Civil War
The fight for the future of the Republican Party has only just begun
Donald Trump will be the most powerful man in the world once again. His crushing landslide victory over the managerial bureaucracy that pushed Kamala Harris to the top of the Democratic Party (and will now push her under every available bus) will be attributed to many factors, but the most prominent will be his new partnership with the right-wing progressives. "A star is born," proclaimed the once and future President upon his stage in Mar-A-Lago, referencing the Technoking himself, Elon Musk. Musk, now probably the second most powerful man in the world (or, as Der Spiegel labeled him, Public Enemy Number Two), has become Trump's biggest donor, spokesman, campaigner, and confidant. Together, these two seem poised to remake America in their image, backed by a still-growing coalition of Silicon Valley superstars like Peter Thiel, David Sacks,
, , and Srinivasan. However, this new elite must exercise caution as they take up their responsibility to rule, lest their newfound friends—the classically conservative base of the Republican Party—turn on them. There are looming political and technological debates with a real chance of cleaving them away from the party they now preside over.
The first issue is immigration. While there is no disagreement on the right about how to handle illegal immigrants, America's approach to legal immigration has the potential to become the political disagreement that defines the Republican party over the next few years. The right is split into two camps, which can be roughly understood as the Nativists, or people who want to preserve (or potentially revert) the ethnic composition of America, and the Meritocrats, those who want to import the best and brightest from around the world into the United States as fast as possible. Silicon Valley has long championed the latter approach, often hiring foreign talent via H1-B visas as a way to cultivate the ambitious while also maintaining a high degree of control over the employees and keeping burn rates lower than they would be with an entirely American workforce. While I support high-skilled immigration into the United States (I am a naturalized American citizen), there remains a very real concern among those on the more nativist right that an appreciation for capitalism is not the only cultural concern that needs to be accounted for when welcoming in new neighbors. It is not uncommon to hear concerns from tech workers about supervisors who only seem to hire their co-ethnics or about joining teams that mostly communicate in Mandarin. Trump had to reconfigure his approach to this issue during his campaign, moving back a promise he made on the All-In podcast to staple a green card to every college degree issued to foreign students. Look at how the Canadians, who have now had to reduce their immigration quotas drastically, demonstrate how quickly such a system can be gamed and whether it has any culture-clashing side effects.
Another looming set of tensions will be all things biological. The right-wing progressives are much more accepting of abortion and surrogacy, as well as procedures such as IVF, euthanasia, artificial wombs, and embryo selection than the sizeable Christian majority of American conservatives. Many right-wing progressives will see Trump's victory as a path towards experimental progress, dismantling or dissuading the regulatory roadblocks from preventing new leaps and bounds in the science of reproduction. This is likely to enrage some of the classically MAGA crowd, who believe in large part that life begins at conception and that we should not "play God” by exploring the limits of life and death. More than a few people will see the inevitable technological advancements soon to be brought to the forefront of the cultural conversation (and many VC's cap tables) by the incoming barrage of eager biohackers as moral abominations. This is a near-intractable divide that will have to be managed carefully, as Trump is already obviously attempting, as seen in his approach to abortion. Whether many of the right's newest high-value donors will be comfortable with maintaining a difference of opinion over such crucial issues with their new clients remains to be seen. What is safe to say is that, eventually, someone will strut onto one of these landmine issues and set off a series of explosions that will fling shrapnel through conservative institutions of every level.
Speaking of shrapnel, the final potential fracture will be war or, at least, the degree of the United State’s continued involvement in wars. As America re-arms and re-affirms its military commitments to its allies, the growing divide on the right about how much support America should offer Israel and, to a lesser extent, Ukraine will be a source of tension. I expect this will be much less of an issue than immigration or biotech, but it must be navigated nonetheless. While the right-wing progressives are aligned in their support of Israel with much of the base, it should not be underestimated how much of a growing faction on the right has turned against the country. There is an even bigger faction amongst the Republican base that has no strong feelings about Israel or Ukraine one way or another; they don't want another tax dollar spent on war, not another drop of American blood spilled on foreign soil. Trump remains the only president to have served without involving America in yet another global conflict, and hopefully, this will remain true throughout his second term. While the right-wing progressives are involving themselves more in defense tech companies, as of right now, the only reason for this seems to be the old mantra of "peace through strength." Should Russia escalate in Ukraine, Israel come under more threat, or China finally move to cut off the supply of precious semiconductors flowing from Taiwan, this reservation could be revoked, and the creators of all these shiny new defense toys might find themselves at odds with the class of people they hope will operate them.
Caught in the middle of all these debates will be J.D. Vance — former Marine, former employee of Peter Thiel's Mithril Capital, quiet acolyte of the "New Right," and future Vice President. The prodigal son of both the right-wing progressives and the MAGA base, Vance has operated in both worlds, having gone from white trash to the White House without alienating either faction along the way. It's no understatement to say that the Hillbilly Elegy author has written himself into the history books as an authentically American rags-to-riches protagonist, one that seems poised to take over the leadership of the Republicans in 2028. The right-wing progressive backers who urged Trump to bring him on as VP, despite his public past as an avowed "Never Trumper," are certainly planning to spend the next four years paving the way to a two-term President Vance tenure. But for this to happen, Trump, Vance, and these new tech elites must be cautious of pushing for progress too quickly. They must respect the religious, classically conservative composition of their voting base. And, when issues do arise, they must show themselves willing to learn from those they have elected to stand beside. Otherwise, they will not be elected again.
If the right-wing progressives can bridge the divides within the Republican Party over the next four years, then today's election will be one of the most important in American history (if it is not already). A coalition of classical conservatives, independent "heterodox" centrists, and tech elites has the potential to reshape America politically, culturally, financially, and, perhaps, even spiritually. With Trump's second term, they have won themselves an opportunity. They can capitalize on this transition by building the bedrock of what could be a new American era - one that serves as an ideal for the rest of the world to strive towards. There is no shortage of intelligence and competence among this new elite, but what will ensure their success in the end will, as always, be character. Let's hope that wisdom and compassion will guide this new right-wing alliance forward through the inevitable challenges in our path. If it does, we may end up getting to Mars after all.
> A coalition of classical conservatives, independent "heterodox" centrists, and tech elites has the potential to reshape America politically, culturally, financially, and, perhaps, even spiritually.
BTW, this is not a new coalition. It's basically the old Reagan-Bush coalition.
Keen insights and spot on regarding areas of conflict between the Right Wing Silicon Valley donors and MAGA workers: tech immigration, fertility tech, and war tech application (war).