"Trump Sounds Like a FASCIST!" Piers Morgan vs Slavoj Zizek On Fascism

Slavoj Žižek defines fascism as 'conservative modernization,' where a society embraces rapid industrialization and technological progress while maintaining strong state and ideological control, often rooted in nationalist or traditional values. He cites China, Putin's Russia, Erdogan's Turkey, and Modi's India as examples of 'soft fascist' countries, moving beyond the traditional image of shouting Nazis.

Žižek states, 'Fascism is for me it's an old Marxist definition here. I agree with it. Fascism is for me a conservative modernization. You want to reap all the benefits or fast industrialization and so on but you are aware that if you leave this process without any state control you end up in decay too much individism and so on. So the idea is yes liberal capitalism but with a strong not only state control but also ideological control usually grounded in some nationalist ethnic more even than religious conservative traditional ideology.' He then gives China, Putin, Erdogan, and Modi as examples.

Žižek characterizes Donald Trump as a 'liberal fascist,' arguing that Trump is a reaction to the decay and weakness of the American liberal democratic welfare state. He believes that focusing solely on Trump misses the crucial self-critique needed for the liberal establishment, and that Trump's 'clownish' and vulgar style is a unique aspect of this new form of fascism.

Žižek states, 'Perhaps the best characterization of Trump is that he's liberal, namely a fascist liberal. He's the ultimate proof that liberalism and fascism work together, that they are the two sides of the same coin.' He further explains, 'Trump is for me the reaction of the decay of the weakness of uh this American relative uh liberal democratic welfare state. So for me, you don't begin by uh focusing on Trump. You should begin by self-critique of the liberal establishment.'

Both Žižek and Morgan criticize 'wokeism.' Žižek views it as a performative ideology that talks a lot without enacting real societal change, failing to address concrete economic problems or improve lives. Morgan, however, sees wokeism as exhibiting fascist-like tendencies through its intolerance, censorship, and refusal of democratic dialogue.

Žižek states, 'I criticized from the very beginning wokeism, political correctness, whatever you call them. Not because they are too radical, but I think this is a typical for me. Wokeism is one of the ways of how to talk a lot and pretending to change things without really changing society.' Morgan adds, 'I think the pendulum between wokeism and fascism pretty well collides at the point where you just refuse to accept freedom of speech. You refuse to accept any kind of uh democratic dialogue.'

Žižek expresses profound concern about the potential of Neuralink and advanced AI to fundamentally alter human identity. He fears that direct brain-machine interfaces could lead to a loss of the 'intimate sense of the self' by making thought processes readable and controllable, thereby eroding what it means to be human.

Žižek states, 'Are you aware what potentially radical thing neural link is? It means that potentially if I if my thought processes are directly readable open to a machine then ultimately we are losing the intimate sense of the self.' He adds, 'then we will no longer be human in the usual sense of the word because being human means reality is out there I have here my mind I can freely uh engage in hypothesis and so on all that I think all this disappears.'

Žižek identifies as a 'moderately conservative communist,' arguing that current global crises—such as climate change, AI, and war—cannot be resolved through standard liberal democratic multi-party systems. He suggests that even non-communists like Trump and Boris Johnson have acted 'communistically' through direct state intervention during crises, highlighting a shift towards necessary international regulation and state control.

Žižek states, 'First I describe now myself as moderately conservative communist crazy as this may sound but let me answer you very seriously.' He later adds, 'I think that the crisis we are confronting, no reason to panic but nonetheless uh uh cannot be resolved, cannot be even properly approached through the standard liberal democratic multi-arty political system.'