Secular Talk: Oligarchy! Biden Says The Quiet Part Out Loud In Farewell Address

I am fighting the oligarchy, with the entire Fortune 500, every major newspaper, every major university, the national K-12 school system, almost every foundation, almost every government bureaucrat, an entire political party, and every international organization beside me. ? https://t.co/lQJilZsNEK

— Marc Andreessen ?? (@pmarca) January 16, 2025

A Call to Arms Against the Oligarchy: A Political Manifesto

The oligarchy—a cabal of elites—has hijacked our democracy, exploiting the many to enrich the few. I am fighting to dismantle this system, and I am not alone. Across the American power structure, allies stand with me.…

— Marc Andreessen ?? (@pmarca) January 17, 2025

Ross Douthat’s interview with Marc Andreeson explains a lot.

From the tech bro perspective, Silicon Valley was a pillar of the Democratic coalition in the Clinton / Gore era that celebrated the internet and technology as engines of economic growth. This celebration of tech on the Left continued until Obama’s second term when the Great Awokening hit and a new wave of leftwing Millennial college graduates began to show up in Silicon Valley who were essentially Bernie Bros who supported both social revolution and an economic revolution against capitalism.

Gradually, the tech bros came under siege from their insane woke employees, activist groups and “journalists,” the EU, and finally from the Democratic Party itself which blamed Silicon Valley for being super spreaders of misinformation and disinformation which elected Trump. Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, for example, were repeatedly grilled and threatened by Congress. Silicon Valley responded to the political pressure coming from the Left and Democrats by censoring the internet. The highwater mark was the COVID era and the deplatforming of Trump himself from the internet.

Emboldened by the defeat of Trump in 2020, the Biden administration went for the jugular of its tech allies in Silicon Valley: the Biden DOJ is trying to break up Google, the Biden SEC has sued Elon for the acquisition of Twitter, the Biden DOJ went after Tesla, the DOJ went after Meta and, most importantly, the Biden administration was vowing to regulate AI and crypto out of existence.

The view of people like Krystal Ball and Kyle Kulinski is that the tech bros are Robber Barons whose companies need to be broken up, regulated and destroyed. Kyle Kulinksi says that Marc Andreeson is a criminal who committed fraud who deserves to be in jail. Their “allies” on the Left have gone from being people like Al Gore to people like Kyle Kulinski and Elizabeth Warren.

That’s why the tech bros switched sides. Trump doesn’t give a shit about crypto or AI and is happy to take their money and put them in charge of these things in his administration.