The Bulwark
Marc Andreessen on AI, Tech, Censorship, and Dining with Trump
Bari Weiss, The Free Press
The billionaire on the left’s war on Silicon Valley, why AI censorship is “a million times more dangerous” than social media censorship, and why he’s optimistic about the future.
Marc Andreesen: It’s morning in America, so I’m very happy. I think the analogy for what’s happening right now is 1980—the transition from the ’70s to the ’80s and the Carter-Reagan race.
In this election, there was a dramatic shift to the right across broad swaths of the population, including in California. Even in places like San Francisco. And then the youth vote—the kids are changing. The new kids are not the same as the kids 10 years ago.
But even beyond the partisan politics of it, it feels like the last decade has been a very emotionally dark and repressive time. And Silicon Valley was on the vanguard of what you might call a soft authoritarian social revolution starting about 10 or 12 years ago. And that soft repressive authoritarianism had a real negative impact on my whole world—the tech industry, the country, and I think an entire generation of young people. It certainly feels like that’s cracked.
How the tech right wants to run America
Derek Robertson
Whether on podcasts, lengthy posts on X and Substack, or through influential self-published manifestos, the tech characters now heavily involved in President-elect Donald Trump’s transition have a clear track record of demands, expectations and ideas, all delivered with the classic Silicon Valley confidence that they can run the government better than the government itself.
The picture that emerges is one of a sweeping deregulatory agenda touching everything from crypto to artificial intelligence to fields like the defense industry and health technology.
January 6 Was a Success
William Kristol and Andrew Egger
Trump managed to turn his presidency’s darkest day into a political springboard. And now, he’ll seek retribution.
And so, we have not just a normalization of January 6, but the full recasting of it. One of the darkest days of our political history is whitewashed, a cause of shame turned into a cause célèbre.
Our next president instigated January 6 and is a full-throated defender of those who rioted that day. Our next vice president, JD Vance, is someone who says he would not—as Vice President Mike Pence did—have stood in the way of overturning the election. Trump’s nominee for attorney general traveled the country at the end of 2020 promoting the Big Lie and trying to pressure both the courts and Congress to nullify the election results. His nominee for FBI director was part of the effort within the government to undermine the election.
Democracies Have an Attention Span Problem
Illiberalism advances under the West’s click-oriented media cycle.
Sam Kahn
So, no one’s fault, but there are real-world consequences. The paladins of illiberalism are, sometimes with almost puckish humor, basing their foreign policy on these blindspots in coverage. That’s China with its economic imperialism in Africa. That’s Russia testing out the capabilities of the Wagner Group in the Sahel—exactly where they think the West is least likely to notice. That’s Saudi Arabia’s long-standing war in Yemen. That’s Putin slotting his wars into the calendar wherever he thinks they will do the least public-relations damage.
So bear that in mind the next time you (like everyone) flip past the worthy-but-dull international news story on A32, the next time you get subsumed by some cultural tempest-in-a-tea-kettle that seems to be chewing up Twitter and burying all the actual news stories. The illiberal paladins are paying attention even if we’re not.
Donald Trump takes aim at Canada
The Warning with Steve Schmidt
Forty-thousand Canadians fought in Afghanistan after the United States was attacked. One hundred and fifty-eight were killed in action, while thousands more were wounded. Thousands more left were left to deal with the cost of war.
The only thing that an American should express to Canada is gratitude. Friends owe each other nothing more, and nothing less.
