaffected individuals are directed toward scapegoats: immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, feminists, and the left.
The Right Offers False Community—Socialism Offers Real Liberation
Because capitalism atomises people and destroys meaningful communal bonds, the far right steps in to fill the void. Far-right movements offer a form of false solidarity: a brotherhood of shared resentment and exclusionary identity. These movements provide purpose and belonging, but only through the oppression of others. White nationalism, religious fundamentalism, and other reactionary ideologies give individuals a sense of identity in a world where capitalism has stripped them of any real control over their lives.
Socialism, by contrast, offers true community—one based on collective struggle, solidarity, and the common good rather than exclusion and hierarchy. The labour movement, tenant unions, mutual aid networks, and revolutionary organisations demonstrate that a different form of belonging is possible—one that does not rely on bigotry or reactionary nationalism but on the shared fight for a better world. The only way to permanently undermine the far right’s appeal is to build a socialist alternative where economic security, democratic control, and social solidarity replace the isolation and despair of capitalism.
Building Socialism as the Antidote to Fascism
Throughout history, periods of economic crisis and instability have created fertile ground for fascism. But they have also created openings for revolutionary change. The choice before us is not simply between capitalist liberal democracy and the far right—it is between socialism or barbarism. The construction of socialism, through the nationalisation of industry, the democratisation of workplaces, the guarantee of housing, healthcare, and education as human rights, and the dismantling of imperialist war economies, would eliminate the conditions that drive people toward fascism in the first place.
As Marx and Engels wrote in The Communist Manifesto, “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.” The working class, regardless of race or nationality, must be won away from the false promises of the far right and toward a socialist future. Only by abolishing capitalism can we eliminate the alienation, economic misery, and social decay that turn ordinary people into the foot soldiers of reaction. If we want to defeat fascism for good, we must recognize that it is not an aberration but a product of capitalism—and that the only real solution is to build communism.
Yours, warmly,
V.