Dark Enlightenment Rising: The Billionaire Experiment to Kill Democracy

The Hartmann Report  - The future of American democracy isn’t being dismantled by accident; it’s being systematically replaced to prepare the way for something entirely new.  A radical ideology known as the Dark Enlightenment is fueling a billionaire-led movement to gut our government, erase democratic norms, and install a technocratic elite in their place.

Trump and Musk aren’t just tearing down institutions—they’re laying the groundwork for an experimental new kind of authoritarian rule.  Americans are baffled by the brutal, relentless attack on the institutions of America that they’ve launched.

Why would they destroy our reputation around the world by shutting down USAID? What’s wrong with the federal government helping poor school districts or giving college students Pell Grants? Why gut billions in scientific research that’s kept America at the forefront of the world and saved literally hundreds of millions of lives?....

The simple answer is that these people intend to replace the 240+ year “American Experiment” with a brand new governance “experiment” of their own. One that was largely developed in computer rooms around San Francisco.

There’s an actual ideology behind all this, and it isn’t the old-fashioned Ayn Rand libertarianism that was such a rage during the Reagan era.  This hot new experimental ideology, enthusiastically embraced by Silicon Valley billionaires and their “tech bros” dismantling our government, is called the Dark Enlightenment or the neo-reactionary movement (NRx).  More