The label “Nerd Reich” has suddenly appeared to describe the reign of terror instituted by the emergent Oligarchs of Silicon Valley. I was first introduced to the term by an emerging young folk musician named Jesse Wells who wrote a song by that title and, a few days later by former Republican campaign impresario turned pod caster Rick Wilson. Wilson, one may recall, is the author of “Whatever Trump Touches dies”, an early chronicle of the list of ongoing failures that have plagued tRUMP's entire existence on this planet. It was Wilson who featured, on a recent podcast, Gil Duran. Duran, a former reporter for the San Jose Mercury News later becoming opinion editor of The Sacramento Bee, then editorial page editor of The San Francisco Examiner. He is now an independent journalist and publishes two newsletters, The Nerd Reich being one of them.
Wilson, by way of introduction, confessed that he, as do I, wished he had been creative enough to come up with the title. It is an appropriate description of the people behind the emerging fascist movement in this country and around the world. The complete title being: The Nerd Reich, Silicon Valley Fascism And The War On Democracy. (1) That about sums it up.
We've all seen the images, and felt the devastating effects of this ignoble experiment in late-stage capitalism. On 'winning' the election there stood our once and future shitting 'president' before the nation and behind him stood a long line of 'whose who' in the tech world. Bezos, the 'droid' Zuckerberg, Felon Must, et. al., proudly smiling and congratulating themselves on a well executed vandalism. With Musk alone spending nearly three hundred million dollars, the Tech Bros had succeeded in pulling a coup. They accomplished the impossible. They succeeded in installing the stinking turd back into the white house. Soon enough we would return to 'government by shitter', and all the chaos that would entail.
They had achieved their prime objective: re-install the world's greatest idiot, its premier megalomaniac, its most incompetent fool, its greatest vandal into the nation's highest political office. It is the end game of their entire strategy: destroy not only the republic, but the nation and replace it with ill-defined corporate city states where our 'superiors' meaning the tech bros would run things and we would be left to catch-as-catch-can, mired in a 'gig' economy with little or no economic security and no long term nor even immediate prospects.
The Tech Bros, have convinced themselves that, like tRUMP, they possess superior genes. The world, therefore, is their proper inheritance. They see themselves as the emerging 'aristocracy' and long for a 'return' to the middle ages. Therefore, they envision a world that returns to the ancient city states of Greece or, perhaps the Hanseatic League of the Dark Ages. They would restore thrones and lord over us, the people be damned.
They literally hate democracy and republican governance. They despise any attempt to hold them accountable because they, after all, are superior beings. Just ask Peter Theil, or Donald tRUMP.
It is unclear, given their propensity to destroy (creative destruction they call it) and their determined effort to fragment and atomize society, how they will maintain this great wealth they have accumulated or what functional 'markets' would remain in place upon which to function.
For at base, these 'geniuses' are themselves not only the product of public education, but of world markets, markets that depend upon rules and standards. That is. they depend upon an economic order established through centuries of conflict, negotiation and trial and error. They are also the creatures of Government largesse unparalleled in the history of humanity. How does BitCoin, for instance, intended to destroy national economies function as a 'world' currency when there is no world order? Simple questions that evade the emerging 'genius' of the Valley elite.
Duran pointed out, in his interview with Rick Wilson, the painfully obvious: for all their mastery of technology, these guys (and almost all of them are young males) have no understanding of history. They have less understanding of their own origins. In fact, they are not very smart.
The technology upon which their fortune was created is itself a product of government. It was the United States Department of Defense that created the internet in the first place. It was NASA that miniaturized electronics and made home computing possible. And it is federal subsidy and funding that currently fuels their emerging dominance. While the Tech Bros gorge themselves at the public trough, they nevertheless spend hundreds of millions funding a 'war' against those very governments. Gratitude knows no place in a world fashioned by the likes of Ann Rand, much less the dim lights that shape their world view.
Nor does basic competence as witnessed by the serial explosions on the launch pad of Felon Musk's “starships”. Jesus Christ, talk about hubris, 'Starships” indeed. These rockets aren't going anywhere near 'stars', not even, it seems to any near planets. Musk, while making a pig's breakfast of Tesla, talks about 'colonizing' Mars. Mars, with no atmosphere, no electromagnetic field to protect 'life' from cosmic radiation, little water and a toxic soil presents a very inhospitable place. There is no life on the planet for a host of reasons. But Musk dreams of escape and, perhaps, for good reason. No one likes him. He, like tRUMP, has behaved like an entitled obnoxious fool. Frankly, we should immediately grant him his wish, shove him into a space capsule and blast him off into space. Oh, we can aim the” rocket toward Mars and wish him all the luck in the world.
Then there is 'artificial ignorance', or AI as it has come to be called. Oh yes, have fun with ChatGPT, or listen closely to the voice over on YouTube describing, for instance, baseball. It's the “Street Louis Cardinals”, or Alkaline instead of Al Kaline, pronounced Kay Line. It's Johnny Unit as instead of Johnny Unite Us. As it should be pronounced. You catch a lot of this, Mackinack Island instead of Macinaw as it is pronounced. AI gets nothing of this. Everything is literal. It is ignorance magnified. One trembles at the prospect. The world they are creating is a dumbing down, a much more shallow, a much more hollow, a much more artificial world. Cyberspace is not real space, but a mere imitation of the real world. You cannot smell it. You cannot taste it. You cannot touch it. You cannot feel it. What is 'artificial' by definition, should never replace what is real. It is no 'place' for life, real life, to find a habitat. It is unfit for human habitation.
What these clowns don't understand is that humanity has moved on. We the people demand a place at the table. Even the most backward of places declare themselves 'democratic', as in The Democratic Republic of North Korea, or Russia's increasingly fraudulent elections.
The Tech Bros, as Duran pointed out in his conversation with Rick Wilson, have no understanding and are completely ignorant of history. When confronted with oppression the elite's often come under siege. History instructs that every successful revolution is a middle class affair. It follows that the middle classes will not go quietly. The Tech Bros solution to this is your 'smart phone' and the universal surveillance it provides. It is Palantir, and data centers. It is the emergent apparatus of oppression. The Tech Bros see Orwell's 1984 not as a cautionary tale but as a blueprint, only the 'screen' is replaced by your phone which tracks your every move. The French had a solution for a regime that had become far too onerous. It was called the guillotine.
And if the Tech Bros insist, heads will role.
Impeach and Imprison
See Duran, Gilbert. “The Nerd Reich, Silicon Valley Fascism And The War on Democracy”. Copyright 2026 by Gilbert Duran. Avid Reader Press, New York This is a frightening work 339 pages in length in which Duran maps the origin, philosophy and objectives of what is becoming the most powerful oligarchy in the history of the world. It is not a work for the feint of heart but should be required reading in every school curriculum.