The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy, Gil Durán’s exposé of a new religion of “tech fascism” emerging from Silicon Valley, is making a big—and deserving—splash. Lawrence O’Donnell featured it on The Last Word (MS NOW) this past week, and it is a New York Times bestseller.
Durán, a journalist who has worked in the Bay Area for decades (including gigs with former governor Jerry Brown and also with Kamala Harris), has done his homework in telling the important story and value system driving the Silicon Valley billionaire network.
That “tech bro” cabal features Peter Thiel, sugar daddy to vice president J.D. Vance, for whom he bought a senate seat in Ohio with $13 million and who convinced Trump to put on the Republican ticket as his running mate. In return, his company Palantir has so far procured about up to $10 billion in contracts from ICE, the Pentagon, and more.
Thiel is also famous for preaching about the antichrist in numerous places across the globe. His version of the antichrist is anyone who wants to put guardrails on AI development or ask billionaires to pay their share of taxes. Or who pushes for doing something about climate change. Thus, Greta Thunberg is featured as a possible antichrist. (sic)
Being superrich, Thiel gets his messages out to vast audiences. When he offered a four-day course on the antichrist at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, two members of Friends of Creation Spirituality stood outside and offered copies of my book on the subject. Among Thiel’s devotees in attendance was a fellow who sought Thiel’s help in setting up a giant cross on the moon. (sic) I wrote about this event in previous DMs.
I challenged Thiel to a debate on the antichrist but heard nothing back.
Did you wonder why Trump freed ex-Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez from his 45-year prison sentence for smuggling 400 tons of cocaine into the United States from prison? The answer is in Durán’s book.
Do you wonder why AI billionaires are starting up whole new “Freedom Cities” even though it is a very expensive enterprise? The answer is in this book.
Do you wonder why Christian nationalists are starting up cities exclusively for white Christians? The answers are in this book.
Did you wonder why Trump wants to buy Greenland? The answers are in this book.
In many ways, this book affirms Roman Catholic historian Lord Acton’s observation in the 19th century (that interestingly was a response to Vatican I’s proclamation of papal infallibility): “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
It lays bare a 21st century version of this historic axiom. Silicon Valley’s immense wealth and therefore power is corrupting absolutely. Make no bones about it.
There was a reason why, at Trump’s second inaugural, Silicon Valley bros were front and center: Musk (who spent $278 million on Trump’s behalf for the election), Zuckerburg and Bezos. All of them have done very well since, garnering Dodge and Defense and ICE contracts worth multi-billion dollars. Money buys money and power buys power.
And SCOTUS has happily invited all in to poison our elections and politics. All is up for sale.
In this regard, I recommend the chapter on chief justice Roberts featured in the new book with a substantive title, Profiles in Cowardice. Roberts represents an ultimate low point in the history of the Supreme Court. Not even the notorious Dred Scott decision that contributed mightily to the Civil War outdoes Roberts in assuring chaos and democracide to the United States of America. Government of, by and for the billionaires. The antichrist is hiding in plain sight.
To ensure regulation of AI, Durán’s book ought to be required reading for every single congress person. It names the unprecedented CORRUPTION (which history is sure to write in caps) of MAGA and its many tentacles. Antichrist indeed.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click HERE.
Banner Image: Anchors on MS NOW news programs promote Gil Durán’s Nerd Reich book. Composite image from TheNerdReich website.
Queries for Contemplation
What are your feelings and thoughts about the agenda of the new religion emanating from Silicon Valley and present in today’s White House and beyond? Can the 2026 elections slow it down?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: Recognizing the Archetype of Evil in Our Time.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessing of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society.
The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved.
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance.
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors for Awakening the Sacred Masculine.
Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision For a New Generation.
Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson and Jen Listug: Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action.
Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality.
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6 thoughts on ““Power Corrupts & Absolute Power…” AI & Trump as Teammates”
Nausea, anxiety and strong criticism are my sensations, feelings and thoughts about the rise of fascism and especially of christofascism (a potent oxymoron), but I also believe that the individuals acting as leaders or sycophants in the current context are merely swollen lymph nodes, boils and pimples on the decaying body of our civilization (Kali Yuga on the Hindu timeline). If a new Stephan Zweig is alive today, he must be busy writing a new version of The World of Yesterday.
My answer to the question, “Can the 2026 elections slow it down?” is an uncertain “yes, if free elections take place,” but had the question been, “Can the 2026 elections stop it?”, I would have answered a confident, “no.”
Without confounding serenity and idleness, I find relief and peace in the fact that, as Ecclesiastes says: “One cycle goes, one cycle comes […] To everything there is a season…”. Therefore I plant trees whose shade I will never sit in.
It’s very frightening! Maintaining our Faith and Openness to Our Source Co-Creator Spirit of LOVE~Wisdom~Peace~Justice~Healing~Strength~Creativity~Compassion~Transformation~
Diverse Oneness… within and among Us, including collaboration with All physical/non-physical spiritual dimensions/Beings, Is more important than ever with Our Living Sacred Mother Earth/Cosmos in Our Souls human~Divine evolution in the Sacred Process of the Eternal Present Moment….
I think it’s possible that democrats could take the house and senate this year, but I don’t think that will do much. We’ve seen how ineffective and timid they can be – I don’t have hopes that anything will fundamentally change. We need radical change – not a minor course correction.
AI and the forces surrounding it are just capitalism doing what capitalism is designed to do. Finding or creating a need – then doing whatever is necessary to extract as much money and power from it as possible. Capitalism doesn’t care about our feelings.
The entire system we live in was designed by straight white male slaveholders to benefit themselves and people like them. We have never been a real democracy and we’re not now. We’ve been force fed so many lies we are now in a post-truth world. The truth is whatever you believe. It’s no longer objective and shared. But was it ever, really?
What we need is for the whole forest to burn down so something new can grow in its place. So many positive things are trying to sprout!
The drastic revolution some our our fellow responders seek is most unlikely to occur. What I pray and act for is a “blue wave” (optimistically a blue tsunami) on election day that will enable elected officials in congress and every state to change government at every level to work seriously for the common good of people and the environment. As God humbled Godself with creation and the Incarnation of Christ, all Christians must humbly join their souls in the Mystical Body in solidarity with their fellows who have the least, are most disregarded and excluded–even persecuted. Wolves must not be slaughtered en masse, LGBTQIs must be respected, not shunned, data centers must be strictly regulated, the utrarich and their corporations must be taxed so that our poor, sick, young, old and disabled have a better chance of a fulfilling life. With God, and people of good will *en cristo*, better and greater things will come about. Fear is unnecessary; what is needed is trust in God.
I agree. But it still terrifies me. It’s like MAGA, Trump and all his Christo-fascist supporters and the tech bros, really are the anti-Christ. It’s like all of them are in a death cult- they hate the earth and all its creatures, they see just as stuff to use as they have dominion. They hate anyone not white. The hate the poor and the sick (unless wealthy, of course). They hate the disabled. They hate indigenous peoples.. They hate science unless it can be used to get even richer and control others. They hate freedom, art, literature and democracy. They hate the courage of anyone who helps people, animals or the earth. They hate history, libraries, and knowledge. They hate empathy. The hate public education. No matter how they say they love God, it is clear they are a death cult. They are darkness itself. I will try, as Dr.Timothy Snyder says, to “be as courageous as you can”, pray a lot, and hold allies close.
Silicon Valley technologists discovered Rene Girard’s ideas about mimesis, scapegoating, and violence and now they are using the ideas to justify tech-driven ultra-violence. The Christian story about forgiveness and love is not part of their ultra-violent technology project. Instead they have found a way to turn everyone into a data point that can be surveilled, targeted by algorithms, and killed by drones.
The revenge, hatred, and envy underneath it all is ancient but the technology is new. Hopefully human solidarity will emerge to counter this dangerous technological assault on human dignity.