But why do these elected despots offer up a past that never existed? Herein lies another secret. The answer is that they have no future to offer. The future is the climate collapse, which they try hard to deny, but it is happening. The future is bad. To win power and hold on to it, they must sell a past that never existed and deny the future. It is vital to understand that they only win and hold on to power by denying the future and replacing it with neofascism’s foundational lie. So the fight for the future is also by consequence a fight for the past.

— Banzeiro Òkòtó by Eliane Brum, Diane Grosklaus Whitty