Summary
A critical profile of Curtis Yarvin published in The Nation during the 2022 midterm cycle, focusing on how Yarvin’s neoreactionary ideas migrated from fringe blogs into mainstream Republican politics. Centers on GOP Senate candidates Blake Masters and JD Vance adopting Yarvin’s “RAGE” (Retire All Government Employees) plan, funded by Peter Thiel’s $15 million in donations to each campaign. Includes extensive documentation of Yarvin’s racist writings that more sympathetic profiles tend to minimize.
Key Points
- Blake Masters (AZ) and JD Vance (OH) both favorably cited Yarvin’s “RAGE” plan — “Retire All Government Employees” — during their 2022 Senate campaigns.
- Peter Thiel donated $15 million to each of the Masters and Vance campaigns in the primary cycle alone.
- Thiel bankrolled Yarvin’s startup Tlon and the Seasteading Institute, a secessionist project.
- Thiel spoke at the 2016 GOP national convention during his infatuation with Trump.
- The article extensively documents Yarvin’s racist writings, including: praise for apartheid South Africa, calling slavery “a natural human relationship,” celebrating Thomas Carlyle (known for pro-slavery writings), and reading/linking to white nationalist blogs.
- Yarvin’s self-defense — he’s a “monarchist, not a fascist” — is presented as an unconvincing distinction.
- Corey Pein (who wrote the earliest expose of neoreaction in The Baffler) is quoted arguing that “the Cathedral” is “just an abbreviated enemies list inspired by personal aggrievement and a fascist agenda.”
- Pein’s key insight: the real threat isn’t the strength of liberal institutions but their weakness — “the dominance of capital” is what got us here.
- Despite Thiel’s funding, the Masters and Vance campaigns struggled to attract donors beyond Thiel himself — suggesting the Yarvin program may be more a product of “hothouse delusions of Silicon Valley moguldom” than organic grassroots support.
Newsletter Angles
- Money as ideology pipeline: The Thiel-to-Yarvin-to-candidate chain is the clearest documented example of how billionaire funding converts fringe ideology into mainstream political platforms. $15M per candidate is the price tag for mainstreaming anti-democracy.
- The RAGE-to-DOGE pipeline: Yarvin’s 2022 “RAGE” proposal (purge all government employees) is essentially the blueprint for what became DOGE under Trump’s second term. This is a direct intellectual lineage worth documenting.
- Racism laundering: The article demonstrates how Yarvin’s explicitly racist writings get sanitized through both-sidesing in mainstream profiles. The Vox interview cited here gave Yarvin one paragraph on racism followed by his denial — “classic both-sidesing of race hate.”
- Structural weakness, not Cathedral strength: Pein’s argument that the real story is institutional weakness, not some all-powerful Cathedral, is the strongest analytical counter to the Yarvin worldview.
Entities Mentioned
- Curtis Yarvin — primary subject; neoreactionary theorist
- Peter Thiel — billionaire funder; PayPal/Palantir co-founder; bankrolled Yarvin’s startup and political candidates
- JD Vance — 2022 Ohio Senate candidate backed by Thiel; cited Yarvin’s RAGE plan
- Blake Masters — 2022 Arizona Senate candidate backed by Thiel; cited Yarvin’s RAGE plan
- Steve Bannon — not directly mentioned but contextually relevant via Trump orbit
- Donald Trump — referenced as the product of a political system that Yarvinist ideas exploit
- Corey Pein — journalist who wrote earliest neoreaction expose in The Baffler
Concepts Mentioned
- Neoreaction (NRx) — the political movement Yarvin leads
- The Cathedral — Yarvin’s framework for liberal institutional power
- Dark Enlightenment — the broader intellectual movement
- RAGE (Retire All Government Employees) — Yarvin’s specific policy proposal adopted by Masters and Vance
- Algorithmic Radicalization — the broader ecosystem in which these ideas propagate
Quotes
“I am not a white nationalist, but I do read white-nationalist blogs, and I’m not afraid to link to them.” — Curtis Yarvin, quoted via Corey Pein’s Baffler piece
Notes
- Published in 2025 (originally dated context of 2022 midterms) by Chris Lehmann in The Nation, which has a clear left editorial perspective. The factual claims about Thiel’s donations and Yarvin’s writings are well-sourced.
- The article is more willing than most mainstream profiles to directly label Yarvin’s ideas as fascist.
- The Thiel-backed candidates’ fundraising struggles are a useful data point — suggests this ideology’s political viability depends heavily on billionaire patronage rather than popular support.
- Directly complements Curtis Yarvin Nick Land and the Dark Utopia of the New Radical Right, which provides the philosophical framework while this piece provides the political-money pipeline.
- The “RAGE” concept is especially relevant given the subsequent creation of DOGE under Trump’s second term — this is a documented intellectual precursor.