Yves here. I have to be confess to not being wild about the framing of this post, since as Tom Neuburger quickly points out, there is not a unified right wing but factions each with its own cluster of beliefs and policy priorities. It’s hard to see groups with at best overlapping interests forming a durable, cohesive coalition.
Admittedly, we are in the midst of a conservative counter-revolution which has taken a lot of ground and looks set to take even more. I keep thinking of the French Revolution, which featured a succession of ever more radical factions in charge, rising levels of violence (the Reign of Terror and then Thermidor), and an effort to remake the social order and create a new sort of man as citizens. But then five years of more instability and violence under the Directory led to the coup of 18 Brumaire, the end of the Revolution and the move towards the Empire. So a protracted period of factional violence and bloody retribution is well within historical norms.
I pinged Nat about the fact that Neuburger had not included black-pill nihilists in his analysis and what Nat thought of Neuburger’s assessment generally. Nat’s reply:
The young nihilists have no one in power (yet) and don’t have a coherent ideology.
With someone like Fuentes it’s impossible to parse where he’ll ultimately end up. I had written him off as a #3 [“White supremacy & race restoration”] but then he opposed the Gaza genocide (largely out of anti-Semitism was my initial view but after listening to him there does seem to be some basic humanity there).
We’re in a blender and are decades (or years if good evolution is also accelerated) away from coherent ideologies developing that match our realities. All bets are off.
By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at God’s Spies
Note: Nothing below is meant to apply to us Muppets, the Littles, the voters and passengers on the rich-people’s train. Yes, some Muppets share these beliefs, but no Muppet has power. My point below is only about those who do — the Masters and some of their Minions. Specifically, I’m talking about the powerful Right Wing machine and people like Thiel and Vance, not those of us Smalls who are the market for their propaganda.
Our robotic transhumanist future. Guess who’ll be in charge?
“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
—Peter Thiel, Palantir founder, billionaire tech financier and J.D. Vance promoter
For years I’ve been asking myself, “What if the Right wins absolutely, the machine of the Right? What does the State then look like? What do the Right and its leaders actually want?”
These are key questions, for example, when contemplating a book on The Fourth American Constitution.
The problem is that the Right isn’t really one Right — it’s several, and they don’t all agree about what they want. That division is reflected in the mishmash structure of Project 2025 — many authors and wish lists, multiple contradictions. As a result, the Right doesn’t have just one agenda, but several, some of which contradict what other’s hold dear.
Roughly speaking, the primary and disparate concerns of very Hard Right are these:
- God & control of sex — Your classic Religious Right. Power centers include New Apostolic Reformation leaders like Brian Simmons, Ché Ahn, Mike Bickle. Also Right Wing notables like Boebert and Charlie Kirk (yes, him). Some Catholic and evangelical leaders fall into this group. A lot of these people have an anti-female agenda.
- Cops & punishment of “the other” — Those who love prosecution and what they call justice. Stephen Miller’s a prime example, as are heads of the Constitutional Sheriffs. Leaders who sing “law and order” are part of this group. They have roots in the slave militias that roamed the South, roots in the anti-union Pinkerton gangs, and roots in anti-immigrant cops that kept wage-slave workers in line.
- White supremacy & race restoration — Desire for white supremacy lurks in many groups, but this agenda also has its own leaders. Kris Kobach and Richard Spencer are two, as are those who lead orgs like Proud Boys and Moms for Liberty (you read that right), and pubs like The Daily Stormer.
- No restrictions on money — The Ayn Rand brigade. Libertarian leaders, men like Charles Koch and George Bush; those who want capital flow to trump national rights; bankers and hedge fund kings; the already very rich who want more money still. While many of the hyper-rich have only one focus, some, like Howard Ahmanson, Jr., are aligned with other agendas as well. This group is large, as it contains most real wealth.
- “Endless war for eternal peace” — More than just neocons, anyone primarily interested in constant war and endless war-industry profits falls into this group. Leaders include the now-dead Dick Cheney and the still-living Marco Rubio. It’s large and highly bipartisan.
- Wannabe tech overlords — A newish group made of tech-rich people Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. These people are self-styled heirs of the “I see the future” aura once owned by Steve Jobs. A libertarian offshoot, these wealth-addicted people have emerged as a unique force with striking and wildideas. They share much overlap with libertarians, some overlap with Endless Warriors, and almost none with the Race and Religious Right.
There are other power centers with other agendas, but these are the most consequential.
How Will These Groups Unite?
Short answer: They won’t, except through natural overlap. They won’t deliberately adopt each other’s agenda.
Atlas Shrugged, the libertarian bible
Long answer: Right-wing power centers will compete until one group consolidates enough power to achieve its full agenda. When that occurs, the other groups get what they get. For example, when Bush-Cheney held power, Money and Neocons did well, but White Restorationists lost.
A race-hating holy text
The One Common Element: Lust for Unlimited Power
If there’s no one Right Wing agenda — what holds these groups together? The answer is simple. For each, the real goal is power. They each want control of everyone who isn’t themselves.
So when we ask — what does the Right really want? — the answer is dominance. Of what? They differ somewhat, but control is their true common bond. Koch doesn’t care about race if money trumps all. Stephen Miller may be religion-adjacent, but he’s punishment-first. And radical Christian leaders care less about wealth than they do about punishing sex.
Elisabeth Moss in The Handmaid’s Tale, a vision of society controlled by the Religious Right (Hulu/Youtube)
Our Wannabe Tech Overlords
Which group will win, will see its vision of the State be realized first? Which right-wing agenda is closest to full realization?
Right now, the Tech Overlords have a considerable lead. Like the rest, they want total control — so much that they’re not even lip service–fans of democracy. “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” says billionaire Peter Thiel. They desperately want an intrusive, unchallenged, domestic security state.
Palantir Founder: ‘They need to wake up scared and go to bed scared’
A Palantir Primer: Tools for the Muscular State
They share this with most of the other groups, which is why the spook state won’t die.
And for all their crazy ideas — they think they can live forever; their solution to the climate crisis is to move us to Mars; they espouse “transhumanism,” which despite its veneer, is code for “the smartest should rule” — they have an advantage others don’t, an aura of being “advanced,” of seeing the future. In many of our minds, they are true heirs of the magic that surrounded Steve Jobs.
The Cult of the Airman, V.2
This is not new, this aura — it’s merely another flavor of the “cult of the airman,” a mistaken belief that delighted the pre-War part of the long-dead 20th century.
Poster for the fascinating film Things to Come, in which earth, fallen to fascists, is saved by the airmen
Then as now, it was believed that the technically advanced — in their case, pilot adventurers like Charles Lindbergh — could literally see the future and thus should lead. Not true, of course; Lindbergh was a prominent right-winger whom FDR was “absolutely convinced” was a Nazi. But then as now, the illusion was strong.
Look at that face. One example of the deification of Apple’s Steve Jobs
Poised to Take Over
Yet for all their faults, the Tech Right is poised to take over. This is already long, and I’m certain that, as this evolves, I and others will return to expand that point. So for now, just consider the following: The keys to victory are in place today, and if JD Vance follows Trump, this trajectory won’t change.
(Click here to see the whole infographic; it’s interactive, well researched, and a valuable source.)
So what will happen if the Right wins absolutely? It depends on which Right.
