How the Dark Enlightenment Is Undermining American Democracy, and Now Helps Govern the U.S.
It doesn't begin with a coup. Not with uniforms or marching music.
It begins with a blog. With a man who calls himself "Mencius Moldbug," though his real name is Curtis Yarvin. And it begins with an idea: that democracy was a mistake.
The movement that emerged from this idea – the so-called Dark Enlightenment – carries its contradiction in its name: Enlightenment, but dark. Progress, but backward-looking. Technology, but without morality. And it now wields more power than anyone ever expected.
What Yarvin conceived was not a party, not a manifesto with marching orders. It was an ideological architecture. Cold, precise, cynical. A model state drawn on a drafting table. The basic premise: People don't need freedom. They need leadership. Hierarchy. Obedience. “Humans fit into dominance-submission structures,” Yarvin wrote in 2008, as if human beings were lines of code. In his view, democracy is sentimental fiction – useful for advertising, but useless for wielding power.
The ideology reads like a mixture of Silicon Valley cynicism, fascist aesthetics, and feudal fantasy.
It wants no discourse. Only control.
And it has long since found a home – not on the fringes, but at the center of American power.
The Digital Feudalism
Curtis Yarvin, a conservative blogger and former software engineer, published his first theses in 2007 under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug. Today, he runs a Substack with over 49,000 subscribers. He advocates nothing less than the transformation of U.S. democracy into a modern monarchy – led by a CEO-style autocrat. Contemporary institutions – universities, media, NGOs – he brands as “The Cathedral,” a system he says must be destroyed.
What once seemed fringe has become influential ideology. Yarvin is read – and partly enacted – by tech elites like Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and unofficially Elon Musk. Vice President J.D. Vance, a Thiel protégé, has cited him multiple times. Michael Anton, the future chief strategist at the State Department under Marco Rubio, calls Yarvin a key interlocutor. And Trump himself posted a photo of himself wearing a crown in February 2025: “Long live the King.”
DOGE – the Department of Government Efficiency under Elon Musk – has operationalized Yarvin’s ideas. Over 30,000 federal employees have been dismissed. Universities and media face mounting pressure. Musk controls Starlink, a critical communications infrastructure – power without election.
Yarvin was a prominent guest at Trump’s “Coronation Ball,” and while he told the New York Times his relationship with Vance is “overstated,” his ideas clearly live within this administration. In a 2021 podcast with Jack Murphy, Vance said, “Trump should fire every single midlevel bureaucrat.”
The influence of Yarvin on the government is undeniable. In interviews with the New York Times, Yarvin said democracy is “not evil, just weak” – and should therefore be abolished. For Vance, who praised him in 2021, it’s simple: “When the collapse comes, we’ll rebuild the country – better.”
The Techno-State
Yarvin’s ideology resembles a silent coup. His plan is called RAGE – Retire All Government Employees. Court rulings against it? Ignore them. Universities and media? Shut them down. The state? Privatize it. Separation of powers? Eliminate it. In its place: a CEO-president, governing in what Yarvin calls a “Full Power Start.” No reform. A hard reset.
Michael Anton calls it “Caesarism” – authoritarian one-man rule. In his book "The Stakes," he describes the end of self-governance. In podcasts with Yarvin, they discuss how an “American Caesar” could win an election – then dismantle democracy from within. Enforcing this order through military means is deemed “a necessary step.”
The Quiet Coup
Yarvin’s concept echoes a Silicon Valley strategist’s fantasy. He envisions an app for supporters – to coordinate protests in the style of the “Sons of Liberty.” A digital mob, orchestrated by push notifications. No need for tanks, just networks.
Thiel funds the candidates. Yarvin provides the ideology. Musk controls the infrastructure. Democracy doesn’t die in chaos. It is processed – into apps, layoffs, directives. Step by step, always more efficient.
The New Leviathan
At the core lies the belief: democracy is no longer efficient. It is an obstacle. What matters now is speed. Control. Results. Government as a startup. The citizen as a user. The president as a product manager.
Nick Land, British philosopher and intellectual godfather of the Dark Enlightenment, put it radically in 1994: “Nothing human makes it out of the near-future.”
It is technocratic nihilism – fascist structure with digital aesthetics. Cyber-autocracy. A system without people.
What they’re building isn’t a government. It’s a corporation with executive power. A machine. And it’s already running.
The Dangerous Circle
While most politicians still debate taxes and safety, a circle of ideologues, billionaires, and strategists has long since formed: Yarvin, Thiel, Musk, Vance, Anton. Their ideas move from podcasts to policy memos, from blogs to executive orders.
The Claremont Institute, a right-wing think tank, is considered the nerve center of this movement. Anton is a senior fellow there. His books orbit the idea of the “Red Caesar” – an authoritarian leader, legitimized by collapse and emergency. The idea: if the Republic no longer works, it needs a sovereign.
Trump seems ready. In speeches, he calls for “real, tough action” against crime – even invoking “a very rough day” of police force. Against judges. Against the media. Against enemies.
The new fascism wears no uniform. It wears a hoodie. And writes code.
What remains is a warning.
That democracy need not fall to tanks – it can crumble under algorithms, donations, and networks.
And if we don’t pay attention, the next Caesar is already programmed.
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