You are Living Through a Great Power Competition Amongst Elites. The Populism Really is for Show.

It's a tough pill to swallow this narrative, because the truth involves admitting our lack of agency in this process. But it happens to be the cold, hard truth.

I intend to shift from ethical discussions on the crisis of democratic values to present a more analytical examination of the current political landscape in the United States and the broader West. I firmly believe that the left-right distinctions we became comfortable with using as models during the Cold War have become almost completely irrelevant in today's political discourse. The political positions we use to define left and right are increasingly unstable and evolving continuously. I think it's useful for us to understand why this is, what social dynamics are driving this, and what it means for where we are headed. Spoiler: in the short term, it is nowhere good.

There are different ways we can interrogate and understand our world. I tend to interrogate the world through an ethical lens, which I see as the lens through which we represent concerns around human agency and how we can characterize behavior that serves or works against it. While I typically interrogate the world through an ethical lens highlighting human agency, I also acknowledge that realpolitik perspectives can yield enlightening insights into our current realities. With this in mind, let us actively and critically engage with the multifaceted realities defining our current political moment. This is a period of elite power competition in the United States.

To understand how these power struggles work, we need to look at who controls the stories we tell ourselves about society. Consider how profoundly different the Gilded Age might have been if powerful railroad magnates had simultaneously owned all media outlets and leveraged sophisticated insights into mass behavior. That's essentially where we are today—but many people don't see it because the very systems used to concentrate power are the same ones that shape how we understand what's happening.

Modern insurgent elites don't just have economic power—they control the platforms where people form their political views, share information, and make sense of the world. When tech leaders identify themselves as “builders” and “problem solvers,” they simultaneously shape public perception through narrative control and advocate for a new status quo determined by technical competence. While these figures position themselves as “builders,” their real influence stems from manipulating narratives that support the reconfiguration of social authority. They're remarkably good at making this power grab look like populist resistance to “the establishment,” while simultaneously working to replace traditional liberal intellectual authority with a new hierarchy based on technical capability. This confluence of populist messaging and elite interests reflects a new strain of power-seeking behavior that fundamentally challenges the principles of democratic governance. From a constitutional perspective, this relationship exemplifies everything wrong with how informal power is bypassing democratic processes. The traditional channels through which political authority is supposed to flow—with their checks, balances, and bureaucratic procedures—are being dismissed as meaningless red tape standing in the way of competent people solving problems.

What makes this particularly revealing is how Musk's business achievements are being presented as the real source of his legitimacy to wield political power. The argument isn't just that he's successful—it's that his proven technical competence should override traditional concerns about democratic accountability and constitutional process. His status as a “builder” who “gets things done” is being offered as justification for what amounts to unprecedented political influence for a private citizen.

This arrangement represents something new in American politics. While we've certainly had powerful business figures before, the combination of Musk's economic resources, control over major information platforms, and claims to technical authority creates a form of power that operates almost entirely outside constitutional frameworks. He's become the most politically powerful business magnate in America not through any formal appointment or democratic process, but through a potent mixture of wealth, platform control, and carefully cultivated status as a technical problem-solver.

The danger here isn't just about one person having too much influence. It's about establishing a precedent where power flows through informal relationships and perceived competence rather than constitutional channels. When bureaucratic safeguards and democratic processes are framed as outdated obstacles to be overcome by competent leaders, we're witnessing a fundamental challenge to how legitimate political authority is supposed to be established and exercised in a constitutional democracy.

Elon Musk's role in our current political realignment goes beyond just wielding unusual power—he represents the vanguard of an elite insurgency against the liberal democratic order that has dominated since World War II. This isn't just another policy dispute within democratic frameworks; it's a fundamental challenge to how political legitimacy itself should work in modern society. What makes this movement particularly dangerous is how it maintains democratic rhetoric while working to hollow out democratic substance.

When these insurgent elites talk about “democracy,” they mean something very specific and limited: the mere act of holding elections. But their vision of electoral victory is fundamentally illiberal—they see winning an election not as a temporary grant of power within constitutional constraints, but as a mandate to reshape institutions themselves. The period between elections becomes critical not for governance within established rules, but for transforming those rules to prevent future electoral losses from threatening their power.

This is why political scientists use the term “illiberal democracy” to describe such systems. The formal mechanism of voting remains, providing a veneer of democratic legitimacy, but the institutional foundations that make democracy meaningful—independent courts, free press, protected minority rights, legitimate opposition—are systematically dismantled. The technical competence that figures like Musk claim as their source of legitimacy becomes the justification for this institutional transformation. After all, why should “builders” and “problem solvers” be constrained by bureaucratic procedures created by less competent people?

What makes this particularly potent is how it combines populist rhetoric with elite interests. When Musk challenges traditional liberal institutions, he presents himself as a champion of the people against entrenched bureaucracy. But the actual effect of these challenges is to concentrate power in the hands of unaccountable private actors who claim their technical expertise should trump democratic process. This fusion of populist messaging with anti-democratic substance represents a sophisticated evolution in how power seeking elites justify their authority.

The control of information platforms plays a crucial role in this transformation. When Musk acquired Twitter (now X), he didn't just gain a communication channel—he obtained a powerful tool for shaping public understanding of political legitimacy itself. Through these platforms, technical competence can be displayed, populist narratives can be amplified, and traditional democratic processes can be framed as outdated obstacles to progress. This control of both the means of communication and the narratives being communicated represents a level of power concentration that the Founders could hardly have imagined, let alone designed constitutional safeguards against.

The elite power struggle unfolding before us is far more complex than a simple conflict between established liberal institutions and their challengers. Recent clashes between Elon Musk and figures like Steve Bannon over immigration policy reveal deeper fault lines within the insurgent right itself. These conflicts aren't just about specific policies—they represent fundamental disagreements about what should determine status and authority in a post-liberal order.

Musk embodies one vision of legitimate power, based on technical competence and proven ability to “build things.” His claim to authority rests on demonstrable achievements in technology and industry, combined with a kind of technocratic populism that presents bureaucratic obstacles as the enemy of progress. Bannon, in contrast, champions a more traditionally populist vision where authentic cultural connection and nationalist commitment determine legitimate authority. While both challenge liberal institutional power, they offer competing visions of what should replace it.

What makes this situation particularly volatile is how current alignments might prove temporary. While Musk has effectively rallied many populist right supporters to his vision of technical competence as the basis for legitimate authority, this alliance rests on potentially unstable foundations. The same grassroots MAGA populists who currently celebrate Musk's challenges to liberal institutions often express surprising warmth toward figures like Bernie Sanders, suggesting their fundamental concerns might be more about elite accountability than specific ideological positions.

This creates the possibility for dramatic realignments in the coming years. We shouldn't be surprised if periods of economic stress or technological disruption reignite anti-capitalist sentiments among populist right supporters. After all, their current support for tech-elite figures like Musk often stems more from shared opposition to liberal institutions than from deep commitment to technocratic authority. The Gilded Age comparison becomes particularly apt here—just as that era's concentrations of industrial power eventually sparked populist backlash, today's tech-based power concentration might ultimately unite currently opposed populist movements against it.

The parallel to the Gilded Age becomes even more instructive when we consider how economic inequality shapes democratic vulnerability. Just as the industrial concentration of the late 19th century created conditions where private power could override democratic processes, today's extreme wealth inequality provides the foundation for techno-oligarchic control. What makes our moment uniquely dangerous is how technological change has fundamentally altered the relationship between economic and political power. The ability to control not just resources but the very infrastructure of public communication and social coordination gives today's tech elites unprecedented capacity to shape political reality itself.

These potential realignments remind us that current political coalitions might be tactical rather than strategic. As different elite groups compete to establish their preferred basis for status and legitimacy, today's allies could become tomorrow's opponents. The ultimate outcome of these status competitions remains uncertain, but understanding their dynamics helps us see why traditional left-right distinctions increasingly fail to explain our political reality.

While we've been examining competing visions of post-liberal authority, we need to be clear about the current reality: the technical elite faction that Musk represents has effectively won the immediate power struggle. Their victory is evident not just in their economic dominance, but in their capture of political figures who might have opposed them—including Donald Trump himself. The increasing use of the term 'oligarchy' to describe our situation isn't hyperbole; it's an accurate description of how power now flows in American society.

These ascendant oligarchs understand something crucial about maintaining power in the American context: they can't simply end democracy outright. The cultural expectation of elections and public accountability runs too deep in the American psyche to be completely eliminated. Instead, following the playbook of figures like Viktor Orbán in Hungary or Erdogan in Turkey, they're pursuing a more sophisticated strategy—maintaining the formal mechanisms of democracy while systematically draining them of meaningful influence over oligarchic power.

The key to this strategy lies in destroying the state's capacity to regulate private economic power. By presenting government regulation as inefficient bureaucracy that impedes innovation and progress, they create public support for dismantling the very mechanisms that could check their authority. This isn't just about specific regulatory rollbacks—it's about fundamentally altering the relationship between public and private power in ways that make democratic oversight increasingly impossible.

The mechanisms of democratic decline operate through specific, identifiable channels. When tech platforms control content moderation policies, they shape what information reaches the public. When private companies develop crucial infrastructure like payment systems or communication networks, they gain de facto regulatory power. When wealthy individuals can fund massive influence campaigns through social media, they bypass traditional democratic processes entirely. Each of these developments might seem like a natural evolution of technology and markets, but together they represent a fundamental shift in how power operates in society.

International examples illuminate this pattern. Viktor Orbán's Hungary shows how democratic institutions can be hollowed out while maintaining formal electoral processes. Turkey under Erdogan demonstrates how control of information channels can neutralize opposition. China's integration of technical surveillance with social control hints at possibilities that Silicon Valley's tools might enable. These parallels suggest we're seeing not isolated developments but a systematic transformation in how power operates in technologically advanced societies.

What makes this particularly effective is how it combines the appearance of democratic legitimacy with the reality of oligarchic control. Elections continue, but their outcomes matter less and less for fundamental questions of power distribution. Public debate continues, but increasingly on platforms controlled by the same oligarchs who benefit from limiting the scope of democratic influence. The technical competence that justifies their authority becomes self-reinforcing—the more they control, the more they can demonstrate their capability to control.

What makes this power transformation particularly complex is that figures like Musk aren't simply cynical power-seekers—they genuinely believe in their own legitimacy. Their conviction that their political power is meritorious stems from a deeply held belief that technical and business success proves their superior capacity to solve social problems. This isn't just public relations; it's a form of magical thinking about their own abilities that shapes how they approach governance itself.

When these tech oligarchs talk about creating a better world through the entrenchment of their economic power, they're not being deliberately deceptive. They've constructed a worldview where their accumulation of private power serves the public good precisely because they believe themselves uniquely capable of wielding it wisely. This self-perception creates a dangerous feedback loop: the more power they accumulate, the more they see this accumulation as validation of their special competence.

This kind of magical thinking about their own capacities is particularly dangerous because it blinds them to the fundamental difference between running companies and governing societies. They sincerely believe that the skills that made them successful in business—decisive action, centralized control, rapid deployment of resources—should translate directly into political governance. This belief leads them to see democratic processes and constitutional constraints not just as inefficient, but as actively harmful barriers preventing society from benefiting from their superior problem-solving abilities.

Their genuine belief in their own exceptional competence makes them more effective at gathering public support—authentic conviction is always more persuasive than cynical manipulation. But it also makes them more dangerous to democratic governance because they're not just seeking power for its own sake—they're pursuing a vision where their unaccountable authority is actually the best thing for society.

The liberal technocratic elite, though still influential, finds itself in an unprecedented position of weakness. Their disorientation following Trump's electoral victory reveals something deeper than just political defeat—it represents the collapse of their fundamental worldview. The Fukuyaman assumption that liberal democracy represented the “end of history” has been shattered, leaving them struggling to understand their new reality.

Liberalism was once consensus, now it is a faction. Liberal institutions and values that once provided the framework within which political competitions occurred have themselves become contested. This represents more than just a loss of power—it's a fundamental change in how political legitimacy operates in American society.

Now these liberal elites find themselves in the unfamiliar position of having to actively compete for legitimacy rather than simply assuming it.

I should acknowledge my own position in this analysis. As a liberal committed to democratic institutions and constitutional processes, my work here at Notes From the Circus aims to help liberal politics adapt to our transformed reality. But intellectual honesty requires recognizing just how fundamentally the ground has shifted beneath our feet. The traditional liberal assumption that good policy and reasoned argument would naturally prevail in democratic discourse now seems almost quaint in the face of our current reality.

This isn't just about offering tactical suggestions for liberal politics—it's about understanding how deeply our political system has been transformed by new forms of power concentration and legitimacy claims. When I describe the triumph of technical elites or the disorientation of traditional liberal institutions, I'm not just analyzing abstract political dynamics—I'm describing threats to values and principles I hold dear. Yet clear-eyed analysis requires acknowledging the full scope of these challenges, even when that acknowledgment is personally uncomfortable.

The project of reforming liberal politics can't begin without first understanding the true nature of our current situation. While I remain committed to constitutional democracy and the liberal principles that support it, I refuse to engage in wishful thinking about how much those principles have been eroded. Only by facing the reality of our position—however dire it might be—can we begin to develop meaningful responses to these challenges.

The liberal academy represents a distinct approach to status and legitimacy—one based on scholarly achievement, methodological rigor, and intellectual engagement with complex ideas. At its best, this system rewards careful thinking, evidence-based analysis, and the ability to understand and build upon existing knowledge. The peer review process, despite its flaws, attempts to ensure that status comes from meaningful contribution to human understanding rather than mere assertion of authority.

However, this academic approach to status has developed serious blind spots. The very virtues of scholarly rigor can become vices when they create a self-referential culture that speaks primarily to itself. When academics mistake their specialized discourse for universal truth, they can seem disconnected from the lived experiences of many Americans. The status markers that matter within academia—publications, citations, theoretical sophistication—can appear meaningless or even actively alienating to those outside it.

This disconnection has real consequences. While academics were developing increasingly nuanced theories about social and political life, they often failed to notice how their own status system was becoming increasingly isolated from broader society. The assumption that expertise would naturally translate into public authority left them vulnerable to populist challenges that questioned not just specific claims but the very legitimacy of academic knowledge.

Yet we shouldn't overcorrect. The academic emphasis on careful thought, evidence, and systematic analysis remains valuable, perhaps now more than ever. What's needed isn't an abandonment of academic standards but a reconnection of scholarly work to public concerns and experiences. This means maintaining rigorous standards while developing new ways to make academic insights accessible and relevant to broader audiences.

The challenge for liberalism isn't just to defend academic institutions but to reform them in ways that preserve their virtues while addressing their limitations. This means acknowledging both the value of expertise and its potential for creating unhealthy status hierarchies that can alienate rather than enlighten.

The liberal coalition is experiencing its own form of elite realignment, one that's reshaping what we traditionally think of as “the left.” What's particularly fascinating is how Straussian conservatives—those deeply committed to constitutional democracy and liberal institutions—have found themselves increasingly aligned with classical liberals in opposition to both populist threats and certain progressive left positions. This isn't just a tactical alliance but represents a deeper reorganization of political priorities around the defense of liberal democratic institutions.

The ascendance of these forces at the expense of the “progressive left” reflects a fundamental shift in how liberal politics understands itself. Classical liberals, who emphasize individual rights, constitutional processes, and limited government, are reasserting themselves within the coalition. Meanwhile, Straussian conservatives bring a sophisticated understanding of how democratic institutions must be actively maintained against threats from both right and left—their historical analysis of how democracies can fail has become particularly relevant in our current moment.

This realignment is creating tension with progressive left positions that sometimes prioritize immediate policy outcomes over institutional processes. The progressive emphasis on rapid social transformation through executive action or administrative rule-making, while well-intentioned, can sometimes mirror the technocratic efficiency arguments made by figures like Musk—just with different desired outcomes. This has created an opening for classical liberals and Straussians to argue for a renewed focus on constitutional processes and institutional stability.

This recognition that democracy-focused politics alone isn't sufficient reflects a growing sophistication in liberal thinking. While defending democratic institutions remains crucial, we've learned that abstract appeals to democratic values don't resonate when people are struggling with immediate economic pressures. The weakness of pure democracy-focused politics lies in its inability to address the material conditions that make democratic participation meaningful.

The challenge of defending democratic institutions is inseparable from questions of economic fairness and technological governance. History shows that democratic systems are most vulnerable when economic inequality becomes extreme and when new technologies reshape social relationships faster than political institutions can adapt. The Progressive Era's response to industrial concentration—antitrust law, labor rights, public utility regulation—suggests possible approaches to containing tech power. But today's challenges require new tools that can address not just economic concentration but control over the digital infrastructure of modern life.

Potential points of resistance exist: antitrust enforcement, data privacy regulations, platform neutrality requirements, and democratic control over crucial digital infrastructure. But implementing such measures requires precisely the kind of state capacity that tech elites are working to dismantle. This creates a recursive challenge—we need democratic institutions to check tech power, but tech power is actively undermining those very institutions.

When people are worried about paying rent, affording healthcare, or maintaining their standard of living, arguments about constitutional norms and democratic processes can seem disconnected from their daily reality. While these institutional concerns are vital, we must illustrate how democratic processes lead to tangible improvements in people's lives. We must explicitly connect constitutional processes to economic security and social stability to demonstrate real-world benefits. This shift marks a recognition that when democratic institutions function properly, they can deliver concrete benefits rather than mere abstract values. The challenge for liberals is to show how constitutional democracy, rather than authoritarian efficiency or populist promises, provides the most reliable path to material prosperity and security.

This represents a significant evolution in classical liberal thoughtmoving from purely procedural defenses of democracy to understanding how democratic processes must be grounded in and responsive to material conditions. It's about building a politics that can defend democratic institutions while directly addressing the economic anxieties that make people vulnerable to anti-democratic appeals.

These changes suggest a liberal coalition increasingly organized around defending democratic institutions rather than advancing specific policy agendas. While this reformulation could strengthen the coalition against authoritarianism, it may introduce difficulties in maintaining support from groups demanding immediate social change. The gap between understanding what needs to be done and actually developing effective political strategies to do it remains dauntingly wide.

The challenge liberals face is particularly difficult because it requires simultaneously operating on multiple levels: defending truth-based discourse while also competing effectively in an environment where truth itself has become contested; addressing material concerns while maintaining commitment to democratic processes; and building popular support while resisting the temptation to adopt the very post-truth tactics they oppose.

What makes this especially concerning is how the technological and media infrastructure that shapes public discourse is increasingly controlled by the very elite challengers that liberals need to resist. The worry isn't just that liberals might lose political battles; it’s that the elite control of public narratives challenges their ability to effectively counter post-truth politics while upholding democratic principles. This creates a challenging dilemma: how does one combat the erosion of truth-based discourse without sacrificing a commitment to truth? How do you build popular support for democratic institutions when the very mechanisms of public communication are increasingly controlled by anti-democratic forces?

These challenges require innovations in liberal political practice that may be difficult to achieve, given existing institutional and cultural constraints. While liberal thought is adapting, the urgency of our current challenges necessitates swift transformation within liberal politics to address these pressing concerns.

We need to be brutally honest about the gravity of our situation. When I analyze these power dynamics and elite realignments, I'm not just describing challenges that liberalism needs to overcome—I'm acknowledging the very real possibility that it might not overcome them at all. The techno-oligarchy we see forming isn't just a temporary phase but could become a permanent feature of American political life, fundamentally transforming how power operates in our society.

This isn't idle speculation about distant possibilities. The mechanisms of this transformation are already in place: control of crucial information platforms, unprecedented concentration of private power, sophisticated abilities to shape public discourse, and an increasingly successful effort to delegitimize democratic processes as inefficient obstacles to progress. What makes this particularly difficult to combat is how these changes are being implemented gradually, each step made to seem reasonable and necessary in isolation.

There's a tendency to assume that because liberal democracy has been resilient in the past, it will naturally reassert itself given time. But historical examples suggest otherwise—sometimes democratic institutions, once sufficiently eroded, don't recover. The technical competence that today's oligarchs claim as their source of legitimacy might prove more durable than previous justifications for anti-democratic power, precisely because it aligns so well with the challenges of managing an increasingly complex technological society.

This isn't defeatism—it's realism about the magnitude of the challenge we face. The very elites who are dismantling democratic accountability genuinely believe they're creating a more efficient, capable form of governance. Their sincere conviction, combined with their control over the tools of modern power, creates a formidable obstacle to democratic renewal that we might simply fail to overcome.

The historical record offers sobering lessons about democratic decline. The Roman Republic's transformation into an empire, the Venetian Republic's calcification into oligarchy, and the Weimar Republic's collapse all show how democratic institutions can fail when they cannot contain the power of wealthy elites or address material conditions that undermine public support. What makes our situation particularly precarious is how technological change amplifies both these vulnerabilities while adding new ones. The technical competence that today's oligarchs claim as their source of legitimacy aligns perfectly with managing an increasingly complex technological society, potentially creating a more durable basis for anti-democratic power than previous justifications.

There is a very real possibility that we'll be addressing Benjamin Franklin and Elizabeth Willing Powell's spirits with three words: we did not. Keep the republic, that is.