GOOD
NIGHT
TEC4-
RICHT

Pull the Plug
on Al Fascism

Srd=d
Article first published on January 26, 2025 on
itsgoingdown.org

httpsi//itsgoingdown.org/good-night-tech-right-pull-the-
plug-on-ai-fascism/
httpsi//web.archive.org/web/20250127000907/httpsi//itsgoi
ngdown.org/good-night-tech-right-pull-the-plug-on-ai-
fascism/

©On January 20th, at a ceremony attended by both far-Right and
neo-fascist leaders from around the globe' and some of the richest
tech billionaires in the world, including the heads of Apple, Google,
Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, and Amazon2, Donald Trump took power
for the second time. In exchange for tech elites financially backing
his campaign and inauguration?, Trump has already announced

massive new investments in tech infrastructure*, focused primarily
around Artificial Intelligence (A5 and has pushed to expand into
cryptocurrenciesy®.

The start of Trump's second term has been marked by a flurry of
executive orders’, designed to test the existing legal institutions
and the loyalty of the Republican party, as he sends active-cluty
troops to the southern border, calls to end birthright citizenship
which is enshrined in the 14th amendment, and demands that his
far-Right loyalists be approved by the Senate.

Trump wants extreme executive power, but more broadly, his
larger agenda is directly tied to the interests of the tech billionaires
who forked out millions to put him in the White House. Since
riding down his golden escalator, Trump has bilt a political
machine off of weaponizing anger® by those de-classed and
immiserated by neoliberal policies, painting the Democrats as both
radiical leftists and corporate elites. Yet it is these billionaires, who

became rich through these very policies, who Trump now works to
carry out an agenda for.
Rise of the Tech-Right

This emerging “broligarchy” has been marked by a continuing
shift by many tech elites towards authoritarian and neo-
reactionary ideas,” represented most strongly by people like Peter
Thiel and Curtis Yarvin?, who reject “democracy in all its forms™
and call “some form of state-as-corporation.” Yarvin, also known by
the pen-name Mencius Moldbug, is a software engineer who called
for turning houseless people into “biodiesel® pushes racist
pseudo-science,” and advocates for transforming the US into a
monarchy, run of course, by a CEO® Yarvin has been cited as an
influence by JD Vance himself a protege of Thiel.® Elon Musk,
who worked with Thiel at PayPal, and who during a celebration
following Trump's recent inauguration, repeatedly gave several
Nazi salutes to a crowd of adoring MAGA fans," also has a long
history of promoting authoritarian, white nationalist, and neo-
fascist ideals and movements.? After buying Twitter in 2022, Musk
welcomed neo-Nazis and far-Right influencers back onto Twitter,
purged it of antifascist accounts, embraced neo-fascist parities like
the AfD in Germany (Musk just recently spoke at an AfD campaign
event), attacked unions® and labor organizing,* and has rallied in
support of anti-Semitic and white nationalist conspiracy theoriess
Tech billionaires like Zuckerberg have also recently begun to move
ht ideas s while Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, has
cozied up to Trump while suppressing journalists critical of him" at
The Washington Post, which he owns.

towards far-|

But supporting Trump in the 2024 election s not the first push into
right-wing politics by tech elites. In the bay area of California, right-
wing tech capitalists have also recently helped engineer and
spearhead campaigns alongside “traditional business and real
estate elites in an effort to oust some of its most progressive
leaders and undo its most progressive policies” Utilizing a network
of AstroTurf organizations, as Mission Local reported:
11 (Bliionaire-backed pressure groups® that
have mushroomed in San Francisco, excoriating
progressives for urban ills from drug-infested
streets to sclerotic housing production, one stands
head and shoulders above the rest.

Neighbors for a Better San Francisco Advocacy,
the group launched in 2020 and backed largely by
real estate and technology money, has in short
oorder become the most well-funded, top-spending
organization active in San Francisco politics.

it supplied the miajority of the spending to recall
then-District Attorney Chesa Boudin in 2022, and
was the No. 1 spender in the school-board recalls
that same year. Neighbors alone accounited for
more than one of every $10 spent in San Francisco
political campaigns between 2020 and 2024 — at
Jeast $8.7 million of $80.3 million total, according
t0 an analysis of campaign finance data.

The group, a “social welfare” nonprofit founded by
two Realtor lobbyists and backed by Republican
‘mega-donors, almost exclusively spends on faw-
and-order causes, backing tough-on-crime
policies and candidates far more than housing,
transit or other policy issues.

While the group was initially focused on
supervisorial races, it quickly expanded and
successfully funneled millions to recall the district
attorney, reverse criminal justice reforms, fight
alternatives to incarceration and bolster the police
department. 1}

In San Francisco, tech elites weaponized and manufactured hatred
of the houseless? to push through attacks on progressive policies
and elected officials, rolling back criminal justice reforms and
promoting a return to drug-war era “law and order,” which has
helped to accelerate gentrification and displacement in the bay
area. This embrace of reactionary policies in a progressive bastion
of California mirrors the growing support by many tech billionaires
for Trump, which is driven in part by ideology but centered around
shared class interests. As the Green European Journal™ wrote:

There are a few reasons why the tech right
is more politically active and visible now than in
previous US elections. For one, the group has
found political leadership that has been eager to
adopt its priorities on issues like Al and crypto (the
2024 Republican Party Platform includes plans? to
deregulate both industries)..The US technology
sector is facing more direct competition from
Chinese companies, which has helped create a
different investment environment with higher
interest rates, This has also caused priorities to
change, and venture capitalists are now putting
more money into defence companies such as
Anduril, the weapons maker backed by the
billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel. Government
contracts, especially in the areas of defence and
border security, provide a stable flow of income. As
Silicon Valley's relationship with the US
government changes, 5o too do the priorities of
the investor class. "

The emerging bloc of tech oligarchs? who saw the Biden
administration? as too committed to regulation and competition
within the capitalist marketplace?” see Trump as an instrument
who will cut regulations and taxes, rewarding tech corporations.
with lucrative government contracts, especially as Musk moves to
slash state spending and move towards privatization? Trump's
push to “dil, baby, dirill" is also central to their project of boosting
Al infrastructure? as Al requires massive amounts of energy* and
water ¥

In short, the technocrats bought and paid for Trump's presidency,
and they plan to cash in on everything: from expanded Al
production, laws that favor their companies and shield them from
regulations to profiting off mass detention, surveillance, and war.
And baby, business is good.

Trump and the Tech-Right

Such a process has already begun, as Trump has announced a
$500 billion deal! (mainly for data centers and power plants?) with
OpenAl, a move that has also led to tensions within the tech elite;*
as Musk has taken to trashing OpenAl, which he helped co-found,
and its CEO, Sam Altman, the creator of ChatGPT. At the border,
corporations like Palantir, which was “co-founded by the billionaire
Peter Thiel* [have] received more than $1 billion over the past four
years,” and are playing a central role in providing ICE with tech.
Meanwhile at the Pentagon? “Palantir and Anduri, two major
players in defense technology, are in talks with SpaceX, OpenAl,
Scale Al and Saronic to form a powerful consortium aimed at
reshaping how the U.S. government procures military technology,”
by pushing Al driven “defense technologies.” For the billionaire
elite, the future looks bright? “as venture capitalists bet on
increased federal spending on national security, immigration, and
space exploration.”

And while the war pigs eat their fill, social media companies are
hard at work providing the public with bread and circuses. Twitter
(despite struggling to bring in money’) remains a platform for
mass right-wing disinformation? as Facebook and Instagram,?
owned by Zuckerberg, have rolled back fact-checking'® while
censoring posts about abortion pills” following the inauguration of
Donald Trump, building on years of deplatforming anarchists and
antifascists,” silencing pro-Palestinian content* and pushing far-
Right conspiracy theories
It should be stated that another section of the Trump coalition,
represented by white nationalists like Laura Loomer and neo-
fascists like Steve Bannon, have publicly feuded with Elon Musk>
meekly criticizing the tech elite for wanting to create “techno-
feudalism.” Despite these attacks, its clear that such bark doesn't
have much juice, as Musk has moved to silence far-Right
detractors like Loomer on Twitter and has already set up shop at
the White House (although Susie Wiles seems to have frozen him
out for now). Bannon's words also ring hollow, as he has stated he
hopes to weaponize MusK's vast wealth to win electoral campaigns.
for neo-fascist parties across Europe and “flood the zone" with
disinformation. Some on the far-Right might whine about some of
their racialist ideological concerns (such as Musk's support for H-18
visas - which allow tech companies to hyper-exploit immigrant
workers) not aligning with the authoritarian class interests of the
technocrats, but in the end, they know who signs their checks.

‘The ideological forces at play within the tech elite are numerous
but it is important to form a coherent critique of them and
understand what animates them, and more importantly, the story
they are attempting to sell to others in elite circles® Like
Libertarians, they see the central contradiction in society as being
the supposed restraints placed on capital; be they in the form of
state regulations, taxes, or demands from workers in labor unions,
on strike, or in social movements. Unlike Libertarians however, they
Want to use the state to secure access to capital through contracts
and actively expand the repressive power of the security state. Like
the Alt-Right, they see this overall as an elite project, but while the
Alt-Right sought to reach out to upper-middle class college
students? bound for a career as a GOP staffer or writing for Tucker
Carlson, the Tech-Right desires to ‘liberate’ themselves as a class
from the supposed shackles of modern multicultural, democratic
society. And while they may embrace a totalitarian worldview, they
reject fascism as a mass movement for not being explicitly pro-
capitalist. Like the white nationalists, they see their project as an
liberal, anti-democratic, and anti-egalitarian movement, but while
neo-reactionary thinkers like Yarvin and Nick Land may embrace
racist pseudo-science, ultimately they want their dictatorship to

mimic the authoritarian structures already found within capitalist
society itself, not take capital out of the hands of elites and make it
work for the nation, much less, the people - even the white ones.
The future is here, you just weren't invited.

Understanding the Changing Terrain

It's important that we understand that Trump has come back to
power during a massive shift in the existing economic and political
terrain. As Jamie Merchant has mapped out! at The Brooklyn Rail,
the neoliberal order is coming to a close. Following the upheavals
of 2020, the global pandemic, and the attempted coup on January
6th, Biden rushed to pump money into Republican states? in the
hopes of securing social peace, and pushed back on the growing
power and influence of China® through various trade war
initiatives* This reality has been coupled with a new rush by
countries® to ramp up energy production to fuel AI° (despite the
growing threat of climate change) and increasing hostilities
between the US and BRICS aligned nations® Against this
backdrop, tech elites are throwing the old neoliberal order out the
window and hitching their wagon to the global far-Right. Lucky us.

But as we have seen here in the US, the Trump coalition is a
hodgepodge of various factions: from Christian Nationalists who
want a red white and blue theocracy, to post-Libertarians who
dream of a techno-dystopia. White Nationalists like Steven Miller
fantasize of mass deportations while working next to oligarchs like
Elon Musk, who calls for more immigrants to work in the US
through H-1B visas, while simultaneously boosting neo-Nazis.
Despite this ideological swamp, what remains clear is that the
central push of the Trump administration is to enrich elites
through slashing taxes on the wealthy, gutting regulations, and
securing massively lucrative corporate contracts. Someone’s
getting rich, but it sure as shit ain't us.

But this reality comes with the glaring contradiction that Trump
has long branded himself as a populist that would bring down the
cost of everyday items like food, energy, and rent. As the late
anarchist David Graeber pointed out Trump positioned himself as
a classic corporatist, who reached out to angry workers with the
beditime story that he would unite with them against financial
elites. In reality, Trump has already begun to walk back his claims®
that he would be able to bring down prices, but he's also
attempted to cement the idea in people’s heads that increased
energy production will lead to lower prices for working-class
people, despite all data to the contrary® In reality, this push for
increased fossil fuel production - by Trump's own admission - is
simply to power new Al data centers," and it is already causing
some to see a rise in their electricity bills? According to some
studies, consumers could soon see'* “their electricity bills increase
70% [due to] surging energy demand from Al data centers” Not to
mention, many economists have also warned that Trump's
proposed tariffs could also lead to a further spike in prices*, as egg
costs have skyrocketed™ due to an outbreak of bird flu amidst fears
of future pandemics, all under the watch of RFK'®

There is also the very real possibility that the Al bubble could just
simply, burst. As Forbes recently noted:

Il Andrei, AIML expert and cofounder of
Technosophics, was even much bolder in his
prediction, noting that the Gen Al bubble is right
on the verge of bursting. “The influx of money
pumped into Gen Al without clear ROI has inflated
expectations to unsustainable levels” Andrei
explained.

He cited American billionaire Tom Siebel, the
founder and CEO of C3.ai, who has been quoted”
saying “the market is overvaluing AI* and that
“there’s absolutely a bubble,” as an example of the
sentiment by many CEOs and experts across
Silicon Valley. Andrei also noted the growing
resistance to gen Al among professionals and the
public alike, which could further deflate the hype.

“There is a rising movement of ordinary people
from diverse professions, such as writers, artists,
computer scientists, engineers, and philosophers,
who found common ground against the gen Al
paradigm. This has raised awareness within the
general population of the irreconcilable issues
posed by technology and the fact that it is being.
forced onto people by billionaires and their
organizations,” he concluded. n

Beyond the increasing financial and environmental costs®
accelerated Al production also means creating technologies that
by the admission of their own creators? will automate out of
existence many jobs? - and not just white-collar ones. Many fast-
food chains are already working to automate out? their workforce
through Al from drive through windows® to inside the
restaurants themselves? This reality creates a paradox: Trump
barely squeaked out a win in 2024 through weaponizing growing
resentment against neoliberalism; an economic system defined by
corporate globalization and a declining standard of living?” But as
The National Burea of Economic Research wrote, “[Alutomation
technology has been the primary driver of US. income inequality
over the past 40 years..50% to 70% of changes in US. wages since
1980 can be attributed to wage declines among blue-collar
workers replaced or degraded by automation.” The push by Trump
to fuel the growth of Al will of course only accelerate this reality. In
short, the Bannonite fantasy of *America First” is simply snake-oil
let's call it for what it is, neoliberalism coming home to roost.
Pulling the Plug

Poor and working people face a multitude of crises: growing
wealth and social inequality, the increasing threat of climate
change, and the rising power of the authoritarian far-Right. Instead
of working to better humanity and attack systemic inequalities,
the billionaires have instead run in horror at rising anger against
them? pushing to centralize and control even more wealth and
Ppower’; weaponizing disinformation, elections, and existing
political systems in the process. This is why people like Elon Musk
need you to fear immigrants and trans people - because the
billionaires want you distracted while they rob you.

We need to realize the moment that we are in. We should be clear
about the contradictions and the opportunities that this creates for
potential organizing and intervention. We should also be resolute
in our understanding that Trump will not make the lives of poor
and working people better in the US; he is not a solution to the
problems caused by decades of neoliberalism, but the acceleration
of the capitalist forces that pushed it forward. Moreover, we should
work to understand and explain to people the overall project that
Trump and the Tech-Right are working to accomplish: that
building up the capacity of Al will not benefit us in the slightest.
Instead, we should point out the dramatic costs to the
continuation of industrial capitalism and the threats that Al in
particular represents.

Past struggles and social movements offer us many lessons. We
would be wise to study the interventions against tech in the 2010's
by groups like Counterforce in the bay area* as well as mass
ecological struggles in places like Germany against Telsa's push for
ecological struggles in places like Germany against Telsa's push for
expansion We can learn from Indigenous water protectors®
movements like Stop Cop City in Atlanta,’ and from Appalachians
fighting to stop pipeline projects® as we work to stop the
expansion of Al data centers - struggles® which are® already
breaking out" all over Strikes by workers at Amazon' and fast-
food companies can be used to build bridges and unite
campaigns’* Antifascists can help to map the connections
between white supremacists, the State, and the Tech-Right. The
Abolish ICE struggle’s and the BDS movement® can give s tools to
push back against tech companies profiting off of war, surveillance,
and the militarization of the border and mass detention. There is
lots of work to do, but we need to weave these struggles together
and explain to the broader population how they all connect.

And as previously stated, fights by local communities against Al
data centers" are already popping up across the social landscape™
and will only increase innumber? If people are looking for a way to
push back against the oligarchs and their techno-authoritarian
future, here is your chance. 2025 may be marked less by clashes
with Proud Boys marching through the streets, and more by local
communities banding together to stop Al infrastructure projects.

The Tech-Right is united, but less by their scattered reactionary
ideologies, and more by their shared class interests. They want us
divided, thinking we'll fight each other over the scraps they offer
us, or by generating the latest outrage on social media platforms
they control. We need to organize and build around our shared
class interests, reaching across divisions, around common goals
and struggles. We want homes for everyone. We want a livable
planet for our children. We want control over our labor. We want
to abolish the systems that are destroying us.

In the 19905, anarchists, labor unions, anti-sweatshop activists, and
environmental groups helped mobilize thousands in militant
protests against corporate globalization all under a Democratic
president. Using decentralized networks, independent media, and
affinity groups, they helped to create a growing movement, rooted
in anti-capitalist analysis and direct action. We did it before, we can
do it again.

The oligarchs want a king.
Let's give them a peasants’ revolt instead.
Endnotes

With the increasing censorship of Left wing and sympathetic
publications by the state and private entities with a monopoly on
online media, the new Trump administration having taken many of
these private entities under its wing, and the MAGA camp's
proclivity for attempting to rewrite not only history, but the events
we see with our very eyes, the following sources have been
archived for posterity and in an effort to combat both this
censorship and this war on reality, as the signs show they will only
increase. The full bibliography can be found at the link below, or
accessed through the QR code.

Memory is too a precious thing. May we remember the hard-
learned lessons of the past so that they may inform how we
confront the future. With love and solidarity, long live anarchy.

httpsi//cryptpadfi/doc/#/2/doc/view/25xpDHnoy4toedek
TZIC4Q41QNIE8PTAXSXe4RYAIQ/
"Poor and working people face a multitude of crises:
growing wealth and social inequality, the increasing
threat of climate change, and the rising power of the
authoritarian far-Right. Instead of working to better
humanity and attack systemic inequalities,' the
billionaires have instead run in horror at rising anger
against them,? pushing to centralize and control even
more wealth and power?; weaponizing disinformation,
elections, and existing political systems in the process.
This is why people like Elon Musk need you to fear
immigrants and trans people - because the billionaires
want you distracted while they rob you."