A New Fusionism

Elon Musk cannonballed into electoral politics in 2024. Other tech bros joined him to support Donald Trump. The alliance is remarkable. Heretofore no aspect of Silicon Valley seemed congenial to conservatism. As recently as 2017, Google fired James Damore for the crime of calmly articulating doubts about corporate America’s DEI regime. Yet what had seemed a homogeneous, left-wing blob turns out to be otherwise. Like working class voters in Ohio, Musk and his billionaire friends entertain grave doubts about the direction of the country. And like avid MAGA voters, they harbor a growing hostility to the liberal establishment that has a death grip on elite institutions. This unexpected harmony of sentiments led some of the most prominent figures in America’s most dynamic sector of the economy to join forces with populist masses. The time is right for a new ideological configuration: a new fusionism between right-wing progressives and social conservatives.

A year ago, N. S. Lyons published an incisive account of the emergence of tech oligarchs on the right (“The Rise of the Right-Wing Progressives”). He focused on Marc Andreessen’s 2023 call to action, “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Lyons notes, “It’s a full-throated hymn glorifying technology, progress, and boundless growth, while castigating what it portrays as the demoralization, enervation, and stagnation of our society.” Mainstream journalists (which is to say left-wing journalists) reacted with horror, going so far as to describe the contents as “fascist.” Writing in the New York Times, Ezra Klein said that the manifesto’s “vibe is reactionary.”

This response is not surprising. Our postwar regime has many pillars. Nearly all of them were erected or came to be endorsed by the left. To call for their demolition is by definition “anti-left.”

The New Deal and total mobilization for World War II established the administrative state and its vast regulatory reach. Andreessen opposes this development, and he does so for the same reasons that free-market conservatives have adduced for decades: “Centralized planning is doomed to fail,” and the heavy hand of regulation stifles innovation. He echoes Milton Friedman: “We believe markets are an inherently individualistic way to achieve superior collective outcomes.”

But Andreessen does more than sing from the old free-market hymnbook. He attacks the dominant “vibe.” The manifesto states: “Our present society has been subjected to a mass demoralization campaign for six decades.” Liberal elites have reverently nodded to Ibram Kendi’s pronouncements about “systemic racism,” a pessimistic outlook that condemns us to live in a perpetual racist doom loop. Rich liberals fund organizations that clamor about climate catastrophe. Elite universities promote pedagogies of anti-Western self-laceration. These aspects of the present regime and others have flourished under left-wing sponsorship. As lifelong liberals such as Jonathan Haidt have discovered, opposing these dogmas, for whatever reason, gets one denounced as “right-wing.”

As a social and religious conservative, I reject key aspects of “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Andreessen believes “in overcoming nature,” not by way of divine grace, but by fulfilling our role as the “apex predator” that dominates all things. His dream that intelligence will overcome matter strikes me as gnostic. But I share his negative assessment of the present American regime. We are united in our opposition to the status quo in culture and the arts, in education and civic institutions, in government and corporate culture. In that sense, whatever our disagreements, Andreessen and I are allied with voters who reject Democratic (and Republican) representatives of the status quo. We are “populists,” or as writers for The Atlantic delicately put it, “fascists.”

A common enemy encourages tactical alliances. Are there deeper convergences? Lyons suggests a useful distinction: egalitarianism as opposed to hierarchy. Those on the left privilege equality. Those on the right give priority to hierarchy.

At this level, the right-wing progressive and old-style conservative share a common outlook. “To be right-wing is to especially value hierarchy,” says Lyons. This commitment does not mean favoring aristocracy and monarchy. Rather, endorsing hierarchy means “to be able and willing to recognize that A is better than B in some way, and to therefore place A ahead of B and call this a proper and just ordering of things.” Lyons notes that “even science (real science) is arguably a right-wing pursuit, because scientists cannot be egalitarian over the facts.” This interpretation of the data is better than that interpretation.

A left-wing progressive rebels against hierarchy and insists that, when it comes to human beings, any better than judgment is based on convention, prejudice, or some other distortion of our consciousness, which must be corrected to reflect the ideals of equality. All the children in the race need to get ribbons. Yes, the fastest runner came in first, but this fact is of no special consequence. Criminals are not morally worse than the law-abiding; they suffer from bad social conditions. We need to honor indigenous traditions of knowing, instead of “privileging” Western science.

There’s a great deal of truth in the way Lyons distinguishes the political right from the left. I would go further, however. Those on the right believe that hierarchy rests on reality. When we make an accurate better than judgment, we honor the truth of things. Those on the left deny this metaphysical conviction. They say that better than judgments rest on historically contingent, socially constructed values—the interests and preferences of the powerful.

Let me give an example. Lyons notes that right-wing progressives often focus on intelligence. Some people are more intelligent than others, and this fact makes a difference. Indeed, not a few right-wing progressives seek to enhance intelligence. Elon Musk founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company that develops ways for our brains to interface with computers. Other rightwing progressives endorse reproductive technologies that allow parents to screen embryos to select for desired traits, including intelligence. A recently founded company, Heliospect, provides embryo testing to achieve that goal, perhaps fulfilling some of the aspirations expressed in “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.”

As a religious conservative, I judge Heliospect to be an immoral enterprise, not only because its services require the destruction of human beings, but also because genetic screening separates the sexual act from reproduction. Without doubt, a new fusionism will be tense, not easy. Nevertheless, the left-wing reaction to Heliospect is tellingly different from mine. A recent Guardian article quotes Katie Hasson, Associate Director at the Center for Genetics and Society. She gives a startling assessment of the kind of screening performed by the company: “One of the biggest problems is that it normalizes this idea of ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ genetics,” an approach that “reinforces the belief that inequality comes from biology rather than social causes.”

I think the right-wing-progressive fixation on IQ is overdone. Hierarchy has metaphysical meaning: Truth, beauty, and goodness are transcendental perfections, and things and qualities of persons are to be valued in accord with the degree of their participation in these perfections. Intelligence is a capacity, to be sure, and, pace Katie Hasson, people intrinsically possess that capacity to greater and lesser degrees. But knowing the truth is another matter entirely. I’ve known brilliant people who have theorized their way to the most ridiculous conclusions. Very clever people are often book-smart and life-stupid. They know many facts but possess little aptitude for deep and consequential truths. Dan Hitchens recently surveyed the thought of Iain McGilchrist, who warns against a narrow, calculating intelligence that ignores our larger, truth-sensing capacity (“Iain McGilchrist’s New Era,” January 2025). Right-wing progressives tend to fall in that trap.

But my objections on this score mark a material disagreement about reality, whereas the left-wing progressive insists that “reality” is socially constructed and the distinction between male and female has no basis in biology. A new fusionism that joins conservatives with right-wing progressives will be based on a shared affirmation of the authority of reality.

I’ve mentioned the metaphysical aspect of reality, which right-wing progressives may not share. Nor do they seem to honor the reality of God. Perhaps some will become convinced and change their views. Andreessen’s manifesto urges us to believe in progress—the future. But the future does not exist, which means that the techno-optimist risks falling into the present-day nihilism he hopes to overcome. Better to believe in the real, which is both a reliable anchor and pregnant with possibilities, as man’s technological achievement makes manifest.

Political coalitions are not made in philosophy seminars. Nevertheless, as the Trump coalition matures, conservatives should emphasize the authority of reality. We can underscore our shared metaphysical affirmation in practical ways that gain traction with right-wing progressives.

One of Friedrich Hayek’s most important contributions (mentioned by Andreessen) concerns the profound limits of economic planning. Coordinating production and consumption is a task too complex for us to master with technocratic reason. Markets are far more effective. Recognizing the unworkable nature of socialism, soft or hard, provided a crucial foundation of the old fusionism of the postwar era. It will certainly play a role in a new fusionism for the twenty-first century.

Communism sought to implement a planned society as well as a planned economy. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, left-wing progressives largely gave up on the economy while intensifying their efforts to re-engineer society. Traditional norms for education, family, and male–female relations have been overturned and a new, purportedly “progressive” regulatory regime has been imposed. Today, many institutions have gone so far as to launch sustained efforts to re-engineer pronoun use. This, too, is doomed to fail. Hayek observes, “No human mind can comprehend all the knowledge which guides the actions of society,” and those actions are more often cultural than economic. Tradition is the accumulated knowledge that offers a more intelligent basis for social organization than the gimcrack theories implemented by social justice advocates and progressive technocrats. The same goes for our souls. Three generations of therapeutic intervention have led to worse mental health. Jonathan Haidt calls for relaxing our efforts to engineer every aspect of a child’s life to achieve “best outcomes.” Let him play in the woods! In effect, back to traditional norms.

One need but listen to Elon Musk talking with Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan to see that right-wing progressives are entertaining something akin to natural law. Andreessen pledges loyalty to what Thomas Sowell calls “the constrained vision,” which honors the authority of reality. We need to encourage this trend by pressing important questions. Can a healthy, productive society be sustained without traditional norms for marriage and childrearing? Do abortion, contraception, and the sexual revolution contribute to the fertility crisis? Can we meet foreign challenges without a strong and widely diffused patriotic sentiment? Do the most admirable aspects of our culture stem from Christianity?

There’s a further point of convergence, one on which I would like to conclude. In many places, “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto” praises power and victory. Andreessen rejects the “victim mentality” and its enervating attitude of helplessness. “We are not victims,” he writes, “we are conquerors.” He evokes the martial spirit: “We believe in ambition, aggression, persistence, relentlessness—strength.” His ideal is one of adventure, which requires bravery and courage.

I share these sentiments. But I wonder whether Marc Andreessen has taken the full measure of his rousing words. Wherein does a man find strength? The techno-optimist seems to offer technology as the answer. He who possesses the most powerful tools wins. But this is to misjudge our condition. The Spartans recognized that “no” is a powerful engine of freedom: No, I will not do your will. No, I will not bow to social pressure. No, I will not cave to my base desires. No, I will not fear death.

Technological advances do not give us the power to say “no.” Quite the contrary, they often help us evade the necessity of doing so. Ozempic offers an obvious example—a technological substitute for willpower. The transhumanist enterprise offers another—the promise of not needing to have courage in the face of death. As Lyons observes, rather than strengthening us, technology often enervates. “If Andreessen believes the infinite abundance and fully-automated luxury of his imagined technological future would ever produce anything more than those obese blob-humans of WALL-E (bound to their anti-gravity chairs and fully dependent on robots to fulfill their every decadent need, including to make all their decisions) then he is gravely mistaken.”

The greatest strength is spiritual, not material. Truth has power. It is indomitable. It is our devotion to truth (not its discovery or the tools we make from its fecundity) that allows us to participate in its power most fully. As Peter and the apostles say to the authorities of their day, “We must obey God rather than men.” Truth’s slaves can say “no.”

Social and religious conservatives are the custodians of devotion. In a new fusionism, we need to remind right-wing progressives that we know better than do they wherein lies the power that makes men conquerors. I commend to Marc Andreessen for contemplation this passage from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans:

In all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If Andreessen wishes to probe the deepest source of strength, I suggest he get in touch with San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. In such conversations rests the future of a new fusionism.