Fascism is a total drag!

Following the inauguration of Donald Trump, one queen looks at how and why we got here
Acacia Carol, Staff Writer |
Neo-nazis, Pizzagate, and beanie babies, oh my! What do all of these things have in common? You’d be right if you guessed the rise of neofascism and even more right if you thought they were topics that Karla Marx focused on during her History with a Drag Queen Show at Mount Royal University’s (MRU) student bar, West Gate Social.Hosted by QriTical, The Neo-Fascist Electric Boogaloo: Part Two kicked off on Thursday with a performance by Marx herself to Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” and a brief introduction to the lecture’s rules of engagement.
This show is Marx’s second edition of History with a Drag Queen, presented at MRU, where her blend of humour, history, and activism took centre stage. Karla Marx, is the drag persona created and performed by MRU history professor, Victoria Bucholtz.
Bucholtz uses this performance as a way to engage the audience in serious discussions about neofascism, authoritarianism, and the state of politics today while entertaining with the vibrant energy of drag.
Her unique approach doesn’t just educate but challenges attendees to think critically about the historical forces shaping our society.
Sounds different, right? Well, that’s the point.
Mixing humour and intention is the pinnacle of what makes Marx’s talks so engaging, and it’s clear that each detail is specifically chosen to entertain and educate the audience simultaneously. She explains that even the title refers to the Boogaloo Boys, a group that participated in the January 6th insurrection while wearing Hawaiian shirts and tactical gear.
This marriage of absurdity and commentary is precisely why Marx got into drag initially.
“As queerness is being criticized, deemed controversial, controlled, packaged and squished away, building spaces for queer people to have regular social interactions and spaces where they can hold their partner’s hand and it’s never a big deal…That’s something that has always been important to my drag,” Marx told The Reflector.
Thursday’s lecture was the final installment in a four-part series about authoritarianism, bringing everything Marx had previously discussed and placing it in the 21st century.
In short, Marx examined the period between the Cold War and the beginning of Donald Trump’s second presidency to provide a sense of ‘how did we get here?’
More importantly, she highlighted the ever-present question of ‘where do we go next?’
She said what? About who?
Beginning in the Cold War, Marx first outlined that by having a clear enemy, this was a time when social, economic and political rules were stabilized. She outlined that this would decline after the Cold War and into the 90s.
The deterioration of the social, economic and political rules would be a theme she would return to in each third of the show.
From the Pax Americana, a time post-Cold War that sought peace for the Western hemisphere, to the War on Terror filling the void left behind by the clear-cut threat of the Soviet Union and Communism, Marx laid a clear foundation for what has become modern-day fascism.
Sounds heavy? Fear not—it was time for some entertainment.
Surprise performer Ashtray Williams took to the stage for Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” His mohawk, makeup and show provided a perfect segue into the second portion of the lecture, which examined counterculture and its effects on the era of radicalization.
The penultimate section of the lecture covered the rise in questioning experts and the rise of the anti-vax movement, the militarization of police forces following 9/11, and the war on terror, which included how all of these factors have been pillars for the modern-day state of neo-fascism.
Zoomers can take great comfort in knowing that the memes of their early adolescence, from Pepe the Frog to Pizzagate, are just a few steps along the path to creating acceptance for the alt-right among young men.
Marx highlighted that the rise in these memes and their corresponding dog whistles was motivated by the apparent threat to masculinity from the push for more inclusion in the workplace and other social spaces.
Neo-Nazi attitudes latched onto counterculture internet humour and burrowed its head, slowly but surely, into the mainstream.
In examining this underbelly, Marx calls attention to the paradox of intolerance laid bare by the Obama administration. In an attempt to reach across the aisle, the Obama presidency did not achieve the radical change many hoped for.
“We must be intolerant of intolerance,” Marx concluded.
Sounds like it’s time for another song—it is a drag show, after all.
Holta Soli, their face painted white and accompanied by a limp doll, performed to Green Day’s “American Idiot.” The number closed out with a custom verse highlighting Danielle Smith’s “fascist Alberta.”
With that, the stage was set for the final portion of the lecture, the modern-day neo-fascist era. Marx focused on more specifics here, like Operation REDMAP and the impact of gerrymandering on democratic leadership capabilities, Kamala Harris’ run and why it failed to connect with American voters.
But the most prominent aspect of this section was trying to answer the question the audience was silently asking—what happens now?
“If you are worried, if you are anxious, you should be. I’m so sorry because I really want to sell you hope…But it’s not going to be good, and we need to get our head in the game,” Marx exclaimed during the show. “Canada is not immune to this.”
This is not to say that Marx left the audience in abject despondence and sent them home wallowing in sadness, as she gave specific ways for everyone in attendance to fight back.
She asked the crowd to seek out education as one way to push against neo-fascism, like reading the 97 calls to action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada or the Gerasimov Doctrine to call out the warfare fascists employ against American democracy more easily.
Marx closed the night out with a promise of hope and a call to action of her own. She highlighted that times were just as tumultuous for the activists that came before, and that if they could do it, so can the people of today.
“They fought for the things we are seeing eroded right now, and it is our generation’s Stonewall. It is our generation’s AIDS crisis. It is our generation’s time to stand up and say ‘we are going to honour the sacrifices and fights [of] the people who came before,’” Marx concluded at the show. “We’re gonna have to fight for this future because if we don’t do it, do we think someone else is going to do it for us?”
Acacia Carol is a Staff Writer for The Reflector 2024-2025.