Opinion | How Long Can the Alliance Between Tech Titans and the MAGA Faithful Last?
On Sunday evening, the night before Donald Trump’s second inauguration, scores of “luminaries from across the New Right” are expected to gather for a dinner and gala called the Coronation Ball at the Watergate Hotel.The event is being hosted by the young right-wing publishing house Passage Press, known for publishing the “neo-reactionary” writer Curtis Yarvin — one of the earliest of those luminaries, most famous for advocating a monarchy “run like a startup.”Today, this upstart coalition of thinkers may be best described simply as the intellectual wing of Trumpism.
“Celebrate the inauguration of Donald J.Trump,” the publishing house announced, “with the people and organizations that will shape the culture in his second term.”The ball will celebrate more than the re-coronation of a president.
It seems intended to mark the ascent of a new counterelite with aspirations to supplant the existing establishment in everything from high politics to business and culture.But this is a loose alliance, colored by rivalries and complex divisions.
It has brought together people who previously had little in common.Word had it that Marc Andreessen, the billionaire venture capitalist, would be at the ball.
Steve Bannon, avowed enemy of the Silicon Valley billionaire class, was to be a keynote speaker.Many guests were a bit nervy about outfits and expectations.They would also be navigating these fissures within Mr.
Trump’s coalition.Mr.
Andreessen and Mr.Bannon stand on either side of the biggest of these divides — and the one presenting the greatest challenge for Mr.
Trump’s governing project.It’s a gap in worldviews that went overlooked in the heady days of the campaign.When Elon Musk endorsed Mr.
Trump, putting a great deal of personal money and energy into the project of MAGA populism, he joined figures like the venture capitalist and podcaster David Sacks and the crypto exchange founder Tyler Winklevoss in what represents one of the most s...