So… What Now?

This is yet another post-election blues post. It’s not pretty or happy. You’ll find very little cope, here.

As of the time I’m writing this, it’s been a little less than two days since the election, and I think I’m safe in assuming we all know how it turned out. And yeah, I’d hope it should come as no surprise, but I’m not happy about it.

Cross-posted from here (Öffnet in neuem Fenster):

A lot of my fellows who are against Trump’s return are spinning—blaming racism, misogyny, the unpopularity of Harris’ policies, etc. It’s understandable, and I honestly don’t have any great or novel insight as to what happened or how you should conduct yourself. I’ll link to a few useful videos/podcasts/articles at the bottom of this piece.

What I might be able to offer is some insight as to what the Trump win could mean within my lanes. Let’s talk about surveillance, tech, and conflict. I don’t think I’ll be citing any sources in this one, as this is going to be a seat-of-my-pants take, rather than a well thought out article. An opinion piece, as it were. You’ve been warned.

Bad things coming that are in my wheelhouse

RFK and the “MAHA” movement (New-Anon?)
Despite largely making claims that would require the Trump administration to use authorities and develop policies that are completely antithetical to their promises, the “Make America Healthy Again” movement is a validation of anti-vax, anti-public health conspiracy movements.

This has been dissected and examined in numerous places by many who have better educations on the topic than myself. What I want to focus on here, though, is that this might be the single biggest reward handed to the dangerous information space that these figures rely on, and has also been fertile ground for foreign influence in US politics (particularly Russian). Infowars, Children’s Health Defense, the Informed Consent Action Network, and other misinformation and disinformation actors now have institutional support through potential next FDA head, RFK Junior.

But when Michele Obama asked people to eat their vegetables, the American right lost their god damned minds.

Speaking of post-truth and toxic information spaces…

Elon Musk and the Nazi safe spaces
Articles have already been dropping about how much Elon Musk’s net worth and company stocks have increased following Trump’s success.

There’ s a lot of getting into the weeds that could be done about Elon Musk’s specific financial interests being best served by finding an administration to get close to. Right now, I just wanted to point out that one of the reasons I expected Trump to lose this election was that he had married his rhetoric so closely to the overly-online right, that he even outsourced his campaigning to the guy that runs their favorite social media site (sorry to all of the Rumble-stans out there). It also should be mentioned how his probably-illegal campaigning tactics will likely go unpunished, now that Trump won.

It’s my honestly held opinion that this was Musk’s project from the beginning. While the base reasons are likely financial, Elon has been far more front-and-center with his bizarre natalist beliefs in the last few years. Despite still claiming to not be a conservative, his espoused ideology has found itself increasingly in-line with Great Replacement conspiracy bullshit.

Everyone reading this probably already knows: he dismantled Twitter, which was, begrudgingly, the main “digital town square” for creatives, journalists, and people with hot takes, and made it a platform thriving on outrage (but like… more than before). On there, Elon completely re-worked the site, its algorithms, and even its block features to amplify the worst conspiracy and even nakedly white supremacist voices.

And while I think Elon is one of the most dangerous of these people, I don’t think it’s because he has the most evil ideology or greatest capability of any of them, but I do think he has the most cultural cache (somehow).

Peter Thiel, mass surveillance, and the techno-feudalists
Speaking of dangerous tech billionaires, arguably the biggest "winner” in all of this might be Peter Thiel, the single most important financial backer and supposed mentor to JD Vance. Vance will probably have to do a lot more president-ing than Trump, all things considered.

He’s also probably the most well-known billionaire in the military-industrial complex-facing side of today’s surveillance capitalism landscape. Thiel’s company, Palantir (yes, the evil balls that let you talk to Sauron) Technologies is a topic that runs very close to previous material I’ve written on The Moloch, I just haven’t had a chance to get around to it.

Palantir is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the surveillance industry, but they have deep connections with the US government, the Israeli government (and even tried to profit off of the war going on right now), oil companies, and the algorithmic rental prices that have been partly responsible for the US’ current greedflation crisis.

Thiel, much like Musk, also has some bizarre beliefs that seem to conveniently conclude that he has a personal right to survive and thrive more than others. He’s actually been more direct and forthcoming about it. He borrows heavily from neo-reactionary philosopher, Curtis Yarvin (who he’s allegedly sponsored), and advocates for a skepticism of democracy and the project of dismantling democratic processes. He’s espoused the need for monopolies to drive change and policy, and sees a future unironically and clearly directed by an elite wealthy class.

The man genuinely advocates for oligarchy, bought himself a Senator (and soon to be possibly President), runs a surveillance empire, and thinks you should have less rights than he does. He is an actual cyberpunk villain.

General AI/Crypto Bro/General Tech Enshittification Profiteers
I’ll try not to spend too much time on this one, as it’s relatively connected to the last three, but it should be mentioned.

Ever since the failure of pollsters to predict Trump’s first victory in 2016, as well as the perception of big data/big tech building mechanisms to influence politics ala the Cambridge Analytical scandal, it seemed that these entities were being combated in the public consciousness as notoriously unreliable. The grift seemed like it was on track to end. But, unfortunately, it looks like the big data side of this was—possibly by accident—correct.

Kari Lake, who at this point might have formally lost her run for Senate in Arizona, was briefly made into a meme for saying that she had “AI” enhanced predictors telling her that she would be victorious (and holy shit do I hope she’s wrong).

A lot has been said about how the Republicans were going off of poorly-consolidated data, or predictions based on Polymarket’s election gambling odds. Pollsters have been largely pushed back against for poisoning the well with this.

Big data and crypto interests have been once again aligning, with admittedly bi-partisan cryptocurrency-focused PACs supporting Republicans more than Democrats, and publicly pouring millions into campaigns opposing specific Democratic candidates (notably, Senator Elizabeth Warren).

I, and I’m sure much of the left-of-center contingency of people who spend too much time on the internet, were sincerely hoping that a failure of the Trump campaign would be a decisive blow against the prevailing Silicon Valley “enshittification” culture. Their agents now surround the incoming administration, who probably owe them more than a few favors. Awesome.

Foreign Wars (Specifically Ukraine and Palestine)

This one is probably the most important, geopolitically, but it also fit in the least with anything else here. It also extrapolates a lot from geopolitics (a topic I know very little about) to make conclusions about irregular warfare (a topic I know a bit about).

I think it’s pretty obvious that Trump was Putin’s preferred winner. He was also Netanyahu’s.

Things are very likely going to get worse for Palestinians and Ukrainians.

Trump has somehow managed to brand himself as the “peaceful” candidate, once again. This might have been a relevant argument when he was a tv caricature and well-known racist landlord running against a former Secretary of State and US Senator.

I don’t think this really holds water after events like the Qasem Soleimani killing, a drone strike that was part of an often under-stated expansion in the US’ drone warfare policy during Trump’s tenure. Despite the Obama administration’s own designation as the “drone kings”, somehow this moniker never landed on Trump.

Also regarding MENA situations: he pulled US support and even actively made the situation worse for the Syrian Democratic Forces in counteracting ISIS (who are kind-of back) in 2018. His administration validated Israel’s claim to the Golan Heights. They recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It would be insane to think that somehow he’s going to be less harmful to Palestinians than the (admittedly already truly awful) status quo would have been under Harris. There’s also the matter of how the Afghanistan withdrawal went.

It’s truly amazing to me how the Trump administration managed to make the Middle East situation more volatile and inhumane for the intermediate future in ways that were obvious at the time, but somehow won the branding war over this. Many (not all) of the failings during the Biden administration in the region seem to have been pretty clearly set up during Trump’s.

I think things are a little more obvious regarding Ukraine, a conflict that Trump has said that the US should effectively divest from. He has said multiple times that he thinks a deal should be made between Ukraine and Russia, and the assumption is that this would involve Ukraine never getting to join NATO, as well as ceding the territory Russia has taken from it.

He wants a return to a status quo where the world can normalize with an expansionist, terrorist state.

At the end of the day, if we’re going to accept that there is a world where the US is a hegemonic military power, I think it’s horrifying just how fickle and inconsistent its policies are every four years. I have a lot I’m pretty hateful of the Biden administration over, regarding Palestine and Ukraine, but the outright stab in the back Ukraine is likely to face with this next set of Trump ghouls is utterly heartbreaking, and a resurgent Russia that may very likely get off the hook for nakedly expanding its empire is looking ever more likely.

That said, US hegemony is just one of a number of premises I have my own issues with regarding foreign policy arguments, but again, this wasn’t meant to be comprehensive.

Other places to care about/watch should include Taiwan, East Asia in general, terrorism/counter-terrorism throughout Africa, relations in Central and South America… there really isn’t a corner of the world that isn’t going to be impacted dramatically—likely for the worse—if Trump is able to follow through on some of his policies.

What do I plan to do from here?

I’m in an interesting position. I want to do my best to help, but a big part of me feels helpless. This, I’m sure many of you can identify with. I also know that, on a tiny, tiny scale, it’s not true for me.

Reminder: I have a very peculiar situation for an American

I am not part of a marginalized group. I am not part of a group that is being directly targeted by the incoming regime (unless I think I’m somehow going to be attacked as an “enemy within”). There has been a lot already said by voices in those communities and I want this little riff to be more about something unique that I can offer.

As anyone who might have paid extra attention to any of my social media or other platforms may know, I’m a pretty left-ish guy for an American, I don’t think that should come as any surprise. I voted for Harris out of harm reduction. I’m knowledgeable enough to say that she does not represent a left-wing position on pretty much anything. I don’t subscribe to any particular left-wing “ism” and don’t know if I ever will. I’ll leave it at that.

I also recently finished doing my time in the US Army, and have officially immigrated to the Netherlands by virtue of my marriage. I have the extremely privileged and unusual combination of being, in every way, as far from the consequences of the US election as one could probably get due to demographic and geographic reality, while 1: still being American and 2: still being furious about it.

I think because of that, I have a lot more freedom and a lot more room to breathe than I’m sure many Americans feel like they do right now.

Okay, so then what?

I think pretty regularly, even before this week, about the terrible shit that took place early in the first Trump presidency.

Women, minorities, marginalized groups have been sounding the alarm for a long time. They’ve put in a lot of work, and it’s obvious that, no matter what demographic shifts happened, young white men have continued to fail them. At the risk of sounding like a “white knight” caricature, I’d imagine they’re pretty exhausted with us.

As of right now, it’s looking like Trump is not going to outperform his 2020 self in the popular vote, where he was smacked by Biden. Yet, he’s handily beaten Harris, even in the popular vote. I’m sure there will be some big-headed analysis of the whole thing in the coming days, but the pundit conclusion seems to be: young men, particularly white men (though with Latino men starting to shift, as well), either went harder for Trump, or didn’t show up.

There’s been a lot of rhetoric in the last two days about the lack of outreach to young men, and young people in general that’s going around the “online left”. I have my own disagreements with a lot of it, but I think there’s somewhat of a point, there. Maybe it’s time to lean in?

I think a lot about how the security and conspiracy places that are very adjacent to the topics I cover, and how they found salience in the Trump campaign. Again, another place for me to lean in.

I think a lot about the advice I could give demonstrators and organizers back home for their own personal cyber security. Fuck it, let’s go!

As my current degree program (cyber security) wraps up, I’m jumping right into a second Master’s in International Relations that’ll start in January. Unlike my current program, I’ll be focusing on that full time, and not working at all. It’s my hope that I can use that time and knowledge to better inform not only my writing, but just about everything that I’m doing.

I want to do whatever it is that I can to give my knowledge and experiences value as this shift in both the world around me, and the place where I’m sitting in it, changes.

I don’t know exactly what this all looks like or where I’ll end up, but I do know that I plan on getting to work.

Some Other Voices

I hope with this piece that I didn’t come off as yadda yadda yadda-ing all of the other great takes, perspectives, and action prescriptions from others. Here are a very select few.

To highlight some reactions from other places:

(Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

A powerful, and pretty heartbreaking reaction video from Olayemi “Olay” Olurin, a New York-based movement lawyer and political commentator. It should provide a better take on the temperature and the situation from a left-wing voice that would be far more in the crosshairs—Olay, herself, a black immigrant.

(Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

“What Did We Learn?”, an hour-long, off-the-cuff take and immediate reaction by FD Signifier. He’s a Chicago-based politics and black culture commentator that’s found himself in the “breadtube” sphere. He gives a lot of candid opinions in this one that I think are powerful and worth hearing.

The Sky is Falling; We’ve Got This (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

or: yes it's bad, no we need not despair

In this piece, trans sf author/black metal musician/podcaster, Maragaret Killjoy discusses how we move forward. While she’s far more in touch with the anarchist/mutual aid side of the house than I think I could ever be, I almost always love her takes. Huge reminder that you still have agency in situations that seem hopeless.

(Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

Still Don’t Panic: An Election Response (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

In this round-table episode, the bulk of the Cool Zone Media crew discuss how to move forward, with some grounded advice, and actionable things to both improve your own mental health and your community’s resilience.

I really don’t know how to stick the landing with this one, but I’m just hoping for the best.

Stay safe, everyone!