Retro fascism’s allure signals distance from it, not its resurgence.

Evidence

Whence the omnipresence of fascism and of war in retro - a coincidence, an affinity that is not at all political; it is naive to conclude that the evocation of fascism signals a current renewal of fascism (it is precisely because one is no longer there, because one is in something else, which is still less amusing, it is for this reason that fascism can again become fascinating in its filtered cruelty, aestheticized by retro). — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 160

Categorization

• XREF: Opposes a common Marxist/left reading that nostalgia = latent political revival; also parallels the ‘aestheticization of politics’ argument contra Benjamin.