Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor Warn: "End Times Fascism" Is Real. We Need to Talk About It.

Read their article and let me know what you think!

This article shook me.

Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor, in their essay “The Rise of End Times Fascism” published in The Guardian, have named the era we’re living through with piercing insight. It’s terrifying. But it’s also clarifying—and having clarity about what we are up against can help, because then instead of hopelessness, we can begin to make a plan to address the challenge.

They write:

“The governing ideology of the far right in our age of escalating disasters has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism.”

That survivalism isn’t just about hoarding canned food. It’s a full-blown worldview—one where the most powerful people are preparing to flee the consequences of the world they’re burning down.

Klein and Taylor describe how billionaires like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are "actively provoking" collapse while simultaneously building their escape routes:

“Hyper-capitalist, democracy-free havens under the sole control of the supremely wealthy, protected by private mercenaries, serviced by AI robots and financed by cryptocurrencies.”

Some, like Musk, are dreaming of escaping to Mars. Others are buying land in New Zealand, commissioning luxury bunkers, or backing corporate “freedom cities” with no meaningful government oversight.

“To put it bluntly,” they write, “the most powerful people in the world are preparing for the end of the world, an end they themselves are frenetically accelerating.”

Meanwhile, Trump and his allies are building a more terrestrial version of that fantasy—a "bunkered nation" where only the "chosen" are safe and everyone else is disposable. That’s the role of mass deportations, surveillance tech, and ICE-as-ideology: to reinforce the borders of the bunker.

What’s especially chilling is how this ideology has fused apocalyptic Christian nationalism with transhumanist tech fantasies. As Klein and Taylor put it, even Silicon Valley’s secular elites have

“embraced a vision of the future that follows a nearly identical script” to biblical Rapture narratives.

Escape the Earth. Leave the unworthy behind. Build a new world—whether on Mars, in a crypto-state, or inside a gated AI utopia.

As the musician Anohni says in the piece:

“This is the culmination of their Rapture. This is their escape from the voluptuous cycle of creation. This is their escape from Mother.”

It’s as spiritually hollow as it is politically deadly. And it’s why Klein and Taylor argue that to defeat end times fascism, we need not just better policy—but a better story. One rooted in “interdependence and belonging,” in staying, not fleeing—in fighting for here, not fantasizing about there.

One thing I think might be underdeveloped in Klein and Taylor’s essay is this: the billionaires aren’t escaping anywhere without at least some us. They may fantasize about disappearing into bunkers or launching themselves to Mars, but they’re not planning on growing their own food, repairing their own AI systems, cleaning their bunkers, or performing their own surgeries. As much as they promote a worldview of radical self-reliance and isolation, they’re still utterly dependent on workers—obedient, skilled, expendable.

Their dystopian future still requires a labor force.

That reality raises a critical question: What happens when workers no longer cooperate with their escape plan? What if the people tasked with keeping the bunkers running—or building the "freedom cities" or training the AI—refuse? What if our organizing against oppression here on Earth includes refusing to build their off-world escape routes, their underground fiefdoms, their techno-utopias-for-some?

It reminds me that resistance is not just about protest—it’s also about withdrawal of consent, about disruption, about collective noncooperation with the machinery of supremacy. Their survival plans collapse without labor. Our survival begins when we realize that power and act on it.

I'm still thinking this through, but I’d love to hear what others make of all this. What does this all mean for how we resist? What new strategies and stories emerge when we stop imagining ourselves as cargo in their escape plan—and start organizing like we’re the ones who make the ship run?

👉🏾 Please read Kline and Taylor’s full piece. And after you do, I’d love to hear what you think. Let’s wrestle with it, name what we’re up against, and talk about what kind of resistance—spiritual, political, and imaginative—we can build together.

-Jesse

P.S.

This article has also got me thinking deeply about what this moment means for education—how the logic of bunkered survivalism is seeping into our classrooms, curriculum, and concept of learning. From book bans and surveillance to attacks on climate and race education, schooling itself is being shaped by the values of this apocalyptic worldview.

I’m working on a new essay that explores what end times fascism means for public education, and how we fight back. I’ll be sharing that soon.

#TeachTruth #EndTimesFascism #NaomiKlein #AstraTaylor #Resistance #BunkerBusting #EndTimesSchooling