The Seditionists: Yarvin and the Machinery of Democratic Collapse

On being proven right about something you desperately hoped to be wrong about

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

Let me begin with the bitter satisfaction of vindication mixed with the horror of accuracy—and the searing contempt for those who could have prevented this catastrophe but chose the luxury of ignorance instead.

Four months ago, I wrote The Plot Against America, documenting how a dangerous ideology born from libertarian fever dreams had metastasized from internet forums into the beating heart of American government. Every tech oligarch who now pretends surprise, every venture capitalist who dismissed these warnings as irrelevant, every status-hungry fool who acts like a weathervane in their social circle—they all had access to the same information. They all chose to look away.

Now Ava Kofman's extraordinary New Yorker profile of Curtis Yarvin reads like the forensic report on a seditious conspiracy I predicted but that others deliberately ignored. Every detail I traced—Yarvin coaching Peter Thiel on media manipulation, J.D. Vance citing him on destroying the civil service, tech oligarchs treating his blog as sacred text—it's all there, documented with devastating precision. The systematic implementation of anti-democratic theory through the actual machinery of state power. The intellectual architecture of our collapse, laid bare for all to see.

What we're witnessing isn't just political disagreement or ideological capture. It's sedition—the systematic attempt to overthrow constitutional governance by people who explicitly reject democratic legitimacy. And it's being orchestrated by a cabal that includes a disturbing number of fifty-something white South Africans who grew up under apartheid and seem determined to recreate its hierarchical certainties on American soil.

I should feel triumphant. Instead, I feel a white-hot rage at the willful blindness that made this preventable catastrophe inevitable.

The Weathervane Elite and Their Documented Dismissal

Throughout this entire seditious process, Silicon Valley's supposed intellectual class has functioned as a collection of status-hungry weathervanes, adapting their positions to maintain influence regardless of the constitutional implications. The evidence of this willful blindness is documented in black and white.

In September 2022, when I directly warned Jason Calacanis about Yarvin's influence over Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance, his response was swift and dismissive: “No one cares about their ideas... they are completely irrelevant.” This wasn't ignorance—it was the predictable reaction of someone whose primary concern is maintaining status within whatever power structure emerges. Like a weathervane responding to each new breeze without memory of previous directions, figures like Calacanis adapt their positions to serve their social and professional interests rather than any consistent constitutional principle.

Now, with Vance as Vice President and Yarvin's theories being systematically implemented through government policy, Calacanis has repositioned himself as someone who will fairly “call balls and strikes” on the very administration these dismissed warnings predicted. This isn't moral growth or intellectual evolution—it's the predictable behavior of someone who treats each political moment as an isolated opportunity for influence preservation rather than understanding how seditious conspiracies develop over time.

But the weathervane behavior of individual status-seekers matters less than what it reveals about the systematic failure of Silicon Valley's elite to recognize what was happening in their own industry. While Yarvin was building his anti-constitutional intellectual framework and tech oligarchs were funding its implementation, the broader tech establishment treated it as irrelevant academic theorizing rather than recognizing it as the intellectual foundation for seditious conspiracy.

The Pathetic Banality of Our Seditious Destroyer

Here's where the story becomes both tragic and farcical: Kofman's most devastating revelation isn't just that Yarvin has captured the apparatus of government—it's that he's accomplished this feat while being, quite simply, a damaged and rather pitiable individual. The man who would be kingmaker emerges not as some dark genius but as a walking case study in how childhood trauma, unchecked narcissism, and intellectual gifts can combine into something genuinely treasonous.

Watch him sob over lunch about the “Great Replacement” while showing photos of his toddler to elderly French fascists. Observe him melting down over magazine profiles, sending twenty-eight paranoid text messages to journalists, demanding they watch “Blade Runner” to understand his profound insights into human nature. Witness him treating his wives and girlfriends with the same contemptuous manipulation he advocates applying to entire populations.

This is the intellectual colossus who convinced Silicon Valley's oligarchs that democracy is obsolete? This emotionally stunted, relationally destructive, psychologically unbalanced man-child became the philosopher-king of American reactionism? This damaged individual is providing the theoretical framework for what amounts to a bloodless coup against the American republic?

The psychological mechanics are as clear as they are damning: Yarvin's relational dysfunction isn't separate from his political theories—it IS his political theory, systematized into a governing philosophy that explicitly rejects constitutional governance. His inability to tolerate disagreement, his need to control rather than connect, his treatment of human relationships as technical problems to be optimized—these aren't personal quirks that happen to coexist with his political insights. They are the foundation of his seditious vision for how American society should be reorganized under oligarchic rule.

How does someone who sends twenty-eight paranoid text messages over a magazine profile expect to provide intellectual guidance for governing 330 million people? How does someone whose intimate relationships are described as “DDOS attacks of the soul” imagine he understands how to restructure the American constitutional order?

The answer is horrifying in its simplicity: he doesn't want to manage democratic disagreement at all. His political theories are elaborate justifications for eliminating the constitutional framework that protects democratic deliberation. When he advocates for society to be run like a corporation with a single CEO, he's not making an abstract argument about efficiency—he's providing intellectual cover for the systematic dismantling of American constitutional governance.

The Oligarchs' Court Wizard and the South African Connection

What makes Yarvin's influence even more contemptible is how perfectly his psychological dysfunction serves the interests of a particular class of oligarchs—many of whom share a disturbing biographical detail that rarely gets mentioned in polite company. Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and other key figures in this movement are fifty-something white South Africans who grew up under apartheid and seem remarkably comfortable with the idea of hierarchical societies where democratic participation is severely constrained.

This isn't coincidence—it's pattern recognition. When you've spent your formative years in a system where a small white minority maintained absolute control over a black majority through sophisticated technological and bureaucratic means, the idea that democracy is “inefficient” and that society should be run by its “most competent” members probably feels natural rather than revolutionary.

Yarvin isn't their court jester—he's their court wizard, someone whose elaborate theoretical constructions provide sophisticated justification for recreating the hierarchical certainties they remember from their youth. His damaged need for validation produced ideas that flatter tech billionaires into believing their wealth makes them natural aristocrats. His intellectual sophistication provides highbrow justification for their lowbrow will to power. His elaborate theoretical frameworks give them permission to treat American constitutional governance as an obstacle to their rightful rule.

Peter Thiel doesn't fund Yarvin out of intellectual curiosity—he funds him because Yarvin tells him what he wants to hear: that democratic governance is primitive, that efficiency should trump equality, that the most successful should rule the rest. When someone grew up watching apartheid function as a highly efficient system for maintaining white minority rule, Yarvin's arguments about the superiority of oligarchic governance probably sound like common sense rather than sedition.

Elon Musk's transformation from a supposed free speech advocate to an active participant in the dismantling of democratic institutions follows the same pattern. When you've internalized the lessons of apartheid-era South Africa—that technological sophistication can maintain hierarchical control, that democratic participation leads to chaos, that some people are simply more qualified to rule than others—then Yarvin's anti-democratic theories provide the intellectual framework you've been looking for.

The Seditious Implementation: DOGE and the Systematic Destruction of Constitutional Governance

Everything I documented about the Department of Government Efficiency's systematic replacement of democratic institutions with AI systems now has its full, horrifying context. When I wrote that young tech operatives were “systematically dismantling democratic institutions and replacing them with proprietary artificial intelligence systems,” I was describing the implementation of Yarvin's “RAGE” doctrine—Retire All Government Employees—as a seditious conspiracy against constitutional governance.

Let's be absolutely clear about what this means: The United States government is being reprogrammed by people who explicitly reject democratic legitimacy, using theories developed by someone who advocates for the elimination of constitutional constraints, funded by oligarchs who seem nostalgic for the hierarchical certainties of apartheid-era South Africa.

These aren't aging ideologues implementing crude theories. These are young operatives—people in their twenties and thirties who have been trained directly in Yarvin's frameworks, who see constitutional governance not as a flawed but necessary system but as primitive technology that needs to be replaced. They implement algorithmic control with the same confidence that previous generations of technocrats built highways or power grids. To them, replacing constitutional deliberation with optimized systems isn't sedition—it's progress.

Civil servants who raise constitutional objections? Fired and replaced by people who see constitutional constraints as inefficient code that needs debugging. Government databases? Migrated to private servers controlled by tech companies that view democratic transparency as a security vulnerability. Decision-making power? Transferred from elected officials to algorithms designed by people who think constitutional governance is for primitives.

This represents something qualitatively different from traditional political corruption or even institutional capture. We're watching the implementation of a comprehensive plan to eliminate constitutional governance and replace it with oligarchic control. They don't see themselves as destroying American democracy—they see themselves as upgrading beyond it. And every step of this process is being guided by intellectual frameworks that explicitly reject the legitimacy of constitutional governance.

This is sedition. This is treason. And it's being carried out by people who learned from the most sophisticated racialized hierarchy of the twentieth century that technological efficiency can maintain oligarchic control indefinitely.

The Complete Failure of Elite Gatekeeping and Constitutional Defense

What makes this seditious conspiracy particularly infuriating is how preventable it was. The intellectual frameworks, the funding mechanisms, the personnel networks—all of this was visible to anyone willing to pay attention. Yet Silicon Valley's elite chose willful blindness over constitutional vigilance, influence preservation over democratic defense.

The mechanisms of this failure are specific and damning. The tech industry's commitment to “disruption” and its assumption that all established systems are inefficient legacy code created perfect conditions for anti-constitutional ideologies to flourish. When your entire worldview is built around the premise that existing institutions deserve to be dismantled by superior technology, you're cognitively prepared to accept arguments for dismantling constitutional institutions as well.

How many conferences featured Yarvin as a provocative thinker worth engaging? How many venture capitalists funded projects influenced by his ideas while maintaining they were “just exploring interesting concepts”? How many podcasters and influencers dismissed warnings about his influence while giving platforms to people who quoted him approvingly?

Academic institutions couldn't distinguish between legitimate intellectual diversity and bad-faith manipulation of scholarly discourse. Media outlets treated advocacy for eliminating democratic governance as simply another perspective worthy of balanced coverage. Tech leaders, proud of their sophisticated engagement with complex ideas, fell for elaborate theoretical constructions that dressed up seditious intent in philosophical language.

And when explicitly warned about these dynamics, influential figures chose dismissal over investigation, comfort over constitutional responsibility, influence preservation over democratic defense.

The Psychology of Sedition—Apartheid Nostalgia and Oligarchic Dreams

What's most disturbing about this entire movement is how it represents the convergence of personal pathology, oligarchic interest, and what can only be described as apartheid nostalgia. Yarvin's psychological inability to handle democratic disagreement provides the theoretical framework. Thiel and Musk's formative experiences under racialized hierarchy provide the practical vision. Young tech operatives provide the implementation capacity.

The same psychological patterns that make Yarvin impossible to live with have been scaled up into a comprehensive framework for eliminating constitutional governance. The man who can't maintain a healthy relationship with one woman wants to restructure American society so that democratic participation becomes impossible. The person who sends paranoid multi-message rants to journalists wants to eliminate the constitutional protections that make independent journalism possible.

And this psychological dysfunction has found perfect alignment with oligarchs who grew up watching apartheid function as a highly efficient system for maintaining minority rule through technological sophistication and bureaucratic control. When Musk talks about the need for “efficiency” in government, when Thiel argues that freedom and democracy are incompatible, when they fund theoretical frameworks for eliminating constitutional constraints—they're not engaging in abstract political philosophy. They're working to recreate the hierarchical certainties they remember from their youth, using American institutions as the vehicle.

The Treasonous Trajectory and Its Predictable Implementation

Kofman's profile validates every step of the seditious evolution I traced: from Hans-Hermann Hoppe's Democracy: The God That Failed to The Sovereign Individual's techno-oligarchic fantasies to Yarvin's synthesis into comprehensive anti-constitutional theory. What began as fringe libertarian skepticism has become the operational manual for dismantling American constitutional governance and replacing it with oligarchic rule.

The progression is as clear as it is treasonous: first, argue that constitutional governance is inefficient; then, create technological tools to bypass constitutional institutions; finally, seize control of government infrastructure and reprogram it according to anti-constitutional principles. Yarvin provided the intellectual framework, Thiel and Musk provided the funding and practical vision informed by apartheid-era hierarchy, Trump provided the political vehicle, and now young operatives trained in anti-constitutional ideology are implementing the blueprint.

This trajectory was entirely predictable to anyone willing to take seriously the seditious implications of Yarvin's work. The libertarian-to-fascist pipeline I documented wasn't obscure academic theory—it was happening in plain sight. The same skepticism of government that once claimed to defend individual freedom was always going to end up justifying oligarchic rule, especially when it found alignment with people whose formative experiences taught them that hierarchical control could be both efficient and stable.

We're no longer fighting to prevent constitutional collapse—we're fighting to restore constitutional governance after its systematic dismantling by seditious conspirators who explicitly reject democratic legitimacy. This requires more than just better arguments or alternative policy proposals. It requires recognizing that we're dealing with people who have committed treason against the constitutional order and must be held accountable as such.

Every American who swore an oath to defend the Constitution—military officers, federal employees, elected officials—has a duty to recognize what's happening and act accordingly. When people systematically work to eliminate constitutional governance and replace it with oligarchic rule, they're not engaging in legitimate political activity. They're committing sedition, and they should be treated as such.

This means abandoning the comfortable liberal illusion that good ideas naturally triumph over bad ones in democratic discourse. Yarvin's ideas didn't succeed because they're intellectually superior—they succeeded because they serve the interests of people with enough money to implement them and because they provide sophisticated justification for the hierarchical instincts of oligarchs who grew up under apartheid.

The fight ahead requires understanding that we're not just defending democratic institutions against inefficiency or corruption—we're defending constitutional governance against people who explicitly want to eliminate it. When Musk talks about “efficiency,” when Thiel argues against democracy, when they fund anti-constitutional theoretical frameworks—they're not proposing reforms. They're advocating sedition.

What We Owe the Constitution

Every American who died defending constitutional governance—from Valley Forge to Afghanistan—deserves better than having their sacrifice liquidated by tech oligarchs who think apartheid-style hierarchy is more efficient than constitutional democracy. Every civil rights activist who fought to expand constitutional protections deserves better than watching those protections being systematically eliminated by algorithms designed by people who think constitutional governance is primitive.

But more immediately, every American alive today deserves to understand that what we're witnessing isn't normal political disagreement or even authoritarian drift. It's the systematic implementation of seditious conspiracy by people who explicitly reject the legitimacy of constitutional governance and want to replace it with oligarchic rule modeled on the hierarchical certainties they remember from apartheid-era South Africa.

The stakes couldn't be clearer: We can choose to defend constitutional governance, with all its inefficiencies and complications and messy democratic deliberation. Or we can watch it be eliminated by people who think their technological sophistication gives them the right to rule without constitutional constraint—people whose seditious conspiracy has been hiding in plain sight for anyone willing to see it.

Reading Yarvin's own words as captured in Kofman's profile—his paranoid rants, his grandiose theorizing, his complete disconnection from constitutional principle—confirms everything I argued about the seditious corruption of rational discourse in our time. This is someone who dedicated considerable intellectual gifts to the systematic destruction of constitutional governance. And he found perfect alignment with oligarchs whose formative experiences taught them that hierarchical control is superior to democratic participation.

But the basic truths remain unchanged, and they're worth repeating until they're engraved on the consciousness of every constitutional patriot: Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. Constitutional governance is the foundation of American freedom, and those who work to eliminate it are committing sedition against the republic.

Democracy isn't perfect, but it's better than oligarchic rule. Constitutional governance isn't efficient, but it's more legitimate than apartheid-style hierarchy. The messy, inefficient, sometimes infuriating process of constitutional deliberation is infinitely preferable to having our lives managed by people whose seditious conspiracy against the republic has been hiding in plain sight.

Curtis Yarvin and his oligarchic conspirators want you to believe that constitutional collapse was inevitable, that resistance is futile, that the future belongs to those who control the algorithms. They want you to accept their technological hierarchy as the natural evolution beyond constitutional governance, their efficient oligarchy as the solution to democratic inefficiency.

They are seditionists. They are traitors to the constitutional order. And we are going to defeat them.

Not because we're destined to win, but because constitutional loyalty demands resistance to sedition. Not because victory is guaranteed, but because surrender to treasonous conspiracy is unacceptable. Not because the odds are in our favor, but because the alternative—a hierarchical oligarchy run by people who learned their governance principles from apartheid—is too horrifying to contemplate.

The cognitive revolution continues. And now we know exactly what we're revolting against: not just bad ideas, but seditious conspiracy against constitutional governance. Not just political opponents, but people who use philosophical sophistication to justify treasonous elimination of constitutional constraint. Not just authoritarianism, but the particular kind of oligarchic hierarchy that emerges when apartheid nostalgia meets Silicon Valley resources and damaged philosophers provide the intellectual cover.

We rebel. Against the seditious conspiracy they've mounted against our constitutional order. Against the treasonous algorithms they would use to replace constitutional governance. Against the hierarchical frameworks they use to justify treating constitutional citizens as subjects rather than equals.

And we will continue rebelling until constitutional governance is restored, until seditious conspirators are held accountable for their treason, until the basic principle of constitutional governance is secured not just in theory but in practice—and until we've built institutions capable of recognizing and rejecting seditious conspiracy before it gains purchase in the machinery of state.

The Reckoning This Demands

Let's be absolutely clear about what we're confronting: This isn't a policy disagreement that can be resolved through normal political processes. This isn't ideological competition that can be managed through democratic debate. This is seditious conspiracy by people who explicitly reject the legitimacy of constitutional governance and are working systematically to eliminate it.

When Yarvin writes about “retiring all government employees” and replacing constitutional institutions with corporate-style management, he's not proposing administrative reform—he's advocating the elimination of constitutional governance. When Thiel and Musk fund these frameworks while simultaneously capturing government infrastructure, they're not engaging in normal political activity—they're implementing seditious conspiracy against the constitutional order.

When young tech operatives trained in these anti-constitutional frameworks systematically replace democratic institutions with algorithmic control systems, they're not improving government efficiency—they're executing a treasonous plan to eliminate constitutional constraints on oligarchic power.

The weathervane enablers who dismissed warnings about this seditious conspiracy bear their own form of responsibility. Their willful blindness, their status-seeking accommodation, their refusal to take constitutional threats seriously—these aren't just personal failures of judgment. They represent the broader failure of American elites to recognize sedition when it's happening in their own social circles.

But the primary responsibility lies with the seditious conspirators themselves. People who work systematically to eliminate constitutional governance aren't political opponents—they're enemies of the constitutional order who deserve to be treated as such.