Unlike the US president, the vice president is an ideologue. J.D. Vance is not the only one in Trump’s inner circle, but he is the most significant. He acts as a focal point for various ideological currents, even those with seemingly contradictory origins, such as neoconservatism and post-liberalism. This creates a kind of chaotic Brownian motion, which Vance organises and distils for Trump in simplified terms.
The influences on Vance, and through him on Trump, can be divided into two categories: those who write books and those who write blogs. I have previously discussed Paul Kahn, a Yale Law School professor and former mentor to Vance. Curtis Yarvin, on the other hand, has influenced Trumpism through his blog writings, though he has also authored books.
Yarvin, like Vance, studied at Yale, but much earlier. In the 1990s, during his undergraduate studies, he pursued two majors: computer science and classical Greco-Roman philosophy. This unconventional combination shaped his equally unconventional worldview. He is often portrayed as merely a techie, but he is also deeply engaged in the humanities.
Yarvin remains countercultural even within Trump’s circle, viewing them as insufficiently radical for his ideas. A telling episode, which he himself recounted in an interview, took place at a post-election party where he encountered Vance. Vance greeted him with, “Yarvin, you are a reactionary fascist.” Yarvin believes Vance meant neither praise nor insult — simply a statement of fact.
Trump, for his part, does not fully grasp ideological labels like fascism, at least not in the conventional sense. Such frameworks do not exist in his mind. But for Vance and Yarvin, they do. This makes them more dangerous than Trump himself — they are educated and fully aware of the ideology they promote.
In many ways, they are more cynical than Trump, who has never had firm principles. They once did but have since deliberately abandoned them.
Some compare Yarvin to Aleksandr Dugin, but this is misleading. Dugin is consumed by his own ideas, whereas Yarvin is cynical — he manipulates ideas rather than being controlled by them. He is closer to Vladislav Surkov, though without Surkov’s direct political power. However, Yarvin credits himself with significant influence. At the same party, when Vance called him a fascist, Yarvin replied, “I’m glad I didn’t stop your election,” implying he sees himself as a kingmaker — just as Surkov once did.
One of Yarvin’s most radical ideas is the advocacy of monarchy. Like other ideologues around Trump, he believes liberal democracy has exhausted itself and must be dismantled. But what should replace it? Yarvin’s answer is a form of monarchy — not the traditional hereditary kind, but a meritocratic one. This idea was also promoted by Ivan Ilyin, Putin’s favourite philosopher, who justified monarchy in Russia based on cultural codes. Yarvin and some Silicon Valley figures, however, justify it using programming logic, arguing that hierarchical structures — like those in software development and unicorn startups — are more efficient than horizontal democratic models.
Yarvin openly discusses monarchy, whereas others in Trump’s circle have not yet dared to do so. They are watching public reactions closely. After all, anti-monarchism is a core myth of American identity. This is particularly evident at Yale. In New Haven, where Yale is located, three parallel streets are named after the judges who sentenced King Charles I to death. These judges later sought refuge in the area after the monarchy was restored. One of the city’s most revered landmarks is the Judges’ Stone, where one of these regicides supposedly hid. Honouring those who killed kings is both a Yale and an American tradition.
Yarvin challenges this tradition by advocating for the monarchy instead of its executioners. In doing so, he disrupts fundamental American political assumptions — both right and left-wing. In this, he aligns with Trump, who is not opposed to the idea of monarchy and even imagines himself as a modern-day Charles II. Notably, Charles III has little regard for this self-styled pretender.
Yarvin also promotes another monarchical concept, which he calls the Dark Enlightenment. Whereas the classical Enlightenment was egalitarian and republican, the Dark Enlightenment is monarchical. Ukraine has already encountered such an ideology in the figure of Catherine II. She, too, was a representative of the Dark Enlightenment as Yarvin envisions it — corresponding with Voltaire on one hand while imposing rigid absolutism on Russia on the other.
Just as Ukraine suffered under Catherine’s vision, it now faces a new Dark Enlightenment within Trump’s ideological sphere.