THE MYTH OF ECO-FASCISM by Anthony Vernon - June 2026

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  On US1 in South Florida it is anything but impossible to a find a Cyber-truck driver with a 'Don’t Tread on Me’ license plate. It is easy to think of environmentalism as the sole domain of left-wing politics. Yet, of course there are environmentalists on the right and more commonly those on the right who use environmentalism toward ulterior motives. The use of

  environmentalism becomes problematic in the hands of the far-right, and this is not theoretical but found in Eco-fascism.

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  The myth of Eco-fascism is that Eco-fascists actually care about the environment. Instead, Eco- fascists use environmental to advance their projects of nationalism, xenophobia, and classism. Ultimately Eco-fascism is an egoistic project. The likes of Clint Eastwood could see this type of meddling.

• “[Clint] Eastwood steadily dissects the myths that perpetuate egoism and greed. To replace national protectionism, racism, and class hierarchy, he models generous, tolerant, border-free communities where all can live in peace…[that] signals a rejection of the culture of death — including the ravages of capitalism — in favor of new life, human dignity, and expanded

  definitions of ‘family.’” (Vaux).

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  Nationalistic people are falling for Eco-fascism, assuming nationalism must be the means by which to solve climate change. As climate conditions worsen more people will turn to the ideology of Eco-fascism. Fascism is historically able to exploit calamities (Conversi), it can use environmental rhetoric and even actions to seize power. Now the fascist does not want to primarily solve climate change, that is a pseudo-goal. Instead, the fascist uses environmental issues as a means to enact their hyper-nationalism.

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  This is not to say that Eco-fascists hold the most popular environmental narrative. But they hold any level of sway at a time very people are being rabbit holed. The lack of finding collective visions is not helped by algorithms which echo chamber individuals greatly. And so we have rabbit holes of pseudo-transformational leaders who are ultimately benefiting off the attention economy. Some of these attention seekers include Eco-fascist, who authentic in their beliefs or not, are convincing others to become Eco-fascists. The concern here is not if there are an extraordinary number of Eco-fascists, but if there are enough Eco-fascists that could be made of us toward fascist ends.

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• This is important because we cannot proceed with environmental solutions until we go about; “Recognizing the far-right inflection matters because it alters the terrain of defense: remedies that rely solely on procedural or technocratic fixes will be insufficient if extractivism is embedded in an identity-based project that delegitimises opponents as enemies of the nation”

  (Jyothish). The Eco-fascist will ultimately said with the oil executive and will want to ‘drill baby drill’. The Eco-fascist supports extractivism above the protection of the environment. Eco- fascists are environmental in so far as being environmental does not get in the way of capital. 

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  “The term authoritarian extractivism therefore refers to a political configuration in which infrastructures, regulatory reforms, investment pipelines, and public narratives are aligned to expand state–corporate control over land and resources, while simultaneously contracting the space for democratic negotiation. Extractivism supplies the material project; authoritarianism supplies the enabling political environment; and each deepens the other” (Jyothish).  The Eco-fascists lend legitimacy to environmentally destructive projects by co-opting environmentalism. This creates a double edged sword, as Eco-fascism discourages people from doing environmentally friendly things. Let us return to the example of the Cyber-truck. Year after year, the Ford F-150 is often the best selling car in the United States. It would be beneficial emissions wise to replace every Ford F-150 with a Cyber-truck. Yet rightfully, left-wing individuals do not buy Cyber-trucks due to the fascist nature of Tesla’s owner Elon Musk.

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  Eco-fascism holds environmentalism back. A real environmental movement prioritizes environmentalism above all else. The pseudo is always a danger, when you have no hindrances you can get stuff done, the question is what cost is one willing to pay to get a given thing done. We can see that environmentalism can be used as a tool toward concentration camps and the extraction of further resources. Even a non-benevolent dictator could sell themselves as good for the environment and thus win people over only to enact fascist ends. 

• Douarin and Hinks found “that individualistic people are more likely to report taking individual actions against climate change” when measuring surveyed individuals levels of universalism. But  climate change needs collective solutions. Ideally the collaborative approach to environmentalism would be the best, but right now the nationalist arguments are politically winning which either ignore climate change or are eco-fascist. So while above all else end innovative solutions, in order for innovative solutions to take off there are fascist obstacles that need to be removed in my view. Perhaps at least in the interim social democratic solutions such as an enacting the Green New Deal would be a counterweight to eco-fascism. Either way wecannot assume that eco-fascism is a myth in and of itself. Rather, we must be able to call out that eco-fascists operate on a false myth and get others to not fall for their false narratives. 

• References:

  Conversi, D. (2024). Eco-fascism: an oxymoron? Far-right nationalism, history, and the climate

  emergency. Frontiers in Human Dynamics. https://doi.org/10.3389/fhumd.2024.1373872

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  Douarin, Elodie & Hinks, Timothy. (2024). Individualism, universalism and climate change. Journal of Institutional Economics. 20. 10.1017/S174413742400002X

• Jyothish, R. (2026). Authoritarian extractivism in India: Land, energy, and the making of a far-right development regime. In N. Buxton (Ed.), State of power 2026: Fascism (pp. 30-40). Transnational Institute.

• Vaux, S. A. (2012). The ethical vision of Clint Eastwood. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

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