Brexit and Trump reflect the right’s retreat from modernity into postcolonial melancholia

Evidence

Neoliberal ideology made neoliberalisation seem as if it were synonymous with modernisation. But it is exactly this modernity that the right is now rejecting. In place of the neoliberal embrace of a globalised present, there is now only a turn backwards, and inwards. The Brexit vote was driven by what Paul Gilroy has called “postcolonial melancholia”, and Trump’s rise has clearly been powered by the American equivalent of this phenomenon. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2046

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces Gilroy’s concept ‘postcolonial melancholia’ as the driver of Brexit.
• XREF: connects to: Trump and Brexit reject realism about capitalism, not capitalism itself — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2025; Trumpism and Brexit both exemplify postcolonial melancholia rooted in lost omnipotence fantasy — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2027; The old left’s deafness to culture let the new right claim modernisation — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1379 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Brexit and Trump’s election resulted from rather than caused post-truth #complicates (0.82) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 53
• The old left’s deafness to culture let the new right claim modernisation #expands (0.78) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1379