Donald Trump

“You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians. I’m a Christian. I love you. Get out. You got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again.

Paul Jay

Hi, I’m Paul Jay, and this is theAnalysis.news report about the unholy alliance of tech billionaires and the religious far-right that back Trump and why this promise to his beloved Christians is not just an off-the-cuff raving. It represents the thinking of some of the most powerful of the strange cabal of billionaires that are supporting Trump’s bid for a second term. People like tech titan Peter Thiel hope to rake in cash and gain power from a Trump win, but they also share his disdain for American representative democracy.

If Trump wins in November, he’s promising there won’t be another election in four years. If he loses, we’re likely to see the same tactics we saw in 2020, an attempted military coup that almost no one wants to discuss now. I’m not just talking about the events of January 6, that is, the riot on Capitol Hill.

The attempted coup was built around the “Stop the Steal” campaign, first developed by Republican dirty trickster Roger Stone, ahead of the 2016 election, but not needed at that time as Trump actually won. “Stop the Steal 2.0” was announced by Trump strategist Steve Bannon on the Tucker Carlson Show on September 17, 2020, six weeks before the vote.

Steve Bannon

“We’re kicking off a national tour on Monday called “The Plot to Steal 2020.” They’re not going to stop my voice in assisting President Trump and making sure that this election that he’s going to win on the third is not stolen from him.”

Tucker Carlson

“Maybe the real contest begins. Steve Bannon, I’m glad that you came on. Thank you very much.”

Steve Bannon

“That’s when the war starts.”

Paul Jay

While millions of words have been written about the storming of the Capitol buildings, the more important story is what happened in the lead-up to the riot on the Hill.

Retired General Michael Flynn, after being pardoned by Trump, called for a military intervention and martial law in a December 17 interview on Newsmax.

Gen Michael Flynn

“Within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and he could place them in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states. It’s not unprecedented. I mean, these people out there talking about martial law, it’s like it’s something that we’ve never done. Martial law has been instituted 64, 64 times.”

Paul Jay

The Military Times reported that Trump drafted an executive order that instructed the Pentagon to seize, collect, retain, and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information, and material records required for retention under U.S. election law and give the defense secretary 60 days to provide an assessment. In other words, a military-backed coup.

On January 4, 10 former Secretaries of Defense issued a statement warning military leaders and the acting Secretary of Defense not to get involved in election results.

In the opinion piece published in the Washington Post, their letter, in part, stated, “As senior Defense Department leaders have noted, there’s no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election. Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful, and unconstitutional territory. Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.” 

On January 4, the same day as the letter from the former secretaries, the Financial Times Editorial Board, that’s the Financial Times Editorial Board, says, “Extraordinary as it may seem, what amounts to an undeclared coup d’état is being attempted in the U.S. It will almost certainly fail. But the next two weeks will severely test the strength of America’s institutions  —  and the courage of its public officials.” Again, Editorial Board of the Financial Times.

Well, the coup did fail, but there’s been no public disclosure just who in the military was organizing to use the “Stop the Steal” campaign to actually steal the election.

General Flynn is a well-known leader of the Christian Nationalist Movement that actively organizes in the military. It stands to reason that’s what they were afraid of.

On December 17, 2021, in an opinion column in the Washington Post, three retired generals wrote a column titled The Military Must Prepare Now for a 2024 Insurrection. The generals were Paul D. Eaton, a retired U.S. Army Major General, Antonio M. Taguba, a retired Army Major General, and Steven M. Anderson, a retired Brigadier General. They wrote, “The potential for a total breakdown of the chain of command along partisan lines — from the top of the chain to squad level — is significant should another insurrection occur. The idea of rogue units organizing among themselves to support the “rightful” commander-in-chief cannot be dismissed. Imagine competing commanders-in-chief, a newly reelected Biden,” of course, they didn’t understand then it might be Harris, “giving orders, versus Trump (or another Trumpian figure) issuing orders as the head of a shadow government. Worse, imagine politicians at the state and federal levels illegally installing a losing candidate as president.”

The Trump-Vance campaign represents a dangerous alliance of tech and finance billionaires, far-right Catholics, evangelical Christian nationalists, and extreme-right Zionists. This coalition could reshape America and the world in ways that echo the darkest days of the 20th century but with a 21st-century techno spin.

While their agenda includes typical conservative policies like tax cuts for the wealthy and widespread deregulation, at its heart lies more sinister goals.

Each of the different billionaires and backers of Trump have their own agendas, but they share a political objective, which is the weakening or even radical rejection of the American electoral system as we know it.

Let’s listen to Trump one more time.

Donald Trump

“It’ll be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore.”

Paul Jay

The Trump-Vance agenda is dressed up in populist talk about creating more jobs and defending workers. It’s supposedly based on Christian values. In his speech accepting the Republican nomination for Vice President, J. D. Vance declared:

J.D. Vance

“We’re done, ladies and gentlemen, catering to Wall Street. We’ll commit to the working man.”

Paul Jay

This rhetoric, eerily reminiscent of populist’s promises past, rings hollow when we consider the reality behind it.

Vance comes from the world of venture capital and is backed by many tech billionaires, including Peter Thiel. Despite his working-class posturing, his ally, Steve Bannon, cut his teeth at Goldman Sachs, and this contradiction isn’t new. It echoes the Nazi Party’s origins as the German Workers Party, originally funded by German millionaires like Fritz Thyssen.

The Trump-Vance vision does not challenge billionaires’ concentrated ownership, which is where their real power lies.

Ironically, Wall Street is the big winner in all this, the entity Vance rails against. As a major shareholder in big tech firms, the military-industrial complex, and fossil fuel companies, the finance sector stands to profit immensely from a Trump-Vance administration. This pro-billionaire agenda is dressed up in the garb of Christian rhetoric. Not only is Trump backed by powerful leaders of the evangelical right, his vice president is part of a network of the extreme right of the Catholic Church.

Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019, just a year after being taken under the wing of Bannon, who helped him win his Senate seat. Billionaire Peter Thiel funded the campaign to the tune of at least $10 million. Vance’s conversion was proudly reported on the far-right Opus Dei website, signaling his alignment with this influential Catholic organization. This cements Vance’s ties to a powerful international network of radical-right Catholic influence that goes far beyond mere religious affiliation and into the realm of political ideology.

ProPublica reports that J. D. Vance spoke to and joined the Teneo Network in 2021. Leonard Leo is the Network’s Chair, a leader of the Federalist Society that campaigned to get several Supreme Court judges appointed, including Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Cavanaugh, and Barrett. Leo is reported to be a member of Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta and is allied with Catholic hierarchy that oppose the progressive reforms of Pope Francis. He leads an intricate network of far-right Christian funders.

In his speech to Teneo, Vance said: 

J.D. Vance

“But one of the things that really does worry me is that we have very few oligarchs on our side, and I don’t mean just rich people. I mean people who are smart about deploying their resources in a way that advances the cause. Maybe only Peter Thiel on our side, I think. I think Peter Thiel is one of the most important sources of nonconventional truth in our society.”

Paul Jay

Vance has often credited Thiel as one of the most influential people in his life, including his decision to convert to Catholicism. Thiel is one of the founders of PayPal and is now a multibillionaire. He provides mountains of cash and an ideological foundation to Vance and his allies. He is considered by his supporters as a Christian “techno-philosopher king.”

Thiel is frustrated by American representative government. In an essay titled The Straussian Moment, he writes, “Moreover, a direct path forward is prevented by America’s constitutional machinery. By “setting ambition against ambition” with an elaborate system of checks and balances, it prevents any single ambitious person from reconstructing the old Republic.”

During the American Revolution, there were leaders like Alexander Hamilton, who argued for an elective monarch-like president for life unless impeached, who would ensure the interests of the elites were protected. Only the wealthy would vote. Such an autocracy is what Donald Trump and some of his tech billionaire backers are planning.

The recent Supreme Court decision making the president immune from prosecution for actions taken while he’s in office is a step in the direction of an American king above the law.

On the John Stewart Show, billionaire Mark Cuban says Silicon Valley supporters of Trump want a corporate model for the state.

Mark Cuban

“They want Trump to be the CEO of the United States of America, and they want to be the board of directors that makes him listen to them. They’ve gotten to the point now where they feel like they should control the world, right, and that there should be a CEO in charge of everything.”

John Stewart

“Because they have a good photo app?”

Mark Cuban

“Because they’re rich as fuck, right? It’s just like you get to that point sometimes where I think they’ve lost the connection to real world.”

Paul Jay

Thiel and Bannon support Trump and Vance to “Make America Great Again.” And just when was it they think it was so great?

In 2009, Thiel wrote an essay published by the Cato Institute titled The Education of a Libertarian. He wrote, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women —  two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians —  have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.” Of course, it was the 1920s that ushered in the Great Depression, but perhaps he forgot about that.

Steve Bannon frames it as deconstructing the administrative state, a vision now infamously detailed in Project 2025. This radical right-wing blueprint for dismantling government institutions, of course not the military or the police, and imposing hard right Christian values is so extreme that even Trump unconvincingly tries to distance himself from it.

They want a deregulated pre-New Deal’s state. That’s before the reforms of FDR in the 1930s, where there is unrestricted freedom for the investor class while keeping the government’s coercive police powers. It means not just lower taxes on billionaires but much weaker antitrust enforcement on monopolies, a labor relations board that favors corporations over unions, less investment in the social safety net like social security, unemployment insurance, and public schools. It also includes favoring big pharma, higher drug prices, and a private for-profit health system.

In 2014, Bannon gave a speech to a meeting of the Institute for Human Dignity, held at the Vatican under the patronage of Cardinal Burke, a fierce opponent of the progressive reforms advocated by Pope Francis. Like Thiel, Bannon misses the good old days. Bannon said:

Steve Bannon

“One thing I want to make sure of is that if you look at the leaders of capitalism at that time, when capitalism was, I believe, at its highest flower and spreading its benefits to most of mankind, almost all of those capitalists were strong believers in the Judeo-Christian West.”

Paul Jay

Trump glorifies the 1890s as the wealthiest in American history. In other words, the days of unmitigated capitalism when child labor was mostly legal. The working day was 12 to 16 hours. Workers could be fired at any time for any reason. No health insurance or other benefits. Workers were often trapped in debt. Workers who tried to organize were met with violence and intimidation.

The Immigration Act of 1924 effectively banned most Asian immigration, severely restricted immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, including countries like Italy, Russia, and Poland, and excluded most African immigration, and was later used to prevent many Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution from entering the United States. Racial segregation and discrimination were codified in laws restricting access to education, employment, housing, and voting. Thousands of Black Americans were lynched, often without trial or due process, with impunity for the perpetrators. In other words, the good old days that Peter Thiel and Steve Bannon, J.D. Vance and Donald Trump are imagining.

Thiel’s philosophy is similar to that expressed by Steve Bannon, which sees a need for a great and bloody battle to defend Western civilization.

In Thiel’s 2004 essay, The Straussian Moment, he wrote, “When bin Laden declares war on the ‘infidels, the Zionists, and the crusaders,’ Schmitt would not counsel reasoned half-measures. He would urge a new crusade as a way to rediscover the meaning and purpose of our lives.”

The Schmitt Thiel refers to is Carl Schmitt, a German legal scholar who joined the Nazi Party in 1933. Thiel continues, “On the Western side (if it can even be called aside), there is great confusion over what the fighting is for, and why there should be a civilizational war at all.” Thiel sees a way around the political paralysis embedded in our open system of government by relying on the secret services. “Instead of the United Nations, filled with interminable and inconclusive parliamentary debates that resemble Shakespearean tales told by idiots, we should consider Echelon, the secret coordination of the world’s intelligence services, as the decisive path to a truly global pax Americana.”

Of course, all this works well with Thiel’s investments in various military contractors. Corporations like Palantir and Andrew Hill Industries that provide AI systems for the military intelligence complex. Palantir promises “Fielding capabilities to support the warfighting vision of joint all domain command and control.” While not publicly stated, it’s likely that all domain includes nuclear weapons. It also includes supplying technology to the Israeli army to help with its war effort against the Palestinians in Gaza. A new crusade to defend Judeo-Christian civilization and establish a global pax Americana led by intelligence services. All this would prove to be very profitable for Peter Thiel and Palantir. Trump-Vance are the ones to deliver it.

Most importantly to Thiel is the government staying out of the development of artificial intelligence, in spite of the dire warnings from many of tech’s leading minds that unregulated for-profit AI is an existential risk to human civilization. Trump-Vance have made it very clear they will deliver on that, too. The militarization of artificial intelligence is already pushing ahead at great speed, and it’s highly dangerous, endless profit center for big tech.

Other than his climate science denial, Trump’s promise to build a “Made in America Iron Dome” boondoggle could be the most imminent threat of Trump’s second term.

Donald Trump

“With our victory in November, the years of war, weakness, and chaos will be over. We will replenish our military and build an Iron Dome missile defense system to ensure that no enemy can strike our homeland. And this great Iron Dome will be built entirely in the USA.”

Paul Jay

The only thing worse than Trump’s Iron Dome being a multibillion-dollar bottomless money pit that doesn’t work is that it does work.

A nation confident in its anti-ballistic missile system, thinking it can knock ICBMs out of the sky, might feel protected enough to consider a first strike, upsetting a delicate strategic balance. This will trigger an even more vigorous arms race as other countries rush to improve their weapons to overcome these defenses. Moreover, even advanced ABM systems can’t guarantee protection against a massive nuclear attack, creating a false sense of security. This is why ABM systems are seen as first-strike weapons, not a defensive response. In the end, Trump’s Iron Dome would make an unstable world dangerously more volatile.

Who benefits from a wild AI and ABM arms race? Well, Peter Thiel and his company Palantir, and other members of the pro-Trump Silicon Valley billionaires, Elon Musk with SpaceX, in which Thiel is also an investor. This is not to say that the Democrats don’t have their own pro-AI militarization billionaires like Alex Karp, Thiel’s CEO and co-founder of Palantir. It’s good for a company like Palantir to bet on both horses.

The militarization of AI, and in particular, its application in nuclear command and control is outright gambling with the apocalypse for the sake of making money. 

For Thiel, Bannon, and many other billionaires in the Trump camp, “Make America Great Again” is cynically draped in the language of Christianity, but it’s the Christianity of the crusades.

Their invoked faith bears little resemblance to Jesus’s teachings of compassion, care for the poor, and rejection of wealth and power. Jesus said, “It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.” He also said, “Sell your possessions and give it to the poor and set the oppressed free.” This is not Trump’s “Make America Wealthy Again.”

We are ruled by a class of billionaires, some dressed in Christian garb, others secular liberalism. Whichever party they back, they are not fit to rule. They believe their wealth makes them immune to what’s coming. They are wrong.

As critical as this election is, the need to deal with the existential threats of climate catastrophe, militarized AI, and the threat of nuclear war goes beyond this vote. A system that allows billionaires to threaten the existence of human civilization must be fundamentally changed.