Welcome to the Age of ‘Disaster Nationalism’

Around the world, far-right movements are mobilising support by placing the blame for real catastrophes – Covid-19, the war in Ukraine, their own riots and insurrections – on entirely made-up enemies, among them Muslims, immigrants and feminists.

This is what Richard Seymour, a writer, theorist and founding editor of Salvage magazine, calls ‘disaster nationalism’. He joins Richard Hames to discuss the current irruption of riots, pogroms and genocide, the global south’s incipient fascism, the far-right impulse towards a ‘heroic death’, and why the left must to harness popular resentments to bring about a ‘sober class hatred’.

His new book, Disaster Nationalism, is published on 29 October by Verso.