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Is Thiel a neoreactionary? Trump is actually a great candidate for the neoreactionaries: an apolitical strongman with barely veiled ambitions for unchallenged

Is Thiel a neoreactionary? Trump is actually a great candidate for the neoreactionaries: an apolitical strongman with barely veiled ambitions for unchallenged sovereignty. I'm surprised Mencius Moldbug isn't on the delegate slate as well. FWIW, I've had some success persuading conventional Republicans to write in Hillary Clinton as a protest candidate in the upcoming California primary.

davidw 10y ago
I thought he was a Libertarian, actually. I'm pretty surprised - I would have thought the proto-fascism of Trump would be poison for that crowd. Not that they'd be big Hillary fans either, but stuff like "hey, let's not pay our debts" or building walls or targeting a particular religion... that's not small government stuff.
xyience 10y ago
Thiel is a libertarian. If you're up for reading... http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-i-am-not-libertarian.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-i-a... dives into some differences. The key one IMO being that no neoreactionary should actually vote. Trump is of course the obvious best candidate from one branch of the NRx perspective, but him taking office doesn't fundamentally change things. Another branch of NRx could argue Hillary is the "best", too, but the reasoning may be surprising. The underlying reason for which I think Thiel might support Trump is that Trump is ultimately a businessman, like Thiel, and one in the messy business of real estate development at that. (For a fun fairly anti-Trump piece that could also read as support: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/19/book-review-the-art-of-the-deal http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/19/book-review-the-art-of-...) A common NRx thread is that pretty much any chief executive (which includes military generals) would do a better job at being President (and even better King) than the more traditional list of possibilities like lawyers and professors.
- mikeyouse 10y ago
  > A common NRx thread is that pretty much any chief executive (which includes military generals) would do a better job at being President (and even better King) than the more traditional list of possibilities like lawyers and professors. Which is immediately disproven by the disastrous presidency of our first "MBA President" GWB. (See the fellating articles before people realized how awful he would be at managing the country[1]) [1] - http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2004/08/the_first_mba_president.html http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2004/08/the_first_mb...
  - harryjo 10y ago
    not pro or anti NRx ideas, but GWB is better described as a favored son of a political aristocracy -- his MBA and CEO are more a form of inherited wealth than business success of someone like Morgan or Thiel (or even Gates, who certainly to a leg up, but was also a successful businessperson)
    - xyience 10y ago
      Yeah, there are many qualifications one could make to the "give us a CEO-King, doesn't really matter which CEO". For instance one might disqualify anyone from Harvard, or only count CEOs that managed large companies and didn't drive them into the ground, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_life_of_George_W._Bush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_life_of_George_W.... is an interesting wiki page though.

davidw 10y ago

I thought he was a Libertarian, actually. I'm pretty surprised - I would have thought the proto-fascism of Trump would be poison for that crowd. Not that they'd be big Hillary fans either, but stuff like "hey, let's not pay our debts" or building walls or targeting a particular religion... that's not small government stuff.

xyience 10y ago

Thiel is a libertarian. If you're up for reading... http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-i-am-not-libertarian.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-i-a... dives into some differences. The key one IMO being that no neoreactionary should actually vote. Trump is of course the obvious best candidate from one branch of the NRx perspective, but him taking office doesn't fundamentally change things. Another branch of NRx could argue Hillary is the "best", too, but the reasoning may be surprising. The underlying reason for which I think Thiel might support Trump is that Trump is ultimately a businessman, like Thiel, and one in the messy business of real estate development at that. (For a fun fairly anti-Trump piece that could also read as support: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/19/book-review-the-art-of-the-deal http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/19/book-review-the-art-of-...) A common NRx thread is that pretty much any chief executive (which includes military generals) would do a better job at being President (and even better King) than the more traditional list of possibilities like lawyers and professors.

mikeyouse 10y ago
> A common NRx thread is that pretty much any chief executive (which includes military generals) would do a better job at being President (and even better King) than the more traditional list of possibilities like lawyers and professors. Which is immediately disproven by the disastrous presidency of our first "MBA President" GWB. (See the fellating articles before people realized how awful he would be at managing the country[1]) [1] - http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2004/08/the_first_mba_president.html http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2004/08/the_first_mb...
- harryjo 10y ago
  not pro or anti NRx ideas, but GWB is better described as a favored son of a political aristocracy -- his MBA and CEO are more a form of inherited wealth than business success of someone like Morgan or Thiel (or even Gates, who certainly to a leg up, but was also a successful businessperson)
  - xyience 10y ago
    Yeah, there are many qualifications one could make to the "give us a CEO-King, doesn't really matter which CEO". For instance one might disqualify anyone from Harvard, or only count CEOs that managed large companies and didn't drive them into the ground, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_life_of_George_W._Bush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_life_of_George_W.... is an interesting wiki page though.