We stand at the brink of a new political age. In the shadows of Silicon Valley boardrooms and Washington backrooms, an unlikely alliance has taken shape. The Dark Enlightenment – an obscure neo-monarchist ideology born on internet forums – has crept from fringe blogs into the corridors of power. When I first heard whispers about tech CEOs and White House aides reading the same forbidden tracts, I knew something extraordinary was unfolding. This chronicle that follows is a firsthand journey into that unfolding drama, written in the heat of events by an intrepid observer who witnessed the transformation up close. It reads like a political thriller because, in many ways, it is one – except every bit of it is based on real people and real ideas shaping our world.
To set the stage, let me sketch the key players and ideas at work, so you can follow the wild narrative that ensues:
- Curtis Yarvin (Mencius Moldbug) – Ex-programmer turned blogger, founding voice of the Dark Enlightenment. He preaches that democracy has failed and openly advocates for “CEO monarchs” to run governments like corporations. Once a fringe internet figure, Yarvin’s ideas now influence those at the highest levels of U.S. politics.
- Nick Land – British philosopher and coiner of the term Dark Enlightenment. A prophet of “accelerationism,” Land believes pushing capitalism and technology to their extremes will cause society to collapse – paving the way for a new, more authoritarian order. His writings are esoteric and unsettling, but they have ardent fans among Silicon Valley’s elite.
- Peter Thiel – Tech billionaire venture capitalist (co-founder of PayPal and Palantir) and an early patron of the New Right. Thiel has questioned whether freedom and democracy are compatible, echoing Dark Enlightenment themes. He has bankrolled politicians influenced by Yarvin and reportedly considers Yarvin one of his “most important” intellectual connections.
- Elon Musk – The wealthiest man on Earth (Tesla, SpaceX, X/Twitter), now a wild card in politics. Musk shares the Dark Enlightenment disdain for regulators and “woke” culture. He seems to relish running institutions his way – whether a company or, as it turned out, parts of the government. By 2025, Musk was leveraging his massive influence to champion New Right figures and policies, blurring the line between tech mogul and political kingmaker.
- Marc Andreessen – Pioneer internet entrepreneur and power broker investor. In 2023, Andreessen penned a “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” decrying limits on technological growth. He quoted neo-reactionary ideas and cast tech billionaires as saviors of civilization. Andreessen’s vision of unrestrained techno-capitalism meshed perfectly with the Dark Enlightenment’s ethos – and gained him a seat at the political table.
- The New Right cadre – A growing movement of writers, bloggers, and politicians who reject the old conservative playbook. This includes figures like J.D. Vance (author-turned-senator-turned-vice president), who avidly consumed Yarvin’s work, and think tanks like Claremont Institute pushing ideas of an “American Caesar.” These actors provided the intellectual firepower to turn esoteric theories into real government policies.
The pages ahead weave together immersive reportage and sober analysis. You’ll ride shotgun with the narrator through secretive gatherings of neo-reactionaries, chaotic White House intrigue, tech billionaire summits, and street-level consequences of ideology turned governance. The style is unapologetically gonzo – visceral, first-person, and unfiltered – in the tradition of Hunter S. Thompson. It had to be; nothing less could capture the absurdity and urgency of our times.
As you read, remember: this is not dystopian fiction or a fever dream. It all happened, or soon might, in the very real world we inhabit. The sources and citations at the end attest to the factual bones of this story, even as the narration brings its blood and guts. Buckle up for a journey into the dark heart of the new revolution in American politics – one that has already begun.
rUv – February 2025
Orlando, October 2022 – I first sensed the storm at a Halloween party in Orlando, two years before it broke. I was chasing a lead on an underground ideological movement at the National Conservatism Conference, where a new breed of right-wing intellectuals mingled with senators, tech investors, and meme lords. The conference itself was staid, but after hours, in a smoky hotel suite lit by jack-o’-lanterns, the real story began to reveal itself.
A woman dressed as a gothic witch – later ID’d as documentary filmmaker Amanda Milius – stubbed out her cigarette and sized me up. “We’re just the last normal people, hanging out at the end of the world,” she quipped sardonically, warning me not to paint them as some cabal of child-sacrificing occultists. I laughed, but the joke hung in the air. These folks half-believed civilization was collapsing, and that they were the last sane ones left.
In one corner of the suite, I spotted Curtis Yarvin – unassuming in a rumpled suit, nursing bourbon and quietly holding court. Here was the infamous “Mencius Moldbug” in the flesh, the guy whose writings had been confined to niche blogs a few years ago. Now Senators and venture capitalists swapped whispers with him. Next to Yarvin lounged J.D. Vance, the Yale-law-turned-populist whose unlikely Senate campaign Thiel had bankrolled. Vance looked more preppy than firebrand, but when Yarvin spoke, he leaned in like a student at a guru’s feet. The scene was a bizarre mix of a college dorm bull session and a conspiratorial council.
I perched on a sofa’s edge, notebook in hand, trying to blend in. A young tech founder in an Iron Man costume excitedly told me, “Yarvin’s basically our Socrates. He showed us the truth – democracy is a failed religion.” Across the room, I caught snippets from a group surrounding a tall man with a British accent discussing “neocameralism” – Nick Land wasn’t present, but his ideas certainly were. They spoke of a future where cities become sovereign corporations, each run by a CEO-king. It sounded like science fiction, or libertarian cosplay of Game of Thrones, but they were utterly serious (The Shadowy Millions Behind San Francisco’s “Moderate” Politics | The New Republic).
This was my introduction to the Dark Enlightenment in the wild. The term, I recalled, was coined by Nick Land in a 2013 essay that read like a tech-noir prophecy. Land and Yarvin preached that the “Age of Enlightenment” had led us astray – that equality and democracy were unnatural, and a great rollback was needed. At the party, I felt like I had slipped through a portal into an alternate reality where up was down: here, monarchy was a trendy topic and liberal democracy the butt of every joke.
Before the night was over, I introduced myself to Yarvin. He greeted me politely, eyes gleaming with mischief. Knowing his penchant for irony, I asked if he truly believed a king should rule America. Yarvin smirked. “We already have one,” he said, gesturing broadly. “It’s just a diffuse, stupid king – the bureaucracy, the media, the universities – what I call the Cathedral. All I suggest is that we trade that for a smart king who can actually steer the ship.” He spoke as if it were obvious. I pressed him on how to make it reality. He cryptically replied, “It’s not about making it happen. It’s about being ready when the Cathedral falls of its own weight.”
I left Orlando buzzing with uneasy excitement. The journalist in me recognized a hell of a story: a network of “dissident” thinkers and power brokers weaving a new ideology to upend the system (What Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance, and Others Are Learning From Curtis Yarvin and the New Right | Vanity Fair). They weren’t MAGA populists ranting about stolen elections, nor alt-right trolls shitposting from the sidelines. These were highly educated, calculating people – elite revolutionaries in Italian suits and Halloween costumes – who aimed to transform the very principles of American governance. And they had money, thanks to their tech-world benefactors.
Over the next two years, I tracked this network’s progress from the periphery to center stage. Peter Thiel continued to pour millions into New Right causes. After J.D. Vance’s Senate victory in Ohio, Thiel protégé Blake Masters nearly won in Arizona, openly quoting neo-reactionary ideas on the trail. Thiel’s influence was subtle but pervasive: he hosted salons with traditionalist Catholic integralists one week and transhumanist crypto-libertarians the next. His message was consistent – liberal democracy was past its prime, and only bold, contrarian minds could save civilization from decline. He famously told friends that Yarvin’s blog posts were more illuminating to him than any New York Times editorial, which says it all. By 2024, Thiel’s peers in tech were also coming out of the closet, ideologically speaking.
One unlikely convert: Elon Musk. Musk had always been anti-establishment and iconoclastic, but around 2023 he took a hard turn. He started echoing reactionary catchphrases on Twitter (which he had by then rebranded as “X”). Musk railed against the “woke mind virus” in universities and touted how efficient dictatorships like China can be at “getting things done.” It sent his PR handlers scrambling, but Musk didn’t care. He began flirting openly with Republican politics – hosting Ron DeSantis on Twitter Spaces, palling around with conservative influencers, and boosting fringe ideas about the Federal Reserve and the “deep state.” By late 2024, Musk was commenting on U.S. governance as if it were a faulty rocket design he could fix, musing about “running the government like a company with a smart CEO.” It sounded suspiciously like Yarvin’s platform. The tech king and the neo-monarchist visionary were aligned in spirit.
Meanwhile, the Republican establishment was being rapidly reshaped by these currents. Trump – still the party’s kingpin – was watching closely. Ever the opportunist, he sensed the energy coming from the New Right young bloods. Donald Trump, for all his bluster, never read much, but those around him certainly did. By 2024, some of Trump’s advisors had him cribbing lines from Curtis Yarvin. At rallies, Trump started ranting about “unelected deep state bureaucrats” and hinting that he’d “take a sledgehammer to the swamp” if re-elected. It was red meat for the base, but it also reflected a serious plan being drawn up behind the scenes – a plan to neutralize the permanent bureaucracy and reclaim power for the executive branch, in a way no prior president had dared. I caught wind of a project circulating in conservative think tanks called “Project 2025.” It was essentially a government-in-waiting: hundreds of hand-picked operatives ready to swarm federal agencies and remake them in Trump’s image from day one of a second term. The Heritage Foundation compiled a 900-page battle plan detailing how to dismantle the administrative state, axe regulations, and put the “real people” back in charge. It was unlike anything I’d seen: a peaceful coup on paper, awaiting the green light of electoral victory.
By Election Day 2024, the stage was set. The unlikely ideology I’d seen gestating in Orlando had congealed into a political force. The New Right intellectuals provided the vision, the tech barons provided the cash and clout, and the MAGA armies provided the votes. I crisscrossed the country covering that campaign – a surreal sequel to 2016. Biden’s team tried to paint Trump as a dangerous authoritarian, citing his openly stated plans to “weed out” thousands of civil servants and perhaps install loyalists as quasi-ministers. But Trump’s base only grew more fervent at the thought. At a rally in Texas, a middle-aged man in a Q t-shirt told me, “Hell yeah, fire ’em all. We need a CEO, not a sleepy puppet. Elon would do a better job running things!” It struck me that many in the crowd revered Musk as much as Trump. When Musk himself tweeted a thinly veiled endorsement of Trump (“Policy matters more than personality. The current administration is not friendly to innovation, to say the least.”), it felt like a tide turning. The world’s richest man had cast his lot with the would-be American Caesar.
Late on the night of November 5, 2024, under the klieg lights of Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump declared victory in the presidential election. The networks hadn’t even called all the states yet, but the outcome was clear enough. Trump grinned like a cat who stole the cream, flanked by a coterie of faces new and old. To his right stood J.D. Vance, now Vice President–elect, looking slightly uncomfortable in this gaudy setting but aware of his growing influence. To Trump’s left, notably, was Peter Thiel, flashing a rare smile. Thiel usually lurks off-stage, but tonight he was front and center, a clear sign that he expected to be a power behind the throne. As I watched this tableau, my mind flashed back to Yarvin’s smirk in Orlando: be ready when the Cathedral falls of its own weight. The Cathedral – the entrenched liberal order – had just sustained a body blow. And the people about to run the show were ready.
I popped a Dexedrine, opened my notebook, and braced myself. The real story was about to begin.
Washington, D.C., January 20, 2025 – Inauguration Day. Instead of the customary grand ball at the Smithsonian, the hottest ticket in town was something dubbed the “Coronation Ball.” The name wasn’t meant entirely in jest. Officially it was a private gala hosted by an ultraconservative publisher, but everyone knew its purpose: to toast the rise of a new regime – one that saw itself as a monarchy restored under republican camouflage.
I managed to finagle an invite (don’t ask how – involving a borrowed tux and a vaguely worded promise to a gatekeeper). Inside the Watergate Hotel’s gilded ballroom, it felt like I’d stepped into a parallel universe version of America. Curtis Yarvin was there, holding court at a table like a dark prince at his accession. Attendees actually approached him to pay respects – a few years ago, most of these Republicans wouldn’t touch Yarvin with a ten-foot pole due to his anti-democratic musings. Now he was an informal guest of honor.
Across the room I spotted General Michael Flynn chatting with a man who looked suspiciously like Nick Land (though I never confirmed Land’s presence – perhaps my mind was playing tricks in the haze of cigar smoke). Cabinet appointees-designate floated about: I recognized the newly named Secretary of Commerce Blake Masters, and near the bar was national security advisor Michael Anton – the author of the notorious 2016 “Flight 93” essay that compared electing Trump to charging the cockpit to avoid national suicide. Anton had been one of the first to muse about needing a “Red Caesar” to impose order on America. Tonight he looked downright cheerful.
When President Trump himself breezed in, flanked by Melania, the room erupted in whoops and applause. He waved regally. One could almost see an imperial purple cloak billowing behind him instead of that long overcoat. Not far behind were Vice President Vance and his wife Usha. Vance made a beeline to Yarvin’s table, clapping a hand on the blogger’s shoulder and joking loudly, “Yarvin, you reactionary fascist, you haven’t started the counter-revolution without me, I hope!” Yarvin chuckled, replying, “Thank you, Mr. Vice President – and thank you for not letting my infamy stop you from getting elected.” Their exchange drew laughter all around. The fact that the Vice President of the United States could jovially call someone a “reactionary fascist” – and mean it almost as a compliment – said everything about how far the Overton Window had shifted.
I spent the night zigzagging through clusters of power brokers, sucking down whiskeys and scribbling notes. Peter Thiel was encircled by young venture capitalists and policy wonks, discussing plans for a “national innovation burst.” I overheard snippets: “...strip down the regulatory state… pour rocket fuel on Silicon Valley… charter cities…” Thiel’s dark eyes gleamed when someone mentioned “Project 2025.” He responded in a low voice, “We have the blueprint. Now we execute.” I jotted that down verbatim.
In another corner, Marc Andreessen held forth to a couple of senators about the miracles of technology awaiting if only the government would “get out of the way.” One senator asked, half-joking, “Marc, should we just put you in charge of the economy?” Andreessen laughed: “Not me, Senator. Tech itself! Let innovation run things – you’ll see prosperity like never before.” It sounded utopian, but Andreessen’s whole pitch was that growth is progress, and any impediment (be it law, bureaucracy, or ethical qualm) is the enemy. These men now had an administration that largely agreed with that sentiment.
As the band struck up a brassy tune, I noticed Elon Musk had arrived fashionably late, sans any costume or disguise. He swaggered in with an unlit cigarette in his mouth (indoors! Secret Service looked nervous). Musk wasn’t officially part of the government, but he was treated like an honored guest. People flocked to him. I saw him slap backs with Trump, whisper something that made Trump guffaw, then gravitate into an intense discussion with J.D. Vance and Peter Thiel. The trio exuded an air of countercultural camaraderie – like college kids about to embark on a grand prank, except the prank was on the American governing system.
The Coronation Ball made one thing clear: this administration was not going to be business-as-usual. It was an experiment – perhaps the boldest experiment in government since FDR’s New Deal, but in reverse. Instead of expanding government to help the little guy, they planned to gut it to empower a new elite vanguard.
And they moved fast. In the first week of Trump’s second term, the executive orders came down like thunderbolts. I found myself in the Press Room on Day 2 when the President signed an order re-instituting Schedule F at breakneck speed. Schedule F – a wonky term that suddenly everyone had to learn – effectively reclassified tens of thousands of federal civil servants, stripping them of job protections so they could be fired and replaced at will (Trump revives executive order aiming to strip some federal ...) (The Dangers of Trump's Schedule Policy/Career Executive Order). Trump had tried this in late 2020, but it never took effect. Now, armed with Heritage’s Project 2025 manual and cheered by Yarvin’s philosophy of razing the “Cathedral,” he was going for broke.
I watched as career officials at the EPA and DOJ were marched out by security with banker's boxes in hand. One long-time EPA scientist I spoke to, as she cleaned out her desk, was in a state of shock. “They don’t even pretend it’s about efficiency,” she said. “They told us straight: we want loyalists, not ‘experts.’” The purge was underway. In the West Wing, Trump’s new chief of staff (a Thiel ally) referred to the bureaucracy as “the front office of the Cathedral” and boasted about cleaning house. Departments like State and Education were decapitated overnight – their upper and mid-level ranks gutted. It was a blitzkrieg on the administrative state.
For a gonzo reporter like me, it was pure adrenaline. By day I tailed fired officials and newly installed operatives; by night I pored over obscure Yarvin essays and Machiavellian memos left behind in trashed cubicles. I started connecting dots on a giant whiteboard in my motel room. The pattern was unmistakable and chilling: the neo-reactionaries were implementing their vision at warp speed.
Consider this bullet-point sketch from my notes in February 2025, just a few weeks in:
- Centralizing Power: The White House began asserting control over independent agencies. The Fed, the FCC, even the FDA faced unprecedented political pressure. “Policy czars” were appointed for everything, sidestepping Senate confirmations. It was a de facto cameralist monarchy approach – consolidating authority under the executive.
- Techno-Utopian Economics: Regulations on tech, energy, and finance were slashed mercilessly. Environmental rules? Mostly gone. Data privacy? On hold – “innovation first” was the mantra. Andreessen and Musk sat on a new informal council to “Modernize American Industry,” essentially dictating how far the envelope could be pushed in AI, biotech, and crypto. The administration adopted Andreessen’s “techno-optimism” wholesale: they wanted flying cars, designer babies, and AI everywhere – and they wanted them now. If you weren’t on board, get out of the way.
- Parallel Institutions: Influenced by Thiel and various thinkers, the government quietly began funding alternatives to what they saw as corrupt legacy institutions. Federal grants flowed to new charter schools and online education platforms that explicitly eschewed “progressive curricula.” Conservative media startups got lucrative federal advertising deals (a backdoor way to funnel support). It was an attempted replacement of the elite class in academia, media, and culture – creating a parallel ecosystem aligned with their ideology. One official gleefully called it “building a new Cathedral to overshadow the old.”
- Curtailing Dissent: This part was more shadowy, but I picked up on it through my sources. Federal law enforcement was being redirected to focus on “domestic stability.” In practice, that meant aggressive surveillance of left-wing protest groups, expanded watchlists, and the occasional high-profile bust of someone deemed an Antifa leader or anarchist hacker. Chillingly, there was talk of using new tech tools – perhaps Palantir’s software or even experimental AI – to monitor and predict “subversive” activity. Free speech was still intact legally, but outspoken critics of the regime found themselves audited by the IRS or entangled in random legal troubles. A message was being sent: be careful.
By spring 2025, Washington felt different. The pace of change was dizzying. Many Republicans in Congress were uneasy – this was beyond their Reaganite, limited-government imaginations. But Trump kept them in line with sheer populist fervor and political brute force. The base was cheering the revolution, urged on by a pro-Trump media ecosystem now supercharged by tech mogul support. Fox News found itself bizarrely outflanked on the right by upstart streaming networks financed by VC money and promoted by Musk’s algorithms on X. The narrative sold to the public was triumphant: “We’re taking our country back from the elitist bureaucrats and globalists. America is run by you again.” It was compelling theatre, though behind the scenes it was more like America run by a tight clique of counter-elites with radical ideas.
In those days I often felt like a character in a novel. One balmy May afternoon, I sat on a terrace in Georgetown with a senior official who’d agreed to speak off-record after two bourbons. He was a peculiar blend – Ivy League educated, but a self-professed disciple of Moldbug. Let’s call him X.
“You don’t get it, do you?” X said, leaning in. “This is deliberate. We’re conducting a controlled demolition of the old order.” I asked if that wasn’t dangerous. He shrugged. “Sure. But it’s necessary. The institutions were never going to reform themselves. Too corrupt, too entrenched in liberal ideology. So we blow it up. Fast. Shock and awe.”
I scribbled furiously. X continued, “Curtis likes to say, ‘just add competence.’ We’re adding competence after we clear out the dead wood. We’ve got people ready to rebuild everything – the right way.” He rattled off a list: a startup guy at the FDA to streamline drug approvals, a general-turned-strategist at the DOJ to revamp law enforcement priorities, an economist to overhaul the Fed with crypto principles. “It’s like a hostile takeover of a failing company,” he said, grinning. “First you purge, then you restructure, then profits.”
I countered that a government isn’t a company. Citizens aren’t shareholders looking only for profit. What about rights, representation? X sighed like he was dealing with a child. “Look, democracy was the idol that failed. People just want results. Safety, prosperity, pride. We’ll give it to them. They won’t miss the stuff we trash – the bureaucrats, the pundits, the endless committees accomplishing nothing. Most folks see a headline that the Education Department fired 500 pencil-pushers and think ‘Good, about time.’ They don’t care about process. That’s the beauty of this moment – nobody outside the Beltway will shed a tear for the Cathedral.”
He had a point. Polls did show a surprising number of Americans approved of the aggressive house-cleaning, even some independents. The media (what remained of the critical media) struggled to convey why it might be dangerous that the President could now fire any civil servant at will or that billionaires were dictating policy from the shadows. Those concerns sounded abstract next to concrete promises of “freedom cities” and tech miracles the administration touted daily (The Shadowy Millions Behind San Francisco’s “Moderate” Politics | The New Republic).
Ah, the Freedom Cities – one of the more audacious projects launched that year. In March, Trump had announced an initiative to create ten new cities from scratch on federal land, hubs of innovation and freedom from “stifling regulations.” It sounded like something out of a libertarian science fiction novel. Behind the scenes, it was essentially Balaji Srinivasan’s “Network State” concept repackaged for Trump’s agenda (The Shadowy Millions Behind San Francisco’s “Moderate” Politics | The New Republic). The idea: private enterprise and government would partner to build charter city-states with their own rules, run by CEO-like mayors. One rumor suggested Musk was eyeing one of these zones in Texas to be a high-tech manufacturing utopia for SpaceX and Tesla, complete with its own legal system. Another had Thiel’s affiliates buying up land in the Southwest for a city where zoning, income tax, and public schools simply didn’t exist (replaced by private alternatives).
To me, it was both frightening and fascinating – the feudal future these guys dreamed of was actually being attempted. For the first time in centuries, the United States government was endorsing the creation of semi-sovereign enclaves on its soil. “Laboratories of autocracy,” one critic called them. But Trump pitched it as a return to big, visionary nation-building, American-style. “Like the pioneers built new towns, we too will build shining cities anew,” he proclaimed. A chorus of hype-men on social media called it the next step in human progress. Nick Land’s voice echoed in my head: accelerate the collapse of the old to spawn the new. The freedom cities felt like a test – how far could this Dark Enlightenment ethos push the envelope before something pushed back?
By the end of 2025, the atmosphere in Washington was equal parts giddy and grim. Giddy for the ruling clique who saw their theories springing off the page into reality. Grim for the old guard civil servants, liberal politicians, and academics watching decades of norms disintegrate. I personally oscillated between those emotions daily, running mostly on insomnia and stimulants.
I remember stumbling back to my hotel at 3 AM after a long dinner with a source, my mind racing too much to sleep. I sat at the tiny desk, re-reading Hunter S. Thompson’s account of the 1972 campaign for solace. Thompson had grappled with the death of the ’60s American dream. Now I was chronicling the death of the post-WWII democratic consensus. Different drug, same hallucination, I thought. The America where I grew up – flawed, yes, but basically liberal and democratic – was being dissected before my eyes. And most people were either cheering or oblivious.
From my window, I could see the Capitol dome, illuminated against the night. It looked tranquil, but inside that building an ideological war was raging. On one side, a band of neo-reactionaries and their enablers, full of zeal and confidence. On the other, an opposition struggling to mount a response beyond procedural protests and dire op-eds. As 2026 approached, I sensed a looming showdown. The Dark Enlightenment had made its opening moves. The question that kept me up was: what would the counter-move be, if any?
By early 2026, the tremors of change set off in Washington were reverberating worldwide. Allies and adversaries alike tried to decipher the new American playbook. Was the U.S. still the champion of democracy, or had it become something else entirely?
In Europe, politicians openly fretted that “the American experiment has veered into authoritarianism.” The EU hastily convened a summit about the U.S.’s retreat from democratic norms. But behind closed doors, a few European far-right leaders were rather intrigued. Hungary’s strongman Viktor Orbán praised Trump’s approach of “bringing bureaucrats to heel,” calling it a model for Europe. Even Britain, reeling from its own populist waves, had whispers in Tory circles about needing a “firm hand” like President Trump’s to deal with intractable civil servants. The Dark Enlightenment, once confined to niche internet forums, was seeping into geopolitical discourse.
Russia and China, those perennial authoritarians, couldn’t help but gloat a little. Russian state TV crowed that America had no business lecturing anyone on democracy now. And yet, ironically, both Moscow and Beijing seemed rattled by how unpredictably the U.S. was behaving. Trump’s Washington was both more isolationist (less interested in moralizing abroad) and more erratic (prone to trade wars and sudden diplomatic feuds) than the old “Cathedral” version. As an international reporter colleague put it, “It’s like the U.S. took off a uniform and put on a joker’s costume – you don’t know if they’ll shake your hand or punch you.”
But the more gripping drama remained at home. And 2026 brought a fierce test for the new regime: the midterm elections. Typically a referendum on the sitting president, midterms became a kind of proxy war over the direction of the country. The opposition Democrats, though battered, framed the vote starkly: democracy vs. autocracy. They implored Americans to “halt the march toward authoritarianism” that they claimed was happening. In coffee shops and campuses in blue America, people whispered about how far things might go if the Trumpists weren’t checked – would 2028 even be a free election? The rhetoric was dire.
I attended town halls and protests from Seattle to Boston where the mood was a mix of fear and determination. A grassroots movement calling itself “Save Our Republic” sprouted, led by a motley crew of former officials, academics, and activists. They held teach-ins on the Constitution, circulated petitions against Schedule F and “freedom cities,” and bombarded Congress with letters. It was earnest and heartening, but often felt outmatched by the juggernaut on the other side. The New Right machine, turbocharged by billionaire money and presidential bully pulpit, painted the opposition as hysterical cranks. On social media – now dominated by Musk’s X algorithms and right-wing media – memes abounded mocking “the Cathedral criers.” One popular meme showed a cartoon of old men labeled “Deep State” being tossed out of a skyscraper by a MAGA Superman. The caption: “No Tears for the Bureaucrat.” Crude, but effective.
That spring, I also noticed a shift in Elon Musk’s public role. He was strangely ubiquitous. One week he’d appear on stage with the President at a factory opening, the next he’d be testifying before Congress (at Kevin McCarthy’s invitation) about how AI could “revolutionize governance.” There was even a rumor that Musk had been offered an official position – something like “Advisor for Technological Advancement” – though nothing so formal materialized. Regardless, people took to calling him “First Buddy,” half-jokingly implying he was to Trump what an unofficial First Lady might be (The Shadowy Millions Behind San Francisco’s “Moderate” Politics | The New Republic). Musk seemed to relish it, posting selfies from the Oval Office on multiple occasions.
In one instance, Vice President Vance and Musk conducted a live-streamed chat from the White House’s Roosevelt Room on the theme of “Disrupting Government.” Musk, with his characteristic impish grin, suggested that many federal agencies could be trimmed down or outright deleted. Vance nodded along, adding that courts shouldn’t “get in the way of reform.” That caused a minor stir – a Vice President appearing to undermine judicial authority. When asked to clarify, Vance doubled down, questioning whether unelected judges should really have final say over laws “the people and their representatives” want. It was almost verbatim an idea from Yarvin’s essays: that judicial review was an absurd impediment to a sovereign executive. The trial balloon had been floated.
Reactions were swift. The Wall Street Journal editorial page (normally friendly to Trump) balked at the court-bashing. Even some GOP Senators mumbled about “separation of powers.” The Supreme Court’s conservative Chief Justice subtly rebuked the notion in a speech, saying the Constitution’s checks and balances were the bedrock of the nation. Behind the scenes, I learned, Justice Samuel Alito met privately with Vance to express concern. Vance, ever the polite Midwesterner, listened but apparently remained unmoved. The Dark Enlightenment crowd believed in sovereign power, and they weren’t about to let a few robed lawyers stand in the way.
Sure enough, a confrontation soon arrived. In mid-2026, Congress (with a slim GOP majority) passed a sweeping Civil Service Modernization Act – largely written by Trump’s team – which essentially made permanent the ability to fire federal employees without cause if they held “policy-influencing” roles. Critics blasted it as the “Purge Bill.” Lawsuits flew immediately, and by the fall a federal appeals court struck it down as unconstitutional, citing due process violations and congressional overreach. Trump’s Justice Department, staffed with die-hard loyalists, petitioned the Supreme Court to intervene on an emergency basis.
All summer, I followed this case, sensing it was more than just a legal tiff – it was a collision of worldviews. One humid September morning, the Supreme Court declined to fast-track the case, effectively freezing the law. Trump erupted on X with fury: “Unelected judges THINK they run our government. Not for long!” That same day, I got a tip that a group of high-ranking officials, including Vance and Musk, were meeting at Thiel’s D.C. residence – a mansion jokingly dubbed “Palantir Palace.” I staked it out from a discreet distance, and indeed saw the likes of Stephen Miller, a couple of Cabinet secretaries, and even General Flynn file in.
What emerged from that meeting was soon apparent: the administration chose open confrontation. Trump declared he would enforce parts of the Act via executive order regardless of the courts. It was one of those constitutional crises people always theorized about but never saw. The White House rationale was essentially Jacksonian: “the courts have made their decision, now let them enforce it.” Federal employees found themselves in an impossible bind – follow the President’s order to sack colleagues, or heed the court’s injunction protecting them. Some agency heads quietly paused firings, others charged ahead as told.
Tensions escalated. By November 2026, Congress (including some alarmed Republicans) was holding hearings about “executive overreach.” I roamed the halls, watching our vaunted system strain at the seams. In one dramatic hearing, a Homeland Security official testified that she was dismissed for raising legal objections to ignoring the court. The administration painted her as a saboteur. Vice President Vance was subpoenaed to the Hill for questioning – an extraordinarily rare event. He refused to show, citing executive privilege. Instead, he gave a speech at the National Conservatism Conference (that gathering again!) deriding Congress’s “theater” and insisting the mandate came from the people to clean house, courts or no courts.
The conflict felt eerily like a slow-motion reenactment of Yarvin’s prescription for dismantling the American democratic framework. Autocratic takeover – that phrasing from the Guardian profile of Yarvin kept surfacing in my mind. Could it really be happening in plain sight? The administration’s moves were bold, but not overtly violent or coup-like. They justified everything in populist terms. And truth be told, much of the public tuned it out; inside-baseball stuff, too complex. The midterms yielded a mixed result: Democrats gained a few seats but not enough to flip the House or Senate decisively. The “Save Our Republic” rhetoric had limited effect outside of blue strongholds. Many swing voters saw a decent economy (tech investment was booming, unemployment low) and stuck with incumbents. It seemed a majority either supported Trump’s direction or didn’t care enough to change course.
For the New Right architects, this was vindication. They believed they could ride out any legal challenges or media outrage because the masses desired strength over process. In a dinner with a source – a young aide in Vance’s office – I was struck by their utter confidence. “The democrats (small d) always think we’re one step from collapse, but we’re actually one step ahead,” he smirked. “By the time they try to stop us, we’ve already changed the game. It’s like crypto – by the time regulators catch up, the world’s moved on.”
I asked him where this was all headed. He responded with a coy grin, “2028, my friend. That’ll be the clincher. If we do this right, 2028 won’t just be an election – it’ll be a realignment.”
He didn’t elaborate, but I had a pretty good idea what he meant. The plan was not just to win the next election, but to fundamentally lock in their power and ideology for the foreseeable future – to make their changes permanent. Caesarism, monarchy, whatever label – they wanted an American government that could no longer easily revert to “business as usual” if someone else won later.
This realization hit me hard. Up to now, one could imagine that a future Democratic administration might undo some of Trump’s actions (re-hire fired experts, re-regulate industries, etc). But the deeper goal here was to change the DNA of the system itself – to create new facts on the ground that were hard to reverse. If agencies were hollowed out and rebuilt as tools of a strong executive, if parallel institutions loyal to the new ideology supplanted independent ones, if courts were defied enough to be neutered, then even a new president in 2029 would inherit a very different government machine.
As 2027 progressed, this entrenchment accelerated. The administration started floating proposals to “reorganize” the judiciary, hinting at adding lower court judges sympathetic to their philosophy. They pushed for rules making it easier for the President to deploy the National Guard internally (citing border crises and urban riots as reasons). In one jaw-dropping leaked memo, someone in DHS proposed a system of “Citizen Scores” – drawing inspiration from China’s social credit – to flag individuals who posed “risks to national stability.” Publicly, officials denied any authoritarian intent, but in private some argued it was just efficient governance: “We have the data and tech, why not use it to preempt threats?” It was a merger of Silicon Valley’s surveillance capitalism with law-and-order paranoia.
Technology was indeed the regime’s great enabler. By ’27, advanced AI systems were quietly aiding government decision-making. I learned of an initiative where an AI was analyzing federal case law and suggesting which court orders were “ignorable” based on lack of enforcement mechanisms or support. (Essentially, a tyranny algorithm – lovely.) Palantir’s tools were reportedly used to consolidate lists of employees to purge or activists to watch. And thanks to relaxed privacy laws, tech companies were freer to share user data with authorities. A truly panoptic state was being born, but with an American twist: it wasn’t run by a stodgy communist party; it was engineered by geeky entrepreneurs and justified by a populist mantra.
Those entrepreneurs kept pushing the envelope beyond Washington too. I traveled to Nevada to visit one of the budding Freedom City projects. In the desert outside Reno, construction vehicles were grading land for what a glossy brochure called “Liberty City.” The plan: a semi-autonomous city of 100,000, backed by a coalition of tech investors. I met one on site – a young executive from a Thiel-funded venture – who boasted that Liberty City would have “charter laws” favoring innovation, crypto-based local currency, and “no interference from federal busybodies.” I pointed out federal money was partially funding the infrastructure. He just grinned, “Yeah, it’s beautiful – they pay to build it, then get out of the way.”
It dawned on me that what I was witnessing was the privatization of the state itself in slow motion. If these guys had their way, big chunks of America’s future would be run like corporations, accountable not to voters but to boards and billionaires. Neocameralism, one of Yarvin’s core ideas, envisioned exactly that: mini sovereign corporations competing in governance. Liberty City and its kin were the pilot programs.
Not everything went smoothly for the regime, however. 2027 also brought some cracks and scandals. One was the Great Data Breach – a massive leak of internal communications from the new Office of Government Efficiency (a Musk-championed outfit dubbed “DOGE” as an inside joke). The leaked emails, which I sifted through alongside other journalists, laid bare how cavalierly the new ideologues talked about the public. In one thread, tech advisors discussed deliberately causing minor chaos at the Department of Education to justify fully dismantling it, with one quipping, “The plebs won’t know the difference, they’ll just see we saved money.” Another email from a senior official chortled that voters were “too addicted to their iPhones and Netflix to care if we rewrite the Constitution under their noses.” Not exactly flattering stuff.
When the leaks hit the press (at least the few outlets not co-opted by regime sympathies), it sparked outrage among Democrats and some independents. For a brief moment, late in 2027, the momentum seemed to falter. Congressional hearings were called once more. The administration’s public approval dipped as the caricature of out-of-touch elites landed a blow. People did not like hearing themselves referred to as “plebs,” it turned out.
Sensing danger, President Trump performed his usual maneuver: he distanced himself (“I didn’t know anything about those emails, bad stuff!”) and then redirected the fury. He found a scapegoat in a mid-level scapegoat (some unfortunate tech bro was fired and perp-walked for “unauthorized attitudes,” as if that were a crime). Then Trump pivoted hard, launching a patriotic campaign dubbed “Power to the People 2028.” The idea was to mask the consolidation of power as a return of power to the masses. In rallies and prime-time addresses, Trump claimed he had been battling “sinister forces in DC” on behalf of ordinary Americans, and that the leaked emails were from a “few bad apples” who didn’t represent the movement.
I had to give it to the old man: he knew his base. The furor mostly blew over as media cycles moved on to the next outrage (helped by a sudden Elon Musk stunt – a manned SpaceX launch to Mars orbit, which conveniently dominated headlines for a week). Attention spans are short. By New Year’s 2028, the regime was back on offense, and all eyes turned to the looming presidential race.
Entering 2028 felt like walking into the climax of a thriller. The air crackled with anticipation and dread. This would be no ordinary election year – it was shaping up to be a decisive battle over America’s future trajectory: Accelerationism vs. Restoration, Dark Enlightenment vs. Democratic Resilience. And like all great showdowns, it attracted global attention.
Trump, now 82 but still ferocious, made it clear he was anointing J.D. Vance as his successor. At the Republican National Convention in July 2028, Trump magnanimously (for him) stepped aside, allowing Vance to secure the nomination with little opposition. The convention had an odd vibe: part victory lap for the “Trump Revolution,” part coronation of the next generation New Right. Vance’s acceptance speech was something to behold. He praised Trump for “breaking the old system” and then painted a picture of the future that sounded straight out of a Yarvin blog: “Imagine an America of order and greatness, where decisions are swift and wise, where cities gleam and technology serves all. An America not paralyzed by division but energized by a common direction – upward.” It was lofty and vague enough to sound inspiring. Only those who knew the subtext could hear the undertones of authoritarian ambition.
The Democrats, for their part, had nominated a ticket of their own in a desperate bid to appeal to the zeitgeist: Gavin Newsom (California’s polished ex-governor) with Stacey Abrams (voting rights champion from Georgia) as VP. They framed themselves as the protectors of American democracy, warning that a Vance presidency would cement one-party rule and oligarchy. But here’s the rub: after four years of Trump 2.0, a chunk of the electorate wasn’t so enamored with “democracy” as an abstract ideal anymore. They saw competence (or the appearance of it) and strength and results – things were mostly stable, jobs plenty, crime down (albeit with some heavy-handed methods), and new tech toys aplenty. Many had grown accustomed to the new normal. The Dems were essentially asking voters to reject a status quo that, to some, didn’t feel too bad personally, even if it reeked to journalists and intellectuals.
I hit the campaign trail, joining the press buses and crowds, trying to gauge the public pulse. At a Vance rally in Phoenix, I met a trio of college-age guys, all engineering students. They were buzzing with excitement about the “future” – self-driving everything, AI tutors, Mars colonies – and they credited Trump/Vance for unleashing innovation. One of them, wearing an Elon Musk t-shirt, told me, “The old politicians didn’t get it. These guys do. They’re making the world like, cooler. Who cares about Congress or whatever?” When I asked if he worried about too much power concentrated at the top, he shrugged, “If they build awesome stuff, who cares? Democracy is slow and boring. We need giga-brains in charge.” It struck me that the Dark Enlightenment had succeeded in selling a sizable segment of young, tech-oriented voters on a techno-authoritarian bargain: you give up some political voice, but you get cool gadgets and a sense of progress. Bread and circuses, updated for the 21st century, with rocket launches and neural implants.
Of course, not everyone was on board. There was also a fierceness to the opposition that I hadn’t seen before. In August, a massive protest march in DC – the March for Democracy – drew over a million people, dwarfing even the Women’s March of 2017. People carried signs like “We are the Cathedral” (reclaiming the term as a badge of honor) and “No Kings in America.” It was a diverse crowd: young idealists, elder statesmen from both parties, civil servants with 30-year careers who’d been cast as villains, professors and farmers and union workers. There was a palpable feeling of last stand among them, as if this was the final chance to pull America back from an abyss. I marched alongside them for a while, feeling their hope and anxiety. Speeches were given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, invoking the civil rights movement, the fall of Nixon, the memory of every time Americans fought tyranny. It was moving. But I couldn’t shake a cynical thought: did this movement have the institutional power to actually stop what was coming? Peaceful marches and moral pleas felt like peashooters against a tank when the other side controlled the executive branch, had the loyalty of key parts of government, and the tacit support of some very wealthy interests.
Late in the campaign, an October surprise of sorts hit the Vance camp. A former White House aide – evidently wracked by guilt – leaked documents to the press showing detailed discussions about post-election plans. Dubbed the “Red Caesar Papers” by journalists, these documents outlined contingency scenarios where, in the event of a contested or lost election, the administration might invoke national emergency powers. One scenario even suggested that if riots or “civil disorder” broke out, Vance (if President) should consider temporarily suspending Congress and ruling by decree to “restore order.” It was breathtaking – basically a blueprint for ending the Republic in all but name. The Vance campaign of course dismissed it as a hypothetical memo not reflective of the candidate’s views (some even floated that it was a Democratic plant, though that didn’t hold water).
Newsom’s team seized on the Red Caesar Papers, hammering in debates and ads that Vance was plotting an honest-to-God authoritarian takeover. For a moment, Vance seemed on the defensive. He gave an interview saying, “Look, I’m committed to our Constitution. Anyone who actually knows me knows that.” It was a notable departure from his more swaggering New Right tone. Inside sources said Thiel and Anton were furious at the leaker; they felt exposed too soon. Yarvin, interestingly, wrote a short blog post saying essentially, “Why all the pearl-clutching? We’ve been openly advocating for an American Caesar for years – at least we’re honest about it.” Not exactly helpful cover for Vance.
Election Day 2028 arrived. I barely slept the night before, wired with anticipation and dread (and perhaps one line of something I shouldn’t have done – forgive me, it was a special occasion). I was stationed in Ohio, Vance’s home turf, at his campaign’s invite-only watch party. Giant screens flickered with results, and the mood swung like a pendulum as states reported in. It was nail-bitingly close. By midnight, we still didn’t have a clear winner. Vance carried the critical swing of Texas by a hair. Newsom flipped Pennsylvania and Wisconsin back to blue by comfortable margins. It all came down to a few states in the Midwest and South too close to call. Memories of the 2000 and 2020 election cliffhangers filled the air.
I hopped between conversations, soaking up the vibe. One thing was clear: Vance’s camp was not going to quietly accept a defeat. I heard a prominent campaign surrogate mutter, “We have the tools in place if those bastards try anything.” Another quipped, “They won’t steal it from us this time, the people are with us and we’re with the people.” It sounded innocuous, but knowing their playbook, I felt a chill.
In the early hours, chaos: both campaigns claimed leads in key states, and accusations of irregularities started flying from the MAGA social media sphere. By dawn, neither candidate conceded. America woke up on Wednesday to uncertainty and tension at a level not seen since 2020 or maybe 1876. Lawsuits were filed in multiple states by lunchtime. News networks ran 24/7 panel discussions that only fanned the flames. The nation braced for a protracted fight.
Then, the unthinkable (yet not entirely unexpected) happened. On November 5th, President Trump – lame duck by law, but still commander-in-chief until January – addressed the nation. He claimed there was massive fraud (citing nothing credible) and declared a national emergency “to secure our democratic process.” With a straight face, he said he was dispatching federal officers to “protect ballots” and would not allow “an election robbery.” Everyone knew this was nonsense; it was a naked attempt to keep his faction in power. Within hours, Attorney General (and Federalist Society loyalist) Josh Hawley announced the Justice Department was investigating a “multistate conspiracy” of voter fraud. They provided zero evidence publicly.
I was in D.C. by then, having caught the first plane out of Ohio when I sensed the fuse was lit. The capital was a fortress – National Guard at government buildings, military vehicles on some streets. It wasn’t full martial law, but it was enough of a show of force to send shivers. The Democratic candidates decried a coup, urging calm and trust in state authorities counting votes. State officials in the contested states (some Republican, to their credit) insisted the process was clean and ongoing. But Trump’s emergency declaration created confusion about who was actually in charge.
Days ticked by with no resolution. Meanwhile, pro-Trump protests (some armed) erupted at several state capitols, demanding counts be stopped or reversed. In response, left-leaning groups organized counter-rallies. Minor clashes occurred in Michigan and Arizona, though thankfully nothing like a full-blown civil war happened. The country was on a knife’s edge.
And then, a twist: the breaking point came not in the streets, but in the halls of power. The Supreme Court – yes, that same court that had been sidelined and scorned – stepped in. In an emergency session, they ruled 9-0 (even the Trump-appointed justices) that the President had no authority to interfere in the state-run election process absent actual evidence of insurrection or foreign invasion. It was a legal smackdown to Trump’s emergency. He predictably raged, but something interesting happened: key figures in the administration quietly began to distance themselves. Perhaps they feared crossing a line into outright illegality with no cover. Perhaps they saw the winds shifting. Vice President Vance publicly remained quiet (calculating his future either way), but people like Musk and Thiel – notably silent during the post-election upheaval – started behind the scenes urging a “constitutional resolution.”
Ultimately, the counts finished. By Thanksgiving, enough states had certified results to show Newsom and Abrams narrowly won the electoral vote. It was done. America had, by a hair, sidestepped the full Dark Enlightenment endgame, at least for now. On December 1st, J.D. Vance gave a concession speech. It was terse and loaded with a hint of defiance – he spoke of how misinformation and the media had “influenced” the outcome and vowed to keep fighting for his movement. Trump never formally conceded anything, of course, but his term would end regardless. The system creaked, groaned, but held.
In the ensuing weeks, a strange mood fell over Washington. The outgoing regime worked at breakneck pace to finalize their projects and embed loyalists in wherever they could (the so-called “burrowers” in civil service). The incoming Newsom administration prepared to undo a lot, but they’d face a tough road resetting norms. I floated around, gathering what perspective I could. An exhausted congressional aide told me, “We might have won, but man, the damage is done. It’s like kicking out a burglar after he’s redecorated your house and set it on fire.”
January 20, 2029 – Inauguration Day again, a very different one. Newsom swore the oath, pledging to restore democratic norms and rebuild trust in institutions. The crowd on the National Mall was large and jubilant – many saw it as a second chance for American democracy. But an undercurrent of anxiety remained. Would the Dark Enlightenment forces accept being out of power? Or would they sabotage from within, waiting for another opportunity?
One telling incident: Curtis Yarvin wrote in his newsletter shortly after, congratulating his followers on how far they’d come. “We moved the Overton window so far, we got a quasi-monarch into the White House for four years. Not bad.” He predicted the “Leviathan” (his pet name for the administrative state) would flail under the new president and that the counter-elite would be back stronger next time. It wasn’t exactly a concession – more like a tactical retreat announcement.
As for the tech lords, their reactions varied. Peter Thiel quietly retreated from the limelight, returning to his venture investing and perhaps licking wounds. Marc Andreessen penned an op-ed titled “Don’t Abort the Tech Renaissance” imploring the new government not to over-regulate and undo the “progress” made (he framed it all in terms of tech advancement, avoiding the political minefield, classic PR). Elon Musk… well, Musk tweeted something cryptic about the “wheel of history turning” and shifted focus back to rockets and cars, at least publicly. Some joked he was applying to become Emperor of Mars now that his Emperor of Mars-on-Earth gig fell through.
The years 2029–2030 saw a messy, tentative unwinding of certain Dark Enlightenment policies. Schedule F was swiftly revoked by Newsom, but many experienced staff had left government for good, leaving holes that took time to fill. The “freedom city” projects were put under review; a couple were canceled, though some continued under state jurisdiction or private funding (hard to put the genie back entirely). Crucially, efforts were made to reassert norms: New whistleblower protections, limits on presidential emergency powers, laws to reinforce independence of DOJ and FBI from political interference. Basically, constitutional rehab.
However, and this is a big however, the ideology didn’t vanish. How could it? The fundamental drivers – disillusionment with liberal democracy, seduction of authoritarian efficiency, partnership of wealth and power – were still present. If anything, the movement went back to ground to regroup. The ideas of the Dark Enlightenment, the neo-reaction, simply became part of the American political tapestry. They’d been given a test run at the highest levels and nearly prevailed.
I spent early 2030 traveling and reflecting, trying to piece together the bigger picture. In Hungary, I saw billboards with Orbán and Trump shaking hands, proclaiming “Victory for Traditional Values.” In Silicon Valley, I spoke to startup founders who said they missed the Trump years because the government “minded its business” and let them build cool stuff – never mind the moral cost. At a diner in Ohio, I listened to former Trump voters grumble that the new President was “bringing back the bureaucracy” and that maybe having “one boss run things” wasn’t a bad idea after all. Attitudes had shifted; the genie couldn’t be fully shoved back in the bottle.
In a sense, the Dark Enlightenment succeeded even in apparent failure. It injected its DNA into the culture: skepticism of democracy, yearning for strongman solutions, the fetishizing of tech billionaires as philosopher-kings, all that jazz. Future politicians on the right (and perhaps even some on the left) would take lessons from the era of 2025–2028. The Overton Window had been yanked open; what was once fringe (monarchism, “red Caesarism”) had danced on the mainstream stage.
As I finalize this chronicle, in the sweltering summer of 2030, I wonder how historians will view the saga. Was it a close call after which America re-committed to its founding ideals? Or was it the opening chapter of a longer saga in which those ideals are gradually, inexorably rewritten for a new age? As a gonzo journalist-turned-reluctant historian, I don’t have the luxury of hindsight yet – I’m too busy living the damn story.
But here’s what I do know: Hunter S. Thompson once said, “History is hard to know, because of all the hired bull****.” I’ve tried to cut through that and show what happened in plain, lurid detail. The rise of the Dark Enlightenment was real, fueled by real people with grand (and sometimes terrifying) ideas. They rose from obscurity to the heights of power in a blink of history’s eye. They nearly changed the game forever. And they’re still around, in the shadows, waiting, plotting, coding their next move perhaps.
The story doesn’t end – but this chapter does. I close my notebook on a Washington that feels at once more familiar and yet irrevocably altered. The roar of traffic and protests outside my window has been the soundtrack of these years. Now there’s a momentary lull. I suspect it’s the eye of the storm, not the end of it.
As I down the last of my whiskey and light a final cigarette (an old bad habit picked up from too many late nights chasing leads), I take solace in one thought: whatever comes next, there will always be those of us poised to witness and record it, to hold truth to power, to cut through the madness with pen and voice. The Dark Enlightenment, the New Right, the Techno-Oligarchs – they had their thriller, and we survived it, barely.
The fight goes on. And so does the story.
The End (for now).
- POLITICO (Jan 30, 2025) – Ian Ward, “Curtis Yarvin’s Ideas Were Fringe. Now They’re Coursing Through Trump’s Washington.” – Describes Yarvin’s presence at the 2025 inauguration “Coronation Ball” and his influence on VP J.D. Vance.
- Vanity Fair (May 2022) – James Pogue, “Inside the New Right, Where Peter Thiel Is Placing His Biggest Bets.” – Early report on National Conservatism Conference, Yarvin’s role, and Thiel’s support of New Right figures.
- Dark Enlightenment – Wikipedia – Overview of the neo-reactionary movement founded by Curtis Yarvin (Mencius Moldbug) and Nick Land; outlines its anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian philosophy.
- The Guardian (Dec 21, 2024) – Jason Wilson, “He’s anti-democracy and pro-Trump: the obscure ‘dark enlightenment’ blogger influencing the next US administration.” – Details Yarvin’s growing influence on Trump’s inner circle and advocacy for an autocratic takeover.
- POLITICO (July 18, 2024) – Ian Ward, “The Seven Thinkers That Have Shaped J.D. Vance’s Worldview.” – Explains how Vance is connected to New Right intellectuals, including Yarvin, and notes Yarvin attending Trump’s inaugural events as an “informal guest of honor”.
- New Republic (Jan 6, 2025) – Laura Jedeed, “The Shadowy Millions Behind San Francisco’s ‘Moderate’ Politics.” – Discusses tech billionaire influence on politics; notes Marc Andreessen citing Nick Land’s “techno-capital” ideas and Yarvin’s vision of mini-corporate city-states.
- TechPolicy Press (Nov 2023) – Panel discussion, “Silicon Valley Leaders Cast Their Lot With Donald Trump.” – Comments on Andreessen and Musk embracing a view that entrepreneurial disruption is the sole engine of progress and that anything impeding it is the enemy.
- Quartz (Dec 2017) – Introduction to Nick Land, “The Alt Right: Nick Land.” – Describes Land’s Dark Enlightenment philosophy as “acceleration of capitalism to a fascist point,” centering on technology, warfare, feudalism, and corporate power.
- The Atlantic (Aug 2022) – Graeme Wood, “Peter Thiel Is Taking a Break From Democracy.” – Profiles Thiel’s anti-democratic leanings; notes Thiel’s engagement with Yarvin’s ideas and his skepticism of one-person-one-vote governance.
- Jacobin (2023) – Luke Savage, “Right-Wing Blogger Curtis Yarvin Is Wrong. Democracy Is Good.” – Critically examines Yarvin’s proposal for “democratic monarchy” and the contradictions in the neo-reactionary agenda.
- Campaign Legal Center (Jan 2025) – Reporting on Schedule F – Highlights the dangers of Trump’s efforts to reclassify and purge civil servants, noting it would replace nonpartisan experts with partisan loyalists (The Dangers of Trump's Schedule Policy/Career Executive Order) (Trump revives executive order aiming to strip some federal ...).
- POLITICO (Mar 2023) – Adam Cancryn, “Trump’s Plans for a Second Term Are Taking Shape.” – Discusses Project 2025 and the preparation of an army of loyalists to staff a second Trump administration, and plans to dismantle parts of the federal government.
- The Claremont Institute – American Mind (Sept 2022) – Michael Anton, “Founding Fathers and Red Caesar.” – Lays out the argument for a “Red Caesar” figure on the American right to wield authority and restore order, reflecting ideas percolating in New Right circles.
- The Guardian (Oct 1, 2023) – David Smith, “‘Red Caesarism’ is rightwing code – and some Republicans are listening.” – Explains the concept of “Red Caesarism” as promoted by far-right thinkers like Anton and its connections to Trump’s circle (The Americans Who Long for Caesar - by Jeffery Tyler Syck).
- New Statesman (Oct 2023) – Jeremy Cliffe, “The techno-optimist fallacy.” – Critiques Marc Andreessen’s “Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” noting its neo-reactionary echoes and the promotion of unrestrained techno-capitalism as panacea.