That human beings are agentic rational creatures is hardly disputed. It is upon this that worldview analysis is imperative in understanding the overwhelming impact of fascism in the 21st century. In this essay, therefore, I explore the conflated nexus between fascism, the contortion of Christian philosophy of human ontological dignity, and Donald Trump’s rhetoric of Making America Great Again (MAGA). The essay will proceed with a discussion on the fault lines of late capitalist economy as the mask behind which a pernicious Othering of migrants, subtly presented as MAGA, is largely legitimized. I will then provide the case of migrant lives in the care industry in the United Kingdom as an example of the sprawling debilitating impact of MAGA in a major Euro-American world. Ultimately, my pivotal argument is that the sacralization of the state shrouded in a distorted religious belief undermines human ontological dignity. In other words, the surge in fascism in the Euro-American world constitutes a major nemesis to the much-touted Western civilization and a potential blot on the conscience of Evangelical Christians.
Contextually, the 21st century world has witnessed significant human ingenuity in all areas of life. Across the world, though unequally distributed, different countries have registered significant improvements in the areas of accommodation, transportation, health, and communication. Meanwhile, away from these technical issues of life, it is also the case that, in terms of dealing with the philosophical why questions of life, not much progress has been registered. This means that, the existential question about why one should treat all human beings with respect remains a major challenge. Whereas this challenge dates back to the pre-modern times, the fault lines of late capitalism have exacerbated the issue of Othering to the false precipice of objectifying migrants, whose already predicaments of social death put them on the margins of life in the Euro-American world. This complexity rests on the un/willing brawl and brain of migrants to hold the foundation of late capitalism firmly together.
Nevertheless, as the economies of the world continues to reel under the metastasizing debilitating consequence of late capitalism, ideological fascism has sought to homogenize and conflate Christian thoughts in scuttling; muting dissenting voices, and justifying the Othering of migrants. Specifically, fascism, exemplified in the rise of sacralized of nationalism and racism, cultivates its own aporia by threatening the Christian theological basis of human ontological dignity. With fascism taking further deprecatory turn towards inscribing populist regimes with Christian imageries and rhetoric, a forbidden idolatry is committed that constitutes a concurrent seamless nemesis of the Christian faith.
Admittedly, Christian history, as it is practiced by human agents has hardly been sacrosanct. Yet, the Christian theology that holds a sublime truism that God created all human beings in His image constituted the valve around which the boundaries and limits of human rights were demarcated and similarly defended. At the core of this was the fact that human life is sacred, as all human beings have inherent dignity, as opposed to acquired dignity. However, standing in contradistinction of this, the ungodly nexus between religion and politics that have culminated in the revitalization of decadent fascism has reduced several migrants to the level of a people who have to acquire their human dignity. In other words, breathing hot and cold about the nemesis of late capitalist economy, migrants have had to content against a dominant subverted convention in the West, “Guilty of all crimes against an imagined Western civilization until proven innocent.”
Needless to say, this toxic trend runs roughshod over the fecundity of Christian philosophy of the state. Christian political philosophy presents as ipso facto the state as a social contract, where the political class wields derivative and rationally limited authority to govern the public sphere for the common good. The common good is significantly about upholding the ontological dignity of all human beings. Consequently, historically, any ungodly alliance between the state and the church to circumvent human dignity rather undermined the legitimacy of the faith to hold the fortress of public governance together.
However, as I shall soon discuss, the second coming of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States of America has signalled a corpus of confusion that is turning Christianity on its head. Evangelical Christians arguably have been at pains defending some of the contradictory policies of Donald Trump, including abortion and migration. Against this, an imperative question that is hardly discussed among Christian supporters of Donald Trump is: Does Donald Trump represent an ideal Christian leader? Well, this question may inspire multiple, but certainly contradictory responses. But contextually, one may also ask about the extent to which a Christian can be a nationalist. In other words, to what extent can a Christian identify with the policies of Donald Trump, particularly the ones that put the lives of migrants on the line? To be sure, if a Christian seeks to influence public policy with ideology that affirms human ontological dignity, then certainly a Christian can be a nationalist. The reverse however is very problematic. This is where a Christian contributes to inscribing an imagined state with sacerdotal status as a decoy to reduce migrants into cogs in the wheel of racist ideologies.
Deploying simplistic narratives that scapegoat migrants as the cause of both the economic and political crises in the Euro-American world, fascism as religious nationalism has subverted love for God and fellow human beings into love for Othering. It frames migrants as lazy, criminals, and unwanted objects whose presence, culturally and politically, dangerously threaten a putative Western civilization.
As I have already hinted, all of the above have crystallized following the second coming of Donald Trump. The second coming of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States of America has had mixed impacts and concurrent responses across the world. His idea of making America Great Again (MAGA), which is also very complicated, has negatively impacted on migrants in America and the Euro-American world. Meanwhile, the whole idea of MAGA, presumed to be anchored on Judeo-Christian philosophy, is very confusing, complicated, and ultimately producing its nemesis.
Beginning with MAGA, President Trump, judging from the overwhelming support he has received from American Evangelicals, has a vision of reconstituting America’s greatness on Judeo-Christian axioms. The Judeo-Christian philosophy of life draws ethical and ontological boundaries that tend to shape public governance. In effect, Trump’s second coming has seen his frenetic efforts at clamping down on identity politics. Whereas, this may appease those generally profiled as conservative religious groups, it also comes across at one of the self-imposed contradictions of Judeo-Christian philosophy. In other words, whereas, the Bible admonishes people of faith to ensure that human ontological dignity is respected, the MAGA rather sets the pace for compassion to be supplanted with condemnation.
To be sure, the extreme ends of both the leftist and rightist rhetoric have complicated identity politics to the point of Othering difference. Yet, the impact of Trump’s MAGA subverts Judeo-Christian philosophy of grace, an anchor upon which God engages with humanity, to a level that reinforces the social death of a section of the world’s population. As it stands, one of the major challenges that Trump’s MAGA would need to deal with is how to deploy Judeo-Christian philosophy to answer the question: How do I love someone who is not like me?
The spiralling impact of Trump’s MAGA has reduced several African migrants across the Euro-American world to the state of pariah. With the fault lines of late capitalism producing economic challenges across the world, the lives of several migrants have been put on the pathways of social death. Already, many African women migrants are involved in the care industry, where they work themselves to death taking care of older people. Majority of these older people in the care homes are non-Africans whose children (if they have any) do not properly appreciate the philosophy of kinship reciprocity. So, the responsibility of taking care of these older generation rests largely on African migrants.
At this point, I give the case of the United Kingdom as a country where fascism is subtly undermining the quality of migrant lives. Already, the United Kingdom suppresses conversations about racism. And yet, the country regrettably thrives on fascist-inspired racism that needs to be addressed. As I observed and studied in the case of the United Kingdom, where complicated immigration policies preceded Trump, several of these African women involved in the care industry tend to sacrifice their own families at the expense of taking care of older people. Meanwhile, these migrants are paid barely enough to stay afloat in life with nothing more for investment. It could be said without any equivocation that several of these women migrants are trapped in the care homes. The reason for this is not far-fetched. England, like several Euro-American countries have outsourced most of their industries since the last 30 years or so to the Asiatic world. With this indexing a major feature of late capitalism, English consumption of pleasure comes at the expense of migrants who would have to break their backs working in sometimes inhuman conditions. All of this complicates the rhetoric of Nigel Farage and the Reform party to secure Britain’s future as a free, proud and rich nation.
To be sure, Euro-Americans, just like other peoples of the world, have the right to secure the ethical and ontological boundaries, as well as foster their prosperity. But since, the nationalistic reformist agenda is driven by self-interest and multidimensionality of Othering, almost re-membering the imperialistic era of Empire Building, the questions that remain imperative on almost all the restorative agenda are, inter alia: “How should fascist nationalism realign with the Judeo-Christian theology of human ontological dignity?” “How can the totalizing hope of one nation overcome the counter-effect of devaluing the lives of migrants?” and “Upon whose brawl and brain would the envisioned restorative hope rest?” “How could the Euro-American world rid itself from the illusions of completeness in their zest and zeal for eschatological nationalism?
Indeed, these questions are informed by the fact that, with late capitalist economy producing its own nemesis, migrant workers have had to pay the price for it. Migration offices, specifically the Home Office in the case of the United Kingdom, has reinforced its resolve to put migrants on the precipice of social death. Possibly to force migrants out of the United Kingdom, the Home Office is needlessly leveraging every gap in the visa renewal process to withdraw the employment rights of migrant workers. This comes at the back of the fact that several of these migrants have their visa renewal under consideration with the Home Office. As to these are negatively affecting migrants’ quest for survival is none of the concerns of late capitalist economies.
Ironically, currently, the United Kingdom is in the political bosom of the Labour Party that claims to be ideologically leftist. But this irony could be understood from the perspective that when push comes to shove, ideologies overlook human ontological dignity, especially the marginalized ones. Most importantly, as previously indicated, the MAGA of the world runs in contradistinction to the Judeo-Christian tradition that is also very eclectic. In other words, judging from the perspective of existential questions of life, such as: “Who am I?,” “why am I here?” and how should I live with others who are different than me?,” Judeo-Christian tradition has interacted with cultures across the world. This means that African, Islamic, and Asiatic cultures have shared the sagacity of their sages with their Euro-American world. Also, considering that these philosophies reinforce the need for life to be respected, the multidimensionality of Othering that MAGA has inspired in the Euro-American world draws out the extremes of rightist ideology.
To cite this article:
Charles Prempeh, ‘The Nemesis of Fascism: Faith, Exclusion, and Migrant Lives,’ The Helsinki Notebooks, Vol. 1, No. 14 (15 May 2025).
The Nemesis of Fascism: Faith, Exclusion, and Migrant Lives © 2025 by
Charles Prempeh is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
The featured image is of a woman holding a poster with a portrait of Jesus wearing a MAGA hat. Original image by Tyler Merbler. Used under licence CC BY 2.0: https://www.flickr.com/photos/37527185@N05/50826699171/
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