The false world of feel-good fascism

Ulrich Siegmund, the future AfD Prime Minister from Saxony-Anhalt, was chosen as the poster boy of feel-good fascism. The AfD achieved its best result to date here with 43.8%. The more structurally weak, godforsaken and less migrant the areas are, the stronger the support for nationalist authoritarianism. So the eternally grinning Pied Pipers travel the country and score points among Germans who long to overcome their own bourgeois existence and hope to achieve this by destroying liberal democracy.

Feel-good fascism is a phenomenon that would have been completely unimaginable twenty-thirty years ago. And in two and three decades we will also be asking ourselves what actually happened during this phase. If you want to understand it, you not only have to look at the AfD's election campaign strategies, but also approach culture and media studies. It is no coincidence that AI-generated songs have been appearing on YouTube en masse since the beginning of 2026. Due to their high number of clicks, the algorithms quickly land them in the suggestion bar.

The extreme right-wing propaganda machine uses the means developed by platform capitalism in an almost perfectly coordinated manner. And it falls back on an artificial-sentimental pop culture that, when it comes down to it, was mostly very simple and limited. Whether folky like Heino, or new-German-hard like Rammstein, sweet like Julia Juls, Runa&Rebellin or pop-rock like Weimar, Sleipnir and others - there are enough role models for extreme right-wing computer music…

Of course, one could also argue against this and say that the generation of music and video material through technical speaking devices is generated by all sorts of people with commercial intentions, to get attention or simply out of boredom. And that's true too. Considering how thoroughly produced and polished commercially successful music is today, the step towards so-called AI seems small. Nevertheless, there is a special affinity of fascist thought for obviously artificial culture, which abandons the appearance of human creativity and is therefore post-human. According to Jason Stanley, the aim is to create “unreality”.

To give a few examples of viral AI-generated songs and “artists” include:

– „Everyone will wake up HERE at the latest! The Sound of Change“ („Awakening Germany“, 501,537 views)

– „Stand up if you are German | Proud of homeland and culture“ („Ottilie“, 339,081 views)

– „What has become of our country? | A song about the loss of home“ („Fenja“, 338,697 views)

– „Dorfmarie – That's how it was, that's how it should be again“ („Dorfmarie“, 160,534 views)

– „THE WATCH ON THE RHINE (LIVE) | Rock version of a historical poem“ („Julia in Exile“; 113,198 views)

– „Not a beautiful country... WHERE THE OAKS ARE“ („Freya“; 18,974 views)

– „Thuringia One Country One Story One Heart“ („The Homeland Sound“, 4334 views)

– „Homesick for Germany“ („Liv Eisen“, 2067 views)

The titles already reveal the essence. When you listen to or read the lines of text, it becomes clear that the same narratives are repeated endlessly. It's always about the loss of an imaginary „homeland“ or glorious „nation“, around an alleged „over-foreign infiltration“, following the conspiracy myth of a „great exchange“. Feel-good fascism lives in the eternal repetition of patterns of always the same victim enactments, the stroking of narcissistic insults, and the idea of ​​future greatness that can only be achieved through the humiliation of identified enemies. All of these are products of a state-capitalist form of society that is linked to patriarchy, racism and domination of nature. In summary, computer-produced poetry is poor in its cheap imitation – and fascist.

One must not forget that historical nationalism was not a natural popular movement, but rather an elite project that prescribed, educated and drilled a nation and a culture that was supposedly originally present in it.

If you listen to the artificially created songs and their lyrics, form and content intertwine. As is well known, fans of such feel-good fascist products don't care at all whether they hear an AI-generated song. On the contrary, cultural products that appeal to them have to be kitschy, simple and manipulative in order to attract interest. If a few hundred thousand or a few million people celebrate neo-fascist AI songs, one could say: for free, this fascist or fascism-sympathizing part of the population is lost and cannot be convinced. As a by-product of a certain ruling order, it strengthens in its crisis, but can only be overcome with this. And that's right. Nevertheless, it is precisely the melodious, feel-good fascism that is succeeding in connecting with ever larger sections of the population. But why is that?

What is addressed in sound and language is the feeling of comprehensive and profound alienation. A fascist desire is expressed in the art product that ironizes its own artificiality and thereby makes any potentially authentic experience impossible. This computer kitsch is the aesthetic counterpart to the undermining of any truth content of statements through their absolute relativization using “alternative facts” that are reflected in poetry.

As with the basic rules of advertising, the following applies here: the recipients do not have to be convinced by what they have heard and seen - it is enough to hammer, no, whisper, lies into them until they capitulate and accept it as a possible truth.

In this way, bourgeois tolerance expands in a fatal way and causes previously convinced democrats to doubt: "The fascists just believe that their beautiful homeland has been lost. Well, I don't know, but what if they feel that way? But they are proud fighters and won't let that happen to them. Well, at least they stand for something! They are taking their country back and actually just want everyone to be happy in the end." Except those who were deported, imprisoned or murdered. Apart from those whose working conditions are getting worse, whose living conditions are becoming more precarious, while the public infrastructure continues to crumble and the ecosystems collapse completely.

Therefore, the music of feel-good fascism is also a foreshadowing of the beautiful new autocracy that it is intended to establish. It is already becoming audible and visible that the aim is to silence those who are contributing to the destruction of their own livelihood. The reason for this lies in the profound alienation of people - from their products, from the world around them, from their fellow human beings and from themselves: Anyone who alienates themselves from their activities and products may come to the conclusion that insidious "globalists" are relocating natural automobile production to China; He may rave about German forests, but let the rest of them dry up due to climate change; He can shrug his shoulders when the non-white and/or oppositional neighbors are picked up and are happy about his participation in the national community; and finally he may submit to the rhythms of nationalist autocracy and at the same time feel deeply that democracy is actually dictatorial…

In this way, feel-good fascism builds on the alienation that is a product of the industrial-modern ruling order and at the same time reinforces it. Because nothing would matter anyway, everything would be wrong, everything would be shattered. So you can also pour AI-generated glitter slime over it to dream of vigorous youth, wild masculinity, gentle femininity, original naturalness, righteous work, fateful national community, heroic struggle and glorious nation… What can you say about that? Except defiant: We'll see who has the last laugh. And: you shouldn't listen to more than three of the fascist AI songs if you want to stay halfway clear in your head.

web address: https://kontrapolis.info/18862/author/group: paradox-afeed-date: Friday, October 30, 2026 - 6:21 p.m