Trump and Brexit reject realism about capitalism, not capitalism itself
Evidence
The mood that Trump and Brexit caught is a dissatisfaction with capitalist realism. Yet it isn’t capitalism that is being rejected in these inchoate revolts, but realism. When Simon Reynolds wrote about Trump a few weeks ago, he picked up on a quotation from The Art of the Deal “I play to people’s fantasies”. The turn to fantasy is crucial to the current success of the right represented by Trump and Brexit. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2025
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: The inversion ‘not capitalism but realism is being rejected’ is a dense, paradigm-shifting move connecting economic discontent to the politics of the imagination.
- SEED: Angle: what it means for a political revolt to reject realism — the descriptive horizon — while embracing the very fantasy structures that preserve the system.
- XREF: connects to: Brexit and Trump reflect the right’s retreat from modernity into postcolonial melancholia — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2046; Capitalist realism makes alternatives to capitalism unthinkable — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 8; Capitalist realism is belief in capital’s invincibility, not belief in its merits — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2219 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Capitalist realism makes alternatives to capitalism unthinkable
#qualifies(0.85) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 8 - Capitalist realism’s depoliticising hegemony invited populist fervour to replace it
#corroborates(0.85) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2042 - Capitalist realism is belief in capital’s invincibility, not belief in its merits
#corroborates(0.80) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2219 - Capitalist realism restricts the horizon of what is politically possible
#corroborates(0.80) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 410 - Brexit and Trump reflect the right’s retreat from modernity into postcolonial melancholia
#expands(0.75) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2046 - Moral critiques of capitalism only strengthen its realism
#qualifies(0.75) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 36