In 2016, British voters thought they were striking a blow against the “elites” in Brussels. Six years later, nothing has changed except that the UK has become a bit less open, and a bit poorer than it would have been.
In America, the populists believe that wonderful things will happen if only they can get rid of the elites in the media, in government, in corporations, in universities, and in biomedical research labs. Sort of like the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
Even right wing intellectuals that should know better often have strikingly naive views about the role of elites:
Besides Vance and Masters (whose campaigns declined to comment for this story), Yarvin has had a decade-long association with billionaire Peter Thiel, who is similarly disillusioned with democracy and American government. “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” Thiel wrote in 2009, and earlier this year, he declared that Republican members of Congress who voted for Trump’s impeachment after the January 6 attacks were “traitorous.” Fox host Tucker Carlson is another fan, interviewing Yarvin with some fascination for his streaming program last year. He’s even influenced online discourse — Yarvin was the first to popularize the analogy from The Matrix of being “redpilled” or “-pilled,” suddenly losing your illusions and seeing the supposed reality of the world more clearly, as applied to politics.
Overall, Yarvin is arguably the leading intellectual figure on the New Right — a movement of thinkers and activists critical of the traditional Republican establishment who argue that an elite left “ruling class” has captured and is ruining America, and that drastic measures are necessary to fight back against them. And New Right ideas are getting more influential among Republican staffers and politicians. Trump’s advisers are already brainstorming Yarvinite — or at least Yarvin-lite — ideas for the second term, such as firing thousands of federal civil servants and replacing them with Trump loyalists.
Good luck with that!
During his first term, Trump failed in his objective to Make America Great Again. But hope springs eternal. I will watch with detached amusement as all these “new right” plans come undone in Trump’s second term.