Anything James Pogue writes about the New Right is worth reading. His piece this morning in the NY Times focuses on the factional strife that already is besetting the new administration. Key grafs—
In the article, Mr. Bannon “declared war” on Mr. Musk, and by extension the whole set of tech barons who had gained such influence in the Trump sphere. “I will have Elon Musk run out of here by Inauguration Day,” he said, calling him a “truly evil guy.” “Before, because he put money in, I was prepared to tolerate it; I’m not prepared to tolerate it anymore.”
This challenge was widely seen as a new cycle in the H-1B visa wars. But when I called him, Mr. Bannon articulated a very different and bigger reason for his challenge. I asked him if he saw the same deep-level philosophical tension I did. “A tension?” he asked. “I would almost argue it’s an unbridgeable gap.”
He named a roster of major figures on the tech right whom he saw as enemies: Mr. Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, the neo-monarchist writer Mr. Yarvin, and Balaji Srinivasan, an investor and technologist who promotes the idea of “network states,” new countries run on blockchain.
Mr. Bannon accused the tech barons of promoting “technofeudalism” and “transhumanism”— bending human life into technologized and unnatural new forms. “This thing is all tied together,” he said. “They have a very well thoughtthrough 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.
I doubt that Bannon has the influence by himself to turn MAGA against the oligarchs, and I don't think there's any question which side Trump will side with if push comes to shove. But here's the thing. The oligarchs cannot retain power in the long run without popular support. They need propagandists like Bannon, Rogan, Carlson, et al. to keep the demos on board.
People power is the only power that has a chance against money power, and right now Bannon represents people power vs. tech money power. So, you know, the enemy of my enemy, etc. At least Bannon seems to understand the threat posed by Techno-Capitalism in a way that most in the Liberal establishment and on the cosmopolitan Left do not. So as a short-term tactical matter, Go Bannon.
Trump is a wily, instinctive tactician, but not a good strategist. He doesn’t have to be. Hs recklessness, impulsiveness, and disorganization work uniquely for him. But the people around him understand that his power to do what he pleases without consequence is not a power that will be conferred to his successors.
Many ostensible Trump supporters, people like Bannon, have no illusions about Trump's toxicity, but have been using him as a club to bludgeon the Liberal establishment that they so deeply despise. So far so good from their pov. But now what? They are certainly thinking strategically about how they retain power after Trump, which, given the state of Trump's sanity and physical health, might come sooner rather than later.
And so that naturally focuses our attention on J.D. Vance. Is there any other figure in this emerging constellation of power who so uniquely retains the credibility of both populist and tech factions? He's been keeping a low profile lately, and he may well prove himself to be the callow opportunist most people think him—but on paper, he's the perfect person to hold the coalition together.
The profile that emerges of Vance in James Pogue's Vanity Fair article about the New Right in '22 and the profile done by Benjamin Wallace-Well in the New Yorker in October make him appear to be more complex than the cartoon caricature he appears to be on cable news. People are complicated, and I see Vance as a guy within whom many conflicting voices are arguing. Which voice wins in the long run, I don't know. None of us does. But he strikes me as more complexly interesting than most of the crooks and crazies Trump has surrounded himself with.
I could be all wet about Vance, but I think that he is a populist at heart. He knows that Trump is odious, and that his behavior required to obtain his favor is odious as well. But he justifies it to himself as doing what needs to be done to be in position to do something good for the demos in the long run. That’s my working hypothesis about him until he proves it wrong. It’s an angle, at least, that’s worth paying attention to as this tragic farce plays out.
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