The Civil War Brewing Within MAGA: Part 3
Critical Resistance -- Substack
Feb 17, 2025
In our previous installment, we explored the Christian Nationalists' quest for a theocratic America. Now, we turn to another influential faction within the MAGA movement: The Extraction Class, a cadre of tech moguls and corporate elites who view democracy as an impediment to their vision of a technocratic future.
The Extraction Class is indifferent to faith or nationalism; their primary concern is control. To them, democracy is an outdated and inefficient system, obstructing their ability to manage society with the same ruthless precision they apply to business. Their ideal future envisions artificial intelligence dictating policy, corporate leaders setting the rules, and the public reduced to a managed workforce devoid of genuine governance participation.
Peter Thiel, a billionaire venture capitalist, has been instrumental in advancing this vision. Thiel has financed far-right candidates, including JD Vance, aiming to install loyalists poised to dismantle existing democratic institutions. In 2019, Vance co-founded the Rockbridge Network, a Silicon Valley-backed organization supporting right-wing political activities, with a $75 million budget for the 2024 elections. High-profile backers include tech investors like Thiel and Rebekah Mercer. Rockbridge aims to weaken regulatory bodies such as the SEC and promote deregulation, especially concerning cryptocurrency and AI.
Curtis Yarvin, a political theorist and founder of the neoreactionary movement, complements Thiel's perspective. Yarvin advocates for the abolition of elections and the establishment of a CEO-like figure at the helm of government. In his 2022 essay, The Butterfly Revolution, he outlines a scenario where a leader seizes full control, bypassing traditional democratic checks and balances, and systematically dismantles existing institutions to pave the way for authoritarian rule.
This theoretical framework finds a real-world parallel in Elon Musk's recent actions. Musk's approach involves taking control of key government data systems, attempting to shut down entire agencies, and terminating federal employees en masse. His team has faced allegations of hacking into classified networks, locking career civil servants out of their systems, and withholding government data to centralize power.
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