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Revenge of the online right 

President Donald Trump wants larger nonprofits and academic institutions investigated for the “egregious” use of DEI. Elon Musk is trying to purge the federal workforce, and accusing nonprofits and the media of corruption in conspiratorial and factually inaccurate ways. Marc Andreessen, an outside adviser who deeply influenced the administration’s hiring, has cited grand theories of how Trump could smash the power of “managerial” elites. And 25-year-old administration official Marko Elez, who’d made racist online comments and initially resigned, will be rehired.

All this and more from Trump’s first four weeks back in office show that his new administration is profoundly influenced by what might be called the online right: perpetually plugged-in posters who’ve become united by their desire to combat and defeat “woke” progressives.

Complaints about the liberal leanings of various institutions — the media, nonprofits, the civil service, academia — are nothing new for Republicans, or for Trump. 

But the new Trump administration — and, specifically, very online officials like Vice President JD Vance, Stephen Miller, and Musk — isn’t just complaining. Officials are now trying to use the tools of government against these institutions, in hopes of taking progressives’ power away and establishing cultural dominance for conservatives.

This reflects the theories, beliefs, and obsessions that have become widespread among the online right, who’ve spent years seething over the Great Awokening, coming up with explanations for why it happened and how it can be reversed.

Now these very online people’s obsessions are becoming the policy of the United States government. For instance, Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders bear the stamp of online right opinion influencers Chris Rufo and Richard Hanania. 

So while Trump’s first administration was heavily influenced by traditional Republican figures, his second one is far more influenced by a burgeoning new establishment — a very online one.

The online right can be said to span different classes and subcultures; its members include no-names like Elez and billionaires like Musk. 

But they’re essentially a team forged in combat against progressives. They’ve spent years seething over the “Great Awokening” — the leftward move of the culture around race, gender, and sexuality in the mid-to-late 2010s, which many feel chilled their speech, endangered their careers, or advanced ideas and policies they believed to be wrong and harmful.

The online right’s roots go back years, to Gamergate and the alt-right, though in the 2010s such subcultures were viewed as somewhat disreputable even by Republicans. Few prominent figures openly associated themselves with them, and Trump relied on traditional Republicans for most of his appointees.

But the backlash to progressive governance and cultural power that occurred under Biden’s presidency swelled their ranks — spurring prominent people like Vance, Musk, and Andreessen to openly break with the mainstream consensus. (When Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he trashed its previous leaders as censorious wokes and reinvented the site as X, making it a more welcoming home for the right.)

What drew people to the online right was resentment of progressive power, as well as a desire to figure out where that power comes from and how it could be broken.

Read Andrew's full story here. 

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Not yet Skynet: Adam Clark Estes has been testing the next generation of AI — programs that are meant to be like digital assistants. They don’t work yet, he says, but that might be a good thing.

Pre-K? OK!: Universal pre-K can be really beneficial for children, and it seems to be expanding at a remarkable pace, Anna North writes.

Stopping Trump: Zack Beauchamp presents a four-point plan that those who’d like to stop Trump can follow.

Frightful flight: A farmer who was on a deportation flight from the US to India gives his first-person account. [NYT]

To the richt: Germany’s elections are coming up soon, and just like in other countries, young men are embracing far-right candidates. [BBC]

Boomer subsidy: Life is expensive, but it becomes a lot easier when expenses are subsidized (or just plain taken care of) by your parents, as the stories of 14 New Yorkers reveal. [New York Mag]

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I feel like I buy the same things every time I go to the grocery store...and yet, the bill gets more expensive each week. Fortunately for me (and hopefully fortunately for you), Sara Youngblood Gregory has a guide to keeping grocery bills under control.

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Today’s edition was produced and edited by me, news editor Sean Collins and politics editor Patrick Reis. We hope you had an excellent holiday weekend, if you're here in the US, and that you've a wonderful week ahead!

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