Techno-Fascism Dressed in a Leather Jacket
A dorkier, darker, and destructive right-wing vision
Curtis Yarvin
A name that likely does not register to most people if mentioned. If there were an article about him in The New York Times, you’d probably glance by it without giving it a second look.
And yet, in some ways, he is the person that best explains much of what is happening.
Yarvin is cited by some as a “philosopher,” but has most regularly dabbled in the world of software programming, until the early 2000s. When he began blogging about his political ideas.
He is also seems to enjoy wearing his really cool leather jacket.
Who is he?
Here is a sampling of what Yarvin thinks about the world:
American democracy should pivot towards becoming a monarchy.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was actually a monarch and current-day American needs a new monarch, that will act in the exact opposite way that FDR did.
Any court ruling used against a Trump administration should be duly ignored.
He’s coined an acronym - R.A.G.E. - which stands for “Retire All Government Employees.”
Americans need to get over their dictator-phobia and the way to do this is to install a CEO as a sort of “shadow president.”
You might be wondering now - sure, this guy seems like a loon, but why do I need to add this person to my rogue’s gallery memory bank?
Well, and there is a well, this guy happens to have some fans. Fans in high places. These people include Vice President J.D. Vance, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Marc Andreessen, among other tech-related individuals.
To give a brief history lesson; Thiel has strong ties to Yarvin, bankrolling some of his projects and backing the same thoughts around “democracy and freedom” being “incompatible.” Thiel bankrolling people is a reoccurring theme; he was then-candidate Vance’s biggest donor benefactor when running for Senate. Musk, for his part, only began donating to the Trump campaign after Vance was tapped for VP. Thiel and Musk’s relationship famously dates back to their “PayPal Mafia” days. Which brings us back to Vance, who prior to becoming VP, cited Yarvin as a thinker on the same intellectual wave length as him.
During a podcast appearance in 2021, where he positively referenced Yarvin, he offered this advice to Trump:
“I think what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, and replace them with our people. And when the courts stop you, stand before the country and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”
If you’re seeing parallels between Yarvin’s thinking, Vance’s comments, and the Trump administration’s actions, well, good, it’s pretty obvious.
The thing is that Yarvin’s ideas — at least some of them — are not entirely out of step with Republican orthodoxy. It’s not too difficult to find “respectable” right-wing figures of the past who have advocated for shrinking government and dismantling agencies. This has been a pet project of the right for years. No one should mourn the loss of stature of these people or wish their return.
That said, what existed before this current iteration of the Trump administration was a Republican Party that was willing to use the wheels of the government to will these changes into being. Senator Mitch McConnell, shrewdly, used the tools at his disposal to slowly stack the Supreme Court and many appointed judges all across the country to promote this change.
But this Republican Party is different. They do not care about playing just outside the parameters of some rulebook. They are more belligerent, cruel, and determined. They’ve traded tact for hammer where they see nails everywhere they look.
It’s with this knowledge, that any a Democratic Party leader like Chuck Schumer, still playing footsy with the idea that the “old Republican Party” will return some day, needs to be chucked out of that leading role they occupy.
If you want to hear more about Yarvin, I recommend watching this Majority Report interview, or checking out Gil Duran’s work at The Nerd Reich.
US Slop Beat
Below is sampling of civil liberties in the United States that have been violated in the past couple of weeks by the Trump administration:
Immigration agents arrested a U.S. citizen and created warrants after an arrest - WBEZ Chicago
Ignoring court order, Trump admin expels doctor to Lebanon - NHPR
French scientist denied US entry after phone messages critical of Trump found - The Guardian
Indian postdoctoral student in US detained over wife's Palestinian heritage, activism - CNBC
With no explanation, Canadian detained by ICE for two weeks - The Guardian
The point of listing these out is not just to show “doom” inducing headlines, but to show how far-reaching and extrajudicial this crisis is becoming. Most analysts at this point are waiting for a clear constitutional crisis, when a judge has had enough of the Trump admin’s arguments, orders them to comply, and the administration says “make us”.
A letter by Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate who was detained with no charges by DHS, has been published that was recorded for him over the phone from an ICE detention center in Louisiana.
An internal memo from the Social Security Administration proposes changes to its phone service that could derail the benefits application process for many Americans. If people wanted to file for benefits or change the bank where their payments were deposited, they could no longer do so by phone and must first verify their identity online or go into a field office. This would make life more difficult for seniors, who already have difficulty with both getting to an office and navigating technology. Musk is also targeting Social Security offices, looking to close and fire its staff from many offices across the country.
Musk’s DODGE has falsely canceled multiple social security payments and Medicare from recipients who were very much alive. Another example of making government efficient.
World Slop Beat
Israel has resumed their bombing campaign in Gaza, effectively ending and violating the ceasefire agreement reached with Hamas on January 19. Grisly images show women, children, and babies killed in air strikes. Over 400 people have been reported dead, including at least 180 children and 90 women as of this writing.
Why this matters:
Aside from the sheer scale of death, there is a need to look at the politics of this. Before resuming their bombing campaign, Netanyahu was due to testify in court for his corruption trial. After their ending of the ceasefire agreement, Netanyahu requested the court cancel the hearing, which was approved. Netanyahu also took to Twitter/X to demonize the corruption charges held against him, claiming they are being weaponized by the “leftist Deep State.” Not really trying there, are we?
At the same time, Netanyahu has also been keen to fortify his coalition governing partners. Notably, he looked to bring back into the fold right-wing extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir, who left the government after the ceasefire agreement was reached at the start of this year. With the bombing resuming, Ben-Gvir has reentered the fold, helping pass a budget to help sustain Netanyahu’s hold on power.
Former Israeli officials and some families of the hostages have decried Netanyahu’s decision to resume the war, worrying for the safety of family members.
Let’s take a slightly closer look at El Salvador and what the media is calling their “mega-prison.” When the president of the country, Nayib Bukele, isn’t busy mocking the United States judicial process with Secretary of State Marco Rubio or being the first country to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender (with predictable results), he hosts one of the most draconian and complex prison systems in the world. Elected in 2019, Bukele rode in with a simple, short-term solution to high crime rates in El Salvador; imprison everyone. The prison complex can hold up to 40,000 inmates. Inside the prison, human rights organizations have described a system that includes arbitrary detentions, torture, and death. The country’s prison system has also been called a “penal colony.” This is the backdrop in which hundreds of people have been “deported” to by America, with no due process or legal rights being respected.
Thousands of Turks were expected to ramp up protests on Thursday over what they called the undemocratic detention of Istanbul's mayor Ekrem Imamoglu despite a ban on gatherings, police barricades and dozens of detentions over social media posts. - Reuters
Even More Slop
After criticism of planning to appear with far-right politicians and parties - some with explicit ties to Nazism - at an event dealing with “antisemitism,” ADL president Johnathan Greenblatt has backed out of the event. The meeting itself was organized by the Israeli government.
Johns Hopkins to Cut More Than 2,000 Workers Funded by Federal Aid - New York Times
Scientists Say NIH Officials Told Them To Scrub mRNA References on Grants - KFF Health News
GSA preps code for shutdown of text service for government benefits - Nextgov/FCW