About the plutocrat wing of the MAGA wealth and power movement: The Grayshirts

Plutocracy

A long article The New Republic published last April discusses the authoritarian plutocrat aspect of MAGA, something that is poorly reported. Parts of that article:

Balaji Srinivasan

The Tech Baron Seeking to Purge San Francisco of “Blues”

If Balaji Srinivasan is any guide, then the Silicon Valley plutocrats are definitely not OK

To fully grasp the current situation in San Francisco, where venture capitalists are trying to take control of City Hall, you must listen to Balaji Srinivasan. Before you do, steel yourself for what’s to come: A normal person could easily mistake his rambling train wrecks of thought for a crackpot’s ravings, but influential Silicon Valley billionaires regard him as a genius.

“Balaji has the highest rate of output per minute of good new ideas of anybody I’ve ever met,” wrote Marc Andreessen, co-founder of the V.C. firm Andreessen-Horowitz, in a blurb for Balaji’s 2022 book, The Network State: How to Start a New Country. The book outlines a plan for tech plutocrats to exit democracy and establish new sovereign territories. I mentioned Balaji’s ideas in two previous stories about Network State–related efforts in California—a proposed tech colony called California Forever and the tech-funded campaign to capture San Francisco’s government.

In 2013, a New York Times story headlined “Silicon Valley Roused by Secession Call” described a speech in which he “told a group of young entrepreneurs that the United States had become ‘the Microsoft of nations’: outdated and obsolescent.”

“The speech won roars from the audience at Y Combinator, a leading start-up incubator,” reported the Times. Balaji paints a bleak picture of a dystopian future in a U.S. in chaos and decline, but his prophecies sometimes fall short. Last year, he lost $1 million in a public bet after wrongly predicting a massive surge in the price of Bitcoin.

Still, his appetite for autocracy is bottomless. Last October, Balaji hosted the first-ever Network State Conference. Garry Tan—the current Y Combinator CEO who’s attempting to spearhead a political takeover of San Francisco—participated in an interview with Balaji and cast the effort as part of the Network State movement. Tan, who made headlines in January after tweeting “die slow motherfuckers” at local progressive politicians, frames his campaign as an experiment in “moderate” politics. But in a podcast interview one month before the conference, Balaji laid out a more disturbing and extreme vision.

“What I’m really calling for is something like tech Zionism,” he said, after comparing his movement to those started by the biblical Abraham, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism), Theodor Herzl (“spiritual father” of the state of Israel), and Lee Kuan Yew (former authoritarian ruler of Singapore). Balaji then revealed his shocking ideas for a tech-governed city where citizens loyal to tech companies would form a new political tribe clad in gray t-shirts. “And if you see another Gray on the street … you do the nod,” he said, during a four-hour talk on the Moment of Zen podcast. “You’re a fellow Gray.”

The Grays’ shirts would feature “Bitcoin or Elon or other kinds of logos … Y Combinator is a good one for the city of San Francisco in particular.” Grays would also receive special ID cards providing access to exclusive, Gray-controlled sectors of the city. In addition, the Grays would make an alliance with the police department, funding weekly “policeman’s banquets” to win them over.

“Grays should embrace the police, okay? All-in on the police,” said Srinivasan. “What does that mean? That’s, as I said, banquets. That means every policeman’s son, daughter, wife, cousin, you know, sibling, whatever, should get a job at a tech company in security.”

In exchange for extra food and jobs, cops would pledge loyalty to the Grays. Srinivasan recommends asking officers a series of questions to ascertain their political leanings. For example: “Did you want to take the sign off of Elon’s building?”

This refers to the August 2023 incident in which Elon Musk illegally installed a large flashing X logo atop Twitter headquarters, in violation of building safety codes. City inspectors forced him to remove it. This was the second time Musk had run afoul of the city in his desire to refurbish his headquarters: In July, police briefly halted his attempt to pry the “Twitter” signage from the building’s exterior. But in Balaji’s dystopia, he implies that officers loyal to the Grays would let Musk do as he pleases (democratically inclined officers, he suggests, can be paid to retire).

Simply put, there is a ton of fascist-chic cosplay involved. Once an officer joins the Grays, they get a special uniform designed by their tech overlords. The Grays will also donate heavily to police charities and “merge the Gray and police social networks.” Then, in a show of force, they’ll march through the city together.

Everyone would be welcome at the Gray Pride march—everyone, that is, except the Blues [Democrats and liberals]. Srinivasan defines the Blue political tribe as the liberal voters he implies are responsible for the city’s problems. Blues will be banned from the Gray-controlled zones, said Balaji, unlike Republicans (“Reds”).

The Gray Pride march?

Old-fashioned vision of plutocracy in

the days of huge monopolies

Not much reporting has been on-point about the hostility of some arrogant, aggressive billionaires toward democracy, the rule of law as it applies to them (not us) and business regulations. Some billionaires really hate democracy and want it dead and gone. MAGA plutocrats damn well want the rule of law to apply to us so they and their wealth are protected.

Hm. Does any of this remind anyone of something extremely evil and brutal? Hm . . . . . 

Mussolini had his Blackshirts. First organized in 1919, they were groups of thugs marching through Italian city streets and suppressing and disciplining people (especially socialists) they targeted and deemed deserving of punishment.

Mussolini (center, with menacing scowl) 

and his Blackshirt thugs

Hitler had his Brownshirts and Storm Troopers to intimidate and punish those deserving of vigorous suppression or punishment. 

Hitler with his Brownshirt thugs

Now, America has some authoritarian MAGA plutocrats itching to set up the Grayshirts, organized groups of thugs and their paramilitary police who will suppress and brutalize those deserving of proper billionaire-sanctioned discipline. 

Grayshirt thug uniform?

Q: Is significant concern about thug plutocracy unwarranted or moderately exaggerated, fairly close to the mark, or reasonable?