[Overview:  The key here is the video.  Find 30 minutes to watch/listen.  It puts lots of important things into place.  The rest of the post includes thoughts I had about the video and the people described in it.  Something about the narrator of the video.  But the video is the important thing.  It's not just someone's opinion - it's a well documented overview of the role of the billionaire tech bros in the Trump election and administration

This video came across my screen this morning.  It offers much more depth to the previous post  that said a coup was happening.  While we all knew that the tech guys were involved - Musk, of course, and that Peter Thiel bought Vance's election to the Senate and the vice presidential nomination, etc. - my impression had been that Project 2025 had been something from the Heritage Foundation - (from the ACLU):

"Project 2025 is a federal policy agenda and blueprint for a radical restructuring of the executive branch authored and published by former Trump administration officials in partnership with The Heritage Foundation, a longstanding conservative think tank that opposes abortion and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights, and racial equity."

The Heritage Foundation has been around a long time and among other things, created a whole conservative law society that groomed right wing attorneys with their ideology and got them onto the Supreme Court.  

But this video outlines a different set of influences for Project 2025 - libertarian leaning, billionaire tech bros.  And as we watch live - but not like we watched January 6 live - Elon Musk sucking up government data, this video makes much more sense of what's happening and why.   

   

Here's an outline of the video from the YouTube channel:

"chapters

00:00-01:00 Introduction

01:01-04:25 The Dark Agenda of Tech VCs

04:26-07:10 Networks and Patchworks: Reinventing the State

07:11- 09:44 Praxis and Pronomos

09:45 –12:37 Making it a Reality 

12:38 –18:03 Vance, Thiel, and Yarvin

18:04 –19:28 Tech and Project 2025

19:29-20:00 Butterfly Revolution Step 1: Campaign on Autocracy

20:01-21:42 Butterfly Revolution Step 2: Purge the Bureaucracy 

21:43-23:00 Butterfly Revolution Step 3: Ignore the Courts

23:01-23:50 Butterfly Revolution Step 4: Co-Opt the Congress

23:51-25:06 Butterfly Revolution Step 5: Centralise Police and Powers

25:07-27:54 Butterfly Revolution Step 6: Shut Down Elite Media and Academic Institutions

27:55-28:35 Butterfly Revolution Step 7: Turn Out the People

28:36-29:40 Conclusion"

While this may make things seem worse, I'd argue that this guys had the right set of skills to get rich in the tech age in the US, but their smarts are limited.  As Musk has shown with Twitter, there are important interpersonal skills he's lacking.  When I read Atlas Shrugged in my late teens, it only took me about 150 pages to realize how repulsive the main characters were.  But these guys think they know much more than they do, and want to create a libertarian world where they are free from government interference, where they are the government (and thus free to interfere with others.)

Now, I can understand how a bunch of rich techies with no serious background in the history of government, liberty, democracy, etc. can feel oppressed by government that seems to (and in many cases probably is) be a bit behind the changing technologies, but is trying to apply regulations to the industry and, even worse, tax their earnings.  But that's only because they think their tech ability and the fact they got rich makes them smarter than everyone else.  Sort of like doctors who think they have expertise in every other field beyond medicine.  

So while I expect they're going to do a lot of damage to democracy, the world economy, and the planet* (by not fighting climate change particularly), I also think they're going to have a lot of failures and a lot of disagreements with each other and with the older legal far right architects of the US move to fascism.  

But understanding what's happening is the first step to effective corrective steps.  

* "doing damage to . . .the planet" - I'd like to clarify that 'damage to the planet' is a human-centric idea.  The planet, it seems to me, follows the laws of nature.  Does a volcano do damage to the planet?  I'd say it changes the planet, but 'damage' is a word that judges the change negative.  Climate change will make life more difficult for many plants and animals.  Some will probably thrive.  As I think about this, probably the only 'objective' use of 'damage the planet' would be to describe its total annihilation at which point pieces of the earth would, I guess, scatter in space, and still exist, but in a different way.  

Who is the narrator, Blonde Politics/The Silly Serious? 

Finally, I've never seen this YouTube presenter before,  I was impressed with the presentation, but I did want to at least minimally vet her before sharing with my readers.  So I did look her up.  Here's what I found in a quick search.  She's Australian Joanna Richards.

"Hey.

I am a writer, actor, and academic.

I love to create art, and feel fortunate to be able to blend my various interests to create meaningful work. Above all else, I love to laugh, and make others laugh! Using art to tackle important and controversial topics, I hope to create work that challenges people without making them feel defensive.

My academic research focuses on the relationship between gender, political authority, and language philosophy. I frequently appear in print and on television to discuss issues relating to gender and representation. Sometimes I am on tv pretending to be someone else!

Please reach out if you want to chat.

Affliations

Institute for Governance Policy Analysis - Doctor of Philosophy (in progress)
University of Canberra - Bachelor of Philosophy (First Class Honours)
Moscow Art Theatre School - Fine Arts Conservatory (Stanislavski Intensive)

Australian National University - Bachelor of International Relations"

The reach out seems serious.  At the bottom of the page it says:  

"email: hello@joannarichards.com     Currently in: New York City"

   

Solano, California - one of the cities tech bros are trying to create  

On the video, Joanna talks about one the tech bros billionaires goals to build private tech, corporate owned cities.  Which made me think of stories I read when I still had a subscription to the LA Times about tech billionaires buying up land in northern California to build such a city.  Only the story didn't get into the more sinister underpinnings Joanna mentions.  You can read an AP story about this here.  They did qualify to put the proposal on the ballot, but later withdrew it.  But they're planning to be back in 2026.  And as I listened to the video again, Joanna does mention Solano. (about 11:40 in the video).