What is Neoreaction?

A fringe ideology creeps through the Republican Party

You’re not alone in thinking that something strange has happened to the Republican Party.

Over the past decade, the GOP has slowly shifted from the Party of Reagan into a strange alliance of conspiracy theorists, crypto pushers, tech moguls, and nativists. While there was always an inherent dissonance within the party’s electoral base of rural voters and the top one percent, the Republican Party still adhered to the same rulebook as the Democrats and could be ostensibly trusted to meet in the middle and work toward the common good of society. Donald Trump’s candidacy and subsequent electoral victories seem to have broken this contract. Today’s Republican party is increasingly untethered from a shared political goal (or shared reality, for that matter) with the left and center of American politics. The modern GOP is seemingly dedicated to warping basic foundations of American government and sacrificing personal liberties and the democratic process under the all-encompassing MAGA agenda.

Among the many concepts and ideas flowing through the post-Trump GOP is “Neoreaction,” abbreviated “NRx”. Neoreaction is an ideology born in Silicon Valley that has emerged as a guiding worldview among younger cohorts of conservatives. While it would be a stretch to claim that the entirety of the GOP or current administration is Neoreactionary, the influence of this ideology on shaping decision-making and models of governance cannot be ignored. Recent reporting from The New Yorker has confirmed that a key figure in the movement is in regular contact with State Department officials, and JD Vance has cited Neoreaction as an ideological foundation for his politics. In less than 30 years, Neoreactionary thought has crept from the fringes of the internet and obscure blogs to the highest levels of tech and government.

Neoreaction emerged from a blog titled “Unqualified Reservations” written by a Silicon Valley-based programmer named Curtis Yarvin under the pen name “Mencius Moldbug”. Yarvin’s writing was initially focused on extreme interpretations of libertarian concepts and was fixated on the writing of Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle. From this initial libertarian ideological foundation, Yarvin developed a series of concepts and frameworks that could be used to understand power in society and models of governance (or, as Yarvin described it, “the other day I was tinkering around in my garage and I decided to build a new ideology”). The sum of these concepts is Neoreaction.

Neoreactionary thought is anti-egalitarian. NRx thinkers are critical of democracy and democratic governance and broadly reject the notion that all men are created equal. Neoreactionaries reject the idea that liberal democracy is the all-encompassing end-state of political development and instead view democratic processes as inherently corrosive towards long-term social stability. In place of democratic governance, Yarvin argues that the ideal form of government would resemble that of a corporation with an all-powerful executive that would direct society. This individual would supposedly be held accountable to a “board of directors” (again, unelected and facing no meaningful political opposition) that could theoretically remove the monarch from power.

While this vision reflects the functional model of corporate governance that many Americans are accustomed to, it’s a terrible idea for running a government. Let’s begin by recognizing that the corporate-framing and tech language used by Yarvin to sell this idea is just window dressing for dictatorship. This is by no means a new concept - in fact, some Americans have lived under these conditions and can personally attest to how dysfunctional and unstable these regimes are and how miserable it is to live under them. When asked what’s stopping an all-powerful monarch from pillaging the wealth of his own country, Yarvin responds, “You don’t ransack your own house.” Yarvin’s case against democracy hinges on disregarding the wealth of information and recent history that have made it abundantly clear that dictatorships are brittle, frail models of governance that deliver neither prosperity nor stability.

NRx also offers an alternative perspective on power in society and government. Yarvin argues that the direction of society is driven by “the Cathedral”, a nebulous grouping of cultural and political elites spread across government, media, and the private sector. Yarvin argues that the divide in American politics is not between capital and labor or government and industry, but instead between the Cathedral and a select few dissident voices. Yarvin considers himself to be one of these voices (giving himself the fantasy-inspired title of “Dark Elf”), framing his writing and political activism as an attempt to sway non-enlightened conservatives and liberals (or as he calls them, “hobbits”). Neoreactionaries have two main strategies used in fighting the so-called Cathedral. The first is assembling infrastructure and systems outside of the regulatory frameworks of private industry and government that may be used to circumvent oversight and outside control. Through this view, Visa and Mastercard are appendages of the Cathedral, while cryptocurrencies are an NRx-approved alternative.

The second strategy is destroying institutions to limit the spread and reach of the Cathedral. Yarvin encapsulated this strategy with the acronym “R.A.G.E”, meaning “Retire All Government Employees”. The first instance of this concept being put into practice was Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. Within months of Elon’s takeover, the social network that was once a tool used for journalism and communication was quickly turned into a forum for bad actors, fraudulent behavior, and hate speech through the deliberate destruction of the Trust and Safety team.

The second, ongoing example of this concept being put into practice can be seen in the hollowing out of the federal government through Musk’s DOGE. Neoreaction’s strongest proponents are the people who have benefited the most from our current status quo: venture capitalists, startup founders, and autodidacts who have built large online followings by peddling historical revisionism and half-digested interpretations of modern philosophy. The underlying belief that unites these disparate groups is the sense of superiority over the average person and a personal disdain for anyone marginalized by society.

When we look beyond domestic politics and examine the implications that a Neoreactionary foreign policy will have on the world, we can understand that liberal democracy is facing an existential threat. The willing embrace of authoritarian governance and the fixation on a war against the so-called Cathedral will lead to the quiet recession of democracy across the globe and a willing slide into conflict and authoritarian governance. Nowhere is this threat more visible than in Ukraine, where Kyiv must now grapple with both Russia’s ongoing invasion and political sabotage from the United States.

If we are to move past this moment, we must begin assembling a framework that competes with Neoreaction and that provides a compelling vision for the future of American foreign policy and the world as a whole. One concept, known as “Neo-Idealism”, may just provide an answer…