What's Actually At Stake: MAGA and Tech Fascism

The most important story of the 2024 Election isn't being told.

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I am abundantly relieved that President Joe Biden has stepped and made way for Vice-President Kamala Harris to take the nomination for the Democratic Party. Following the debate in June I got on here and posted my case for the need for this to happen. In doing so, I noted my fear that the people I care about who are vulnerable and being targeted deserved representation and someone to make a strong case on their behalf. It is my sincere hope that Harris will deliver that case with passion and skill and urgency. The past few years have been harrowing. It’s Ukraine and Gaza and the building international authoritarian movement. It’s the worsening radicalization. And, it is so much more.

Right now our media and political discourse are dominated by this development. And, rightfully so. The catharsis was electric. So many of us have been feeling anxiety and fear and dread. It feels as if a weight has lifted. And what this moment truly represents is an opportunity for the party to change course, move away from the neoliberal consensus that has dominated the past half century, and chart a direction for the future that will only excite Americans but begin addressing the material conditions that got us here in the first place. Whether that happens remains to be seen.

In the excitement, and in the conventional coverage of the race, one of the most pressing developments is being almost entirely ignored. Or, rather, I’m guessing most analysts and pundits simply don’t know, or don’t want to know.

Full-disclosure: I hate JD Vance. I don’t like the word hate. As a person who is healing and growing, I don’t want to hate. But Vance makes it hard. We come from similar backgrounds, similar places, and watching someone choose the route he has, a route that has inflicted incredible pain on so many people in the service of gaining power and profit, tends to inspire antipathy. All that being said, I do need to discuss what Vance’s selection as Donald Trump’s running-mate represents and how the gathering crisis we have been facing has advanced and evolved.

Let me make something clear. Individual and persona-based political analysis is only useful in a limited context. We must understand the individuals, their mindsets, ideologies, and motivations. But politics goes deeper than that. Vance is a dangerous, disgusting individual. His desperate need for power makes him a perfect conduit for an agenda that goes well beyond him. He is now in line to not only become the Vice-President, but also the chosen heir apparent to the MAGA Movement. We can talk about his belief that women should stay in violent marriages, his support of a national abortion ban, or his desire to undermine democracy writ large through giving parents extra votes for their children. And we should. But that’s not enough.

Vance’s entire political career is owed to tech oligarch Peter Thiel. His private sector jobs were all Thiel projects and Thiel ponied up $15 million dollars to get Vance his senate seat, part of a twin effort with disastrous candidate Blake Masters in Arizona. Thiel has groomed Vance as his conduit for power in the U.S. government, and was instrumental in placing Vance in Trump’s orbit. It was a long-game paying off in spades.

It isn’t a coincidence that Vance’s selection immediately resulted in Elon Musk and Thiel-associated fronts flooding the new America PAC with funds. Musk has pledged $45 million dollars a month. There’s no telling what Thiel will contribute or their many obscenely wealthy friends in the tech industry will contribute.

Already, it’s notable how Trump has responded.

Obviously, we cannot definitely prove that Trump’s selection of Vance was bought, but I’m sure we can come to our own conclusions. The pick was a political marriage. In exchange for an ocean of cash, the good favor of the tech industry’s backing, and probably some incredibly dangerous technical assistance (more on this in a minute), Trump agreed to place Vance in a position to become VP and the inheritor of the MAGA Movement going forward.

Since 2016, the GOP has been embroiled in a civil war. The neoliberal/libertarian Republicans, best embodied by individuals like Mitch McConnell, were attempting to use Trump as a battering ram, pushing historically destructive tax cuts, deregulation, and total control over the Supreme Court. That deal also came with a price. Using Trump’s violence came with a push by Far Right figures like Vance and Josh Hawley to seize the reins of power. These are fundamentally antidemocratic actors with a desire to replace liberal democracy with a theocratically-coated, tech-assisted, authoritarian state. That battle is over and the Far Right won.

These groups traffic and caucus together, but they are not the same. McConnell and his cohorts carried the neoliberal consensus, while the Far Right decries it. Their message is incoherent, but it involves some truth. They are right that neoliberalism has been a horror. They are right that our consensus status quo has hurt Americans. But they don’t want to change it. They want to take it and use it for their own means.

Behind them, just beyond sight, stand industrialists like Musk and Thiel. Musk has joined with other tech oligarchs to effectively co-opt our government’s military-industrial complex. He and Thiel and others have become predictably enamored with antidemocratic ideologies. This is inevitable and we’ve seen it repeatedly. As I documented in The Midnight Kingdom: A History of Power, Paranoia, and the Coming Crisis, this pattern has played out repeatedly. Since the dawning of the first corporations and oligarchs, they have used the state to grow in power and wealth until they come to eclipse the state and then move to take it over completely while dismantling any impediments. Inevitably, they turn to fascists to serve as puppets in the halls of power. This is exactly what happened with the rise of Fascism and Nazism in Europe. It’s what happened when the wealthy attempted to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency.

Each new generation of industrialists do this. They create the framework and infrastructure of the new world - in this case the internet, the worldwide marketplace, data and logistics, social media, etc. - and then use the accumulated power and wealth to take over politics and culture in order to extend their power and dominion into the future.

Now is a particularly fraught time. The ravages of neoliberalism has created the perfect conditions for yet another massive crisis. The faux-populist MAGA Movement, like Fascism and Nazism before it, has tapped into the understandable anger of the people, controlled it through white, patriarchal, evangelical prejudices, and redirected the anger deserving of the oligarchs to their political enemies. Those oligarchs are wealthier than any generation before them. They have almost entirely corrupted representative government and infected institutions and ecosystems. And, the technology they possess, is conducive to see their plans carried out.

Since Musk purchased Twitter has obviously ravaged its parts and programming, creating a perfect environment for extremism to explode. What has happened in the past few days, however, is an entirely different story altogether. Personally, I have noticed an abrupt shift. I’ve been shadowbanned for a while now, but recently it’s become almost impossible to post anything critical of Musk, Trump, Vance, or other associated figures or terms. Twitter will, at times, literally stop me from posting. And now, we are finding out that Musk has limited the ability of people to follow Kamala Harris-affiliated accounts.

What we are now seeing is reflective of a worldwide trend. Tech companies have continually worked with authoritarian regimes to control their peoples. Apple and Facebook have willing capitulated with China. Musk has worked with authoritarians around the world. It should not be surprising that this is coming to America.

I have no doubt Musk will use Twitter to help Vance get in the position to forward his agenda. It’s not even a surprise. And manipulation of social media is merely the tip of the iceberg. Social media is largely the lens through which we see the world and it will continue to be manipulated and controlled. But the tech that has been created, from algorithmic tracking that knows us better than we know ourselves, psychological operations that happen out of our sight, and surveillance that extends throughout our lives, it isn’t fearmongering to say tech oligarchs are uniquely positioned to advance the authoritarian agenda through electoral interference but in helping them carry out the agenda once they are in power. If that happens, they will change history, censor information, and effectively change reality as we know it in ways that should give you nightmares.

This reflects the past. Every new technology, from handwriting to paper to printing to radio and television, brings a moment like this. The authoritarians are always grasping for their advantage and the technology always gives them a new chance. In the feudal era, control of literacy allowed the church to use beneficial mythology to tame the masses. The Nazis relied on radio. We’ve seen countless tragedies sown through the television and the internet.

I say all of this only to underscore the danger we are facing. Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party are not just facing the threat of Donald Trump and JD Vance. They are standing in a moment where the unregulated and unchecked power of the Tech world has coalesced and merged with the worldwide authoritarian movement. That fact is being largely missed right now. And, for all of our sakes, it cannot be misunderstood or unseen any longer.