The Sociopaths Are Shocked That Most People Aren’t Sociopaths

Inside Trump’s second term, Silicon Valley’s surrender, and the moral awakening that followed.

The day after Trump’s election in November of 2024 felt much different than 2016. Something shifted. It felt like a surrender. And in the cultural vacuum that formed, a series of historic shifts happened throughout the fabric of American life.

Silicon Valley CEOs who had been backing Kamala Harris moved quickly to take a knee. Mark Zuckerberg congratulated Trump on Threads: “Congratulations to President Trump on a decisive victory. We have great opportunities ahead of us as a country.” Jeff Bezos killed the Washington Post endorsement in the final weeks, then congratulated Trump with unusual effusiveness: “Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory.” Tim Cook’s capitulation would ultimately culminate in an August 2025 Oval Office ceremony where he presented Trump with a glass plaque mounted on a 24-karat gold base, seemingly to win tariff exemptions for the iPhone. The tech elite who had spent years publicly distancing themselves from MAGA suddenly discovered they’d been misunderstood—they were really allies all along.

Friends of mine transformed into MAGA supporters. Not before the election. Afterwards. Clearly joiners. People who felt the wind direction move and wanted to be on the winning team. Not converts convinced by argument, but weather vanes turning with the breeze. They’d calculated that MAGA had won the culture war and wanted to be on the winning side of history.

This fed the vicious triumphalism of MAGA, and set the stage for the catastrophe we are now living through.

Because what followed wasn’t just political victory—it was moral validation for people who’d spent years convinced that kindness is weakness, that cynicism equals intelligence, that power and profit are all that matter. The surrender confirmed their worldview: everyone is ultimately self-interested, morality is performance, and when the masks come off, the strongest simply take what they want.

Elon Musk declared it “inevitable.” Steve Bannon proclaimed “full-spectrum dominance.” Marc Andreessen announced it was “morning in America”—liberation from the oppression of... having to pretend to care about other people at dinner parties. The triumphalism wasn’t just political—it was psychological. They thought they’d proven that their sociopathic framework for understanding human nature was correct all along.

They expected universal capitulation. They got something else instead.

But then the resistance began organizing. Not the reactive outrage of 2016—something different. More disciplined. More sustained.

The protests started smaller than 2016, leading some to declare resistance dead. The triumphalists crowed about liberal demoralization. But they weren’t watching the trajectory. The 50501 Movement—”50 Protests, 50 States, One Day”—launched decentralized nationwide organizing. February 5, 2025 saw an estimated 80 protests in 88 cities. By April, the movement had expanded to more than 800 local protests, teach-ins, and mutual aid efforts. Protests on April 5 became the largest single-day rally of Trump’s second term, with over 1,300 events in all 50 states and several countries.

Artists began refusing cooperation. Thirteen major musicians—ABBA, Beyoncé, the Isaac Hayes Estate, Sinéad O’Connor’s estate, Foo Fighters, Johnny Marr of The Smiths, The White Stripes, Bruce Springsteen, Linkin Park—issued cease-and-desist orders or objections to Trump using their music. Not as coordinated campaign but as individual choices, spanning genres and generations.

The American Alliance of Museums led nearly 250 arts organizations in declaring cultural institutions “must maintain autonomy” from political pressures or “risk becoming instruments of propaganda.” More than 500 college presidents signed a joint statement against “unprecedented government overreach and political interference.” When Harvard received detailed demands for changes to admissions and review of ideological composition, Harvard refused and sued the administration.

Over one million federal workers organized despite Trump executive orders ending collective bargaining rights at approximately 20 agencies. In June 2025, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction, ruling the executive order was “unconstitutional retaliation.”

Economic boycotts began imposing real costs. The Tesla Takedown Campaign sustained more than 100 protests weekly through mid-2025. Sales dropped 72% in Australia and 76% in Germany. Share price fell over 50%. $800 billion in market capitalization evaporated. Musk’s response wasn’t reflection—it was rage, calling dissenters “contemptible fools” who “must be removed from the Republican Party, root and stem.”

By summer 2025, Trump’s approval ratings contradicted the triumphalism: net negative 10 points overall. Among women: net -28. Among Hispanics: net -46. Gen Z: only 24% approval—the worst of any age group.

The pattern was undeniable: MAGA had seized power but was losing the country.

And their response to this reality revealed everything about who they are.

As resistance accelerated rather than capitulated, something shifted in the triumphalist rhetoric. The confidence began curdling into rage. The celebration of victory became fury at incomplete submission.

When ABC briefly pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s show in September 2025, Trump immediately issued new threats against the network—contradicting every White House surrogate who’d claimed the administration had “nothing to do with it.” The message was clear: capitulate or face consequences. Corporate America watched and recalculated. By late September 2025, YouTube paid Trump $24.5 million—$22 million for his personal “White House State Ballroom”—to settle a lawsuit over briefly suspending his account after January 6th. The protection racket was now explicit.

But cultural resistance continued. And then, in October 2025, came the announcement that crystallized everything they couldn’t control: Bad Bunny—a Puerto Rican artist and American citizen—would headline the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show.

When he told his Saturday Night Live audience “If you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn Spanish,” delivered with a smile, MAGA didn’t hear humor. They heard threat. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem promised ICE agents would be “all over” Levi’s Stadium. Marjorie Taylor Greene demanded Congress pass her bill making English the official national language before the game. Trump himself called the NFL’s choice “absolutely ridiculous” before admitting he’d never heard of one of the biggest artists in the world.

The rage wasn’t about immigration policy. Bad Bunny is an American citizen. His fans are Americans. The Super Bowl is an American event. The fury was about something deeper: the refusal of Latino culture to ask permission before occupying the center of American cultural life.

The NFL hadn’t made a political statement—they’d made a business decision. Bad Bunny is the most-streamed male artist in the world. His 31-show Puerto Rico residency injected $700 million into the territory’s economy. Latinos make up 20% of the U.S. population. 43 million Americans speak Spanish at home. The NFL’s median viewer is 50 years old—they need younger, more diverse audiences.

But MAGA’s framework—where American identity equals white English-speaking culture—literally cannot process this reality. They’ve built an entire movement around cultural purity, and now they’re confronted with the fact that American culture is Latino culture, that Spanish is an American language, that their vision of “real America” excludes... actual Americans.

This is the pattern: every instance of resistance becomes evidence not of normal democratic opposition but of existential threat requiring escalation. Federal judges blocking National Guard deployments become “activist judges” subverting constitutional authority—with MAGA influencers demanding the White House ignore court rulings. Museums defending institutional autonomy become instruments resisting the natural order. Universities refusing compliance become enemies requiring federal monitors.

And here’s what this reveals: they’re not confident. They’re compulsively demanding submission because anything less feels like defeat.

True hegemony doesn’t require constant assertion. Cultural dominance doesn’t erupt in rage when a Puerto Rican performs at the Super Bowl. Power that’s genuinely secure doesn’t need to threaten ICE raids at sporting events, demand loyalty oaths from universities, or call for the removal of anyone who disagrees.

The triumphalism is performance covering profound insecurity. And the insecurity stems from a terrible realization they can’t quite admit: most people haven’t become what they are.

Their outrage at culture is not incidental—it’s diagnostic of a deeper moral pathology that needs to be named clearly.

The Sociopathic Framework

What exactly are they? Let me be precise: people who’ve convinced themselves that kindness is weakness, that cynicism equals intelligence, that power and profit are the only things that matter, and that anyone who hasn’t reached these conclusions is simply naive.

This isn’t just conservatism or even authoritarianism. It’s moral pathology dressed as sophisticated realism.

Their worldview operates on a set of premises they rarely articulate explicitly but demonstrate constantly:

Kindness is weakness to be exploited. When Erika Kirk stood at her husband Charlie’s memorial and offered forgiveness to his killer—genuine grace in the darkest moment of her life—Trump responded by breaking from his prepared remarks: “I hate my opponent. And I don’t want the best for them, I am sorry. I am sorry Erika. But I cannot stand my opponent.” The crowd erupted in laughter. Not uncomfortable laughter. Not nervous laughter. Delighted laughter. They were celebrating the rejection of grace, the mockery of the very Christian virtue they claim to defend.

Cynicism equals intelligence. Marc Andreessen described Silicon Valley fracturing into “two kinds of dinner parties”—one where “every person there believes every single thing that was in the New York Times that day,” another with David Sacks and a “growing universe” of MAGA converts. He positioned this as liberation: freedom from having to pretend to care about other people at dinner parties. The cynicism isn’t a bug—it’s proof of sophistication. If you still believe values matter, you’re just not smart enough to see through the performance.

Power is all that matters. Steve Bannon declared on his War Room broadcast the day after the election: “We live by grudges and vendettas.” Not as confession of moral failure but as celebration of realism. He promised “rough Roman justice” and investigations of the “deep state,” declaring the goal was to “purge the rot.” When you understand that power is the only real thing, mercy becomes incomprehensible and forgiveness becomes weakness requiring correction.

Morality is performance for suckers. And here we arrive at Shaun Maguire, the Sequoia Capital partner who embodies this worldview with crystalline clarity.

Maguire’s journey is instructive: In 2016, he was a Clinton donor “scared out of my mind about Trump.” By 2024, he was donating $300,000 to Trump—after his felony conviction. What changed wasn’t his principles. What changed was his recognition that principles themselves were the obstacle to power.

Post-election, Maguire announced on X that “The turning point was Elon buying Twitter”—crediting the platform’s transformation into a right-wing propaganda machine as the key to victory. On Harry Stebbings’ podcast, he called DEI “toxic woke ideology that is literally cancer for society” and declared “wokeness and cancel culture is one of the greatest dangers to society.” This wasn’t policy critique—it was civilizational warfare justified by his own sense of intellectual superiority.

Then came his July 2025 explosion, revealing what lies beneath the sophisticated veneer. Posting about NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, Maguire wrote: “Mamdani comes from a culture that lies about everything. It’s literally a virtue to lie if it advances his Islamist agenda. The West will learn this lesson the hard way.”

When 900+ tech founders signed an open letter calling for Sequoia to condemn him, Maguire’s response was pure sociopathic defiance: “You can try everything you want to silence me, but it will just embolden me.”

This became his mantra. “You only embolden me.” To supporters: “We have cancelled cancel culture. Your Hate and Ignorance only fuels me.” To one critic: “You may not know this… but I’ve been watching you.”

The paranoid threat and grandiose self-regard—this is the psychology of someone who’s convinced himself that his intelligence excuses his cruelty, that his success proves his superiority, that moral criticism is just weakness trying to constrain strength. Earlier, discussing his outspokenness on the Uncapped podcast, he’d said he was willing to face “any consequences, as crazy as it sounds, even death.” The martyr complex preceded the martyrdom.

Maguire is loathsome not because he’s conservative or even because he supports Trump. He’s loathsome because he represents the wedding of considerable intelligence to moral pathology—someone smart enough to understand exactly what he’s doing, sophisticated enough to build elaborate justifications, and broken enough to convince himself that cruelty is clarity and contempt is courage.

This is what makes him—and the entire Silicon Valley neo-reactionary class he represents—so dangerous. They’re not crude authoritarians who don’t know better. They’re sophisticated authoritarians who’ve reasoned their way to the conclusion that human dignity is a fiction and domination is wisdom.

Community is transaction. David Sacks’s participation in the elite Signal chat “Chatham House” with Marc Andreessen, Tucker Carlson, Tyler Winklevoss, and Chris Rufo revealed this perfectly. When disagreement emerged, Sacks quit, claiming “Trump derangement syndrome” had made it “worthless” and requested creation of “new chat with just smart people.” Relationships are utility functions. When they stop serving your interests, you optimize by removing the friction.

This is sociopathy with a Stanford degree. Moral pathology with venture capital backing. The sophisticated rationalization of being worse human beings than they could choose to be.

Why Resistance Enrages Them

Here’s the crucial insight: normal authoritarians rage at resistance because it threatens their power. Sociopathic authoritarians rage at resistance because it reveals their entire worldview is false.

When Bad Bunny performs in Spanish at the Super Bowl and people celebrate, when Erika Kirk offers forgiveness and some are moved, when artists refuse cooperation on principle, when protesters organize around solidarity rather than self-interest, when museums defend autonomy over profit, when 900+ tech founders say “this is wrong” to Maguire’s racism—all of this proves that kindness is not weakness, that cynicism is not intelligence, that power is not all that matters, that morality is not performance, that community exists beyond transaction, that grace is real and powerful, that love matters more than domination.

Their entire sophisticated framework is revealed as moral poverty masquerading as realism.

This is intolerable to them. Not because they’re losing politically—they still control the federal government, the courts, enormous wealth. But because every instance of genuine human decency—every refusal to become what they are—proves they’re not sophisticated realists who see through the performance of morality. They’re just worse. Not smarter. Not clearer-sighted. Just broken in ways most people aren’t.

Maguire’s response to 900+ tech founders is the tell: “You only embolden me.” Not reflection. Not engagement with the substance of the criticism. Just defiance as virtue, resistance to moral accountability as proof of strength. The paranoid threat—”I’ve been watching you”—reveals the psychology underneath: everyone is an enemy, every criticism is an attack, every attempt at accountability is oppression requiring resistance.

This is why they cannot tolerate cultural resistance. It’s not that Bad Bunny performing in Spanish threatens their political power. It’s that his refusal to seek permission, his celebration of Latino culture at the center of American life, his capacity to command genuine loyalty and affection from millions—all of it demonstrates that their cynical framework is incomplete. That humans are capable of connection, dignity, and solidarity that transcends self-interest. That culture can’t be controlled through coercion alone. That most people haven’t become what they are and won’t.

What Liberals Got Wrong—And Right

Both sides misread November 2024, but in opposite ways.

Liberals despaired because they thought they’d lost the culture war permanently. They’d confused institutional control with cultural victory—thinking HR departments enforcing DEI policies meant hearts and minds had changed, believing corporate Pride Month meant social progress was irreversible, imagining that controlling universities meant the next generation was permanently progressive.

When they lost the election, many concluded the culture itself had rejected them. That Americans had chosen cruelty over kindness, domination over dignity, cynicism over solidarity. The surrender I witnessed—friends becoming weather vanes, CEOs presenting golden plaques—seemed to confirm that everyone was ultimately self-interested, that moral commitments were just performance waiting to be dropped when the wind changed.

But they were measuring the wrong thing. Institutional control is not culture. Culture is what people actually value, what music they listen to, what they celebrate, who they identify with, what principles they’re willing to defend even without institutional backing.

And by that measure, liberal values didn’t die in November 2024. They were tested. And the test revealed something the despair couldn’t see: existential threat creates the mobilization that comfort never could.

When progressives controlled institutions, they got complacent. They stopped doing the hard work of persuasion. They treated politics as performance rather than as the sustained organizing required to actually defend what matters. As I wrote in my reflection on cancel culture, they chose fear over conviction, intimidation over inspiration, the shortcut of institutional coercion over the difficult work of changing minds.

But when Stephen Miller is openly calling for the elimination of political opposition, when ICE is conducting warrantless mass detentions, when Trump is deploying military forces against American cities—suddenly comfortable liberals are experiencing what marginalized communities have been experiencing for years: the system is actively trying to destroy you, and accommodation means death.

That produces different politics. From 80 protests in February to 1,300 simultaneous actions by April—a sixteen-fold increase. From performative celebrity activism to sustained institutional organizing. From visibility to power-building. As Women’s March Executive Director Rachel O’Leary Carmona explained: “This is a different movement—an older and more mature movement... It’s not about visibility, but building power.”

The sociopaths expected universal cynicism. They’re discovering that most people aren’t broken the way they are.

The Only War That Actually Matters

MAGA seized power. But they’re losing the only war that actually matters: the battle over whether we become sociopaths or remain human.

They control the federal government. But they cannot control who becomes the most popular artist (Bad Bunny). They control enormous wealth. But they cannot prevent that wealth from evaporating when people refuse to buy from sociopaths ($800 billion in Tesla market cap). They control major platforms. But they cannot make museums, universities, artists, and journalists surrender their autonomy.

Power is not the same as cultural authority. Coercion is not the same as legitimacy. And their rage at this reality—their fury that threats don’t produce submission, that ICE raids don’t make Bad Bunny less popular, that calling people “contemptible fools” doesn’t make them comply—reveals that they know it.

The triumphalism was always performance. Musk declaring it “inevitable,” Bannon proclaiming “full-spectrum dominance,” Andreessen announcing “morning in America”—all of it was compulsive assertion covering profound insecurity. Because if they truly believed their cynical framework was correct, if they genuinely thought everyone was self-interested and morality was performance, they wouldn’t need constant validation through submission.

True hegemony doesn’t require threatening ICE raids at sporting events. True cultural dominance doesn’t demand loyalty oaths from universities. True confidence doesn’t explode in rage when a Puerto Rican performs at the Super Bowl.

Their insecurity is the tell. And the insecurity stems from recognizing—however dimly, however much they resist admitting it—that their sophisticated framework for understanding human nature is incomplete.

Humans are capable of grace. Erika Kirk proved it. Humans are capable of principle. The 13 musicians who refused Trump’s money proved it. Humans are capable of solidarity. The 1,300 simultaneous protests proved it. Humans are capable of moral courage. The 500+ college presidents who collectively resisted proved it. Humans are capable of sustained organizing around values beyond self-interest. The sixteen-fold growth in three months proved it.

Most people haven’t become sociopaths. And that’s what’s driving them insane.

The Choice Before Us

This isn’t guaranteed to succeed. The threat is real. The power differential is enormous. Authoritarianism has enormous resources, sophisticated propaganda, and the willingness to use state violence against resistance.

But they’ve made a catastrophic strategic error: they’ve given their opponents no choice but to fight.

When you give people the option to accommodate, many will. Accommodation is psychologically easier than resistance. Surrender is less frightening than conflict.

But when you make eliminationist rhetoric explicit, when you deploy Stephen Miller and Shaun Maguire as the faces of your movement, when you make clear through word and deed that accommodation means elimination—you leave no psychological room for surrender.

You create opposition with nothing left to lose. And that’s the most dangerous kind of opposition an authoritarian regime can face.

The sociopaths thought electoral victory proved their framework. That winning without kindness proved kindness is weakness. That seizing power without morality proved morality is delusion.

But the numbers reveal otherwise. Trump at net -10 approval. Women at net -28. Hispanics at net -46. Gen Z at 24%. Tesla losing $800 billion. Protests growing sixteen-fold. Institutions collectively defending autonomy. Artists refusing cooperation. Even Republicans losing confidence in the “right direction.”

You cannot build sustainable culture on sociopathic principles. People will tolerate it temporarily. But they won’t embrace it. They won’t celebrate it. They won’t build their lives around it. Because most humans still recognize that kindness isn’t weakness, that grace is powerful, that dignity matters, that love is real, that community based on genuine care beats transaction networks based on calculated self-interest.

The culture war they thought they’d won is accelerating away from them. Every threat they issue, every rage-fueled response to resistance, every demand for submission proves they know it.

What This Demands

We are not peasants. We are citizens of a republic founded on the revolutionary proposition that ordinary people can govern themselves. And right now, a faction of sociopathic oligarchs is betting everything on proving that proposition wrong.

They want to replace “We the People” with “We the Users.” They want to transform citizenship into administration, self-governance into optimization, human dignity into resource to be managed by those with superior intelligence.

This requires refusing to become what they are.

The existential threat is real. The forces arrayed against human dignity are powerful and sophisticated and willing to use every tool of state violence.

But the refusal to surrender our humanity—to maintain grace even when grace is mocked, to defend dignity even when dignity is dismissed as weakness, to organize around solidarity even when solidarity is called naivety—this isn’t retreat from resistance. It’s the foundation that makes resistance sustainable.

You cannot hold the center if you’ve abandoned what makes the center worth holding. You cannot defend democracy if you’ve already let authoritarianism destroy your capacity for grace, dignity, and love. You cannot sustain the fight across years if you’ve let their sociopathy infect your own thinking.

The person who protests, who calls representatives, who bears witness—and then comes home and loves their children well, does their work with integrity, notices beauty still present, maintains connection with people who matter—that person can sustain resistance across the long haul.

The person who becomes what they are—cynical, power-maximizing, treating relationships as transactions, dismissing kindness as weakness—that person has already lost even if their side “wins.”

Living well is resistance. Maintaining humanity is refusal. Choosing grace over grievance, solidarity over cynicism, love over domination—these aren’t consolation prizes for political defeat. These are the only things strong enough to resist sociopathic governance across the years this will require.

The Ground Still Holds

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. Bad Bunny is an American citizen performing for Americans at an American event. And most people still recognize that kindness isn’t weakness, that dignity matters, that grace is real.

These truths hold not because someone with authority declared them, but because they cohere with reality in ways that sociopathic frameworks cannot eliminate.

The loathsome creatures thought they’d won. They’re discovering they’ve merely revealed themselves—as Maguire did with his paranoid threats, as Musk did with his $800 billion lesson in market consequences, as Trump did when he mocked grace at a memorial and the crowd laughed.

They thought that laughter meant everyone agreed with them. They’re learning it meant only that sociopaths recognized each other.

Most people were silent not from agreement but from shock. From recognizing that something truly loathsome had been revealed. From the dawning realization that these people aren’t sophisticated—they’re just worse. Not more intelligent—just broken in ways that most humans aren’t and won’t become.

The sleeping giant is awake. Not because of some inspirational leader or perfect political strategy. But because existential threat finally made clear what was always true: we have to choose between becoming sociopaths or remaining human. And most people are choosing humanity.

That choice—made daily, in small acts and large organizing, in protests and in living rooms, in boardrooms and in classrooms—is what will determine whether American democracy survives this assault.

The wire still holds. Not because the forces trying to break it are weak. But because enough people have chosen to walk it together, consciously, with the discipline of grace guiding their steps even as sociopaths mock from below.

This is, after all, a philosophy blog. And the philosophy is simple: You can be sophisticated and cruel, or you can be human. You cannot be both.

The loathsome creatures chose sophistication. The rest of us are choosing humanity.

May love carry us home. Not as sentiment but as practice. Not as naivety but as the only force powerful enough to resist sociopathy. Not as weakness but as the strength they can never possess because they’ve reasoned themselves out of being capable of it.

The circus continues. And we continue with it—not as sociopaths in waiting, but as humans who refuse to surrender what makes us human, even when surrender looks easier.

The center holds because we choose to hold it. The ground remains solid because we stand on it together. And the culture war they thought they’d won is being lost precisely because they tried to win it as sociopaths trying to govern people who aren’t.

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Go Deeper into the Circus

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