Abstract

Commentators have observed the unpleasant reappearance of Nazi themes and ideas in the response to COVID-19. There is evidence to suggest that a deliberate attempt is underway to collapse liberal democracy and to replace it with a eugenics-based form of totalitarianism. In order to make sense of this shocking phenomenon, it is necessary to revisit the support of Wall Street for National Socialism as the most ruthless means of crushing working class resistance. Following the failures of deNazification after 1945, the US national security state put in place by Wall Street recruited former Nazis and used Nazi methods (including death squads, torture, false flag terrorism, biochemical warfare, surveillance-based targeting of political opponents, and the mass killing of civilians) to crush international socialism under the pretext of a "Cold War" with the Soviet Union. A transnational deep state was also formed and was responsible for Operation Gladio and the Strategy of Tension in Italy. With the demise of the Soviet Union, a new enemy had to be found in order for the securitization paradigm to continue to function, and 9/11 provided it: terrorism served as the pretext for globalizing the Strategy of Tension and waging imperialist wars. As social tensions mounted between 2015 and 2017, especially in France, terrorist attacks proliferated and soldiers were put on the streets. Nevertheless, protests around the world began to assume socially progressive forms in 2018/19, prompting the shift to the new biosecurity paradigm in 2020. Although the facade of democracy must be maintained for as long as possible, the ruling class now seeks to impose a novel, technocratic form of totalitarianism to keep the global population under control.