Silicon Valley fascism is waging war on democracy

“Billionaires have become radicalised against democracy,” American independent journalist Gil Durán tells the ABC. His warning to Australians is that the threat no longer rests with Donald Trump alone. “It’s not just Trump anymore. It’s a regime,” he says, one funded and strengthened by Silicon Valley oligarchs.

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Billionaires have become radicalised against democracy.

Durán’s new book, “The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy,” examines how technology billionaires and venture capitalists in the United States cultivated an aggressively anti-democratic ideology over decades. The book argues that these ideas are now being used to reshape the world through technology, with consequences beyond America.

The book became an instant New York Times bestseller after its release on August 18. It describes the United States as vulnerable to destruction because wealthy and influential people were willing to fund the country’s destabilisation, or quietly accept it. It also warns that democracy’s opponents pursue long-term strategies and possess enough money to operate indefinitely while seeking global control.

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It’s not just Trump anymore. It’s a regime.

Durán traces the roots of the movement to anti-government, anti-tax and anti-democratic ideas that developed in Silicon Valley during the 1980s and 1990s. He examines how books such as “The Sovereign Individual,” published in 1999, influenced technology entrepreneurs who sought tools capable of weakening national governments and their currencies. The book also recounts how some Silicon Valley figures came to describe democracy as a defective operating system that should be replaced by corporate dictatorship, while journalists including Paulina Borsook warned about the culture emerging from the industry’s online communities.

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Democracy’s enemies specialise in long-term strategies, and they have enough money to operate in perpetuity; they are scheming for global control.