The Asian Century has begun; it’s being led by Russia and China. The U.S. empire is collapsing and will end w. panic-selling of the dollar.

26 April 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

Russia, the world’s top nation in natural resources; and China, the world’s top nation in human resources, are joined together at their mutual borders, but even more importantly they are joined together by their shared and clearly formulated and deeply rooted commitment to anti-imperialism, and, thus (though without their being aware of the fact) they are committed to U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s plan for the United Nations, which he had named and invented, starting by no later than 11 August 1941, when he first engaged in conversations with the committed imperialist Winston Churchill and was shocked and dismayed to find how fundamentally Churchill’s ideology (imperialism) clashed with his own (democracy). It was at this point that (as recorded by his son, Elliott, who was present) FDR told Churchill, “You see, it is along in here, somewhere, that there is likely to be some disagreement betwen you, Winston, and me.” He said this though, actually, there had, earlier in the conversation, been a disagreement between them, in that Churchill was wanting the U.S. to immediately join Britain’s war against Germany (which had started on 3 September 1939), but FDR said no: “Two ideas were clashing head-on: The P.M. [Prime Minister] clearly was motivated by one governing thought, that we [Americans] should declare war on Germany straightaway; the President was thinking of public opinion, American politics, all the intangibles. …” But Winston kept at it, until he knew that it was hopeless. And their disagreement over ideology turned out to be even deeper than that one. It went on for pages, in which FDR spoke of the “equality of peoples,” and thus the unacceptability of any Empire. It was a deep clash, between a person who believed in total equality of rights for every person, and one who believed instead in supremacism and subordination — as-if what is right in an economy (where employees must represent/serve, subordinate themselves to, the owners) is also right in a polity (in which, by contrast, the powerful, government officials must represent/serve the public, every person of which has the same rights — and this is totally different than in any corporation). Whereas Churchill agreed with Hitler that imperialism was fine — but only HIS empire must win — FDR was against BOTH of them, but knew that Hitler was even worse and needed to be defeated if America was to retain its independence. He knew that if Hitler would win in Europe, he’d invade America; thus FDR needed Churchill. At the end of that many-hours-long conversation, when FDR and Elliott went back to their personal quarters for the night, “I helped Father into his cabin, and sat down to smoke a last cigarette with him. ‘A real old Tory, isn’t he? A real old Tory of the old school.’” FDR never let Churchill know the contempt he had for him: he needed to be allied with England until at least the War’s end; so, he had to be friendly toward him. Then Truman came into office and everything became different: “the Special Relationship” — virtual subordination of the U.S. to the UK. FDR would NEVER have permitted that. He LOATHED empires.

On 16 May 2024, culminating at least a decade of a constantly growing mutual recognition by Russia and China that the U.S. regime would not be satisfied unless and until the U.S. would control the entire world (which Truman started to be the U.S. Government’s plan, which was exactly opposite to FDR’s plan for a “United Nations” to control only international relations and for each individual nation to have total sovereignty over its internal affairs), a budding joint declaration of their shared foreign policies was issued by them, and I presented it in English translation three days later, headlining “China & Russia (ChinUssia or RussChina) Announce Their Foreign Policy”. In the first of its 10 principles, it said, “Both sides pointed out that the current Sino-Russian relations transcend the military and political alliance model of the Cold War and are non-aligned, non-confrontational and not directed against third parties.” That “non-alligned” and “not directed against third parties” was a repudiation of all of prior history (of nations — and especially gangs of nations — warring against each other in order to acquire and expand empires; and, then during the two World Wars, competing empires warring against each other in order to achieve ultimate “hegemony” or rule over the entire world). This from ChinUssia was a restatement of FDR’s aim for a world order built upon equality instead of upon supremacism/subordination; it was/is a world order that is NOT based upon the economy, but instead upon the polity — of independent sovereign nations, NO EMPIRES. However, UNLIKE the vision that FDR had, in which the entire question of international law was to be addressed by the U.N. that FDR was designing instead of the non-functional U.N. that Truman allowed to be constituted in the U.N. Charter, over which Truman had veto power regarding each one of its clauses (as Truman said, “At San Francisco no agreements or compromises were ever agreed to without my approval.”), the joint statement by Russia and China entirely avoids getting into that (international law, the U.N.), except to simply reaffirm it: “The two sides reaffirmed that China and Russia have always regarded each other as priority partners, always adhered to mutual respect, equal treatment, and win-win cooperation, and always abided by the Charter of the United Nations, international law and the basic norms of international relations.” It is, therefore, merely a statement of the rules that will be guiding their relations with each other, and thus is disappointing for accepting the U.N.’s Charter instead of proposing to seek to Amend it in line with FDR’s plan for the U.N. But it makes a major step forward because it is entirely consistent with FDR’s goal (of international democracy), and is therefore fundamentally inconsistent with Truman’s goal (of a future world controlled by the U.S. Government — the first-ever global hegemony — a worldwide international dictatorship). In this sense, this ChinUssian agreement is a bold step rejecting the Trumanite plan; and, consequently, committing the world’s two leading countries AWAY FROM Trumanism (the ideology now commonly called “neoconservatism”), and toward FDRism (commonly called “progressivism”). This, to which both China and Russia are committed, is a world order based on democracy, instead of upon dictatorship. However, in its present formulation by RussChina, it ignores the fundamental question that FDR’s plan had focused upon the most, which is international law: matters such as DEFINING “aggression” versus “self-defense.” Furthermore, by their accepting the U.N.’s Charter unAmended by themselves (i.e., by their accepting Truman’s U.N. Charter), they are accepting international law by Truman, who was hostile to their nations then, and is also hostile to what those nations have become, which is the vanguard AGAINST imperialism, and especially against hegemonism (the most extreme form of imperialism). The reason why they do it is that they respect international law, as any real democrat does — even a democrat who wants to improve it does.

Interestingly, though the ChinUssian declaration stated that they are “non-alligned,” “China and Russia have always regarded each other as priority partners” — and, thus, each of the two deals with other nations on the basis of mutual equality — there is already a sense in which these two nations are functioning as one: they are “priority partners.” Why is this so? It is so for the reason that the declaration asserts: their deeply and mutually shared values.

Yesterday, I headlined “The West has now capitulated to Russia on Ukraine.” and documented that the future leadership belongs to China and Russia. What I did not get around to saying there is that in The West, there will be increasingly harsh dictatorship. For that, I shall here present two brilliant articles from Derrick Broze:

——

Welcome to the Palantir World Order

https://archive.ph/ToGGt

“Welcome to the Palantir World Order”

Written by Derrick Broze

THE LAST AMERICAN VAGABOND

APR 24, 2025

How does a company with CIA ties and two steering committee members of the secretive Bilderberg Group as founders end up in the White House?

This question should be on the minds of every free-thinking person regardless of political affiliation or lack thereof. The answer to this question cuts to the heart of understanding the future direction of the American experiment, and the impact it will have on the rest of the world.

Starting in 2019 I began warning that we were witnessing the creation of a Technocratic State, with Big Tech CEOs amassing exorbitant wealth and unfathomable data about the world. This collection of financial wealth and data has allowed these Technocrats to gain power equivalent to many nations, and beyond that of smaller nations. Palantir is a perfect example of the merging of corporate and state power.

Palantir was co-founded by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, long before they were made Steering Committee members of the secretive Bilderberg Group. Karp and Thiel launched Palantir with seed funding from the CIA's venture capital firm In-Q-Tel. The CIA aimed to use Palantir to relaunch the controversial post-9/11 program known as Total Information Awareness. TIA would be shuttered after public outcry and concerns around surveillance. However, after Thiel and Karp began meeting with intelligence officials they helped Palantir to do privately what the government could not get permission from the American people to do publicly.

Over the last 120 days of the 2nd Trump administration it has become clear that Palantir is on the way to becoming the U.S. government's new favorite Military Industrial Complex contractor of choice. A quick search reveals numerous headlines detailing the recent rapid rise of Palantir's stock.

This should come as no surprise given the abundant contracts and projects Palantir is reportedly developing with the U.S. government. Here's a brief look at the ways in which Palantir is becoming more deeply connected to the MIC.

The SpaceX-Palantir Golden Dome Over America

Last week Reuters reported that Elon Musks' SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril Industries were the "frontrunners" to win a contract to build President Donald Trump's "Golden Dome" missile defense shield. Trump has called for America to have a "dome" defense system similar to that of the Israeli's "Iron Dome". Anduril was founded by Trump donor Palmer Luckey with funding from Palantir CEO Peter Thiel.

Sources speaking to Reuters claimed that the 3 companies met with officials in the Trump administration and the Department of Defense in recent weeks to outline their plan to build and launch between 400 and 1,000 satellites to detect missiles and track their movements. This would be combined with 200 "attack satellites" with missiles and lasers to bring down enemy missiles.

Despite these sources telling Reuters that "the SpaceX group is not expected to be involved in the weaponization of satellites", these plans for a "Golden Dome" would line up with SpaceX's Starshield program, which TLAV previously reported poses a potential danger to privacy for people around the world.

In late 2024 Palantir, Anduril, SpaceX, and OpenAI announced a partnership on U.S. military contracts. The move was the latest effort by the Technocrats to replace the old guard of the Military Industrial Complex — companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing.

Palantir Helping Locate Immigrants for Trump Administration

Palantir is diving straight into the business of helping the Trump administration in their efforts to launch a mass deportation program. According to Palantir Slacks and other internal messages, the company is working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to help them locate the physical location of people who are marked for deportation. The messages and relationship was first reported by 404 Media.

The leaked messages highlight how Palantir is working with ICE and local law enforcement to find people slated for deportation and to keep track of "the logistics of Trump’s mass deportation effort". Palantir is also preparing for push back as the news of their involvement in the deportations reaches the public. 404 Media reports:

"The internal communications also show Palantir leadership preparing for a potential backlash from employees or outsiders, with them writing FAQs that can be sent to friends or family that start to ask about Palantir’s work with ICE."

Akash Jain, the Chief Technology Officer of Palantir Technologies and President of Palantir USG, is quoted as saying that Palantir has "prototyped a new set of data integrations and workflows with ICE" and that the Trump admin's focus on "leveraging data to drive enforcement operations" has "accelerated" Palantir's relationship with ICE.

The leaks also highlight an internal Palantir wiki which detailed other components of the company's relationship with ICE, including a “self-deportation tracking” project aimed at helping ICE better understand how many people voluntarily leave the US.

These new developments build on top of a $95 million dollar contract between Palantir and US Homeland Security Investigations.

Shortly after the Slack messages were leaked Drop Site News reported that ICE has recently awarded Palantir with a $30 million contract to develop a new software platform to expand surveillance and enforcement operations.

The two stories seem related with Drop Site News confirming more details of the ICE-Palantir partnership, including the creation of Immigration Lifecycle Operating System, or simply ImmigrationOS, an operating system that will apparently "streamline the entire immigration enforcement process—from identification to removal". This use of Palantir's technology is said to reduce time, labor, and resource costs.

ICE awarded the contract to Palantir without allowing bids from other competitors, arguing that the deal needed to be awarded quickly so a prototype could be ready by September 25.

In a letter from ICE justifying the lack of competitive bids and quick turnaround, the agency notes their existing close relationship with Palantir. "Palantir is the only source that can provide the required capabilities and prototype of ImmigrationOS without causing unacceptable delays," the letter states.

Palantir Partners with the IRS

In early April it was reported that Palantir was working with Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to build a new “mega API” for accessing Internal Revenue Service (IRS) records. The relationship between Palantir and DOGE was first reported by WIRED.

As WIRED notes, APIs are application programming interfaces which allow different applications to exchange data. It is speculated that the Palantir API could be used to move IRS data to a cloud for direct access.

The report states that Palantir and DOGE held a "hackathon" with "dozens of career IRS engineers" to collaborate on building a "single API layer above all IRS databases". DOGE has discussed the possibility of an API project accessing all IRS data, including individual's names, addresses, social security numbers, tax return history, and employer information.

A spokesperson for the US Treasury Department told WIRED that Palantir and DOGE have not signed a contract and "many vendors are being considered, Palantir being one of them.”

“Through this coalition, they will streamline IRS systems to create the most efficient service for the American taxpayer," the spokesperson stated.

While Trump supporters may have previously been concerned that the Biden Administration planned to hire thousands more IRS employees -- an agency which many Americans despite -- it seems that under the 2nd Trump administration Palantir will help make the agency more "efficient" than ever. So much for abolishing the IRS.

To be fair, Trump has issued an Executive Order ostensibly aimed at limiting IRS audits of small business and middle class families. Either way, the revelation of a relationship between Palantir and the IRS should be troubling to all Americans.

Peter Thiel and Nuclear Energy

While not a Palantir project, Peter Thiel is also working with the U.S. government on enriching uranium. A Thiel-funded company known as General Matter is collaborating with the Department of Energy to create high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU). General Matter is aiming to become the first privately funded company to enrich uranium as part of an effort to power nuclear reactors.

In 2023 the DOE named General Matter to a 70-member HALEU consortium. The Economist noted that General Matter was one of four companies to win a $2.7 billion contract in 2024 to supply HALEU for the US government.

Earlier this month, Thiel's Founders Fund helped raise $50 million for General Matter.

Thiel and General Matter have said their efforts will allow the US to reduce dependence on Russia for uranium products and compete with China in artificial intelligence.

Overhauling the U.S. Government's Payments System

Another non-Palantir but Thiel-connected venture relates to Ramp, a financial company which uses artificial intelligence software for businesses to analyze spending. ProPublica has reported on four private meetings between Ramp executives and Trump's appointees at the General Services Administration, the federal agency focused on federal contracts.

According to ProPublica, the GSA is looking to partner with Ramp on the U.S. government’s $700 billion internal expense card program, known as SmartPay. Sources told ProPublica that Trump officials at GSA are seeking to have Ramp lead a charge card pilot program worth up to $25 million.

Ramp is deeply tied to the Thiel-verse. The company was supported by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund in seven separate funding rounds. Thiel has said there is “no one better positioned” to build products at the intersection of AI and finance.

Other investors into Ramp include Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures; Thrive Capital, founded by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; and 8VC, a venture capital firm founded by Joe Lonsdale, a co-founder of Palantir with Peter Thiel and Alex Karp.

Rabois and Lonsdale are also part of the so-called PayPal Mafia, a name given to the founders of PayPal who later founded numerous tech companies, including Tesla, LinkedIn, Palantir Technologies, SpaceX, YouTube, and Yelp.

Meanwhile, Rabois' husband is Jacob Helberg, Trump's nominee for undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment. Helberg is also a senior adviser to Palantir and senior advisor to Alex Karp, current CEO of Palantir. During Trump's 2024 campaign Helberg raised more than $1 million for the reelection effort.

Blind Support for Israel

Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, and Palantir are unrelenting advocates for the Zionist movement. In November 2023, Palantir released a letter to shareholders making it clear they completely support Israel's attacks on the Palestinian people.

“We are one of a few companies in the world to stand up and announce our support for Israel, which remains steadfast,” Karp wrote in the letter. “Palantir stands with Israel.”

Thiel has also made it clear he will not interfere in Israel’s crimes and has no qualms supplying technology which leads to civilian deaths. First, in January 2024 Palantir announced that it had signed a “strategic partnership” with the Israeli Defense Ministry to supply technology for the genocide.

In May 2024, protesters accused Thiel of complicity in ‘genocide’, blocking his vehicles for over an hour while he was speaking at the Cambridge Union. Over two hundred students gathered outside the Cambridge Union attempting to “drown out” Thiel’s talk.

When Thiel was directly questioned about his support of Israel and their use of AI technology to murder humans, he gave a rambling non-answer.

“Look again . . . I’m not . . . I’m not . . . you know, you know . . . with . . . without, without going into all the . . . you know I’m not on top of all the details of what’s going on in Israel, because my bias is to defer to Israel. It’s not for us to to second-guess every, everything. And I believe that broadly the IDF gets to decide what it wants to do, and that they’re broadly in the right and that’s, that’s sort of the perspective I come back to.”

When Thiel was asked about #Palantir using its artificial intelligence to help the IDF commit genocide: https://t.co/UCnXCNIu4h pic.twitter.com/BhPh9LVBca

— The Last American Vagabond (@TLAVagabond) February 10, 2025

Thiel and Karp's enthusiasm for the Israeli genocide perfectly align with the fact that Trump’s 2nd cabinet is stacked with former and current associates of Thiel’s who also share this zeal for Zionism and Technocracy.

The DOGE-Thiel Connection

As noted above, Palantir and DOGE are beginning to partner on various projects. This isn't shocking given Thiel and Musk's history at PayPal and close financial relationship over the years. However, what less Americans understand are the deep ties between Peter Thiel and the 2nd Trump administration.

As Trump began naming his nominees I reported that at least 10 people in influential positions were directly related to Palantir, Peter Thiel, and his foundations.

This includes Vice President J.D. Vance; Elon Musk, head of DOGE; David Sacks, AI and Crypto Czar; U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick; Jim O'Neill, deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); Ken Howery, US Ambassador to Denmark; the aforementioned Jacob Helberg; and Michael Kratsios as a science adviser and director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Since the release of my initial report we have learned more details connecting officials within Trump's cabinet to Peter Thiel and Palantir. This includes within Elon Musk's DOGE.

In late February, the New York Times began revealing names of DOGE employees. That report mentions a man named Akash Bobba as one of the young coders working with Musk. Bobba formerly interned with Palantir. Business Insider also reported on a DOGE employee working at NASA.

Business Insider revealed that 26-year old Riley Sennott was listed as a "senior advisor" in an internal NASA directory. Business Insider was also able to access Sennott's public Google Calendar which included several meetings with Thiel associates. A March 2024 meeting showed a Zoom call with Founders Fund. The calendar also highlighted a May "recruiter call" with Palantir, and an April meeting titled "Anduril Opportunity Chat." The calendar also showed 2024 meetings with Thrive Capital, the VC firm run by Jared Kushner's brother and funded by Peter Thiel.

Shortly after this, Bloomberg continued the revelations on the connections between Peter Thiel and Trump's admin. Much of this was covered in my previous report, but Bloomberg does identify a few additional Thiel acolytes. These include:

- Anthony Jancso, former Palantir employee now at DOGE

- Clark Minor, a former software engineer at Palantir and now serving as Chief Information Officer at HHS

- Colin Carroll, Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, formerly of Anduril [and I wrote about Anduril here.]

- George Cooper, recruiter for DOGE, formerly at Palantir

- Gregory Barbaccia, Chief Information Officer at the Office of Management and Budget, formerly Palantir

- Luke Farritor, recruiter for DOGE, former Thiel Fellow

- Patrick Witt, chief of staff, DOD's office of strategic capital, received political donations from Thiel

-Ryan Wunderly, working with DOGE in Treasury Department, formerly Anduril

This means the total number of Thiel acolytes working within Trump's cabinet and DOGE is at least 18 people.

At the Brink of the Palantir World Order

Let's circle back to my original question:

How does a company with CIA ties and two steering committee members of the secretive Bilderberg Group as founders end up in the White House?

This is no small curiosity. We are witnessing the MAGA movement -- which largely believes it is the "resistance" to the "globalist elite" -- capitulate and make excuses as Trump stacks his cabinet with members and attendees of the Bilderberg Group, the World Economic Forum, and the WEF's Young Global Leaders program. The Bilderberg attendees who meet in secret every May are the representatives of the true ruling class.

The fact that two members of the steering committee of the Bilderberg Group -- Peter Thiel and Alex Karp -- are running Palantir and collecting an increasing number of military industrial complex contracts is a clear sign that Trump is not fighting the "deep state".

That Palantir is now even further integrated with the US government via the Trump administration should alarm all Americans. It should alarm residents of nations around the world who value privacy and individual liberty.

A former employee of Palantir who recently decided to come forward and warn the public about his former employer says the knowledge that someone like Palantir is always watching will be enough to push some people into silence.

"We're at the brink of using these technologies potentially to run our government, to run our battlefields and our personal lives," he said. "Using artificial intelligence as a sort of panacea solution across our federal departments, and especially when they're again wielded by, people with a very distinct agenda, puts everyone at risk."

The agenda promoted by Technocrats like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Alex Karp, and their friends in the Trump administration is not America First. It's not an agenda which represents individual liberty, freedom of speech, and freedom from invasive technologies. It is an anti-human, technological progress at all costs, Technocratic agenda which will result in the end of human liberty if we do not resist.

How does this happen? It happens because for too long the people of the world have blindly put their faith in political puppets and false heroes as they outsource their own fight for sovereignty. If humanity continues to leave their lives in the hands of these Technocratic-Zionists there will not be a future left for the coming generations.

——

Meet the Man Whose Thinking Has Influenced Peter Thiel and the Technocrats

https://archive.ph/XhFTG

“Meet the Man Whose Thinking Has Influenced Peter Thiel and the Technocrats”

Written by Derrick Broze

THE LAST AMERICAN VAGABOND

FEB 20, 2025

As it becomes clear the acolytes of Technocrat and faux-libertarian [Peter Thiel is actually an authentic libertarian, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe has been quite open about this — Hoppe was the first libertarian to be explicit about what was previously only implicit in libertarian philosophy” see his 2001 DEMOCRACY: THE GOD THAT FAILED for the origin of Thiel’s ideas] will wield power in the second Trump administration, it is increasingly important to understand some of the influences behind Thiel and his fellow Technocrats.

One of the largest influences on Thiel's thinking is a man named Curtis Yarvin, sometimes known by his pen name Mencius Moldbug. Yarvin and fellow philosopher Nick Land founded the school of thought known as the Dark Enlightenment, or the Neo-Reactionary movement.

While Yarvin's writing and influence has mostly been on the edges of the mainstream, in the last decade his appeal has grown to the point that he is now being interviewed by the NY Times and cited as the philosopher influencing the MAGA movement.

A Brief History of Curtis Yarvin's Ideas

From 2007 to 2014, Yarvin outlined his views of Dark Enlightenment on his blog Unqualified Reservations. Specifically, Yarvin has argued that American Democracy has failed and should be replaced by a monarchy with similarities to corporate governance structures. He has called for a “national CEO, [or] what’s called a dictator.”

In 2017, BuzzFeed News published an email exchange between Yarvin and Milo Yiannopoulis. In these emails, Yarvin describes watching the results of the 2016 Presidential election with Peter Thiel. “He’s fully enlightened,” Yarvin told Yiannopoulis. “Just plays it very carefully.”

Thiel's venture capital fund, the Founders Fund, also invested in Yarvin's company Tlön Corp in 2013.

I first became aware of Yarvin and his ideas in 2016 when I noticed what was then known as the "Alt-Right" infiltrating American libertarian circles. In my 2017 essay, Removing the Alt-Right Infection on the American Libertarian Movement, I detailed what I saw as a pipeline from the the libertarian movement to the alt-right as self-professed libertarians, voluntaryists, and anarchists joined the burgeoning Trump movement.

I noted that prominent conservative libertarian theorist Hans Herman Hoppe described the genealogy of the Alt-Right through it’s connection to him and the Property and Freedom Society (which he founded to express his conservative views):

“Many of the leading lights associated with the Alt-Right have appeared here at our meetings in the course of the years. Paul Gottfried, who first coined the term, Peter Brimelow, Richard Lynn, Jared Taylor, John Derbyshire, Steve Sailer and Richard Spencer. As well, Sean Gabb’s name and mine are regularly mentioned in connection with the Alt-Right, and my work has been linked also with the closely related neo-reactionary movement inspired by Curtis Yarvin (aka Mencius Moldbug) and his now defunct blog Unqualified Reservations.”

I tried (unsuccessfully) to point out these connections to different libertarians and anarcho-capitalists who support Hoppe. They refused to see that the Paleolibertarian movement founded by Murray Rothbard, the founder of American Libertarianism, and Hoppe’s “rational” justifications for this type of thinking influenced thinkers like Curtis Yarvin, who is seen as the pre-Alt-Right neo-reactionary movement.

At the time, I noted that Yarvin had been linked to the Trump campaign through Steve Bannon, former chief strategist of Trump's first administration. Bannon was once influenced by Yarvin but has since soured on him, as well as that of Thiel and Musk.

Bannon recently appeared on The New York Times podcast calling out the tech barons for promoting "technofeudalism" and transhumanism.

“This thing is all tied together,” he said. “They have a very well thought through philosophy and a very well thought through set of ideas, and they’re trying to implement that. And to me, everybody’s afraid, everybody’s scared because of their power."

While Bannon may be skeptical of Yarvin and the Technocrats, he is no longer part of Trump's inner circle or the 2nd administration.

Meanwhile, Trump's Vice President J.D. Vance is said to have been influenced by Yarvin.

While appearing on the conservative podcast Jack Murphy Live in September 2021, Vance, then a candidate for the Senate in Ohio, called for Trump to return to the White House and “seize the institutions of the left,” fire “every single midlevel bureaucrat” in the US government, “replace them with our people,” and ignore the courts if they try to stop him. Essentially, a counter-revolution by "counter-elites".

“I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people," Vance said to Jack Murphy. "And when the courts stop you stand before the country, and say 'the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it'.”

Who did Vance credit for these ideas? "So there’s this guy, Curtis Yarvin, who has written about some of these things," he said.

Vance elaborated further on his newfound ideals. “I saw and realized something about the American elite, and about my role in the American elite, that took me just a while to figure out. I was redpilled," the future Vice President stated.

Curtis Yarvin CONFIRMS his close relationship with Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel and his influence over JD Vance!

Moldbug claims to be an "outsider" in a NYT interview & DOWNPLAYS his sway on the Trump admin / transition as being through "young staffers"! pic.twitter.com/KS4KGxGUVM

— Esoteric Shaggyism (@EsoShaggy) January 18, 2025

In a recent interview with Politico, Yarvin detailed his relationship with Vance and Trump official Michael Anton.

"When I called him up recently to talk about the second Trump administration, Yarvin told me that during his trip to Washington, he had exchanged friendly greetings with Vice President JD Vance — who has publicly cited his work — had lunch with Michael Anton, a senior member of Trump’s State Department, and caught up with the “revolutionary vanguard” of young conservatives who grew up reading his blogs and are now entering the new administration.

Yarvin's Influences

Like all philosophers, Curtis Yarvin has taken inspiration from thinkers before him and expanded on their vision for the world.

After reading the work of 19th century philosopher Thomas Carlyle, Yarvin came to reject libertarianism as doomed to fail without inclusion of some level of authoritarianism. In 2010 Yarvin wrote:

"When I went from Misesian to Carlylean, my vision of the ideal state did not change. I, and others like me, want to live and should be able to live in a liberal regime of spontaneous order, which is not planned from above but emerges through the natural, uncontrolled interaction of free human atoms. Hayek in particular, though no Mises, is eloquent here.

What my conversion to the cult of Carlyle has changed—completely—is my understanding of the means by which this free society must be achieved. If it exists, it must be preserved: by any means necessary (as Malcolm X used to put it). If it does not exist? Bueller? Bueller?

It is easy to see that libertarians have trouble with the means part, because they have never come anywhere close to succeeding."

Essentially, Yarvin argues that the libertarian appeal to self-ownership and individual liberty will always fail without some sort of overarching mechanism to enforce order, be that a monarch or a technocrat.

His arguments have increasingly held sway as more libertarians (and the population in general) find themselves powerless to fight back against Progressive elites. Many Americans are now hoping to be saved by a "counter-elite" in the form of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Donald Trump.

However, when one studies the words of Thomas Carlyle we clearly see what his ideas are capable of creating.

Jeffrey Tucker, a long time Libertarian author, theorist, and founder of the Brownstone Institute, wrote about the influence of Carlyle in his 2017 book, Right-Wing Collectivism: The Other Threat to Liberty.

In a 2016 essay for the Foundation for Economic Education, Tucker outlines the ideas of Carlyle and the danger they pose. He notes that Carlyle's "great man" theory fits neatly into a call for a strongman to come save the nation from its ills.

"Have you heard of the “great man” theory of history?," Tucker writes. "The meaning is obvious from the words. The idea is that history moves in epochal shifts under the leadership of visionary, bold, often ruthless men who marshal the energy of masses of people to push events in radical new directions. Nothing is the same after them."

Tucker also quotes directly from Carlyle to show how he supported the idea that the population should bow to these "Great Men" as they take control of the machinery of the state in the name of some greater good:

“The Commander over Men; he to whose will our wills are to be subordinated, and loyally surrender themselves, and find their welfare in doing so, may be reckoned the most important of Great Men. He is practically the summary for us of all the various figures of Heroism; Priest, Teacher, whatsoever of earthly or of spiritual dignity we can fancy to reside in a man, embodies itself here, to command over us, to furnish us with constant practical teaching, to tell us for the day and hour what we are to do.”

The Last American Vagabond reached out to Jeffrey Tucker regarding whether or not he has the same concerns for the rise of right-wing collectivism in Trump's new cabinet. He believes Trump's current use of executive power has only been to reverse previous executive actions.

"What I had not encountered when I wrote that book was the real and present danger of the existing corporatist state and the incredible presence of administrative agencies that are the real government," Tucker told TLAV. "The question to ask now is: how precisely is this going to be curbed? It does not just go away given that it has winnowed its way into every aspect of life in all commanding heights. No one has offered a solution beyond platitudes. What I see happening here is the use of power to curb power."

Tucker's statement regarding the use of "power to curb power" is perfectly in line with the thinking of another writer who influenced the technocrats.

The Machiavellians and the Counter-Elite

Curtis Yarvin's thinking was also inspired by James Burnham, author of the 1943 book The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom.

The book takes its title from Niccolò Machiavelli, the Italian diplomat, philosopher, and author of 16th century book, The Prince. Michaevelli argued that leaders were justified in committing immoral acts so long as they achieved positive political ends. The book continues to be highly influential and inspired a generation of thinkers known as the Machiavellians.

James Burnham believed that the real political battle and progress took place because of the actions of elites in society. Burnham presciently warned that the United States could potentially slip into “democratic totalitarianism" where liberals, progressive, and defenders of Democracy give unlimited power to a centralized government and “advocate the suppression of the specific institutions and the specific rights and freedoms that still protect the individual from the advance of the unbridled state.”

Defenders of Freedom greatly influenced Curtis Yarvin, as well as Marc Andreesen, a businessman, former software engineer, and general partner of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz where he invests in a number of web3 projects.

While Andreesen does not hold an official position within the Trump administration, he has described himself as an "unpaid intern" who is helping advise on which personnel should join the 2nd cabinet. In December 2024, Andreessen told the Honestly with Bari Weiss podcast that he had been spending lots of his time at Mar-a-Lago with Trump.

“[I’m there] a fair amount—maybe half my time down there since the election," he stated. “Look I’m not claiming to be like in the middle of all the decision making but I’ve been trying to help in as many ways as I can. Trump brings out a lot of feelings in a lot of people—people have very strong views—and then there are many political topics that we’re very deliberately not weighing in on.”

In January, the Washington Post confirmed this as well, reporting that Andreesen had "been quietly and successfully recruiting and interviewing candidates for positions across the incoming administration".

This makes Andreesen's recent statements on the Lex Fridman podcast regarding his views on the Machiavellians and their relation to Trump's 2nd term all the more telling. Fridman asked Andreesen to explain his view that humanity always ends up being ruled by "the elite".

Andreesen said the idea comes from the Italian philosopher Robert Michels, which he learned about in Defenders of Freedom.

"In the Machiavellians, he resurrects what he calls the sort of Italian realist school of political philosophy from the, from the 10s and 20s. These were people who were trying to understand the actual mechanics of how politics actually works," Andreesen told Fridman. Andreesen explains that Michels believed in something called "the iron law of oligarchy".

"So the iron law of oligarchy basically says democracy is fake. There's always a ruling class. There's always a ruling elite structurally. And he said, the reason for that is because the masses can't organize, right? What's the fundamental problem? Whether the mass is 25, 000 people in a union or 250 million people in a country, the masses can't organize."

Instead, Michels and Andreesen argue, since the majority are apparently incapable of organizing there must be a "small, organized elite ruling a large and dispersed majority"

"So as a consequence, democracy is always and everywhere fake. There is always a ruling elite. The lesson of the Machiavellians is you can deny that if you want, but you're fooling yourself," Andreesen concludes.

The Right-Wing Elite vs The Left-Wing Elite

The parallels between Thomas Carlyle's vision, Curtis Yarvin's calls for monarchy, The Machiavellian's support of a counter-elite, Peter Thiel's support of Yarvin's ideas, and what we are witnessing with the Technocratic takeover of the U.S. government are obvious to anyone willing to take an honest look.

It is this idea of the inevitability of the masses being ruled by the elites which has inspired Andreesen, Curtis Yarvin, Peter Thiel, and other technocrats surrounding Donald Trump. In essence, it is likely they view themselves as the "counter-elite" whose job is to wrestle society away from the grips of the failed, tyrannical Progressive elite [and I would instead say ‘Progressive’ there].

Unfortunately, for the rest of us in "the masses" we are facing a situation where the "Progressive elite" and the "Tech-Bro Populists" BOTH want to create a world run by artificial intelligence, where humans merge with machines, and are under the watch of an all pervasive surveillance state monitored by facial recognition cameras connected to a Smart Grid. Whether it's the UN and the World Economic Forum, or Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Peter Thiel -- both sides are promising they will build a utopian world which will benefit the future of humanity.

History is rife with examples of psychotic utopians promising the "Golden Age" while delivering despotic tyranny. Hopefully, the American people have learned the lessons of history and will not be swept up in the hysteria of the moment.

——

However, now, I shall present, from an “Anonymous” (courtesy of Peter Haensler’s blog) a brief case as to why this emerging totalitarianism in The West will inevitably be shattered by a collapse of the entire American system:

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https://voicefromrussia.ch/en/the-end-of-illusion/

https://archive.ph/flHPJ

“The End of Illusion”

The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear

Anonymus

Introduction by Peter Hanseler

I have the privilege of knowing many smart people around the world. But then, very few are able to express their enviably deep knowledge and wisdom in a language that can only be described as mesmerizing. The following was sent to me by one of my closest and dearest friends. I asked him, if I could publish it. He agreed, but asked for anonymity, as we are once again living in times that no one thought would ever return – but they have.:

The End of Illusion

Mr Trump has branded his tariff regime as ‘economic patriotism’ — a blunt instrument masquerading as “tough negotiation.” But tariffs, in truth, are not a sign of strength; they are the desperate tool of a hollowed-out empire. Once a global leader in innovation, industry, and competitive enterprise, the United States now tries to dictate terms it can no longer enforce, relying on coercion where competence has faded.

China’s response to Trump’s tariffs — first matching them, then freezing further escalation—is not a retreat. It is a declaration of independence. It says, in essence: “We no longer require access to your market.” The United States, for all its bluster, is being quietly but firmly cut off from the vast and growing Chinese economy. This is not deescalation. It is de-dollarization in motion.

By weaponizing the dollar, and now, trade, Washington has accelerated the global pivot away from its financial and economic dominance. The more aggressive the tactics, the swifter the world moves to insulate itself from them. What appears to be negotiation is, in fact, the fracturing of a world order built on the illusion of American indispensability.

Washington continues to operate as if it inhabits the post-Cold War unipolar world — a world where it could dictate trade terms while sitting on mammoth debt, running trillion-dollar deficits, threatening allies and rivals alike while its industrial base withered, and imagine that China would endure economic warfare simply to keep selling goods to Walmart or buying U.S. Treasury bonds.

That world is gone.

One remembers Gore Vidal´s most prophetic and famous lines that has appeared in multiple interviews, essays, and speeches:

“We are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing.”

GORE VIDAL, THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE. ODONIAN PRESS, 1995.

Vidal, ever the insider-outsider, diagnosed American exceptionalism as a kind of illusion sustained by willful forgetting and warned of the costs when reality finally intrudes.

And it has.

The illusion has come to an end.

Today, China has reoriented its trade through the Belt and Road Initiative. It has strengthened currency and trade alliances within BRICS+, invested heavily across the Global South, and fortified its domestic market. Most critically, it has broken its dependence on Western export markets — particularly the United States.

So, when Beijing says it will “ignore” further U.S. tariff actions, it is not signalling weakness. It is asserting sovereignty. The U.S. has already priced itself out of relevance in key sectors; more threats are not necessary. The drama is over. The curtain is falling on an era of American presumption.

It is no secret that, for years, America’s economy has been running on financial parasitism rather than production. Wall Street dismantled the industrial backbone.

Labor was deskilled, jobs outsourced, and infrastructure allowed to decay while ten trillion dollars vanished in endless foreign wars and corruption. The country that once built the world’s factories can no longer even manufacture the tools to win a trade war.

Mr Trump’s tariffs are not a coherent policy. They are a symptom — a sign of late-stage imperial decline.

Markets seem to agree. Since February, some $10 trillion in stock market value has evaporated3, and despite periodic rallies, there is no illusion that this is 2001. China is not cowering. It holds the keys to the future: rare earths, battery technology, semiconductors and a huge industrial base. The strategic high ground is not in tariffs, but in control of the supply chain.

Trump claims the tariffs are punishment for China “ripping off the USA.” The Chinese are not angels, but the real question is: who truly gutted American industry? Was it China or Europe? Or was it Wall Street and Washington?

Who hollowed out the factories, looted pension funds, turned homes into speculative assets, and poured trillions into forever wars that enriched defence contractors and hedge funds?

Indeed, America has been “ripped off,” but by its own elite decision-makers — who outsourced jobs, deregulated finance, and prioritized short-term profits, all while using the dollar as a powerful weapon in debt creation and government intervention in the affairs of other nations.

Beijing may have naturally pursued its own interests vigorously but did not orchestrate any theft. The theft happened in American boardrooms, think tanks, universities, and Senate committees, under the banners of “free markets”, “national security” and “financial innovation.”

So, who really “ripped off ” whom? Is it the one who, for decades, produces goods at razor-thin margins, or the one who buys and pays for them with money conjured from thin air?

This moment is not the climax of a trade war — it is the end of an illusion. The illusion that America can sanction, tariff, and bully its way to eternal dominance. An empire that neither makes nor builds cannot win an economic war. It can only lash out, hoping its reputation will substitute for relevance.

By prioritizing low inflation and cheap credit, the Fed created an environment that rewarded financial speculation over long-term investment. Easy money fuelled asset bubbles — not factories.

Consequently, short-term profit seeking became king. Activist shareholders demanded quarterly gains, not durable growth. Offshoring, stock buybacks, and financial engineering replaced investment in plant and labour or the pursuit of skill creation and industrial resilience.

Moreover, trillions of dollars were spent projecting power abroad while infrastructure at home decayed. Military Keynesianism replaced industrial policy — enriching defence contractors and Wall Street but doing little for domestic production.

America stopped valuing making things and started chasing making money. Products gave way to products-as-vehicles-for-profit — from mortgages to university degrees to entire towns turned into speculative assets.

For decades, business schools and economists preached efficiency, outsourcing, and lean operations. Manufacturing was seen as outdated — services and “light capital” were the future. “We have a knowledge economy,” they said. But hollow supply chains cannot feed nations.

The world is moving on. We are at the beginning of a post-America world — the end of hegemony. It´s been brought to us by America itself. Chaotic and messy as it may appear, the Trump administration arguably understands this predicament more clearly than its critics.

It is illusion that sustained America’s dominance longer than its fundamentals could support, and this illusion is now irretrievably broken.

Yes, the world is moving on, but many observers agree that the US empire is likely to remain a major disruptive force on the rest of the world for a while to come. It is the time when “a great variety of morbid symptoms appears.”

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That’s the whole presentation. The end result from all of this, as I see it, will be incredibly astounding further concentration of wealth only by the super-rich in The West, while in The East there will be steadily improving living standards for the public. Of course, the enormous danger for people outside The West is that the richest in The West will rob mercilessly from not only their own public but from all countries they can. This is the reason why it will be essential for The East (and basically all countries, actually) to disentangle itself as fast as possible from The West (including to crash the dollar). The West is going to hell, and The East must do everything possible not to become sucked in along with it (which would produce a grim future for everyone). The reason for hope is that the collapse of The West will come so fast that The West’s billionaires won’t have enough time for them to achieve as much damage against the rest of the world as they are (quite evidently) hoping to achieve.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.