I am right about everything all the time

Am I overstating the case a little bit in my title? Probably. I think I've made plenty of mistakes and been wrong quite a bit but I've been thinking about writing a post like this since Trump's election.

You see, I called it. Maybe I did not predict the election itself, though I was much more willing to believe it possible than many. Instead, I noticed a core thread of the right-wing tapestry that is the Trump administration. At the time it was going by the name "neoreactionary" and was a fringe movement with a surprisingly vibrant following in Silicon Valley. Here's a bit what I wrote about it almost exactly three years ago:

Neo-reactionaries hold that democracy can't ultimately provide a high degree of freedom for its citizens. Any time freedoms do exist under democracy, it's a temporary state of affairs at best. Indeed, the old adage, often misattributed to Tocqueville, that democracy will survive until the people discover they can vote themselves money is a great summation of the neo-reactionary view of democracy.

Instead of a democracy, the neoreactionaries seemed to prefer a monarchy or tight knit aristocracy run by the "smartest" which was mostly a way of saying successful white men in the tech industry. The idea that men should run things is central and obviously recognisable in the current incarnation of the right. You may also recognize another feature of nerractionary thought, The Cathedral

Neoreactionaries believe “The Cathedral,” is a meta-institution that consists largely of Harvard and other Ivy League schools, The New York Times and various civil servants. Anissimov calls it a “self-organizing consensus.” Sometimes the term is used synonymously with political correctness. The fundamental idea is that the Cathedral regulates our discussions enforces a set of norms as to what sorts of ideas are acceptable and how we view history...

The Cathedral is a central idea of neoreactionary thought and was coined by one Mencius Moldbug, a pseudonym for the author who is considered the philosophical godfather of the movement. Major tech industry players like Peter Thiel were interested in Moldbug's thoughts about creating a "dark enlightenment" in which a technologically advanced patriarchy tore down modern liberal democracy. Destruction of The Cathedral appears to be a major aspect of Trump's governing strategy.

At the time I was connecting the movement with misogyny found online. Now we know that misogyny is a major component of the alt-right and one of the primary ways they politicize the disaffected who come across their path.

I concluded my short discussion like this:

Neo-reactionism is quite a rabbit hole but I think it sits at a unique moment in our culture and nation. It's rhetoric is attractive and it shares much with anti-Wall St. populism and anti-government libertarianism. This isn't the last we've heard from these guys.

Imagine my surprise today when Moldbug's name popped up in my reading list. You see, Steve Bannon seems to be a fan of neoreactionary thought. Politico:

Before he emerged on the political scene, an obscure Silicon Valley computer programmer with ties to Trump backer and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel was explaining his behavior. Curtis Yarvin, the self-proclaimed “neoreactionary” who blogs under the name “Mencius Moldbug,” attracted a following in 2008 when he published a wordy treatise asserting, among other things, that “nonsense is a more effective organizing tool than the truth.” When the organizer of a computer science conference canceled Yarvin’s appearance following an outcry over his blogging under his nom de web, Bannon took note: Breitbart News decried the act of censorship in an article about the programmer-blogger’s dismissal.

and

Moldbug, who does not do interviews and could not be reached for this story, has reportedly opened up a line to the White House, communicating with Bannon and his aides through an intermediary, according to a source. Yarvin said he has never spoken with Bannon. During the transition, he made clear his deep skepticism that the Russians were behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee, the source said—a message that Trump himself reiterated several times.

Trumpism seemed so wildly different and yet radically familiar all at once. Perhaps this is why? These are not new ideas. Trump's political strategy seem to have come from a Silicon Valley political philosophy outlined a decade ago and supported by people essential to Trump's success.

Do read the Politico article. It is very disheartening. If you're interesting in reading more about neoreactionary thought, check out my post from three years ago for links to a lot of other coverage.

So, I am right about everything all the time. Remember when I presaged Snowden's revelations and warned about the possibility of our government one day turning into a horrid Orwellian nightmare? Fine. Enough gloating. We can talk about that another time.