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Washington Post
3 days ago
- Health
- Washington Post
Gay history was made in D.C. At times, it was dispiriting — but also uplifting.
1. Lafayette Square At night during the Roaring Twenties, men strolled the 'old square' and sat in the benches under the grand magnolias and blossoming crabapples of Lafayette Square, across from the White House. Their felt hats slightly lowered, they locked eyes with others looking for something that couldn't be sought in the light of day 100 years ago. 'It happened like this: I went to Lafayette Square and found a seat in the deep shade of the big beech. It was the best bench in the park,' an author with the pen name Jeb Alexander wrote on Aug. 23, 1920, in a diary chronicling gay life in D.C. A man sat down beside him, 'in a green suit with a blue dotted tie. He has beautiful eyes and sensuous lips. He wants to become a diplomat …' The nation's capital was quietly a gay mecca in the early part of the 20th century, when LGBTQ people closeted in their small towns escaped to work for the government. The New Deal expanded the federal workforce, and the nation's capital became a city for fresh starts. That changed when Lt. Roy Blick was promoted to head of the vice squad in the D.C. Police Department. On June 19, 1947, the Evening Star reported Blick's arrest of 41 men after a 'routine cleanup' of Lafayette Square. Lt. Roy E. Blick was head of the D.C. police's vice squad. He oversaw the arrests of hundreds of gay men and lesbians. (Anthony Camerano/AP) That year, the U.S. Park Police began a 'Sex Perversion Elimination Program' and regularly updated President Harry S. Truman on the arrests. In 1948, Congress passed D.C. Public Law 615, 'for the treatment of sexual psychopaths,' which cleared a path for the arrest and punishment of LGBTQ people in Washington. The growing arrest list became fodder for blackmail and purges known as the Lavender Scare, which was named for Sen. Everett Dirksen's (R-Illinois) label for gay men in 1952 — 'lavender lads.' The Lavender Scare mirrored McCarthyism's Red Scare targeting suspected communists, but its impact was larger. 'While more widely remembered by history, the Red Scare produced few results,' the National Park Service wrote. '... Conversely, the oft-forgotten Lavender Scare victimized Americans in their workplace and beyond for the latter part of the 20th century.' Story continues below advertisement Advertisement In 1953, a 25-year-old University of Chicago student was arrested after allegedly soliciting an undercover detective. It was Lester C. Hunt, Jr., the son of Sen. Lester Hunt (D-Wyoming). Hunt had been publicly feuding with Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin). Senate historians said Hunt called the Red Scare architect a 'liar' and 'opportunist.' The charges against Hunt's son were dropped. But two Republican senators agitated to have them restored and Hunt Jr. was tried and fined, according to a letter the son wrote to the U.S. attorney general in 2015 asking for a formal review of his father's case. The senators told Hunt that his son's conviction 'would become a major campaign issue' unless he dropped his reelection campaign, according to the Senate's official history. Hunt abruptly withdrew from the race, citing health reasons. Sen. Lester Hunt (D-Wyoming) killed himself in 1954 after his son was arrested and outed in the Lavender Scare. (William J. Smith/AP) But Hunt believed the torment of his son and the election wouldn't end because he dropped out of the race, according to Senate historians. On June 19, 1954, he hid a .22 Winchester rifle under his coat and headed to his Senate office. Minutes after he got there, he sat at his desk and shot himself in the right temple. McCarthy was censured by Congress later that year. The Hunt family didn't speak about the affair until 2013, when Wyoming historian Rodger McDaniel interviewed Lester Hunt Jr. for a biography of his father, 'Dying for Joe McCarthy's Sins —The Suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt.' 2. The Mattachine Society Gay rights activists Jack Nichols, Frank Kameny and Lilli Vincenz protest with others outside the White House in 1965. (Bettmann Archive) It was Frank E. Kameny, a suit-wearing scientist in D.C., who led the first public protest of discrimination against LGBTQ people in the United States. A Harvard University graduate, World War II veteran, astronomer with the Army Map Service and professor at Georgetown University, Kameny was quiet and studious. Then, the federal government fired him for being gay. And a radical was born. On April 17, 1965, Kameny gathered 10 people to take a public stand. The men had crewcuts and suits, the women wore dresses and stockings, and they picketed outside the White House at 4:30 p.m. — quitting time at federal offices. They were fighting President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Executive Order 10450, which made ruining the lives of queer people a government policy in 1953. The order said 'sexual perversion' was grounds for outing and firing federal employees. Thousands were targeted — including Kameny, who was fired in 1957. His appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court. He wrote dozens of letters to lawmakers and presidents. A 1950 report concluded that gay people were "unsuitable for employment in the Federal Government." (Records of the U.S. Senate) In 1961, Kameny founded the D.C. branch of the Mattachine Society, an organization with several chapters across the United States that was named for the French society of masked dancers who criticized social norms with pointed satire. Although other chapters were primarily support groups, Kameny turned his into a vehicle for radical activism. His brick Colonial house in Northwest Washington became the national headquarters for a growing civil rights movement. At first, it was mostly White and male. Then women like Eva Freund joined the group and bucked the sexism within it. Eva Freund is one of the last surviving original members of the D.C. Mattachine Society. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) 'The men in Mattachine thought the women were just there to take care of them,' Freund said in a 2019 interview with The Washington Post. She became fluent in Robert's Rules of Order, ensuring that lesbians were heard and acknowledged. They printed newsletters and pamphlets and continued their protests outside the State Department and Pentagon. They joined marches in Philadelphia and New York. In 1971, Kameny became the first openly gay American to run for a seat in Congress. He didn't win, but in 1973 he advocated for the passage of Title 34, the nation's first citywide human rights ordinance making it illegal to discriminate against LGBTQ people in the areas of employment, education and housing. 3. Gay Corner In Congressional Cemetery The grave of Leonard P. Matlovich, the first gay service member to fight the military's ban on homosexuality. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post) A cluster of tiny rocks always sits atop Leonard Matlovich's headstone in Washington's Congressional Cemetery, placed as prayers and gratitude by visitors. It's a pilgrimage made by thousands. The engraving in black granite reads: 'WHEN I WAS IN THE MILITARY THEY GAVE ME A MEDAL FOR KILLING TWO MEN AND A DISCHARGE FOR LOVING ONE.' Matlovich was a closeted airman who had earned a Bronze Star and Purple Heart until March 6, 1975 — the day he handed his Air Force commander a letter. 'After some years of uncertainty, I have arrived at the conclusion that my sexual preferences are homosexual,' it began. Matlovich had been inspired by Frank Kameny and offered to be the test case to challenge bigotry in the military. (Doug Chevalier) That fall, Matlovich's face was on the cover of Time magazine. 'I Am a Homosexual,' the headline stated. Matlovich had been inspired by Frank Kameny's activism and offered himself as the test case to challenge bigotry in the military. They carefully crafted Matlovich's coming-out letter. Despite his combat medals and continued exemplary service, Matlovich was ruled unfit for the military and discharged. (The Air Force was forced by court order to reinstate him and offer back pay, but he didn't return to the military.) Instead, became a vocal advocate for gay rights over the next decade. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement In his final act, Matlovich created what may be the only LGBTQ section of a cemetery in the world. And it started as a wry joke. A stone's throw from what is now known as Gay Corner is the grave of former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who died in 1972. Hoover led a program compiling thousands of pages of information on the sex lives of Washington's powerful. Near his plot is that of his close adviser, Clyde Tolson. There has been speculation that the two were more than co-workers, but historians have never found evidence to confirm the rumors. Matlovich was buried at Congressional Cemetery in 1988 after his death from AIDS-related complications. (Ira Schwartz/AP) Matlovich bought two plots near Hoover and Tolson. He died in 1988 at 44 after being diagnosed with AIDS. 'It was his way of having the last laugh,' said A.J. Orlikoff, Interim Executive Director of the cemetery, "forcing FBI Agents visiting Hoover's grave to walk past the grave of someone so openly gay.' The corner has since expanded to be the final resting place of dozens more LGBTQ Washingtonians. It's a popular stop on gay history tours and the occasional setting for same-sex weddings. 4. The Furies Collective The June-July 1972 edition of The Furies, a radical magazine that was published by a lesbian collective. (The Furies Collection, courtesy Rainbow History Project Archives) 'We call our paper The FURIES because we are also angry,' Ginny Z. Berson wrote in 1972, in the inaugural edition of a radical, feminist newspaper run out of the basement of a brick rowhouse on Capitol Hill. 'We are angry because we are oppressed by male supremacy,' Berson wrote. 'We are working to change the system which has kept us separate and powerless for so long.' The Furies Collective was a group of 12 lesbians who said it all out loud. Their newspaper, in an age of mimeographs and hand delivery, reached 5,000 readers across the nation. They organized meetings and ran workshops on car repair and self defense. They had film festivals and softball games. They wanted nothing to do with men and little to do with straight women. 'We considered ourselves a revolutionary cadre, and our intention was to overthrow the patriarchy and capitalism,' Berson, a member of the collective, said in a recent interview. D.C. was 'a hotbed of political activism' in the early 1970s, and the lesbian feminists Berson met led to an epiphany. 'You mean, I don't have to live my life in order to please men?' Berson said. 'It was astonishing. It was a liberation.' The rowhouse in Southeast D.C. was perfect, with room for wide layout tables for publishing and space for meetings. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement 'Women have been kept down in many ways,' Lee Schwing wrote in one of the pieces about her new karate habit and how her strong, thickening torso and sculpted arms challenged the beauty standards of the day. 'Women are rarely encouraged to be strong, because it is undesirable to men,' she wrote. The collective adopted an ethos that 'any woman who's sleeping with a man is basically sleeping with the enemy.' Berson recently laughed a little at that radical thought: 'We were a little extreme.' 5. Gay Clubs Revelers dance at the ClubHouse, a gathering space for Black gay men in D.C. that attracted gay and straight celebrities. (Courtesy of John Eddy) Washington was a buttoned-up, bureaucrat's world during the day. But at night, the scene was vibrant. At least 200 LGBTQ clubs have operated over the past 100 years in D.C. The Rainbow History Project, an organization that has amassed a thorough history of LGBTQ D.C. history, plotted the often-segregated clubs on its mapping archive. The Chicken Hut was the hot spot for gay White Washington in the 1950s. A block away from the White House, it operated from 1948 until the 1970s, hosting drag shows and piano tunes. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement For queer Black Washington, discrimination was twofold: The government was actively hunting homosexual men and women in workplaces, bars and parks at a time when racial discrimination was still codified by federal law. In 1953, a rowhouse on Kenyon Street NW in Columbia Heights became a word-of-mouth house party and sanctuary for gay Black men. It opened its doors wide to the public in 1957 as a club called Nob Hill. When it closed in 2004, it was acknowledged as one of the longest-operating LGBTQ bars in the nation. But nothing bumped like the The ClubHouse in the 1970s. Inspired by New York City's Loft and Studio 54, it was the epicenter of Chocolate City's gay nightlife, tucked in a residential neighborhood near a high school. At the time, Black people 'got hassled getting into the white clubs. You needed two or three IDs and all of this stuff,' said Kwabena Rainey Cheeks, who was working construction when John Eddy and other friends recruited him to turn a gutted commercial garage into one of the hottest scenes on the East Coast. In the 1970s, the scene flourished in the D.C. warehouse district surrounding South Capitol Street. Cinema Follies was where largely closeted, queer men came for adult films. It was equally popular with police for raids and arrests, becoming a rallying point for activists who fought police profiling. In 1977, a fire engulfed the theater and killed nine people. A former Marine and Republican congressman outed themselves as survivors. It took days to identify the victims. Many of them were married with children. There was a pastor, a congressional aide, an Army major, a hairdresser and an economist with the World Bank. 6. The National Mall The entire AIDS quilt was on display from Oct. 11 to 13, 1996, on the National Mall. It contained more than 48,000 panels. (Frank Johnston/The Washington Post) The AIDS epidemic hit the United States in 1981, the year President Ronald Reagan took office. Washington was frigid to the gay community. 'If we take a look at the Federal Government's response to the AIDS crisis it leads unavoidably to the conclusion that within this administration, there is a sharp contrast between the rhetoric of concern and the reality of response,' Virginia Apuzzo, executive director of the National Gay Task Force, said during a congressional hearing in 1983. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement A year later, a gaunt Rock Hudson came to the White House for a party. Nancy Reagan was alarmed by his appearance and wrote him a letter urging him to get a mole she spotted on his neck checked out. He was diagnosed with AIDS, and the Reagans distanced themselves from him until his death in 1985, according to Kate Andersen Brower's biography, 'Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit & Glamour of an Icon.' In Washington, the Gay Men's VD Clinic — later rebranded the Whitman-Walker Clinic — opened a full-time AIDS clinic by 1986, following similar facilities in San Francisco and New York. The Whitman-Walker Clinic — first known as the Gay Men's VD Clinic — opened its doors to Washingtonians in 1986. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post) The federal government finally began to step up in the wake of a 1986 report issued by the National Academy of Sciences titled 'Confronting AIDS.' Public health campaigns reached out to the gay community with condom-promoting posters featuring scantily clad men. That riled some on Capitol Hill. The AIDS quilt, shown above in 1996, was officially unveiled on the Mall in October 1987 with panels honoring 1,920 victims. (Larry Morris/The Washington Post) Then-Sen. Jesse Helms (R-North Carolina) said the disease was a result of 'unnatural' and 'disgusting' behavior. But Helms's 1987 purity campaign was eclipsed when a memorial the length of two football fields was unfurled on the nation's front lawn on an October morning. The AIDS quilt, with panels honoring 1,920 victims of the disease, showed the nation the tangible scope, size and humanity of the crisis. The massive, growing quilt was unfolded on the National Mall several more times. 'I can't do anything for the patients but watch them die,' Suzanne Phillips, a medical student from Brooklyn, told The Washington Post in 1987 as she watched the quilt being unfurled. 'I can't stand it anymore.'
CNN
4 days ago
- Business
- CNN
Curtis Yarvin wants to replace American democracy with a form of monarchy led by a ‘CEO'
Meet the man who has been advocating to replace American democracy with an all-powerful monarchy — and who has the ear of some of the most important people in Washington and Silicon Valley. Curtis Yarvin is a computer engineer and entrepreneur turned political theorist, deemed the father of 'dark enlightenment' — a school of thought that the best path forward for the United States is to consolidate as much power as possible in the chief executive and do away with most of the federal government (and most state governments) as we know it. Yarvin has for years been a fixture of right-wing circles around Silicon Valley and counts tech billionaires Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen among his most prominent readers. He has a popular Substack with tens of thousands of subscribers and in recent years he's been name-checked by Vice President JD Vance and appeared with popular right-wing podcasters Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk. But in a lengthy conversation with CNN in Lafayette Square, just outside the White House in mid-May, Yarvin said his greatest power may lie in the future of politics, where he's finding a growing audience, including some younger Trump administration officials as well as those disillusioned with democracy's inability to solve big problems. 'The focus of authority is absolutely necessary to run any integrated system efficiently,' Yarvin said in the interview, summarizing why he believes such a monarch would be best for the country. 'You could probably put any of the Fortune 500 CEOs in (the White House) and say, 'OK, you're in charge of the executive branch, fix this,' and they'd probably do fine. They wouldn't be Hitler or Stalin.' Yarvin's rise is alarming scholars and experts on democracy and dictators, who note with concern how his ideas about a strongman are gaining traction among young people. In 2012, more than a decade before DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) became a known acronym, Yarvin advocated on his blog and in speeches for a radical reshaping of the federal government with an idea that he dubbed RAGE, or Retire All Government Employees. In 2022, he laid out his idealized version of how the Trump administration could gain 'absolute sovereignty' for the good of the country with teams of 'ninjas' who would 'drop into all the agencies in the executive branch' and 'seize all points of power, without respect for paper protections' and in many cases, in defiance of court orders. If that sounds familiar, it's because it is strikingly similar to what DOGE has been doing in Washington — although not to the extent Yarvin wishes. And while Yarvin's ideas seem horrifying to those who believe in a liberal democracy with checks and balances, Yarvin says democracy has proven too weak to address America's biggest problems and that his ideas for a new system of government are necessary for the country's survival. In certain corners of Silicon Valley or the very-online right, Yarvin is a household name. Thiel has helped to fund some of his business ventures, such as Urbit, an open source software project that seeks to decentralize the internet with each user hosting their own personal server. Andreessen has called Yarvin a 'good friend.' Vance has personally cited Yarvin's work in interviews. 'There's this guy, Curtis Yarvin, who's written about (how to root out certain ideologies). So one is to basically accept this entire (country) is going to fall in on itself,' Vance told the podcaster Jack Murphy in 2021. 'The task of conservatives right now is to preserve as much as can be preserved, and then when the inevitable collapse of the country comes, ensure that conservatives are able to sort of help build back the country in a way that's actually better. … I think that's too pessimistic and too defeatist. I tend to think that we should seize the institutions of the left and turn them against the left.' While Yarvin denies he is the 'mastermind of the Trump administration,' and told CNN he is not in close contact with Vance, he says he is closer with certain Trump administration officials like Michael Anton, the director of policy planning at the State Department, who has known Yarvin for years and featured him on a podcast he hosted in 2021 while at The Claremont Institute. Yarvin says he has even made a staffing recommendation. The State Department and White House did not respond to a request for comment. Thiel, Andreessen, Vance and Anton have all publicly indicated they don't necessarily accept or follow all of Yarvin's theories — but they are listening to him. An advisor to Vance denied the vice president has a close relationship with Yarvin, saying the two have met 'like once.' Thiel, who did not respond to a request for comment, told The Atlantic in 2023 he didn't think Yarvin's ideas would 'work' but found him to be an 'interesting and powerful' historian. And earlier this year, Andreessen, who also did not respond to a request for comment, posted on X that one can read 'Yarvin without becoming a monarchist.' Yarvin also claims to be on Signal chats with members of the Trump administration and other influential individuals across politics, business and tech. But Yarvin says his biggest sway is with the people who will be in positions of power in a few more years. 'I think most of my influence on the Trump administration is less through the leadership and more through the kids in the administration, who read my kind of stuff because my audience is very young,' Yarvin said. 'I think that actually one of the great benefits of the Trump administration is … bringing in the kind of new fresh blood and people, like, seeing the way that DC works.' In Yarvin's utopia, the monarch, who he says should operate like a startup CEO, would be held accountable by some sort of corporate board — but not by the average citizen. 'I don't believe in voting at all,' he told the New York Times in January. According to Yarvin's worldview, the cadre of elite institutions like academia and media (what he deems 'The Cathedral') should be done away with, while the worthy and smart individuals inside those institutions should be brought into the fold of the new order. When asked how to prevent any leader from turning into the next Hitler or Stalin, Yarvin argues that most examples of monarchies 'don't generally see a Holocaust' and that today's general population doesn't have the same type of 'barbarism' of the past. 'You need to concentrate that power in a single individual and then just hope somehow that this is the right individual, or close to the right individual,' Yarvin says. The idea that such a strongman leader is worth the risk deeply alarms scholars and experts on democracy and dictatorship, some of whom find Yarvin such a 'distasteful character' that they refused to speak with CNN about him. But others say he needs to be addressed because of his growing popularity. Harvard University professor Danielle Allen, an expert on democracy and political theory, said at a debate with Yarvin earlier this month at the Harvard Faculty Club that 'it is not the case that autocracies over the course of history have delivered good for human beings, they have consistently violated freedom.' 'No absolute power is ever accountable,' she said. 'Absolute power inevitably corrupts, tramples on, persecutes freedom. So the question that we have right now is not whether to have democracy and protection of freedom, but only how to have that.' Daniel Treisman, a professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, told CNN that while some authoritarian states may initially have rapid growth, empirical evidence shows 'democracy increases GDP per capita by about 20% in the long run, mostly through improved education and health, and reduced social unrest.' And while a modern American dictator 'might not introduce a Holocaust,' Treisman warned more likely the country would see 'a corrupt and irresponsible oligarchy, with a declining economy and massive capital flight.' And, Treisman notes, without widespread elections, the opposition is more likely to resort to violence, where leaders become more repressive. 'The leader may start off quite well-intentioned, but the dangers inherent in his position drive him towards tougher controls,' Treisman said. Yarvin speaks admiringly of El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, whose government suspended some civil rights and arrested roughly 100,000 people in recent years in what Bukele said was a mass crackdown on gangs. Those moves triggered 'concern' from the US State Department under the Biden administration and condemnations from human rights groups who say many of those arrested were detained on tenuous grounds, like for having a certain tattoo. But Yarvin said a loss of due process and mass arrests is worth the results, if it means one can move more safely on the streets. 'You have to maximize the benefit of society,' Yarvin said, noting 'snap decisions' must be made about whether to fire a weapon or detain a person. 'In order to create overall order, those decisions have to be made quickly, in a way that is often erroneous.' Yarvin, who isn't an academically trained historian, writes the third most popular newsletter on Substack's 'History' leaderboard, after podcaster Darryl Cooper and Columbia University historian Adam Tooze. Yarvin's nontraditional background and renegade fringe ideas are what makes him appealing to a new generation. After her debate with Yarvin, Allen wrote in the Wall Street Journal that she chose to participate because his ideas have followers and 'that's what makes them dangerous.' 'I've been surprised by Mr. Yarvin's influence among Harvard students,' she wrote. Tickets to the debate sold out quickly, Harvard Junior Charles DeMatteo, who helped to organize the event as the then-chair of the John Adams Society, told CNN in an interview. 'I know a lot of my friends who want to be political, take (Yarvin) very seriously,' he said. It's not like Yarvin has Ivy Leaguers following his every direction, DeMatteo said, and he believes many only agree with parts of Yarvin's theories. But DeMatteo said that for a generation that spent several of their formative years of high school in Covid-era lockdowns, Yarvin mirrors their disillusionment in institutions, one that is not reflected in their college courses. 'I know that this idea (of a powerful central leader) is becoming far more popular among younger people because they've seen a dysfunctional government. They've seen what happens in particular in local institutions that they believe are hostile to them, and they think this is really a solution that hasn't been tried,' DeMatteo said. Yarvin's writings, perhaps unsurprisingly, have also sparked controversy. In 2015, Yarvin's appearance at a software engineering conference was canceled after uproar over his writings on race. While Yarvin denies being a racist and told CNN he believes a Black person could easily be the American monarch he dreams of, he has written that 'I am not exactly allergic' to White Nationalist arguments and has argued that Black people had better lives under slavery in the US than in the immediate years after. Asked by CNN if he believed some races are better than others, Yarvin said he believes some races are inherently better at certain skills than others, but that he 'absolutely' believes a Black person could be the sovereign to one day lead the United States. Yarvin argues certain races have different 'averages' of skill set whether it be for chess, basketball or governance. Yarvin rejects the 'blank slate theory' that humans are entirely shaped by their experiences, and said there is no way one could 'kidnap full-blooded Australian Aboriginal babies from the outback and bring them to Brooklyn and raise them in the Ethical Culture Society and send them to the Dalton School and everything would just be hunky-dory.' Asked if he believes certain races would be better at governing than others, Yarvin said certain races may better 'at doing anything, but those are only averages, and those averages are very, very loose.' Even with some parallels between the Trump administration's actions and Yarvin's writings, he says he is rather disappointed. The administration, he says, is barely scratching the surface of the change that he thinks actually needs to be done. 'I think that if you basically take anything complicated and you try to do 10% … you're probably not going to result in anything good,' Yarvin says. Some of the Trump administration's moves have led to outright scorn by Yarvin – such as their detaining of foreign students in the US and deporting them for their opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 'If the administration's mind is clear,' Yarvin wrote this year, it would not do stupid things 'like vanning grad students, which are populist wins but elitist losses.' Yarvin says he has no plans to enter politics and is focusing on his company Urbit, as well as growing his Substack. 'I'm just out there in the marketplace of ideas, and I think the marketplace of ideas definitely expanded in the last 10 years,' Yarvin said. 'My goal is for people to just live in, to live in the real world.'
CNN
4 days ago
- Business
- CNN
Curtis Yarvin wants to replace American democracy with a form of monarchy led by a ‘CEO'
Meet the man who has been advocating to replace American democracy with an all-powerful monarchy — and who has the ear of some of the most important people in Washington and Silicon Valley. Curtis Yarvin is a computer engineer and entrepreneur turned political theorist, deemed the father of 'dark enlightenment' — a school of thought that the best path forward for the United States is to consolidate as much power as possible in the chief executive and do away with most of the federal government (and most state governments) as we know it. Yarvin has for years been a fixture of right-wing circles around Silicon Valley and counts tech billionaires Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen among his most prominent readers. He has a popular Substack with tens of thousands of subscribers and in recent years he's been name-checked by Vice President JD Vance and appeared with popular right-wing podcasters Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk. But in a lengthy conversation with CNN in Lafayette Square, just outside the White House in mid-May, Yarvin said his greatest power may lie in the future of politics, where he's finding a growing audience, including some younger Trump administration officials as well as those disillusioned with democracy's inability to solve big problems. 'The focus of authority is absolutely necessary to run any integrated system efficiently,' Yarvin said in the interview, summarizing why he believes such a monarch would be best for the country. 'You could probably put any of the Fortune 500 CEOs in (the White House) and say, 'OK, you're in charge of the executive branch, fix this,' and they'd probably do fine. They wouldn't be Hitler or Stalin.' Yarvin's rise is alarming scholars and experts on democracy and dictators, who note with concern how his ideas about a strongman are gaining traction among young people. In 2012, more than a decade before DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) became a known acronym, Yarvin advocated on his blog and in speeches for a radical reshaping of the federal government with an idea that he dubbed RAGE, or Retire All Government Employees. In 2022, he laid out his idealized version of how the Trump administration could gain 'absolute sovereignty' for the good of the country with teams of 'ninjas' who would 'drop into all the agencies in the executive branch' and 'seize all points of power, without respect for paper protections' and in many cases, in defiance of court orders. If that sounds familiar, it's because it is strikingly similar to what DOGE has been doing in Washington — although not to the extent Yarvin wishes. And while Yarvin's ideas seem horrifying to those who believe in a liberal democracy with checks and balances, Yarvin says democracy has proven too weak to address America's biggest problems and that his ideas for a new system of government are necessary for the country's survival. In certain corners of Silicon Valley or the very-online right, Yarvin is a household name. Thiel has helped to fund some of his business ventures, such as Urbit, an open source software project that seeks to decentralize the internet with each user hosting their own personal server. Andreessen has called Yarvin a 'good friend.' Vance has personally cited Yarvin's work in interviews. 'There's this guy, Curtis Yarvin, who's written about (how to root out certain ideologies). So one is to basically accept this entire (country) is going to fall in on itself,' Vance told the podcaster Jack Murphy in 2021. 'The task of conservatives right now is to preserve as much as can be preserved, and then when the inevitable collapse of the country comes, ensure that conservatives are able to sort of help build back the country in a way that's actually better. … I think that's too pessimistic and too defeatist. I tend to think that we should seize the institutions of the left and turn them against the left.' While Yarvin denies he is the 'mastermind of the Trump administration,' and told CNN he is not in close contact with Vance, he says he is closer with certain Trump administration officials like Michael Anton, the director of policy planning at the State Department, who has known Yarvin for years and featured him on a podcast he hosted in 2021 while at The Claremont Institute. Yarvin says he has even made a staffing recommendation. The State Department and White House did not respond to a request for comment. Thiel, Andreessen, Vance and Anton have all publicly indicated they don't necessarily accept or follow all of Yarvin's theories — but they are listening to him. An advisor to Vance denied the vice president has a close relationship with Yarvin, saying the two have met 'like once.' Thiel, who did not respond to a request for comment, told The Atlantic in 2023 he didn't think Yarvin's ideas would 'work' but found him to be an 'interesting and powerful' historian. And earlier this year, Andreessen, who also did not respond to a request for comment, posted on X that one can read 'Yarvin without becoming a monarchist.' Yarvin also claims to be on Signal chats with members of the Trump administration and other influential individuals across politics, business and tech. But Yarvin says his biggest sway is with the people who will be in positions of power in a few more years. 'I think most of my influence on the Trump administration is less through the leadership and more through the kids in the administration, who read my kind of stuff because my audience is very young,' Yarvin said. 'I think that actually one of the great benefits of the Trump administration is … bringing in the kind of new fresh blood and people, like, seeing the way that DC works.' In Yarvin's utopia, the monarch, who he says should operate like a startup CEO, would be held accountable by some sort of corporate board — but not by the average citizen. 'I don't believe in voting at all,' he told the New York Times in January. According to Yarvin's worldview, the cadre of elite institutions like academia and media (what he deems 'The Cathedral') should be done away with, while the worthy and smart individuals inside those institutions should be brought into the fold of the new order. When asked how to prevent any leader from turning into the next Hitler or Stalin, Yarvin argues that most examples of monarchies 'don't generally see a Holocaust' and that today's general population doesn't have the same type of 'barbarism' of the past. 'You need to concentrate that power in a single individual and then just hope somehow that this is the right individual, or close to the right individual,' Yarvin says. The idea that such a strongman leader is worth the risk deeply alarms scholars and experts on democracy and dictatorship, some of whom find Yarvin such a 'distasteful character' that they refused to speak with CNN about him. But others say he needs to be addressed because of his growing popularity. Harvard University professor Danielle Allen, an expert on democracy and political theory, said at a debate with Yarvin earlier this month at the Harvard Faculty Club that 'it is not the case that autocracies over the course of history have delivered good for human beings, they have consistently violated freedom.' 'No absolute power is ever accountable,' she said. 'Absolute power inevitably corrupts, tramples on, persecutes freedom. So the question that we have right now is not whether to have democracy and protection of freedom, but only how to have that.' Daniel Treisman, a professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, told CNN that while some authoritarian states may initially have rapid growth, empirical evidence shows 'democracy increases GDP per capita by about 20% in the long run, mostly through improved education and health, and reduced social unrest.' And while a modern American dictator 'might not introduce a Holocaust,' Treisman warned more likely the country would see 'a corrupt and irresponsible oligarchy, with a declining economy and massive capital flight.' And, Treisman notes, without widespread elections, the opposition is more likely to resort to violence, where leaders become more repressive. 'The leader may start off quite well-intentioned, but the dangers inherent in his position drive him towards tougher controls,' Treisman said. Yarvin speaks admiringly of El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, whose government suspended some civil rights and arrested roughly 100,000 people in recent years in what Bukele said was a mass crackdown on gangs. Those moves triggered 'concern' from the US State Department under the Biden administration and condemnations from human rights groups who say many of those arrested were detained on tenuous grounds, like for having a certain tattoo. But Yarvin said a loss of due process and mass arrests is worth the results, if it means one can move more safely on the streets. 'You have to maximize the benefit of society,' Yarvin said, noting 'snap decisions' must be made about whether to fire a weapon or detain a person. 'In order to create overall order, those decisions have to be made quickly, in a way that is often erroneous.' Yarvin, who isn't an academically trained historian, writes the third most popular newsletter on Substack's 'History' leaderboard, after podcaster Darryl Cooper and Columbia University historian Adam Tooze. Yarvin's nontraditional background and renegade fringe ideas are what makes him appealing to a new generation. After her debate with Yarvin, Allen wrote in the Wall Street Journal that she chose to participate because his ideas have followers and 'that's what makes them dangerous.' 'I've been surprised by Mr. Yarvin's influence among Harvard students,' she wrote. Tickets to the debate sold out quickly, Harvard Junior Charles DeMatteo, who helped to organize the event as the then-chair of the John Adams Society, told CNN in an interview. 'I know a lot of my friends who want to be political, take (Yarvin) very seriously,' he said. It's not like Yarvin has Ivy Leaguers following his every direction, DeMatteo said, and he believes many only agree with parts of Yarvin's theories. But DeMatteo said that for a generation that spent several of their formative years of high school in Covid-era lockdowns, Yarvin mirrors their disillusionment in institutions, one that is not reflected in their college courses. 'I know that this idea (of a powerful central leader) is becoming far more popular among younger people because they've seen a dysfunctional government. They've seen what happens in particular in local institutions that they believe are hostile to them, and they think this is really a solution that hasn't been tried,' DeMatteo said. Yarvin's writings, perhaps unsurprisingly, have also sparked controversy. In 2015, Yarvin's appearance at a software engineering conference was canceled after uproar over his writings on race. While Yarvin denies being a racist and told CNN he believes a Black person could easily be the American monarch he dreams of, he has written that 'I am not exactly allergic' to White Nationalist arguments and has argued that Black people had better lives under slavery in the US than in the immediate years after. Asked by CNN if he believed some races are better than others, Yarvin said he believes some races are inherently better at certain skills than others, but that he 'absolutely' believes a Black person could be the sovereign to one day lead the United States. Yarvin argues certain races have different 'averages' of skill set whether it be for chess, basketball or governance. Yarvin rejects the 'blank slate theory' that humans are entirely shaped by their experiences, and said there is no way one could 'kidnap full-blooded Australian Aboriginal babies from the outback and bring them to Brooklyn and raise them in the Ethical Culture Society and send them to the Dalton School and everything would just be hunky-dory.' Asked if he believes certain races would be better at governing than others, Yarvin said certain races may better 'at doing anything, but those are only averages, and those averages are very, very loose.' Even with some parallels between the Trump administration's actions and Yarvin's writings, he says he is rather disappointed. The administration, he says, is barely scratching the surface of the change that he thinks actually needs to be done. 'I think that if you basically take anything complicated and you try to do 10% … you're probably not going to result in anything good,' Yarvin says. Some of the Trump administration's moves have led to outright scorn by Yarvin – such as their detaining of foreign students in the US and deporting them for their opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 'If the administration's mind is clear,' Yarvin wrote this year, it would not do stupid things 'like vanning grad students, which are populist wins but elitist losses.' Yarvin says he has no plans to enter politics and is focusing on his company Urbit, as well as growing his Substack. 'I'm just out there in the marketplace of ideas, and I think the marketplace of ideas definitely expanded in the last 10 years,' Yarvin said. 'My goal is for people to just live in, to live in the real world.'
