President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election were brazenly antidemocratic. Yet Trump and his supporters nonetheless justified their actions under the dubious pretense of preserving American democracy – as a matter of getting the vote right, of reversing voter fraud.
But in recent months, a strand of conservative thought whose adherents are forthright in their disdain for democracy has started to creep into GOP politics. It’s called “neoreaction,” and its leading figure, a software engineer and blogger named Curtis Yarvin, has ties to at least two GOP U.S. Senate candidates, along with Peter Thiel, a major GOP donor.
In my years researching the far right, I see this as one of the more significant developments in right-wing politics. Someone who calls himself a monarchist isn’t being relegated to the fringes of the internet. He’s being interviewed by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and has U.S. Senate candidates repeating his talking points.
A political philosophy is born
In 2007, Yarvin launched his blog, “Unqualified Reservations.” Writing under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug, he produced a prodigious corpus of political philosophy.
In his writings, Yarvin cites his political influences. They include the 19th-century political philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who disdained democracy and thought it could too easily veer into mob rule; American 20th-century political theorist James Burnham, who became convinced that elites would come to control the country’s politics while couching their interests in democratic rhetoric; and economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe, who, in his 2001 book “Democracy: The God That Failed,” wrote of how all organizations – irrespective of size – are best managed by a single executive.
Yarvin is perhaps best known for his concept of “the cathedral” – his term for the U.S. ruling regime. Yarvis argues that virtually all opinion-makers, most notably those in academia and journalism, are essentially “reading the same book.” In an essay for Tablet Magazine, Yarvin wrote that what’s often characterized as the “marketplace of ideas” is actually a “monoculture” that props up an oligarchy.
The cathedral is self-reinforcing: Individual journalists and professors are rewarded when they follow the ruling ethos. Those who do otherwise risk being punished or at the very least face diminished career prospects.
Another important neoreactionary figure is Nick Land, whose main contribution to the philosophy is the concept of accelerationism. In essence, accelerationism is based on Vladimir Lenin’s notion that “worse is better.” The Russian revolutionary maintained that the more chaotic conditions became, the greater the likelihood that his Bolshevik party could accomplish its goals.
Analogously, right-wing accelerationists believe that they can hasten the demise of liberal democratic governments by stoking political tension.
Smashing the cathedral
Both Yarvin and Land believe that gradual, incremental reforms to democracy will not save Western society; instead, a “hard reset” or “reboot” is necessary. To that end, Yarvin has coined the acronym “RAGE” – Retire All Government Employees – as a crucial step toward that goal. The acronym is reminiscent of former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s vow to deconstruct the administrative state.
Yarvin advocates for an entirely new system of government – what he calls “neocameralism.” He advocates for a centrally managed economy led by a monarch – perhaps modeled after a corporate CEO – who wouldn’t need to adhere to plodding liberal-democratic procedures. Yarvin has written approvingly of the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping for his pragmatic and market-oriented authoritarianism.
While not explicitly fascist, Yarvin’s worldview does, at times, appear to have a fascistic bent. As the historian Roger Griffin once argued, the essence of fascism was a nationwide process of death and rebirth. Yarvin’s rhetoric of “reboots” and “hard resets” evokes the imagery of national renewal.
Moreover, though he maintains that he is not a white nationalist, he has echoed racist views like the belief that white people, on average, have higher IQs than Black people.
Follow the money
Though neoreaction has long eschewed involvement in electoral politics, it seems to be be gradually penetrating mainstream right-wing spaces.
Yarvin is said to have helped popularize the “red pill” meme in alt-right subcultures. Pulled from the 1999 film “The Matrix,” to take the red pill is to no longer live under the spell of delusion. In the context of politics, it means breaking free from the spell of liberal orthodoxy.
In September 2021, Yarvin made an appearance on “Tucker Carlson Today,” during which he explained the concept of the cathedral. When Yarvin called himself a monarchist, Carlson didn’t bat an eye.
Then, in May 2022, Vanity Fair reported on the relationship among Yarvin, GOP megadonor and venture capitalist Peter Thiel and U.S. Senate candidates J.D. Vance and Blake Masters.
Thiel, like Yarvin, has expressed frustration with American democracy. As far back as 2004, Thiel lamented that “America’s constitutional machinery” prevents “any single ambitious person from reconstructing the old Republic.” In 2013, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur invested in Yarvin’s firm, the Tlon Corp., best known for developing a decentralized personal server platform. And according to Yarvin, he and Thiel watched the returns of the 2016 U.S. presidential election together.
During the 2022 election cycle, Thiel has donated more than $10 million to super PACs supporting Vance and Masters, who also serves as the president of the Thiel Foundation.
Yarvin, meanwhile, has given $5,800, the maximum amount allowed for individual contributions, to Blake Masters’ Senate campaign. Masters, for his part, has echoed one of Yarvin’s maxims – “RAGE,” or “Retire All Government Employees” – on the stump.
To be fair, neither Masters nor Vance has called for the dismantling of U.S. democracy. Yet they espouse a brand of apocalyptic rhetoric that depicts a governing system on its last legs. “Psychopaths,” Masters earnestly explains in one web ad, “are running the country.”
The current order, Vance proclaimed in a podcast interview, will meet its “inevitable collapse.”
“There’s this guy, Curtis Yarvin, who has written about some of these things,” Vance added.
Democracy in crisis
Why might neoreactionary ideas be gaining currency among right-wing candidates and donors?
But more broadly, public trust in government has eroded to the point where only 2 in 10 Americans say they trust the federal government to do the right thing. A Gallup Poll published on July 5, 2022, found that only 7% of Americans had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in Congress – the legislative body’s lowest recorded rating in 43 years of polling. A Monmouth University poll released that same day reported that 88% of Americans believe the U.S. is on the wrong track. And in a July 2022 New York Times/Siena College poll, 58% of those polled said the government needs major reforms or a “complete overhaul.”
With confidence in government at historic lows, a window opens for other ideologies to seed the political imagination. Neoreaction is but one of them.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
