Panicked Curtis Yarvin—JD Vance guru—Plans to Flee USA

Some Good News: Curtis Yarvin, the anti-American “Dark Enlightenment” guru credited as “the philosopher behind JD Vance,” believes the Trump administration is doomed to fail.

Fearing retribution from a future Democratic administration, a terrified Yarvin declared on October 5 that he is already planning to flee the country.

Wrote Yarvin on Substack:

The second Trump revolution, like the first, is failing. It is failing because it deserves to fail. It is failing because it spends all its time patting itself on the back. It is failing because its true mission, which neither it nor (still less) its supporters understand, is still as far beyond its reach as algebra is beyond a cat. Because the vengeance meted out after its failure will dwarf the vengeance after 2020—because the successes of the second revolution are so much greater than the first—I feel that I personally have to start thinking realistically about how to flee the country. Everyone else in a similar position should have a 2029 plan as well. And it is not even clear that it will wait until 2029: losing the Congress will instantly put the administration on the defensive.

(He later edited the essay to remove the “I personally have to start thinking realistically about how to flee the country” line.)

While most people see Trump violating the Constitution in unprecedented ways and trying to seize dictatorial power, Yarvin sees only weakness and failure. On Twitter—where Vice President Vance follows him—he has criticized the Trump administration for not going far enough to wrest control of the nation and permanently dislodge Democrats from power. Back in March, Yarvin wrote that the Trump regime would “wither and eventually dissipate” unless he went full authoritarian.

Yarvin doesn’t think Trump has the guts to pull off a full fascist nightmare. Instead, he casts the administration’s actions as merely performative stunts with no lasting impact:

They look tough. They’re doing something. That they are not even doing 0.01% of what it would take to solve the problem—that, at much more risk to themselves, the most they could probably do is 0.05%—matters not.

Of course, Trump has turned ICE into an American Gestapo and is deploying US troops to American cities for no reason. Last week, he told a meeting of the nation’s top generals it was time to fight an “enemy within.” This is all quite unprecedented and horrifying to most Americans.

But it’s still not enough for the shit lord of the Dork Enlightenment. What, exactly, would satisfy him? Yarvin:

Getting rid of all the liberal judges is easier than getting rid of all one liberal judge. Getting rid of all the judges is easier than getting rid of all the liberal judges. Getting rid of the whole legal system is easier than getting rid of all the judges. Getting rid of the whole machine of government is easier than getting rid of the whole legal system. Getting rid of the whole philosophy of government is easier than getting rid of the whole machine of government.

Nothing less than a full-on destruction of the United States can sate his thirst for power.

Yarvin, clearly feeling paranoid and pressured, has experienced significant reputational decline in recent months. Notably, he has become a target of mockery and scorn from fellow right-wingers who see his approach as a political dead end.

One big problem: At the heart of Yarvin’s ideology is a curious assertion that the USA is one big historical error and the world would have been better off if England had won the American Revolution. Such trolling arguments may please the ears of Peter Thiel and JD Vance, but they are a hard sell to the general American public (as any campaign intern knows).

Last month, notorious right-wing propagandist Chris Rufo tore into Yarvin on Twitter:

One of the problems with Curtis you eventually discover is that he’s high on his own supply. He imagines himself as greater than the American Founders, Ronald Reagan, and Elon Musk, and yet, the evidence for that is quite thin. He hasn't founded a new nation or become president or traveled to space, but also, more modestly, he hasn't written an influential work of history, published a best-seller, or tallied any real-world political wins. Nobody in a position of authority, even a small-town mayor or a dogcatcher, has ever publicly adopted his ideas and put them into action.

(Note: Rufo’s claim that no one has adopted Yarvin’s ideas is false. Elon Musk’s DOGE, among other things, was inspired by Yarvin.)

Rufo compared Yarvin to a “Berkeley professor who burned out on acid in the 1960s” and described his ideas as “a complex of demoralization, resentment, and hubris.”

“He imagines himself capable of repealing the last 250 years of American history, but behind all of the obscure allusions and insistence on his own genius, his actual theory of political change is reducible to a meme,” wrote Rufo.

Other far-right figures, like Richard Hanania, have also regularly mocked Yarvin on Twitter. Yarvin has done his best to slap back at his critics with his usual meandering screeds. But last week he finally caved by announcing he would mostly stay off of Twitter for the rest of the year.

Coincidentally, Yarvin’s Twitter retreat came one day after a scathing tweet from a pseudonymous poster named James Medlock, who wrote:

Seeing Curtis Yarvin tweet is like if you watch a horror movie that sets up this mysterious evil villain, and then at the end of the movie comes the grand reveal… and it’s just Alf. And you can’t help but laugh and also feel a bit let down. That’s it??

The political news these days seems quite scary, and the worst is likely yet to come. On the bright side, one of the main architects of neo-fascism believes the project is doomed, and he is plotting his exit.

The big question: Which faraway country will Yarvin choose as his new home? Dubai? Russia? Kazakhstan? All these choices seem quite harsh compared to the tony neighborhood in ultra-progressive Berkeley where Yarvin currently lives in a very expensive Craftsman house.

Maybe this story ends with Yarvin discovering the charms of modern liberal democracy, after all.

Tonight in San Francisco: Peter Thiel delivers the fourth and final installment of the Secret Antichrist Lectures.

Thursday: I’ll join Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox for Counterpoint: A Response to Peter Thiel’s Antichrist.