In "Soy Right ascendent" Max Read describes the shift in Trumpdom away from the old MAGA tribe of angry dads and obsessed moms toward the "Soy Right" of sexist techbros, whiny contrarians and meme Nazis. This group, he points out, is what evolved out of Gamergate, and its ascendance is happening mostly because one of them is the richest man in the world.
To me the other key aspect of the Soy Right psychological profile, beyond its desperate need for approval and respect, is a childlike refusal of agency and responsibility, even while in power. A 20-something with access to Treasury Department systems is a "kid" whose racism shouldn't be disqualifying. The South African billionaire throwing Nazi salutes is a enthusiastic neuroatyptical man who needs our sympathy. The Vice President of the United States would never have attracted the attention of the Pope if it weren't for "hysteric progressives," the real villains. Silicon Valley oligarchs were "driven into Trump's arms" by the perfidy of Democrats. No one in the Soy Right makes affirmative choices; they're smol beans who need protection and care. … Does this odd and annoying mix of weepy fragility, oblivious self-importance, and obscene corniness sounds familiar? It should, because as a matter of tone it's identical to–here imagine me talking over you as you attempt to finish my sentence with "the emotional register of 20th-century European fascism"–the psychotically annoying way that Gamergaters tweeted in 2015.
One of the most incisive and prescient things ever found online was the 2014 venn diagram (below), posted on Tumble some weeks before Gamergate kicked off. In a decade flat this became the government of the United States of America.
"If truck-selfie Twitter had a loose correspondence to the Bannonite wing of Trumpism," Read writes, "the Soy Right directly represents the Muskite wing."
Here's my guess on how it goes: the Silicon Valley faction, the Muskite wing, will fail for basic competency reasons after moving quickly and breaking everything. It will solve no real problems but will create complicated and expensive new ones. In the context of a Trump administration suddenly needing to reconstitute the administrative state, he will blame the Muskite faction and turn to the third faction of his coalition, currently all but dormant: conservative Christianity. It can promise the three things he needs: ruthless order, mass organization and executive permanence. If Elon Musk succeeds, we get cybernormal dystopia. When he fails, we get Gilead.
