By Carol Lucas
The past three weeks have been tumultuous to say the least. But then, we cannot say we weren’t warned. Warnings aside, the reality was, as so many said, “shock and awe.”
I don’t think anyone foresaw the deluge of so-called legislation being brought forth. Of course the word legislation is a misnomer, given not one congressman or woman had any say-so to what was thrown against the wall in hopes of sticking.
So, as I waded through the quagmire once again in an effort to gain perspective on a topic, I stumbled upon a name that I had never encountered before. Maybe this person’s anonymity is purposeful, although I can’t believe this is true since what follows is a rundown of a person who was invited to Trump’s inauguration as well as the “Coronation” Ball. Let the implications of the name of this event sink in.
The glitzy gala was hosted by the ultraconservative publishing house, Passage Press and took place in the ballroom of the Watergate Hotel (just a little irony). It was designed to celebrate the new conservative counter-elite that was swept in by Trump’s reelection.
The name of the man to whom I referred earlier is Curtis Yarvin, and what I discovered is this: Yarvin has done more to shape the thinking of Passage Press and the Trumpian far-right than perhaps any other person. So who is he?
Yarvin, an ex-computer programmer-turned-blogger, has argued that American democracy is irrevocably broken and ought to be replaced with a monarchy styled after a Silicon Valley tech start-up.
According to Yarvin, the time has come to jettison existing democratic institutions and concentrate political power in a single “chief executive” or “dictator.” These ideas — which Yarvin calls “neo-reaction” or “the Dark Enlightenment” — were once confined to the fringes of the internet, but now, with Trump’s reelection, they are finding a powerful audience in Washington.
Additionally, Yarvin alludes to the “revolutionary vanguard” of young conservatives who grew up reading his blogs and are now entering the new administration.
While Yarvin is skeptical that Trump is able to bring about the kind of regime change that he (Yarvin) envisions, he is pleased to see that the new administration is seeking to concentrate power in the executive branch.
I found the following from a conversation between the interviewer, Ian Wood of Politico, and Yarvin. To start, Yarvin asserted that there is a newfound confidence and aggressiveness in “Trump’s GOP.”
“Every time the old Republicans wanted to do something, it was like the nebbish guy asking the hot prom queen out for a date — they were just terrified that they were going to ask and the answer would be ‘no,’” he said. “That attitude does not seem to be present here.”
The interview continued with Yarvin being asked, “You were in Washington during the inauguration. How was the mood?
“You’re definitely dealing with a lot of people who have spent the last four or eight years thinking about why the first Trump administration basically did not achieve anything for its supporters as opposed to its lobbyists. I’m not talking to the high strategic command or whatever, but just my impression from my connections among low- and mid-level people is that they’ve figured some things out.
The first and most important thing they’ve figured out from a political standpoint is that the situation that Trump is in is a little like Duke Leto and Arrakis.”
Now I admit you could place my knowledge of Dune in a thimble and still have room for your finger. But I went down the rabbit hole of research. “Volumes” doesn’t begin to describe it, but I pulled what I feel is sufficient information for this piece.
Arrakis is a harsh desert planet located on the far edge of the Old Imperium in the Canopus star system. It is the most important planet in the universe, as it is the only source of the drug melange, an essential spice and valuable commodity that makes interstellar travel possible.
As for Leto, he inherited the dukedom where he became a just and respected leader. I know, I know — if you choose to stop reading here, I will understand. According to Reddit, he was the romanticized ideal of masculine leadership — a man who genuinely cared for his subordinates, wife and son, a man of strong moral convictions.
I should have stopped right there and chosen another topic for this week, but …
My point in using Yarvin’s analogy is to make a point. How can we possibly accept a thought process such as that which has influence over the leadership of our country?
That said, I feel a need to go back and parse some of the words of the Yarvin “analogy.”
First, we are hardly Arrakis … yet! And secondly, please check his attributing the personality traits of Leto to Trump. Cares for his subordinates? His wife? His son? Get real. A man of moral convictions? You have to be kidding.
The interviewer continued. “We’re talking Dune here, right?”
Yarvin responded positively. He continued, “Yeah. There’s a little bit of landing on the mostly enemy planet, DC. You’re landing there, and one of the general assumptions of the controlled opposition — the old Republican establishment — is that this is not really a symmetric political system.
“Instead of a left party and a right party, we have an inner party [a bipartisan elite] and an outer party [the anti-establishment insurgents]. This outer party is basically the party that exists to collect and market the votes of unfashionable America.”
He went on to say, “The way that I think metaphorically about the problem of what can be done with the powers of the presidency is untangling the Gordian knot. I often say, ‘Look, DC is run by Congress, not by the president.’ The president stands in front of it and waves his hands and watches the system go, but the real decisions are ‘funding decisions,’ and those kinds of decisions are made by Congress or the agencies. Actually, if the White House didn’t exist, America would still work.”
When asked what he (Yarvin) would do, he said, “I would cut the Gordian knot. For example, a straightforward way to cut the knot is to say, ‘Look, the [Federal Reserve] is clearly under executive authority.’ It’s clearly not part of the legislative branch, it’s clearly not part of the judicial branch, so it’s clearly part of the executive branch. And because the Fed actually controls the monetary system, I can order it to mint the trillion-dollar coin, or more to the point, I can basically order the Fed to buy assets. And because I can order the Fed to buy assets, I can order the Fed to buy notes issued by new institutions.
Cutting to the chase, it’s all about what we already knew … power and money. When the remainder of the interview continued with Yarvin alluding to the populace as the elves and the hobbits, I gave up.
You decide, dear reader, what you think of this new vision for our country.
Carol Lucas is a retired high school teacher and a Lady’s Island resident. She is the author of the recently published “A Breath Away: One Woman’s Journey Through Widowhood.”
