They pour the petrol and then wonder why it burns. Fascism is on the rise in the west, and it is emboldened, legitimised and fuelled by “mainstream” politicians and newspapers. When we mourn a hero like Bernard Kenny – who courageously tried to stop a fascist terrorist murdering Jo Cox – we have to ask ourselves: who are those with power and influence who helped create the conditions in which racists and fascists breed?

“Cannot believe we’re seeing Nazi salutes in 21st century America,” tweets Nigel Farage about Charlottesville, dragging a can of petrol behind him. Perhaps next the chief executive of a fast-food company will express disbelief at levels of obesity; or a tobacco company will issue a press release spluttering about lung cancer deaths. Farage: the man who stood, arms outstretched, in front of a poster featuring dark-skinned refugees and the words “Breaking Point”. Farage: the man who expressed his “concern” at having Romanians move in next door, and made apocalyptic warnings of Romanians and Bulgarians flooding Britain. Farage: the man who cheered on the ascendancy of Donald Trump, a US president whose most fervent supporters are now triumphantly chanting “Heil Trump!” as they menace minorities and progressives.

But Farage is the easy target. Across the western world a media and political elite scapegoats migrants for the crimes of the powerful, portrays Muslims as a homogeneous violent fifth column, and demonises opponents as unpatriotic saboteurs and internal enemies. Trump’s initial refusal to attribute blame to racists and fascists after a far-right terrorist attack – his subsequent coerced denunciation is worthless, and was followed by his retweet of a leading “alt-rightist” – underlines why those marching in Charlottesville see him as their leader.

But Trump’s campaign of bigotry, taken as a licence to hate by every racist and fascist, was no grubby disruption of a tolerant American consensus. “Obama answers to the Qur’an before the constitution,” declared Fox News contributors. The US constitution would be replaced with the Qur’an, they announced. Muslims would be banned from serving in high office, declared Herman Cain, a Republican candidate for the presidential nomination, a few years ago. “Sharia is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States,” was the pronouncement of Newt Gingrich, the Republican ex-speaker of the House of Representatives. Muslims were the only group Barack Obama offered “undying, unfailing support for”, declared fellow Republican Mike Huckabee.

Those goose-stepping marchers in Charlottesville, those racists and fascists, merely represent the undiluted hatred that festers in the US elite.

And it’s the same in the UK. “What will we do about The Muslim Problem?” scrawls Trevor Kavanagh this week in Britain’s biggest selling newspaper, the Sun. Here is an instructive lesson for those who deny the striking parallels between Islamophobia and the antisemitism of the 1920s and 1930s. “Muslims tell British: Go to hell” screeches the Daily Express. Mail Online continues to provide a platform for the far-right hate preacher Katie Hopkins, who once called migrants “cockroaches” and fantasised about using gunboats against them. Using this platform, she falsely smeared a Muslim family as extremists with al-Qaida. Newspapers openly promote an anti-Muslim hatred that directly parallels the flagrant and acceptable antisemitism of the 1920s and 1930s.

The courageous former Daily Star reporter Richard Peppiatt resigned over “anti-Muslim hate-mongering”. “The lies of a newspaper in London can get a bloke’s head caved in down an alley in Bradford,” he warned, and he’s right. On a daily basis, the British population is asked to blame every problem they have on foreigners, rather than those with power and wealth. “Migrants: How many more can we take?”, “Immigrants bring more crime”, “Britain must ban migrants”, “True toll of mass migration on UK life”, “The ‘swarm’ on our streets”: just the hateful headlines, let alone the bile-filled articles themselves, could fill endless volumes.

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And then the media report on the frothing racist and fascists of Charlottesville – and Britain, for that matter – like David Attenborough in a nature programme. Where did they come from? The truth is their hatred and bile are legitimised and echoed by media moguls and mainstream politicians alike. In this country, the rightwing Brexiteers portrayed immigrants as a morass of potential criminals, terrorists, rapists and murderers; in the aftermath of their repellent campaign, they portray critics and progressives as enemies of the people and saboteurs who need to be crushed.

Yes, racists and fascists are enabled and empowered by elites on both sides of the Atlantic; and yes, not just by their hatred, but by an economic order that generates needless misery and insecurity, which the bigoted can exploit.

They are the guilty men – the hatred, the chaos and the violence is on them. And as the racists and the fascists continue to march and unleash violent chaos, their enablers must be held accountable.

• Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist