Power itself has for a long time produced nothing but the signs of its resemblance. And at the same time, another figure of power comes into play: that of a collective demand for signs of power – a holy union that is reconstructed around its disappearance.
[…]
The melancholz of societies without power: this has already stirred up fascism, that overdose of a strong referential in a society that cannot terminate its mourning.
[Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, p. 23]