Connexions Resource Centre
Focus on The Right


  1. This page presents a selection of resources (articles, books, websites, films) related to the broad topic of “The Right.” The Connexions website features many more materials on the Right, which you can explore using the Subject Index, the Search tool, or by following the related-reading links in the articles you view.

    “The Right.” is not a unified political force or organization, but rather a label used to describe a disparate collection of ideologies, parties, groups, and individuals.

    Many of the mainstream political parties which hold government office or form the official opposition in countries such as Germany, Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Canada carry the label ‘conservative,’ meaning that they are on the right of their country’s political spectrum. In most of these countries, little distinguishes these parties from the mainstream parties to their left. If the programs of the conservative parties typically call for austerity and cutbacks in public spending, coupled with more tax breaks for the rich, the programs of their more ‘progressive’ opponents will tend to call for a little bit less austerity and slightly smaller tax breaks for the rich. These parties have been following the same neo-liberal template for decades, and as the failure of neo-liberalism to improve the lives of anyone except the wealthy has become increasingly apparent, they have steadily lost support.

    The hegemony of the virtually indistinguishable mainstream parties has been challenged by the emergence of hard-right parties in places such as India, Ukraine, Hungary and Poland (countries where they have formed governments), in France, where the National Front has become a major political force, and in Germany, where the anti-immigrant AfD finished in third place in the 2017 national election. With millions of people unemployed or working in marginal precarious jobs, desperation and hopelessness is leading some to listen to right-wing demagogues who offer scapegoats – usually immigrants or other minorities – or who divert their attention to social ‘evils’ such as abortion, homosexuality, and sex education. These far-right parties in fact have no real solutions to offer, but they pose a very real danger to those they target as scapegoats.

    Further still to the right are a wide variety of groups and movements that openly flaunt racist and Nazi symbols and rhetoric. These groups and individuals, who have been given the name ‘alt-right’ in the United States, are by no means united, and their numbers are small, but they have shown that they are quite capable of committing serious acts of violence against those they hate.

    The strategy and tactics of meeting the challenge of the right are naturally subjects of debate; you will find many of these debates explored in the articles on the Connexions website.

    Below is a selection of articles, books, and films on the Connexions website related to the Right. For more articles, books, films, and other resources, check the Connexions Library Subject Index, especially under topics such as Anti-Immigrant, Christian Right, Culture Wars, Dictatorship, Discrimination, Ethnic Cleansing, Ethnocentrism, Fascism, Hate, Hate Speech, Ku Klux Klan, Nazis, Nazi History, Neo-fascism, Neo-Nazis, Police State, Racism, The Right, Totalitarianism, White Supremacy, Xenophobia, Anti-Fascism. Anti-Nazi Resistance, and Anti-Racism.


Recent & Selected Articles

  1. 'Punch a TERF': the violent misogyny of the trans movement (July 10, 2023)
    Woke identitarians have become apologists for violence against women.
  2. On the Influence of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine (December 29, 2022)
    A short history of neo-Nazism in Ukraine.
  3. Partnering With Neo-Nazis in Ukraine: An Inconvenient History (March 30, 2022)
    Under pressure from neo-Nazi parties that have large power that is disproportionate to their small support, Zelensky abandoned his campaign peace promise and refused to talk to the leaders of the Donbas and implement the Minsk Agreements.
  4. MSM Cover-Up of Neo-Nazis In Ukraine (March 27, 2022)
    In its coverage of the war in Ukraine, one of the MSM's most egregious offenses is its silence or downplaying the significance of the neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
  5. The Transnational Network That Nobody is Talking About (March 22, 2022)
    The Azov Battalion is emerging as a critical node in the transnational right-wing violent extremist (RWE) movement. Recruits from the U.S., Norway, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Sweden, and Australia, among others, have reportedly traveled to train with the Azov Battalion. The global nature of these groups is just one of several similarities between RWEs and Salafi-jihadists.
  6. How Zelensky Made Peace With Neo-Nazis (March 4, 2022)
    While Western media deploy Zelensky's heritage to refute accusations of neo-Nazis in Ukraine, the president now depends on them as front line fighters in the war with Russia.
  7. Greece Gives Birth to Another Virulent Neo-Nazi Party (September 5, 2021)
    This article explores Greek far-right organizations such as Golden Dawn and the "Greeks for the Fatherland" party, as well as former far-right MP Ilias Kasidiaris. He further explores American involvement in fostering the Far Right in the "cradle of democracy."
  8. How the Israeli flag became a symbol for white nationalists (January 22, 2021)
    The U.S. white nationalist movement's admiration for the Jewish state's supremacist values fits comfortably with its deep antisemitism. Lorber argues that for right-wing groups in the United States, Israel has become a symbol for a set of values and a worldview that transcends any geopolitical reality and takes on a life of its own.
  9. Banning the Proud Boys (January 16, 2021)
    Clarke argues that state efforts to eradicate the threat of fascism are often a double-edged sword that can be easily turned against the political left and used to threaten workers' rights.
  10. An Open Letter to Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys (cc: Antifa) (January 7, 2021)
    What the elite from both ruling parties want is division. What they want is for us to shout at each other and shoot each other.
  11. Israel rolls out the welcome mat for Europe's neo-fascists (December 14, 2018)
    The recent visit to Israel of a dominant figure in Italy's right-wing coalition government, is the latest in an increasingly open alliance between the Israeli state and resurgent forces of the far-right and neo-fascism in Europe.
  12. Why white supremacists and Hindu nationalists are so alike (December 13, 2018)
    Many members of the so-called "alt-right" - a loosely knit coalition of populists, white supremacists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis - turned to India to find historic and current justifications for their racist, xenophobic and divisive views.
  13. Can a Minority Overthrow the Majority? (May 1, 2018)
    Feeley reviews Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America by Nancy MacLean.
  14. For Campus Free Speech (May 1, 2018)
    Bose describes the right-wing incursion on universities and his troubled feelings about the climate of intellectual fear among some on the campus left. He elaborates on this by discussing the demands for speaking engagements for right-wing pundits to be cancelled.
  15. Taking on the Far-Right Menace (May 1, 2018)
    Diana Feeley and David Finkel interview Mark Bray, author of The Anti-Fascist Handbook and professor at Darmouth College. Bray answers questions about his book, facism, tracking the racist right and tactical issues.
  16. What Fascism is, and Isn't (May 1, 2018)
    By examining historicial fascist movements, Oppenheimer delineates what is and isn't fascism and also explores the common themes between the alt-right and its fascist predecessors.
  17. A brief dictionary to help understand the US far right (October 17, 2017)
    A break down of some of the most important phrases, terms and numerology that are used by the far right online.
  18. Antifa in Theory and in Practice (October 9, 2017)
    In recent weeks, a totally disoriented left has been widely exhorted to unify around a masked vanguard calling itself Antifa, for anti-fascist. Hooded and dressed in black, Antifa is essentially a variation of the Black Bloc, familiar for introducing violence into peaceful demonstrations in many countries. Imported from Europe, the label Antifa sounds more political. American Antifa looks very much like a middle class wedding between Identity Politics and gang warfare.
  19. Antifa in Theory and in Practice (October 9, 2017)
    A masked vanguard calling itself Antifa, for anti-fascist, is just a variation of the Black Bloc, which is familiar for introducing violence into peaceful demonstrations in many countries. Imported from Europe, the label Antifa serves the purpose of stigmatizing those it attacks as "fascists", yet despite its imported name Antifa in the U.S. is basically just another example of America's steady descent into violence.
  20. Meeting the Challenge of the Right (October 9, 2017)
    When we talk about the Right, it is well to keep in mind that "the Right" is by no means a unified political force or organization, but rather a label used to describe a disparate collection of ideologies, parties, groups, and individuals.
  21. Islamophobic U.S. Megadonor Fuels German Far-Right Party With Viral Fake News (September 22, 2017)
    An American website, the Gatestone Institute, is peddling fake news focused on anti-immigration and anti-Islamic rhetoric that many fear will influence the upcoming German federal election.
  22. Who Are the "Alt-Right"? On the Rise of Reactionary Hatred and How to Fight it (September 22, 2017)
    With much of the public discussing strategies for how best to fight right-wing extremism, the need for constructive solutions is greater than ever. First and foremost, it’s important to point out that public support for far-right extremists is miniscule. The vast majority of Americans reject this movement's violence and hatred. According to a Marist survey from the summer of 2017, just 4 percent of Americans said they support "white supremacy movement" or "white nationalism." Similarly, just 6 percent embraced the term "alt-right" Still, there is a legitimate concern that support for right-wing bigotry may grow in the future if left unchecked.
  23. Greece mourns slain anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas (September 15, 2017)
    A self-professed Golden Dawn member stabbed leftist rapper Killah P to death in Piraeus on September 18, 2013.
  24. The Problem is Fascists, Not Those Who Stand Up To Them (September 15, 2017)
    The ongoing debate of recent weeks around how, or if, to confront demonstrations of white supremacists and fascists is the latest manifestation of arguments the Left and liberals have been having for many years. For this is not simply a question of tactics but incorporates broader ideas of how we conceptualize the threat from the extreme Right.
  25. Anti-Fascist Self-Defense: From Mussolini's Italy to Trump's America (September 13, 2017)
    A conversation with Mark Bray, a political activist, historian and a lecturer at Dartmouth College and author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.
  26. Berkeley Republicans Hope More Left-Wing Riots Will Create "Pedestal" For Conservative Movement (September 11, 2017)
    The students hosting conservative pundit Ben Shapiro at University of California, Berkeley this week say their fingers are crossed in the hopes for a left-wing protest that could amplify his message.
  27. Liberals and Ultra-leftists: A Marriage Made in Hell (September 9, 2017)
    What liberal defenders of ultra-left violence don’t realize is that it’s not the Nazis legally marching down main street that will sabotage U.S. democracy, but the paramilitary police state that will crush all legitimate dissent. Ultra-left violence plays into what apologists for police militarization have been saying all along -- that the police have to keep ahead of the increasing violence in the streets with updated weapons and paramilitary training. Ultra-left violence, far from stopping fascism, enables it. It makes martyrs of the right and helps white supremacists recruit more angry right wingers to their cause, just as every wedding party the U.S. bombs in the Middle East recruits angry family members to the jihadis. With every violent clash between ultra-left and ultra-right, the militarized police will grow stronger … and they’ve got minorities and peace activists in their sights.
  28. Could Punching Nazis Have Prevented Hitler From Taking Power (September 8, 2017)
    There have been repeated references to how Nazism could have been stopped by street-fighting, with almost no attention paid to the concrete socio-political conditions of Germany between 1920 and 1933. For many of those who think that physical force was the key to stopping Nazism, the viral video of Richard Spencer getting punched in the face was far more important as a guide to action than understanding the tragic history of the German left.
  29. How Right-Wing Extremists Stalk, Dox, and Harass Their Enemies (September 6, 2017)
    How neo-Nazis in the U.S use the online chatroom Pony Power to harass anti-facist activists.
  30. Protest Alone Won't Stop Fascism (September 4, 2017)
    Desperate people are vulnerable to fascism, and the desperation is deepening: millions are eyeball deep in debt and 80% live paycheck to paycheck, while skyrocketing healthcare costs and rising rent heat up the social pressure cooker. It's this economic gut punch that the fascists hope to benefit from: as working people struggle to breathe the fascists hope to offer cheap, ready-made oxygen.
  31. Responding to Antifa and Riseup (September 1, 2017)
    "The left" of contemporary 2017 America is deeply divided and fractured, and it is a shadow of its former self, considering the decline of organized labor, and the disappearance of left-public intellectuals in higher education. In this environment, what remains of "the left" desperately needs to reach out to the masses of Americans, including liberals, moderates, and political independents, and to pull them further to the left, if there is to be any chance of meaningful change. And berating anyone who is not perceived to be on the far left, rather than patiently working to bring these individuals into a broader left movement, is a recipe for irrelevance.
  32. How 'Antifa' Mirrors the 'Alt-Right' (August 27, 2017)
    Behind the rhetoric of the "alt-right" about white nativism and protecting American traditions, history and Christian values is the lust for violence. Behind the rhetoric of antifa, the Black Bloc and the so-called "alt-left" about capitalism, racism, state repression and corporate power is the same lust for violence.
  33. Philippines: Walden Bello on fighting fascism (August 25, 2017)
    Walden Bello at the National Anti-Dictatorship Conference, University of the Philippines, outlines the key elements of an anti-dictatorship program.
  34. How (Not) to Challenge Racist Violence (August 24, 2017)
    As white nationalism and the so-called "alt-Right" have gained prominence in the Trump era, a bipartisan reaction has coalesced to challenge these ideologies. But much of this bipartisan coalition focuses on individual, extreme, and hate-filled mobilizations and rhetoric, rather than the deeper, politer, and apparently more politically acceptable violence that imbues United States foreign and domestic policy in the 21st century.
  35. Linguistic data analysis of 3 billion Reddit comments shows the alt-right is getting stronger (August 18, 2017)
    The alt-right isn't one group. They don't have one coherent identity. Rather, they're a loose collection of people from disparate backgrounds who would never normally interact: bored teenagers, gamers, men's rights activists, conspiracy theorists and, yes, white nationalists and neo-Nazis. But thanks to the internet, they’re beginning to form a cohesive group identity.
  36. This Group Has Successfully Converted White Supremacists Using Compassion. Trump Defunded It. (August 17, 2017)
    Life After Hate is a Chicago-based nonprofit that does path-breaking work. Founded by former white supremacist leaders in 2011, it studies the forces that draw people to hate and helps those who are willing to disengage from radical extremist movements. In June, the Department of Homeland Security revoked a grant to the nonprofit, telling The Huffington Post that it wants to focus on funding groups that work with law enforcement.
  37. Alt-right group posts names, photos of 'potentially dangerous' Cornwallis protesters (July 20, 2017)
    A group of self-described national socialists in Nova Scotia has posted personal information about people who have shown interest in protests calling for the removal of an Edward Cornwallis statue in Halifax, labelling them as "potentially dangerous."
  38. Document Trove Details Bradley Foundation's Efforts to Build Right-Wing "Infrastructure" Nationwide (May 9, 2017)
    Documents examined by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) expose a national effort funded by the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation to assess and expand right-wing "infrastructure" to influence policies and politicians in statehouses nationwide.
  39. Aliens, Antisemitism, and Academia (March 11, 2017)
    Criticizing Enlightenment thought has become fashionable across the political spectrum. For the past several decades, more and more academics have called reason into question. This is especially true among left-leaning, postmodern, and post-structuralist thinkers. This coincides with one of the Alt-Right’s primary tactics: adopting leftist rhetoric as cover for its racialist, nativist, and often misogynistic agendas.
  40. For India's extremist Hindus, Trump is a hero (November 11, 2016)
    India's Hindu nationalists are celebrating Donald Trump's surprising victory in the US presidential election. Trump is being hailed as a "hero" for taking a tough line against Islamists and Muslim immigrants in the US.
  41. France's National Front Draws Strength From Brexit (August 5, 2016)
    The party has long shrouded racism in the language of "self-determination" -- now, they feel vindicated.
  42. Showdown in the Malheur Marshes: the Origins of Rancher Terrorism in Burns, Oregon (January 5, 2016)
    During the spring of 1995, shortly after the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, James Ridgeway and I spent a couple of weeks traveling across the West for a series of stories in the Village Voice that chronicled the rise of militant new rightwing movements of militias, white supremacists, Christian Identity sects and anti-government groups, including a profile of central Oregon rancher Dwight Hammond, now at the centre of the armed seizure of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters near Burns.
  43. Narrating American Antifascism (January 1, 2016)
    Book review of Christopher Vials' Haunted by Hitler: Liberals, the Left, and the Fight against Fascism in the United States.
  44. 'Like a poison': how anti-immigrant Pegida is dividing Dresden (October 27, 2015)
    A year since its launch, German protest group has evolved into slick operation whose polarising rhetoric is increasingly blamed for attacks on refugees.
  45. Greece's Golden Dawn: Fascists at the Gate (March 25, 2015)
    While Golden Dawn -- with its Holocaust denial, its swastikas and its Hitler salutes—looks like it might inhabit the fringe, in fact the organization has roots deep in the heart of Greece's political culture.
  46. The Cross and the Sword: The Making of a Christian Taliban in Ukraine (March 18, 2015)
    The recruitment point for volunteers in Dmytro Korchynsky's holy war is located in the basement of a building in central Kiev, on Chapaev Street, in what used to be a billiard club. Anyone can sign up, and the location isn't secret -- its address and phone number is on the Internet.
  47. Why the rise of fascism is again the issue (February 26, 2015)
    Fascism is preserved as history, as flickering footage of goose-stepping blackshirts, their criminality terrible and clear. Yet in the same liberal societies, whose war-making elites urge us never to forget, the accelerating danger of a modern kind of fascism is suppressed; for it is their fascism.
  48. In Dresden, PEGIDA meets opposition (January 7, 2015)
    PEGIDA's quick growth derives largely from the many fears, especially in eastern Germany, about the scarcity of decent, steady jobs, about constant rent hikes and dwindling hopes about having enough to live on when they retire. Echoing past fascists, today's "pied pipers" try to deflect such fears and resentment against refugees.
  49. Israeli calls for Palestinian blood ring at fever pitch (July 15, 2014)
    Concerned humanists may have hoped that when a group of Jewish Israelis confessed to kidnapping and killing Muhammad Abu Khudair, a Palestinian teenager in Jerusalem — forcing him to drink gasoline and torching him to death from inside his body — that top Israeli legislators and rabbis would have been horrified at what their revenge rhetoric had triggered.
  50. The KKK and Other Grassroots Movements (April 3, 2014)
    A sign of a real revolution is its knack for conjuring a counter-revolution. To the extent that the Bolivarian Revolution has problems, the solution to them won’t come from chats with those looking to overthrow it, but rather the organization of workers trying to fulfill its potential. There can be no neutral ground between those two positions.
  51. The Dark Side of the Ukraine Revolt (March 3, 2014)
    While most of the Western media describes the current crisis in the Ukraine as a confrontation between authoritarianism and democracy, many of the shock troops who have manned barricades in Kiev and the western city of Lviv these past months represent a dark page in the country’s history and have little interest in either democracy or the liberalism of Western Europe and the United States.
  52. The Fascist Threat (February 8, 2014)
    Deep economic crisis, savage austerity, and social upheaval have polarised Greek society. One result has been the rise of Golden Dawn, responsible for brutal attacks on immigrants and left-wing activists. Christina Ziakka reports on the response of the political establishment – and why the left and workers’ movement must provide a genuine alternative.
  53. Ukraine and the Rebirth of Fascism (January 29, 2014)
    The violence on the streets of Ukraine is far more than an expression of popular anger against a government. Instead, it is merely the latest example of the rise of the most insidious form of fascism that Europe has seen since the fall of the Third Reich.
  54. The Invisibility of Fascism in the Postwar United States (January 1, 2014)
    Vials examines the use of the term "fascism" in post-war United States politics since the Tea Party have twisted its meaning to denote a left-wing phenomenon.
  55. The Googlization of the Far Right: Why Is Google Funding Grover Norquist, Heritage Action and ALEC? (December 2, 2013)
    Google, the tech giant, has been funding a growing list of groups advancing the agenda of the Koch brothers. The policies advocated by some of the Google’s grantees are in stark contrast with the progressive image that Google has worked to promote.
  56. Greece's Fascist Threat (October 16, 2013)
    The increasingly bold Golden Dawn party has precipitated a political crisis in Athens whose resolution is far from certain. Golden Dawn, the largest fascist party in Europe and the third largest party in Greece, has grown rapidly during the economic crisis both by scapegoating immigrants, ethnic minorities and queer people, and offering basic necessities like food to Greek citizens impoverished by the country’s austerity program.
  57. The Rise of Fascism in Greece (November 22, 2012)
    In Germany, Spain and Italy (and elsewhere) in the early 1930s during those troubled times, unemployment was high, Left alternatives were weak, resentment against others oozed in the streets, and terrible insecurities pushed nominally good people, the middle classes, into supporting the forces of hatred and nationalistic fervour.
  58. Wade Michael Page and the rise of violent far-right extremism (August 8, 2012)
    The man who opened fire in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin was not just a crazed loner, but a vocal neo-Nazi – in fact, his white supremacist ideology reflected a growing form of extremism that expresses its strength through violence rather than at the ballot box.
  59. Can You Pass The US Christian Right Quiz? (February 28, 2012)
    An understanding of the Christian Right, a loose coalition of politically conservative congregations and organizations, is critical to understanding the US. This quiz seeks to explore the political influence of the Christian Right, and to highlight the threat its radical fundamentalists pose to the majority of Americans who value pluralism and tolerance.
  60. Politics and the Prayer Warriors (September 14, 2011)
    Dominionism is a totalitarian movement within Christian evangelicalism that aims at taking over the centers of power—law, culture, government and the like—and establishing a dictatorship. Once having gotten power, Christian Dominionists would then impose their religious practices on the rest of America.
  61. The Koch Whisperers (September 12, 2011)
    A review of documents and tax records for the dizzying, interconnected web of corporate front groups, frequently created, supported and influenced by Charles or David Koch, shows just how dangerous these groups espousing free markets and liberty have become to a free society. The game plan is to devalue the rights of actual citizens by seeking human voices dangling from a corporate marionette string, that might be willing for the right amount of cash incentive to broadcast the Orwellian reverse-speak: liberty means more liberty for corporations (corporate serfdom for real citizens); freedom means corporate freedom to privatize national resources, pollute the environment and fleece the consumer with impunity; free market means the freedom to draw a dark curtain around how the corporations are actually screwing us and stealing our liberty.
  62. Conservatives have perfected the trick of defending power by attacking it (January 11, 2011)
    The UK Cameron government is atempting to use a tried-and-proven trick: defending the elite by pretending to attack it.
  63. Dividing the Races to Benefit the Rich (December 24, 2010)
    Race baiting broadcast agitators like Beck and Rush Limbaugh have their audiences believing the factually flawed foolishness that the reason they are falling behind economically is because the federal government is fawning over blacks lavishing them with unearned benefits. The reason for the loss of jobs, homes and dreams of comfortable futures driving white working class (and middle class) ire is not benefits to blacks but naked greed on Wall Street and in the suites of mega-corporations that triggered America's economic collapse.
  64. Why NGO Monitor is attacking The Electronic Intifada (November 30, 2010)
    NGO Monitor has launched a campaign targeting a Dutch foundation's financial support to The Electronic Intifada, accusing the publication among other things of "anti-Semitism." NGO Monitor is an extreme right-wing group with close ties to the Israeli government, military, and West Bank settlers,
  65. The Koch Empire and Americans for Prosperity (October 19, 2010)
    Tracking to funding of extremist right-wing groups.
  66. The Media and the Far Right (October 19, 2010)
    The right-moving trend of the mainstream media, absurdly deemed liberal by successfully intimidating corporatists and ideological aggressors, continues year after year.
  67. The Tyranny of False Consciousness (August 20, 2010)
    Today's nativists are beset by the crisis of capitalist globalization and its accompanying waves of forced migration. Sadly, nativists refuse to acknowledge the relationship between capitalism and migration. Instead, they seek to resolve the mounting social crisis by returning the country to a fantasy way-of-life that never existed, a white Protestant homeland. Rightwing ideological hacks promote this fictitious solution, setting the stage for a far deeper neo-fascist, racist (and anti-Muslim) upsurge.
  68. Is this what a police state looks like? (June 29, 2010)
    The corporate security state is not static - it will keep filling more and more space to the extent that they are allowed to by civil society. The police actions in Toronto are one of those key moments, one that we will look back on as a time when the authoritarian governments we now endure tested our resolve. They know exactly what they are doing. There was no spontaneous 'over-reaction.' There were no cops 'out of control' - the obvious fact is they were always in control. The decision to allow the Black Bloc to do its destructive work without any intervention at all was strategic. They were assisted in their work by the Black Bloc, some of them agents provocatuers, all of them enemies of social change.
  69. Bogus, Misdirected and Effective (June 14, 2010)
    The Tea Party movement is steeped in misinformation and denial. But it has a lot to teach the left.
  70. Globalizing the Culture Wars (April 2, 2010)
    Uganda, like many countries in Africa and around the world, adheres to long-standing heterosexual and patriarchal traditions as to what is acceptable sexual behavior. In the West, such traditions are shared by a dwindling minority. The bourgeois capitalist marketplace has reconfigured that which is morally acceptable. Sexual practices among adults are areas of personal erotic experience, protected private activities.
  71. The New McCarthyism In Israel (February 22, 2010)
    The Israeli government and its right-wing supporters have been waging a 'McCarthyite' campaign against human-rights groups by blaming them for the barrage of international criticism that has followed Israel's attack on Gaza a year ago, critics say.
  72. How Dare You Clean Up Our Mess? (November 30, 2009)
    On the nauseating hypocrisy of our good friends on the regressive right. You know the rules. One set of sexual standards for us, another for them behind closed doors. Big thumping militarist patriotism when our kids go off to war, rather less when it's their turn. Itsy-bitsy small government ideology for the lil' folk, Washington as a great big candy-covered sugar teat for them. Etc., etc.
  73. Justifying What You Know Can't Be True (November 3, 2009)
    Researchers looking at al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein explore why it is that people often steadfastly believe something even when they've been shown it ain't so.
  74. Conspiracy, Inc. (October 30, 2009)
    Increasingly, reactionary media pundits and much of the rank-and-file of the Republican Party are taking the American right down a dangerous path, marked most ominously by the abundance of conspiracy theories directed against the Democratic Party and mainstream liberals.
  75. Iran in Christian Zionist crosshairs (October 1, 2009)
    Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to the United Nations has stirred up two leading Christian Zionists, Mike Evans and Joel Rosenberg, to once again open fire on Iran.
  76. Why Right-Wing Demagogues Are Trying to Peddle Ludicrous Conspiracy Theories (October 1, 2009)
    Even before Obama was sworn in as the 44th President, the internet was seething with lurid theories exposing his alleged subversion and treachery.
  77. Right-Wing Media Send Their Mobs of Crazy Fans to Go After Private Citizens -- Including Kids (September 30, 2009)
    The right-wing is igniting the crazies by pushing them to snoop on everyday people.
  78. Who's afraid of the BNP? (September 28, 2009)
    How should a liberal democratic society respond to an organization such as the BNP? Should the political mainstream ostracise the BNP or engage with it? And if engage, how?
  79. United States: The Ultra-Right Pot Boils Over (September 27, 2009)
    The appearance of right-wing mobs at town meetings organized by Democratic Party representatives to discuss the proposed health-care reform has set off alarm bells, in particular because of the blind fanaticism of the right-wing protesters and their threats of violence, including armed violence. These outbursts show many features of historic fascist developments and on a scale as yet unseen in the United States.
  80. Overshadowed by Tea Party Movement, the Christian Right Scrambles to Claim It Isn't Racist (September 22, 2009)
    The Tea Party movement has the juice as the religious right is on the wane. Survival may mean joining up, but that presents an image problem for Christians.
  81. Right Wingers Marching in DC Is Big News -- But the Same Old Faces Are Pulling the Strings (September 14, 2009)
    The right is never truly defeated; its leaders are patient, and they learn from their errors. When they're out of power, they stay busy, building institutions and mailing lists, all the while waiting for their moment to strike.
  82. Anti-fascism isn't working (August 26, 2009)
    What all the current anti-fascist approaches have in common is that they miss the real danger. This doesn't lie in the BNP taking power, in the possibility of concentration camps or any of the other scare stories we've been hearing recently. It lies more immediately in the far right colonising the anti-mainstream vote and developing party loyalty, thereby blocking the development of an independent working-class politics capable of defending our conditions and challenging neoliberalism.
  83. Rebranding Fascism: National-Anarchists (2008)
    On the organizational and intellectual history of national anarchism.
  84. Sharia "Socialists" (January 6, 2006)
    It is mind-boggling that self-styled leftists would champion a campaign by the most reactionary, anti-woman forces in the Muslim community to have their religious law backed by the authority of the capitalist state.
  85. Talking Back to the Right (1996)
    The right's enormous success in framing the American public debate is based not just on isolated issues, but on in overall definition of what the debate is about. The purpose of this guide is to suggest ways that progressive community-based advocacy groups can reframe the right's definition of the debate-ways that can connect with deeply-held Values and understandings of the American people. It is designed to help advocates frame their views for the media, develop educational programs and materials for their constituents, and talk to their fellow citizens in meetings and informal discussions.
  86. The Nazis and Deconstruction: Jean-Pierre Faye's Demolition of Derrida (1993)
    A review of Jean-Pierre Faye's book 'La raison narrative', which traces the Nazi origins of deconstructionist and post-modernist concepts and terminology. Faye shows, for example, that the concept of 'deconstruction' was introduced in a Nazi journal edited by M.H. Goering, and he shows how theorists who based themselves on Heidegger's writings, such as Derrida, Lyotard, and Lacoue-Labarthe, whitewashed Heidegger's Nazism, treating it as a mere 'detail'.
  87. Fascism and Big Business (excerpt) (1938)
    Events have demonstrated with tragic clearness that the moment the working class allows the fascist wave to sweep over it, a long period of slavery and impotence begins - a long period during which socialist, even democratic, ideas are not merely erased from the pediments of public monuments and libraries but, what is much more serious, are rooted out of human minds. Events have proved that fascism physically destroys everything opposing its dictatorship, no matter how mildly, and that it creates a vacuum around itself and leaves a vacuum behind it.

Selected Websites and Organizations

  1. Below is a short list of organizations and websites concerned with the Right and related topics. For more organizations and websites, check the Connexions Directory, as well as the Subject Index, especially under topics such as Anti-Immigrant, Christian Right, Culture Wars, Dictatorship, Discrimination, Ethnic Cleansing, Ethnocentrism, Fascism, Hate, Hate Speech, Ku Klux Klan, Nazis, Nazi History, Neo-fascism, Neo-Nazis, Police State, Racism, The Right, Totalitarianism, White Supremacy, Xenophobia, Anti-Fascism. Anti-Nazi Resistance, and Anti-Racism.



Books, Films and Periodicals

  1. Below is a selection of books, films and periodicals related to the Right in the Connexions Online Library. For more books, films, periodicals, articles and other resources, check the Connexions Subject Index, especially under topics such as Anti-Immigrant, Christian Right, Culture Wars, Dictatorship, Discrimination, Ethnic Cleansing, Ethnocentrism, Fascism, Hate, Hate Speech, Ku Klux Klan, Nazis, Nazi History, Neo-fascism, Neo-Nazis, Police State, Racism, The Right, Totalitarianism, White Supremacy, Xenophobia, Anti-Fascism. Anti-Nazi Resistance, and Anti-Racism.

  1. American Fascists
    The Christian Right and the War on America
    Author: Hedges, Chris
    Hedges examines the Christian Right's origins, its driving motivation and its dark ideological underpinnings, with interviews and coverage of events such as pro-life rallies and weeklong classes on conversion techniques. Hedges argues that the movement resembles the young fascist movements in Italiy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, movements that often masked the full extent of their drive for totalitarianism and were willing to make concessions until they achieved unrivaled power. He challenges the Christian Right's religious legitimacy and argues that at its core it is a mass movement fueled by unbridled nationalism and a hatred for the open society.
  2. Don't Think of an Elephant
    Know Your Values and Frame the Debate
    Author: Lakoff, George
    Lakoff explains how conservatives think, and how to counter their arguments. He outlines in detail the traditional American values that progressives hold, but are often unable to articulate. Lakoff also breaks down the ways in which conservatives have framed the issues, and provides examples of how progressives can reframe the debate.
  3. Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience
    Author: Biehl, Janet; Staudenmaier, Peter
    Explores the integral role ecological ideas played in German fascism, along with anti-rational, quasi-New Age ideas about nature, blood, and soil. A second essay looks at certain present-day ecological ideologies, notably deep ecology and primitivism, which are fundamentally regressive and authoritarian.
  4. Fascism and Big Busness
    Author: Guerin, Daniel
    A history of the rise of fascism in Europe and the role of big business in supporting fascism.
  5. Inventing Tax Rage
    Misinformation in the National Post
    Author: Patriquin, Larry
    How the National Post created an agenda for the tax cuts that mostly benefits the wealthy.
  6. Klan-destine Relationships
    A Black Man's Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan
    Author: Davis, Daryl
    A professional musician recounts his courageous, lifelong confrontations and conversations with members of the Ku Klux Klan in an attempt to unearth the roots of bigotry and foster harmony between black and white, often using music to bridge the divide.
  7. The Mass Psychology of Fascism
    Author: Reich, Wilhelm
    Wilhelm Reich's class study, written during the years of the German crisis. Reich repudiates the concept that fascism is the ideology or action of a single individual or nationality, or any ethnic or political group. He understands fascism as the expression of the irrational character structure of human beings whose needs and impulses have been suppressed.
  8. The Nazi Connection
    Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism
    Author: Kuhl, Stefan
    This book shows the eugenic/racist connections between Nazi Germany and the US. Responsibility for the holocaust extends beyond Germany.
  9. The Nazi Seizure of Power
    The Experience of a Single German Town
    Author: Allen, William Sheridan
    A study of how the Nazi takeover took place in one German town.
  10. Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - October 9, 2017
    Meeting the Challenge of the Right
    Author: Diemer, Ulli (ed.)
    Challenging the Right requires not only anti-fascist actions in the street, but organizing to reach those who may be attracted the the appeal of the Right and offering an alternative social vision. This issue of Other Voices offers a number of articles, books, and films offering different perspectives on meeting the challenge of the right.
  11. The Power of Persuasion
    The Politics of the New Right in Ontario
    Author: Kozolanka, Kirsten
    Kozolanka looks at how the Mike Harris's new right conservative government came to power in Ontario Premier Mike Harris by using successful strategies from other countries to gain public accquiescence for its neo-conservative policies. Relying on evidence drawn from literature, interviews and content analysis, she argues that this trajectory was "neither haphazard nor narrowly constructed."
  12. The Privatization Putsch
    Author: Hardin, Herschel
    According to Hardin, privatization is the expression of the ideology of a right wing, corporate agenda: business wants to gets its hands on public funds and politicians are more than willing to hand over publicly owned enterprises and public services to business friends, nearly always on terms that are immensely favourable to the corporations involved.
  13. The Secret of Hitler's Victory
    Author: Petroff, Peter; Petroff, Irma
    In this book, the Petroffs set out to answer the question that has perplexed so many onlookers in other countries: How did it come about that the apparently mighty forces of the German Left fell in one night, and without resistance, before the Nazi attack?
  14. Socialist Register 2016
    Volume 52: The Politics of the Right
    Author: Panitch, Leo; Albo, Greg (eds.)
    Today the left faces new challenges from political forces amassing on the radical right. The 52nd volume of the Socialist Register presents a serious calibration and a careful political mapping of these forces. It addresses pivotal questions on the reordering of the new right. These essays - very broad in terms of themes and places - speak to the global challenges the new right poses for the left at this historical moment.
  15. Spiritual Warfare
    The Politics of the Christion Right
    Author: Diamond, Sara
    Sara Diamond ponders the threat the Christian Right poses to our society, the damage already done, and the extent of this evangelical religion's enduring political clout.
  16. The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany
    Author: Trotsky, Leon
    A collection of Leon Trotsky's writings on the situation in Germany from 1930 to 1940. From 1930 on Trotsky sounded the alarm about the rise of fascism in Germany, and warned that the policies of the Communist Party and the Social Democrats were likely to lead to disaster. He urged a common front, mobilizing the German working class regardless of party affiliation, against the Nazis.
  17. The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism
    The Political Economy of Human Rights: Volume 1
    Author: Chomsky, Noam; Herman, Edward S.
    Chomsky and Herman demonstrate, with devasting logic and overwhelming documentation, that the purpose of U.S. global policy is to make the world safe for exploitation by U.S. corporate interests and that this has required and continues to require the installation and support of brutal military/police dictatorships throught the Third World. It also requires an apologetic ideology which portrays all this as being in the highest interests of democracy and human rights.
  18. What's the Matter with Kansas?
    How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
    Author: Frank, Thomas
    Explores the rise of conservative populism in the United States through the lens of Frank's native state of Kansas. According to his analysis, the political discourse of recent decades has dramatically shifted from the class animus of traditional leftism to one in which "explosive" cultural issues, such as abortion and gay marriage, are used to redirect anger towards "liberal elites."


Learning from our History

  • Anti-Fascist Self-Defense: From Mussolini's Italy to Trump's America (September 13, 2017)
    A conversation with Mark Bray, a political activist, historian and a lecturer at Dartmouth College and author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.
  • The Nazis and Deconstruction: Jean-Pierre Faye's Demolition of Derrida (1993)
    A review of Jean-Pierre Faye's book 'La raison narrative', which traces the Nazi origins of deconstructionist and post-modernist concepts and terminology. Faye shows, for example, that the concept of 'deconstruction' was introduced in a Nazi journal edited by M.H. Goering, and he shows how theorists who based themselves on Heidegger's writings, such as Derrida, Lyotard, and Lacoue-Labarthe, whitewashed Heidegger's Nazism, treating it as a mere 'detail'.
  • Civil Liberties in the Fight Against Fascism (1945)
    Fighting against an evil, like anti-Semitism or racial hatred, does not mean calling on the state to suppress the evil.
  • Fascism and Big Business (excerpt) (1938)
    Events have demonstrated with tragic clearness that the moment the working class allows the fascist wave to sweep over it, a long period of slavery and impotence begins - a long period during which socialist, even democratic, ideas are not merely erased from the pediments of public monuments and libraries but, what is much more serious, are rooted out of human minds. Events have proved that fascism physically destroys everything opposing its dictatorship, no matter how mildly, and that it creates a vacuum around itself and leaves a vacuum behind it.
  • The Secret of Hitler's Victory
    Author: Petroff, Peter; Petroff, Irma
    In this book, the Petroffs set out to answer the question that has perplexed so many onlookers in other countries: How did it come about that the apparently mighty forces of the German Left fell in one night, and without resistance, before the Nazi attack?
  • The Secret of Hitler's Victory
    Author: Petroff, Peter; Petroff, Irma
    In this book, the Petroffs set out to answer the question that has perplexed so many onlookers in other countries: How did it come about that the apparently mighty forces of the German Left fell in one night, and without resistance, before the Nazi attack?


  • Resources for Activists

    The Connexions Calendar - An event calendar for activists. Submit your events for free here.

    Media Names & Numbers - A comprehensive directory of Canada’s print and broadcast media. .

    Sources - A membership-based service that enables journalists to find spokespersons and story ideas, and which simultaneously enables organizations to raise their profile by reaching the media and the public with their message.

    Organizing Resources Page - Change requires organizing. Power gives way only when it is challenged by a movement for change, and movements grow out of organizing. Organizing is qualitatively different from simple “activism”. Organizing means sustained long-term conscious effort to bring people together to work for common goals. This page features a selection of articles, books, and other resources related to organizing.

    Publicity and Media Relations - A short introduction to media relations strategies.

    Grassroots Media Relations - A media relations guide for activist groups.

    Socialism gateway - A gateway to resources about socialism, socialist history, and socialist ideas.

    Marxism gateway - A gateway to resources about Marxism.