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If the Tech Bros Get to Rule
It was on November 26, 2024, that tech lord Marc Andreessen went on The Joe Rogan Experience: #2234. And I wrote my take here. Then Andreessen did an interview for The New York Times with Ross Douthat, published on January 17, 2025. And I wrote my take here.
Then the tech lords sat in battalion strength as guests at the Trump 47 Inaugural on January 20, 2025.
If anything in recent memory was sending us a message, that was it.
In his interview with Ross Douthat, Andreessen reported on a 2024 visit to the Biden White House about AI. The aides and staffers told them that AI would be an administrative state operation with two or three large companies and no start-ups. Said Marc:
And that’s the day we walked out and stood in the parking lot of the West Wing and took one look at each other, and we’re like, “Yep, we’re for Trump.”
By the way, there’s a cool article on WattsUpWithThat.com on Ed Miliband doing the same thing as the Bidenoids with Net Zero. What could go wrong?
And so I declare that the Age of the Educated Class is ending. Hey, the average Chinese dynasty lasted for about 70 years.
The Educated Class ruled with a Political Formula best described as Allyship:
The educated class is the Ally of the Oppressed Peoples in their fight against the White Oppressors.
That was the Formula. The actual practice was the normal thing described by Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt’s Friend/Enemy Distinction. The enemies were variously: capitalists, the bourgeoisie, the racists, the sexists, the homophobes, and the friends were the lower ranks of the administrative state: teachers, professors, administrators, regulators, and activists. The Educated Class waged war against its enemies, and distributed loot and plunder to its friends.
But now the Age is ending. One indication is the frenzy of the Democrats, Lords of the Educated Class, and their attempts to keep control of the political system with frantic gerrymandering of congressional districts. Another is their aggressive political rhetoric. That’s how political people act when they are in trouble.
I don’t know if the tech lords have specific plans for seizing political power, or whether they just want to bend the system to let them do AI and start-ups. I suspect that mostly, they just want to do their tech start-ups — because it’s challenging and fun — and not have to spend their lives negotiating with the administrative state. Their natural allies are the ordinary middle class, but there’s a NIMBY problem. People don’t want data centers in their back yard.
If the tech lords really do want to become the new ruling class, they need an enemy. No problem: the enemy is obviously the educated class of wokies. They also need supporters to vote for them and receive suitable loot and plunder. And they need to settle on a Political Formula, the moral or legal basis for their power, as decreed by Gaetano Mosca in The Ruling Class. Presumably their Political Formula would be designed to appeal to the ordinary middle class, offering prosperity, jobs, a return to normalcy, and pride in America. Or maybe they would be happy to let the Trumps and the Vances and the Rubios be the actors on the stage, and work their puppets from behind the scene. Don’t forget that;
Peter Thiel, a libertarian tech billionaire, is a key mentor, financial backer, and ideological ally of JD Vance.
What is also needed is an appeal to women who want to live a life with marriage, children, a home, and a supporting community. Less girlboss, and more harmony.
How will it all work out? I have no idea. But I have Hope, and so should you.
| Fri, 01 May 2026 23:52:04 GMT |
"Affordability" is the Latest Word for "Free Stuff"
Silly me. I have been hearing for months — or is it years — about how the Democrats stand for “affordability.” To tell you the truth, I was a little confused by the notion; I did not pay enough attention.
But a couple of days ago, I realized what “affordability” is all about. It is simply more “free stuff” legislated or regulated by government. Only I can’t find the piece that gave me the “aha” moment.
But Washington State Senator Noel Frame (D) sent me a flyer that made the point. “Fighting for Affordability,” she says, as in:
Reduce utility bills for low-income families
Expand property tax exemption for seniors and people with disabilities
Largest tax cuts for small businesses in state history
Expand Working Families Tax Credit
Help build more housing
And don’t forget the Millionaires Tax that “will fund public schools, health care, higher education and more.”
Dear Senator Frame. If you want to increase affordability then decrease the cost of government, especially in education and health care, so that ordinary Americans can “afford” education and health care without the “help” of government.
Or there’s the “New Affordability Agenda” of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Federal program for manufacturing generic drugs
Universal down payment assistance for first time homebuyers
Mandate double time for overtime and mandatory two weeks vacation
Reform agricultural patent laws to make seeds cheaper
Cap Super PAC spending
Of course, it’s obvious what is going on. Politicians are railing at the enemy: millionaires and special interests. And they are shoveling out free stuff to their supporters — those helpless public school and university administrators.
I wonder when the current grift will come to an end. Of late I have realized that government in the “liberal” era meant setting up Enlightenment notions of government, meaning mostly legal — rather than economic — rights. But when the vote was expanded politics became simple war on the rich and the corporations and loot for the voters.
I wonder if we could be starting a new age. In this new age the ordinary middle class will run the table. It will rail against the enemy: the educated and administrative class and their lower class clients. Enough already with the free stuff. Just stay out of my life but don’t ever cut my Social Security and Medicare.
Obviously the era of populist nationalist politics is going to be different from the last century of welfare state politics. But I have no idea how much.
Nothing will change until we get the kiddies out of government public schools and government universities.
| Fri, 01 May 2026 00:10:23 GMT |
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Christopher Chantrill
He runs usgovernmentspending.com, the go-to resource for government finance data, and is a frequent contributor to the American Thinker. He lives in Seattle, Washington. Click for more.
“I love this guy.” — Steve Ballmer
A Commoner Manifesto
Commoners have nothing to lose but their shame
After we elected the First Black President we learned that to oppose his policies was racism. Does that mean that any opponent of the First Woman President will be sexist, and any opponent of the First Gay President will be a homophobe?
I am all in favor of LGBT. I just can’t take it seriously.
The simplest way to understand human society is as Three Layers such as Nobles, Yeomen, and Serfs.
My take on Three Layers is my Three Peoples Theory of Creatives, Responsibles, and Subordinates.
I believe that we moderns live in Three Worlds: the War World of politics, the Market World of the economy, and the Life World of family and neighborhood.
And the trouble with politics is that it reduces human society to a war against the enemy, as determined by Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt.
The world that we all live in today is the one created by the German Turn in philosophy, psychology, science, and meaning.
But our modern elite, the educated elite, has taken, I believe, a Wrong Turn and has imposed a cultural Great Reaction on the world, a lurch back to the primitive. This manifests in the elite’s conceited Activism Culture and its patronage of Subordinate people as its Little Darlings.
The principal reason for the elite’s Wrong Turn has been that it does not understand and does not want to understand how the Three Peoples’ Religions are necessarily different.
The root of the educated elite’s Wrong Turn is its conceit that it knows what the world needs. I think there is a better way; I call it “A Good Life Better than the Left”.
ABC of Politics – Activism Culture – “Anatomy of Revolution” – Allyism – Critical Theory – Downstream-ism – Dutch Finance – German Turn – Good Life – Great Reaction – Little Darlings – Perfect Plan – Women in the Public Square – Ruling Class – Three Layers – Three Peoples – Three Peoples Religion – Tribalism – Two Cultures – Wrong Turn
Today’s topic: A Critique of Critical Theory
