New Yorker shrinks Curtis Yarvin down to size

In two hours, at 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. Eastern), I'll join writer Wajahat Ali for a live discussion of Curtis Yarvin. Details below.

The New Yorker magazine profiled Curtis Yarvin, the Peter Thiel “house philosopher” and friend of Vice President JD Vance who believes democracies should be replaced with dictatorships.

The profile is a disaster for Yarvin, who has apparently developed a habit of publicly sobbing and bragging about his use of Ozempic-like weight loss drugs. He comes off as a blowhard, a bore, and worse.

(Click below to read. A paywall is possible, but it opened for me.)

It is a delicious piece of writing. Astute readers will find some details that I reported last summer. But writer Ava Kofman also provides some gems that have not previously been revealed. Yarvin apparently gave her full access to travel with him to Europe and even visit his home. The result is a searing and wholly unflattering portrait of this wannabe philosopher.

After reading it, I find it even more terrifying to think that Yarvin is held in high regard by people in the White House. There is no reason why anyone should know his name. Unfortunately, his pro-dictator fantasy tickles the fancy of certain influential tech billionaires. So, here we are.

Yarvin, who apparently tried to back out of the profile once it was too late, is not taking it well. He is being thoroughly mocked on social media, including by his fellow reactionaries, and he is lashing out. This morning, he attacked me, falsely asserting that I am linked to the murderous cult leader Jim Jones because I once worked for Dianne Feinstein, the former mayor of San Francisco. (I was two years old in 1978, when Jones died.)

I will have more to say about Yarvin’s disastrous profile. In fact, today at 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. Eastern) I'll join writer Wajahat Ali for a live interview on the Left Hook newsletter. The interview should appear on his page at the appointed time. Click here to join us then.