Vance-Thiel-Yarvin 2024: The Neoreactionary Dream Team

From JD Vance to Project 2025, how Peter Thiel and a guy who wants the US to be a monarchy (really!) are driving Trump’s MAGA agenda.

Whether “rightists” understand this or not (generally, not), the only rational telos of “rightism” is the restoration of a stable, responsible, and accountable monarchy in which the destabilizing energies that create “leftism” do not even exist. In this context, “rightism” and “leftism” both will only remain as academic and historical tropes—like Catharism or Lollardy.

-Curtis Yarvin, writing in his newsletter, March 2024

So there’s this guy, Curtis Yarvin, who has written about some of these things...

-JD Vance, September 2021

JD Vance, a 39-year-old whose resume makes Sarah Palin seem experienced, is officially on the Trump ticket. The faux-hillbilly turned venture capitalist turned US Senator is now vying to be the next Vice President of the United States. This week, let’s focus on the men ultimately responsible for Vance, Project 2025, and the infusion of Silicon Valley cash to bolster Trump’s campaign, Curtis Yarvin and his billionaire patron Peter Thiel.

Longtime readers will be familiar with Curtis Yarvin, who blogged for years as Mencius Moldbug. Yarvin founded neoreactionism AKA the Dark Enlightenment, a political movement popular among certain tech circles. Neoreactionism calls for the fall of democracies and a return to monarchy and aristocracy. Shockingly, neoreactionaries believe that new aristocracy should come from tech and business. Yarvin’s writing fixates on the power of the so-called “Cathedrals”: media, academia, and government institutions which he and his followers believe shape public opinion and rule America. (It’s worth noting that Yarvin’s parents were government civil servants.)

A Vox profile from 2022 explains Yarvin’s deal pretty well:

But he stands out among right-wing commentators for being probably the single person who’s spent the most time gaming out how, exactly, the US government could be toppled and replaced — “rebooted” or “reset,” as he likes to say — with a monarch, CEO, or dictator at the helm. Yarvin argues that a creative and visionary leader — a “startup guy,” like, he says, Napoleon or Lenin was — should seize absolute power, dismantle the old regime, and build something new in its place.

To Yarvin, incremental reforms and half-measures are necessarily doomed. The only way to achieve what he wants is to assume “absolute power,” and the game is all about getting to a place where you can pull that off. Critics have called his ideas “fascist” — a term he disputes, arguing that centralizing power under one ruler long predates fascism and that his ideal monarch should rule for all rather than fomenting a class war as fascists do. “Autocratic” fits as a descriptor, though his preferred term is “monarchist.” You won’t find many on the right saying they wholly support Yarvin’s program — especially the “monarchy” thing — but his critique of the status quo and some of his ideas for changing it have influenced several increasingly prominent figures.

JD Vance’s rhetoric will sound familiar to anyone who read Yarvin’s work. Vance has cited Yarvin as an influence, but the connection runs deeper. Both Yarvin and Vance have the support and backing of Peter Thiel, an early Trump supporter in 2016 who gave a primetime speech at the 2016 convention. If Yarvin informed Vance’s thinking, Thiel fueled his political ambitions by funding a Super PAC for Vance’s 2022 Senate run. Without Thiel’s financial backing, it’s hard to imagine Vance would be in the Senate, much less the Republican nominee for Vice President.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Musk and other reactionaries in tech announced major donations to a pro-Trump Super PAC the same week that Vance was announced. These folks are thrilled to have Vance on the ticket. The cash infusion couldn’t be better for the Trump campaign, especially given the state of the RNC and state Republican parties. Of course we have no way of determining if that figured into Trump’s choosing Vance, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a factor.

Project 2025 was crafted by acolytes of neoreactionism. Yarvin is their prophet, Vance is their Moses, and Thiel is more than willing to spend whatever it takes to make this hellish vision of humanity into our reality. Donald Trump might try to distance himself from Project 2025, but he’s always leaned into neoreactionist ideas and imagery. The God Emperor is a monarch who will return America to being a white supremacist nation where men like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk hold power and control over all of us.

It’s always interesting to revisit older articles about neoreactionaries from the movement’s days as a niche Silicon Valley fixation. In 2013 a TechCrunch article states “To be clear though, pure neoreaction is an extreme minority position that will probably never catch on beyond a tiny cult following.” The reporter is alarmed but also sure there’s no way this could ever become a mainstream movement. 

A Baffler article from around the same time better understands neoreactionism’s potential, saying “Neoreactionaries are explicitly courting wealthy elites in the tech sector as the most receptive and influential audience. Why bother with mass appeal when you’re rebuilding the ancien régime?”

Courting wealthy elites is key here. Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and their fellow billionaires are more than happy to spend ungodly sums of money to bend the rest of us to their will and worldview. Yarvin simply played to what they already believe about themselves: that they’re smarter than us and actually, they should rule the world. Vance is more than happy to do the same on his own path to power.

These folks claim again and again that neoreactionism isn’t racist, but Yarvin is on the record defending slavery and endorsing racist pseudoscience. (Vance is in a mixed-race marriage and has endorsed the same racist pseudo-science.) There’s a direct line from billionaires believing DEI and the existence of trans people are oppressing them to Yarvin and neoreaction. 

Here’s the good news. As I’ve said time and time again, most Americans don’t want to live in a fascist hellscape. There are more of us than there are of them, and we can beat them just as we have in every election since 2016. I won’t pretend that’s going to be an easy task this time around, but I was heartened at how Project 2025 has broken into the political conversation this summer, so much that Trump falsely claimed it wasn’t his agenda. JD Vance’s nomination gives us a chance to sound the alarm on Project 2025, the folks behind it, and the future MAGA wants from now until Election Day. It’s on all of us to make the most of these next few months to do so. 

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ICYMI

I Read the Entire Project 2025. Here Are the Top 10 Ways It Would Harm Black America (The Grio)

One bright spot from July’s news cycle from hell is that Project 2025 seems to have broken through to the mainstream. Writer Michael Harriot read all the way through it so that you don’t have to, and highlights the potential impact for Black Americans.

Supporters Believe ‘Hand of God’ Saved Trump (Wired)

Trump’s very online supporters, who nicknamed Trump God Emperor in 2016, have unsurprisingly leaned into the notion that the literal hand of God saved their guy.

Brazil Case Offers Insight on Predictable Misinformation Post-Trump Shooting (Tech Policy Press)

There are a few guides for misinformation and conspiracies around the attempted assassination of Donald Trump but I thought this one with lessons from a similar happening in Brazil was handy. It is a good one for campaign strategists to bookmark and refer to in the coming days. 

Want even more links? Subscribers receive a special ICYMI edition of CARD on Fridays. 

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Coda

Last week at Netroots Nation, I opened Friday’s keynote program. My remarks centered on the future that MAGA wants and how I believe we can win. 

I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has left a comment on Substack. Like anyone who has been on the Internet for more than a minute, the phrase comments section tends to fill me with dread. But y’all have left substantive questions and comments week after week. I enjoy reading, responding, and seeing community form. Thanks for making our little corner of the Internet a nice place to be!

If you have questions or feedback for me, you can leave a comment or reply directly to this email. I read every message and do my best to respond to most.

That’s all for now. Talk to you again next Sunday!