The Nerd Reich Is Coming
Things have been a bit quiet here at FrameLab. That silence has a reason: I have been finishing a book.
The Nerd Reich Is Coming
3 min read
Things have been a bit quiet here at FrameLab. That silence has a reason: I have been finishing a book.
The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy will be published on August 18 by Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. You can pre-order it at Bookshop.org to support independent booksellers, or find other pre-order options here.
Today, we are witnessing a scale of political corruption so massive that words almost fail to convey the horror of the situation. Trump is raking in billions in personal profit as he pushes billion-dollar government contracts to the Silicon Valley oligarchs aiding his regime—a regime that violates the Constitution, the law, and American values at every turn.
Dr. George Lakoff’s work has never been more relevant. This is the logical endpoint of Strict Father Morality—a corrupt regime with no moral constraints on its power. Trump believes that the government exists solely to enrich him, his family, and his cronies.
Republicans like to say that government should be run as a business. Well, Trump is running the US government like a family business, the mafia kind. Everything Lakoff warned about in his books has now come true.
“Radical conservatives have been fighting a culture war,” wrote Dr. Lakoff in The Political Mind. “The main battlefield is the brain. At stake is what America is to be. Their goal is to radically change America to fit the conservative moral worldview. The threat is to democracy and all that goes with it.”
And here we are with a Republican president—aided by the wealthiest men in the world—doing his best to tear apart American democracy.
My book is about what happens when government, private capital, and religious zeal fuse into a single structure of power. It tells the story of how a small cult of Silicon Valley venture capitalists—with a long-simmering hatred of democracy—have risen to positions of great influence and power in our government. It is a story about ideology, money, moral frameworks, and the deliberate weaponization of technology and capital. The goal of tech fascism: to kill democracy and privatize government power.
The work of Dr. Lakoff plays a key role in my book, which examines the metaphors and moral systems at work in Trump’s fascist regime. In fact, without Lakoff’s work, I doubt I would have spotted this story or written this book. It gave me the ability to see a story that most other political journalists and commentators missed. It gave me the tools to frame the case.
Expect the work here at FrameLab to pick up in frequency and intensity. The key question today: How to frame a regime so vastly corrupt and criminal that mere words and facts do not suffice?
More On “The Nerd Reich“ (Coming Aug. 18)
“Reader take note: Gil Durán is a deep, thoughtful, and expansive observer of events that shape the current and future of our American democracy.” —George Lakoff, author of The All New Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate
“A clear and compelling account of the threats posed by technofascism to democracies everywhere.” —Ruth Ben-Ghiat, historian and author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present
“Gil Durán is an essential voice on this technofascist moment—where it comes from and where we are going.” —Carole Cadwalladr, investigative journalist, The Nerve
“The Nerd Reich is a clarion warning about the rise of techno-fascist sociopaths who seek to profit off of our collective misery. In clear, compelling and meticulously-researched detail, Gil Durán sounds the alarm about this incestuous cabal of broligarchs. He brings the receipts and the righteous rage.” —Wajahat Ali, The Left Hook
A fearless and urgent chronicle of the tech-authoritarian movement from its early days in San Francisco politics to its current moment on the international stage, exploring the wild and dystopian ambition of the technocrats at its center, and offering a road map to resistance.
When Silicon Valley says it is ‘‘moving fast and breaking things,’’ the world interprets the chaos as a necessary cost of innovation. Gil Durán reveals something far more sinister: a decades-long campaign to replace elected governments with corporate rule.
Drawing on insider political experience and new investigations, Durán traces this ideology from its philosophical roots in The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg. He introduces its modern apostles—Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Balaji Srinivasan, and Elon Musk—and shows how the promise of technological liberation has transformed into a global movement for digital feudalism, powered by cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, and the algorithmic propaganda of social media.
The Nerd Reich explains the origins, strategies, and ambitions of Silicon Valley’s war on democracy for the first time. From San Francisco’s weaponized elections and secret billionaire projects to the White House, Durán exposes how the world’s richest men are building a new political order.
The Nerd Reich is more than a hidden history, it’s an urgent warning: democracy is being dismantled not by coups or tanks, but by code, capital, and the illusion of innovation. Durán insists there is still time to fight back—if we act now.