Silicon Valley Holy War?
Plus: MAGAland's Favorite Nazi Takes Center Stage
I’ve been quite busy this week, making progress on the book and writing a piece that I hope to share with you soon. In the meantime, here are some important readings I highly recommend:
Silicon Valley Seeks God
Why is Silicon Valley suddenly pivoting to religion? As I have chronicled, prominent tech figures keep talking about Antichrists, demons, and existential battles between good and evil.
It’s definitely a vibe shift. In the Telegraph, Matthew Field writes about how Silicon Valley is suddenly bonkers for Christianity. Unfortunately, rather than take a deep interest in the actual words of Jesus Christ, their version of religion orients them toward apocalypse themes and MAGA fascism:
The revival in faith has, however, coincided with a notable Right-ward shift in the tech world. Across the tech world, billionaires have paid homage to Trump, donating millions to his election campaign or inauguration.
Read the entire story by clicking this gift link.
Matthew Field
MAGA 'Holy War' Against Tech?
But will this unusual outbreak of religious fervor endear tech billionaires to the religious right elements of Trump’s MAGA base? Uncertain. The Verge’s Tina Nguyen reports from the National Conservatism Conference— NatCon—where one conservative activist was “calling for the populists to wage a literal holy war against artificial intelligence developers ‘as betrayers of our species, traitors to our nation, apostates to our faith, and threats to our kids.’”
(Why aren’t any Democrats talking like this?)
Click to read “MAGA populists call for holy war against Big Tech” (paywall likely):
Tina Nguyen
In Deep Schmitt
Peter Thiel usually connects his Antichrist talks to the ideas of Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt, who wrote that politics is about defining an existential enemy and declaring an emergency to suspend normal rules and seize power. Schmitt’s fascist ideas have been repeatedly extolled by Thiel and Curtis Yarvin, and they are clearly embraced by many in Trump’s inner circle.
Now, the Schmitt worship may be moving from theory to practice, warns historian and writer Heather Cox Richardson. Last week, a Trump advisor suggested the president might use emergency powers to interfere in elections:
The apparent plan of the Trump administration reflects the strategy of Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt, whose writings seem lately to have captivated leaders on the American right, including billionaire Peter Thiel and the man who influenced him, Curtis Yarvin. Schmitt opposed liberal democracy, in which the state enables individuals to determine their own fate. Instead, he argued that true democracy erases individual self-determination by making the mass of people one with the state and exercising their will through state power. That uniformity requires getting rid of opposition. Schmitt theorized that politics is simply about dividing people into friends and enemies and using the power of the state to crush enemies. As J.D. Vance described Schmitt’s ideas in 2024: “There’s no law, there's just power.”
Click below to read. And get ready to hear a lot more about Carl Schmitt in 2025—and 2026. Sorry!
Heather Cox Richardson
