Understanding the MAGA-Tech Authoritarian Alliance

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To understand why certain Silicon Valley billionaires have aligned with MAGA Republicans in 2024, we must examine their shared worldviews.

Some political observers have drawn a simplistic conclusion about the tech figures backing Trump. They see these billionaires as motivated by a basic desire for lower taxes and fewer regulations. But that’s only part of the story.

While taxes and regulations may be important issues, they do not fully explain the MAGA-tech alliance. In reality, this alliance is about power and about reshaping the world in the 21st century and beyond. A new ideological faction is emerging from Silicon Valley: tech authoritarianism. It overlaps significantly with Trump’s MAGA party and thus has resulted in a (temporary) alliance.

In these rough notes, I’ll examine some of these overlaps.

Strict Father Morality

First, it helps to understand Dr. George Lakoff’s “Strict Father Morality” concept, which provides a framework for understanding the Republican moral belief system. Strict Father Morality is a worldview based on a hierarchical, authoritarian family model where the metaphorical father – the leader – is the ultimate authority.

Strict Father morality results in a so-called “moral hierarchy” that governs how the world should work. Here it is:

God above Man
Man above Nature
Men above Women
Whites above Nonwhites
The Disciplined (Strong) above the Undisciplined (Weak)
The Rich above the Poor
Employers above Employees
Adults above Children
Western culture above Other cultures
U.S. above Other countries
Christians above Non-Christians
Straights above LGBTQ people

In reactionary Republican politics, this hierarchy forms the moral order of society. As we say at FrameLab: If you want to understand the reasons behind extreme Republican policies, consult this list to find the answer. It's not just one form of bigotry or prejudice – it's a coherent, intersectional, organized system of supremacies.

This is especially true of the Republican Party in the MAGA era, where these interlinked hierarchies have become more pronounced. This rigid authority and hierarchy are what make MAGA an authoritarian movement.

MAGA + Tech Authoritarians

As the Republican Party has gone full authoritarian, it has attracted strong support from an emergent group of tech billionaires who share its authoritarian politics.

Some of these tech authoritarians have tried to rebrand their politics as “gray” – neither blue (Democratic) nor red (Republican). However, the overlap between the tech authoritarian belief systems and Strict Father Morality reveals the deep reactionary roots of the tech-MAGA alliance.

At the core of both systems is the preservation of hierarchies. Here are the areas where I see shared beliefs between MAGA and the tech authoritarians:

Men above women:

Tech authoritarians are primarily men. They increasingly embrace a toxic brand of male aggression and supremacy.
They promote aggressive “alpha” masculinity and the new “pronatalism” movement, which redefines women’s roles mostly around subservience and childbearing.

Whites above Nonwhites:

Tech authoritarians are primarily white.
They decry diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, favoring a system that upholds white supremacy, which they consider the traditional (and logical) moral order.

The Rich Over the Poor:

Tech authoritarians are wealthy. They believe the rich should have more power than everyone else.
They are using their massive wealth to reshape politics and tip the scales toward MAGA.
They seek to solve many problems, but never the vast economic inequality from which they derive their power.

The Disciplined (Strong) above the Undisciplined (Weak):

They often view their success as a product of superior intelligence, discipline, and strength, reinforcing a belief in their inherent “deservedness.”
They fetishize maniacal workaholic lifestyles, insisting that their mega wealth is the result of discipline. But their wealth is largely derived from the labor, property, taxes and talent of others.

Employers above Employees:

Many tech authoritarians are CEOs. They naturally prioritize the power of employers over workers, aligning with corporate supremacy.

Man above Nature:

Despite rhetoric about saving the planet, tech authoritarians favor technological “solutions” over structural changes.
They believe they can defeat aging and even death with technological enhancements.
Figures like Elon Musk think humans must urgently migrate off Earth and become “multi-planetary" (which would put humankind under corporate governance...in space).
Meanwhile, Musk's Neuralink company is trying to merge technology with the human brain and create an era of “transhumanism.”
They believe they can conquer nature with technology.

Straights Above LGBTQ people:

Tech authoritarians are primarily straight (with notable exceptions). They may not have anti-LGBTQ stances derived from religious morality, but their alliance with the Christian Right makes them open to using the LGBTQ community as a scapegoat.
Since MAGA Republicans also vilify Trans people as part of the culture war, the tech authoritarians are willing to use Trans people as scapegoats. Ironically, these tech authoritarians plan a “transhuman” future in which humankind defies nature by merging with technology, changing the very definition what it means to be a human being in ways far more radical than mere gender transition.
The emphasis on breeding and pronatalism also makes it easier to scapegoat LGBTQ people (even though heterosexuality has nothing to do with having children).

Where Tech Authoritarians Diverge

While Silicon Valley oligarchs align with most aspects of traditional Strict Father Morality, they also introduce some twists:

Tech as God (Above Man): God is above man in the conservative “strict father” hierarchy, and so authority is derived from God. But the tech authoritarians aren’t very religious. Instead, they have replaced God with technology. This means that those who control tech – the tech authoritarians themselves – are the ultimate authority in place of God. While a handful of these tech elites claim to be religious to some degree, it is not their defining characteristic. Instead, they place their faith in technology, their own intelligence, and in the impending arrival of the supposed “superintelligence” (A.I.) that will radically reshape the world in their image.
Tech interests above National interests: Tech authoritarians view loyalty to nations as an old-fashioned superstition. They see nation-states as outdated concepts. With ideas like the Network State, they seek to replace traditional countries with tech-ruled territories. They admire authoritarian countries and openly side with these countries (especially Putin’s Russia) over the United States. They have no loyalty to democracy. They prefer whatever systems best serve their own interests, regardless of what that means for others.

These two key differences are potential points of conflict in the MAGA-Tech Authoritarian alliance.

Summary: An Alliance of Hierarchy

The MAGA-Tech alliance is rooted in a shared hierarchical worldview. This worldview concentrates power in the hands of wealthy and predominantly white men. Their job is to impose a strict social order based on their continuing supremacy.

Trump Republicans and tech authoritarians may frame their beliefs differently, but their actions reveal an alignment: maintaining hierarchy, resisting egalitarianism, and elevating profit, power, and their own desires above all else.

What the tech authoritarians describe as “gray” politics is a 21st century version of Strict Father Morality. It is a moral system that replaces God with technology and money – and with the moral supremacy of those who control both.

This is a work in progress, so I welcome any feedback from FrameLab readers. Let me know what you see, or what I might have missed.

For more information...

For more on Strict Father Morality and Donald Trump, read "Understanding Trump" by Dr. Lakoff, which was written before the 2016 election:

In a recent episode of the FrameLab podcast, I talked with Dr. Brooke Harrington about "Why Broligarchs like Elon Musk Need Trump":

And for a full review of Strict Father Morality, listen to Episode #1 of the FrameLab Podcast: "How Republicans Really Think"

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