The Foundational Ideas Behind the Takeover

The following is a list of ideologies, concepts, and terms that motivate those in power in the current US administration. Of course, each of the individuals in power has different emotional affinities towards these concepts, but in general they are useful in understanding what is being done to us and therefore how to stop it and turn it back. This list is not exhaustive, comprehensive, or in any particular order.

One of the difficulties in describing these is that there is not much logic behind them, they are not internally or externally cohesive. They are really more a heterogeneous set of vibes that legitimizes behavior and connects individuals who may have difficulty connecting with other people in a normal way. Many of these concepts have a connection to technology and use the language or signifying habits of technology, as well as of fantasy fiction. For example the name of Peter Theil's mass surveillance corporation Palantir comes from the Lord of the Rings. A great deal of the original writing about some of these ideologies comes from blogs, many written under pseudonyms that don't burden themselves with normal standards of clarity or logic. For example, they often use "scare quotes" or make allegations or create labels about colossal pseudo-entities they invent. An example of one of these pseudo-entity is the elites said to be responsible for the Great Replacement.

The Great Replacement is the idea that some shadowy group of elites are trying to replace white people with non-white people, migrants, Muslims, Africans or various others via migration and low white birth rates. Originally from a French guy but the idea moved around. Tucker Carlson is very into it.

The Dark Enlightenment or Neoreactionaryism, often abbreviated by NRx. An anti-democratic collection of suppositions mainly by Curtis Yarvin. Check out pictures of him online, clearly somebody who thinks a great deal about his persona, well after high school when most people stop doing that. He talks about "the Cathedral" which is a coalition he made up including universities and status quo media outlets that out of not-so-clearly-defined self-interest support and promulgate a progressive ideology. This ideology is called "The Synopsis". The real focus of NRx is on what's wrong and what it wants destroyed, less about what it wants. Its hope is to found some sort of techno-capitalist monarchy, again not a very clearly defined vision, but definitely a sort of SiFi fantasy thing.

Deep Maga and Dark Maga These terms distinguish two parts of the ruling coalition. Deep Maga are the America First voters, and those who are extremely suspicious of "the elite" They are nationalistic, pro-tariff, anti-migrant, and embrace personality warship of the Leader. Dark Maga, on the other hand, are the oligarchs, mainly via technology, many from the West Coast, some via South Africa, who simply believe they should be in control, are against regulation and equality, and favor policies that will help them increase their capital internationally to ever more eye watering amounts.

Accelerationism  This is a concept made popular by Nick Land, a British academic pundit who believes that capitalism should move quickly and that the crisis that will ensue will create the change he wants which is roughly the Dark Enlightenment. It wants more AI and crypto soon, more or less to create chaos. This is basically a "break lots of eggs fast to make the omelet" idea dressed up as a philosophy.

Technocracy This was a Nazi adjacent idea in the 1930's that smart technocrats should run everything. Elon Musk's Canadian chiropractor grandfather Joshua N. Haldeman was a prominent early enthusiast. After badly losing an election in Saskatchewan, he moved to South Africa in 1950. His party newspaper in Canada had published the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a decision he supported. He embraced the Apartheid system of government because he thought black people were stupid and incompetent. Technocracy itself doesn't have much traction other than through Musk himself and the substantial influence of white South African men in US politics, like Musk and Peter Thiel. But conceptually the idea that the smart guys (them) should be in charge remains a motivator.

Alt-right is a loose collection of people, mainly men, mainly on line, who believe that people of European descent in the US should be in charge, that the country belongs to them because they built it, and that that progressive culture (which they call woke culture) is mean to them and makes them feel bad. It is all very red pill memey, lots of in-jokes, hand signs, endless off-shoot entities, and tattoo-ready symbols like 1488.

Fascism Plenty written about this. Because the US was fighting against Fascist Japan, Germany, and Italy in WWII, it has a bad reputation, although it well describes the goals and methods of those currently in charge in the US. There is always one leader who embodies and controls the state, demands subservience, enjoys warship, is hyper nationalistic, very us/them, believes in a social hierarchy, and that equality is subversive and dangerous. So, yea.

Techno-Utopianism and The Techno-Optimism Techno-Utopianism just means tech can make things great and solve tons of problems. And yea sure, great, but it also can create billionaires who want to then set up monopolies and control the state to prevent  a utopia in which...they are not billionaires, an ironic paradox from the get go. Techno-Optimism, recently popularized in an essay by Bay Area billionaire Marc Andreessen, in what he called a manifesto, is that tech is great and bad people are trying to tell you it's not. All these concepts pretend to be about tech, but in reality the people who control the tech (Dark Maga) are the big proponents, since they think they should be in charge of everything, including the government and the internet. In the way they want the state and technology organized, very conveniently helps them stay in charge forever. Tech doesn't have to be at their service, but it is they way they want to run it.

Libertarianism Classically, this means that the government or state should interfere as little as possible in the lives of individuals. In practice, people who call themselves libertarians tend to be very focused on the importance of the government not supporting those without much money or who they think are different from them. But are not too bothered about subsidies to those with capital, power, or to their own demographic. For example, they are often silent about the rights of women to choose to have a child or not. Libertarians tend to view themselves as the arbiters of what does or doesn't count as state intervention, which can often be self serving. It's big in the Bay Area, and lots of adjacencies with several of the concepts listed here.

Ayn Rand This is not a philosophy it is a person. She called her philosophy Objectivism but that term is normally used with other more general and adult meanings. The philosophy itself is so ridiculous that it is not taken seriously by any philosophers and doesn't make much sense except as a sort of legitimizing pseudo-scaffolding for selfishness and shareholder capitalism. Back when she was around, collecting Social Security by the way, selfish capitalists were desperate for some kind of, any kind of intellectual scaffolding/fig leaf. So I am not sure what else to call it other than "Ayn Rand". Many of the fellow travelers of these various ideologies have read her book Atlas Shrugged back when they were pretentious teenagers and it made a big impression on them. They still talk about it.

Patrimonialism where rulers rule on the basis of personal loyalty, allegiance, favors, and clientelism; in short, corruption. It is extremely at hoc and personal, well suited to an embittered, emotionally needy, vindictive ruler. In order to be implemented, it requires the destruction of institutions which are by their nature impartial. The term comes from Max Weber, the author of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. He said we now live in an era of bureaucratic proceduralism, which is why US politicians swear an oath to the US Constitution and not a person. The term Weber created for how things worked in the pre-modern era was patrimonialism, where the king and the government are the same thing. He thought it was dying. Nope. Big comeback!

Sovereignism This slippery term got going in 1919 when the world set to preventing war after what it had just been through. The League of Nations was the main attempt...but US sovereignist prevented it from succeeding. Sovereignists believe that "internationalism" is dangerous and that countries should look out for themselves. In general "Sovereignty" the word, because it sounds vaguely good, strong, and worthwhile, is often used by fascists like Victor Orban in Hungry and Nigel Farage in the UK and that ilk. As they deploy it, it sounds like "we'll take care of our stuff, you take care of your stuff". But it is really just a cloak for isolation and corruption. Rutgers professor Jennifer Mittelstadt is the authority on Sovereignism, read her.

The Prosperity Gospel This is a Christian justification for the addictive acquisition of money that says to do God's will, get rich. This is complex since the teachings of Christ in the New Testament pretty clearly says to not get rich. But the Prosperity Gospel allows various Christian churches and sects to ally with oligarchs, gather political power, and enrich the church leadership. This theological contortion also makes it easier for various Christian churches to ignore the teachings of Christ and to scapegoat various disenfranchised out-groups it may want to, for political or other reasons. Along with this is a subset of Christians who believe that the Rapture is coming soon, and so all the things that are happening on earth don't matter that much anyway, since it will all be over soon. The Prosperity Gospel and the Rapture are not directly conceptually connected to each other but both enable those who identify as Christians to ignore large parts of the teachings of Christ that they find inconvenient.

Cohnism Hard to even call this an ideology but in a way it is. Roy Cohn was a lawyer whose influence on the current US president was portrayed incredibly in the 2024 movie called The Apprentice. See it. The movie was heavily suppressed by Republicans and denied widespread theatrical release in the US before the November 2024 election. Cohnism is motivated by individual power acquisition above all else, and specifically advocates destroying institutional power to build individual power. Its tenants are 1) Attack attack attack, 2) Admit nothing. Deny everything, 3) Claim victory and never admit defeat, 4) You have to be willing to do anything, to anyone, to win. A very big part of it is a focus on controlling media narratives. Steve Bannon's a big fan.

Firehosing or Gish Galloping. Again this isn't really an ideology, it is more of a method to pretend that the incorrect thing you are saying is correct and making it unassailable by just spraying listeners with a high pressure steady stream of bullshit. Gish Galloping, the term was first used in the 90's by a well known scientist referring to a well known creationist Dwayne Gish. What is turning it into an ideology is that it has now become so common that it has prevented debate as it used to be understood which used to be an important part of political decision making. An even more important reason for us to elevate it to ideology status is that it is now used for policy. The current administration issues a constant stream of presidential decrees that are not thought out, illegal, and in no way part of any comprehensible policy other than to destroy institutions and build patrimonialism.

Subservistocracy This is a style and goal of rule based on creating dominance by the leader and the state and subservience by those ruled. I made this word up and wrote about it in a different post in case you missed it, but seems pretty accurate to me in terms of what is being done to us.

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Please add to this list and if you do, please use this tag. #TakeoverIdeology Excited to hear what you'll come up with. Examples in languages other than English, like Hungarian, Hindi, Turkish, Spanish, and Georgian for example are most welcome!