January 20, 2025
Curtis Yarvin builds anti-democracy pipeline to White House via tech billionaires
Fringe blogger's ideas reach White House policy
📜Constitutional Law🤖AI Governance📰Media Literacy
Curtis Yarvin wrote 120,000-word manifestos advocating corporate monarchy to replace American democracy under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug from 2007-2014
Yarvin attended Trump's Jan. 2025 inaugural gala as 'informal guest of honor' due to his 'outsize influence over the Trumpian right,' according to Politico
Vice President 
J.D. Vance publicly cited Yarvin as an influence and echoed his call to 'fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state'
Yarvin has defended slavery and argued that 'whites have inherently higher IQs than black people' while opposing U.S. civil rights programs
Peter Thiel, who donated $50 million to Republican campaigns since 2000, has been 'coaching' Yarvin and calls him 'fully enlightened' according to Yarvin
Marc Andreessen quotes Yarvin and calls him a 'friend' while investing in his startup Urbit through Andreessen Horowitz
State Department Director of Policy Planning 
Michael Anton has discussed Yarvin's ideas and received staffing recommendations from him
Yarvin's Gray Mirror Substack newsletter has 57,000 subscribers and was the third most popular 'history' publication on the platform in Jun. 2025
📜Constitutional Law🤖AI Governance📰Media Literacy
Test Your Knowledge
10
Q1
Curtis Yarvin's "Dark Enlightenment" philosophy advocates for replacing democratic elections with corporate-style governance where CEOs function as monarchs.
Q2
Place these steps in the correct order to show how the Dark Enlightenment philosophy systematically captured institutional power.
Q3
Yarvin appeared on Tucker Carlson in 2021 and attended Trump's "Coronation Ball" in January 2025 as "informal guest of honor." How do extremists gain legitimacy?
Q4
Complete this analysis of how Yarvin's philosophy gained institutional power.
Q5
Which precedent fits Yarvin's Fisk Corp surveillance model?
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Curtis Yarvin
Neo-reactionary ideologist and blogger
J.D. Vance
Vice President of the United States
Peter Thiel
Billionaire tech investor and Republican megadonor
Marc Andreessen
Venture capitalist and Andreessen Horowitz co-founder
Michael Anton
State Department Director of Policy Planning
Steve Bannon
Former Trump strategist