From street militias to Silicon Valley monarchists, the end of democracy is no accident—it’s the plan.
Image composite credit: The Guardian/Getty Images
In a previous article, I argued that America’s current political crisis will not be resolved through elections. The institutions designed to safeguard our democracy—courts, laws, votes—have been captured, bypassed, or made irrelevant. But it’s time to name the deeper truth: what we’re facing isn’t accidental decay. It’s a deliberate campaign to destroy the system from within and replace it with something fundamentally authoritarian—driven by a fusion of Christian theocracy and fascist ideology.
This isn’t hyperbole. It’s the conclusion that emerges when you trace the through-line from the 1990s Patriot Movement to the rise of Trumpism, from the January 6 insurrection to school boards banning books and erasing queer and Black identities from the curriculum. It’s also what journalist David Neiwert tried to warn us about nearly three decades ago in his essay Ash on the Sills. We didn’t listen. Now we’re living in the world he feared.
Theocratic Fascism: A Homegrown Threat
Neiwert chronicled how anti-government extremists—fueled by Christian Identity theology and sovereign citizen ideology—took root in rural America. These groups believed the federal government was illegitimate, that God’s law overruled civil law, and that violence might be necessary to “take back” the country. In their eyes, the Constitution was not a democratic compact but a divine inheritance, corrupted by secularism and diversity.
Sound familiar? What once seemed fringe has become increasingly mainstream. Politicians now casually refer to America as a “Christian nation,” laws based explicitly on religious doctrine are being passed in red states, and books are being banned for violating Christian morality. Project Blitz has been quietly drafting and distributing theocratic bills across state legislatures for years. The far right doesn’t want to reform government—it wants to sanctify it.
From Militias to Monarchs: The Yarvinist Blueprint
While the street-level foot soldiers stormed the Capitol with crosses and Confederate flags, a quieter, equally dangerous current has been working through elite channels. Curtis Yarvin, a Silicon Valley software engineer turned political philosopher, has written extensively about the need to end democracy altogether. Under his pen name Mencius Moldbug, he advocates for a “neo-monarchist” state where a single executive rules without checks—a “CEO of America” who is immune to elections, courts, or public pressure.
Yarvin’s writings aren’t just fringe blog posts. They’ve been taken seriously by tech libertarians, Peter Thiel’s circles, and New Right intellectuals. His proposal overlaps seamlessly with theocratic ideology: replace messy representative democracy with a sovereign, elite ruler—someone who can “clean house” and restore “order.”
Yarvin doesn’t wave a Bible, but he provides the structure the religious far-right craves: absolute authority, no compromise, and the dismantling of liberal pluralism. It’s fascism in a tech-bro suit.
The Current Regime Isn’t Conservative. It’s Anti-Democratic.
The politicians in power today don’t want to govern. They want to rule. And they’re not interested in playing by the rules of democracy. They want to rewrite those rules entirely—or abandon them.
- Voting rights are being systematically rolled back.
- Gerrymandering and independent legislature theories are being used to bypass voters.
- Courts are being packed with ideologues who believe rights come from God, not law.
- Militias and hate groups are organizing more openly than at any point since the 1990s.
- And media ecosystems like Fox News and The Daily Wire provide a full-time propaganda arm that legitimizes it all.
The goal isn’t to fix the system. The goal is to bury it—and build something new atop its grave.
So What Do We Do?
Honestly? There may not be a clean solution. The institutions that once protected democracy are now being used to undermine it. But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless.
We need to:
- Name it: Stop pretending this is about “partisan division.” It’s about theocratic authoritarianism versus democratic pluralism.
- Document it: Preserve the receipts. Track the laws, expose the connections, archive the propaganda. Feel free to use the BitsRail Archive to contribute documents.
- Disrupt it: Fight on every level—school boards, state houses, platforms, and pulpits. Challenge theocratic language. Refuse authoritarian framing.
- Rebuild connection: Neiwert was right—we abandoned rural America to economic collapse and conspiracy. If we don’t offer a better story, fascism will.
We are not in a pendulum swing. We are in a dismantling. And the people holding the hammer believe they are ordained to wield it.
