Pt.6 - Techno-Progressivism and Its Dissidents

A Normie's Guide to the Technocratic Era Pt.6

Techno-Progressivism — in which scientific progress is the sole telos for human civilization — has become a bipartisan, unanimous movement that transcends Left and Right. It is in fact the ultimate logical conclusion of the Enlightenment and the Humanist dogma of social and technological progress that has been at work now in the West for centuries.

This ideology supplants the traditional faith of the West — Christianity — with a new faith worshipping man and his intellectual and creative capabilities as demonstrated through scientific mastery of the material universe. Centuries of leftist, humanist, post-enlightenment thought has culminated in this moment, and we will soon see the ultimate fruits of this long experiment. Will man be able to re-create himself in his own image, and thus create his own paradise on Earth? Or will he only damn himself for his pride, and bring Hell to reign among the still-living? We have staked an enormous amount on the former.

Christian Populism: A Techno-Progressive Antithesis

Since the 1990s, Techno-Progressivism has identified two groups as the biggest threat to their ideology: on the Right, religious Christians. On the Left, environmentalists. The former believes in the sanctity of human nature, and the latter in the sanctity of the natural world (creation). Whether in the documents of the Extropy Institute or in Land’s “the Dark Enlightenment” both groups are consistently met with ire.

Additionally, there is a third group that presents a threat to the “tech bro” manifestation of Techno-Progressivism under Trump — the Populists. This includes Nationalist, nativist populists of the original MAGA movement, which have been sidelined in the Trump coalition in favor of the tech bros. It also includes the Left-Wing Populists who champion democracy — the other boogie man of the NRx principles of the Techno-Progressive technocrat forces. Like the Christians, the Populists of both the Left and Right believe in some intrinsic value of the American people aside from their mere economic output.

Although not necessarily motivated by democracy, the environmentalist or “green” faction of the Left shares many of the same positions and enemies as the Left-Wing Populists, and they have committed similar acts of resistance against many of the same targets. For the purposes of this article, they can be considered as more or less a part of the broader Left-Wing Populists.

Thus, the future political paradigm will not be between Democrats vs. Republicans, socialists vs. Capitalists, or “woke” vs. “based” but rather between these two groups — the Techno-Progressives and the Christian Populists.

This will not be an entirely black-and-white affair. There are multiple sub-factions on the Right and Left, and they may support either group to differing degrees. But these will be the two poles between which these various sub-factions will fall.

I am also not suggesting that there will be a formal alliance between the Left-Wing Populists and the Christians. The two will probably operate independently while occasionally sharing common enemies.

Between the Two Poles

In this section, I will speculate on where various the sub-factions on the Left and Right that have been referenced at one point or another in this series may fall. This is not an exhaustive list, just a thought experiment.

On the Left, the Techno-Progressives will find support among the transgender community and other “bio-hackers” who are in favor of using even more transhumanist technologies recreationally, as well as classical liberals, Dengists (in China), and perhaps some orthodox Marxists who strictly adhere to the philosophy of dialectical materialism.

On the Left, the anti-Techno-Progressive faction will comprise of environmentalists, social justice progressives, effective altruists, and various forms of left-populism.

On the Right, the Techno-Progressive faction will comprise of right-libertarians, Accelerationists, and neo-reactionaries.

On the Right the anti-Techno-Progressive faction will comprise of Christians and Nationalists.

Let us attempt to organize these groups based on their highest value, and their allegiance for or against the Techno-Progressives.

Left Techno-Progressive:

Transgenders/bio-hackers - personal identity/self-expression

Classical liberals - social freedom

Dengists - pragmatism

Orthodox Marxists - proletarian class revolution / dialectical materialism

Left Populist:

Environmentalists - sanctity of nature

Left-populist - democracy

Social justice progressivism - rights of minorities and marginalized groups

Effective altruists - the Common Good as determined by pure reason

Right Techno-Progressive:

Right-libertarians - economic freedom

Accelerationists - technological advancement

Neo-reactionaries - government efficiency

Right Populist:

Christians - God, sanctity of human nature

Nationalists - Common Good of the nation

Simplified even further, we can summarize the difference in terms of the shared principles of each of the two groups: the Techno-Progressives value freedom, and “progress” (liberal-progressivism) as well as efficiency. The anti-Techno Progressives value abstract ideals which are good in themselves (the Common Good, God, sanctity, human rights, etc). These things which are good in themselves can be said to be always and intrinsically good in themselves, and thus “perennial goods.”

Meanwhile, freedom, progress, and efficiency are of a different nature. They are all only potential goods.

Freedom is pure potency. It is not a good in itself but rather the freedom to pursue some other good of the individual’s choosing. It is an inherently individualistic value because instead of acknowledging some universal good, it leaves it up to the individual to decide what good to pursue.

Progress is similarly not a good in itself because it is not even a thing in itself, but rather an unfolding towards something else — a becoming. Another potency towards some good that the progressive is progressing towards. For example, if Christianity was my highest good, then progress would be defined relative to this as a world that was becoming more and more Christian. However, if I was an atheist, then it would be progress to have a less and less Christian society. This is the reason why “extropy” is the key component of Techno-Progressivism. It is the highest good towards which their moral value system progresses. As the universe becomes more complex — more “intelligent,” more “hot,” more extropic — it becomes ever more oriented towards this ultimate good.

Efficiency, obviously, is not a good in itself either. It is simply how fast this becoming process is versus how fast it could be, or how much waste there is the system versus how little there could be.

Freedom and progress work hand-in-glove.

Freedom is a corrosive good that deteriorates old, “repressive” ideologies, and creates a vacuum in which each individual can pursue their own personally chosen good. However, even if an individual can choose an individual good for their individual life, society as a single entity can only collectively choose a single good.

Progressivism then fills this societal vacuum and provides this single good, in the form of a potential good which is forever becoming. In a purely atheistic and materialistic worldview, this “potential good” that progress is causing to become must be purely atheistic and materialistic in nature. Thus, “extropy” — an increase in matter and energy, the only two things acknowledged to be “real” — must logically be this good. If the universe is virtually infinite, then this increase in matter and energy can unfold infinitely.

Meanwhile, the competing goods sought by the anti-Techno-Progressives impede the progress towards this goal by filling the vacuum of freedom with a good that is non-material, perennial, and unchanging (a being rather than a becoming) in nature.

This is the substance of the conflict. If this is understood, the political dimension of this struggle becomes clear.

Anti-Techno-Progressivism on the Left

One does not have to be a complete luddite to be opposed to Techno-Progressivism. One simply has to serve some non-materialistic good. Many Leftist anti-Techno-Progressives believe in technology, but they believe that technology is good because it serves some other ends — such as healing the sick, improving the rights of workers, or helping to liberate marginalized groups. This is essentially no different than a proper Christian understanding of technology, as neither necessarily a good or an evil but being capable of both depending on whether it is oriented towards or away from God.

It is this form of Leftist that Nick Land spends most of “The Dark Enlightenment” decrying. Many of these Leftists believe in the sanctity of human life and thus advocate for civil rights. Land correctly identifies that there is ultimately no grounding for this in the atheistic system of Leftists, but they believe in it nonetheless. Ultimately these Leftists are motivated by legacy Christian values that have been grandfathered into their ideology, although they are unaware of it.

It is the Left that is currently acting as the main force that is attacking Techno-Progressivism. The Left-Wing Populists have noticed the establishment’s shift to the Right during the second presidency of Donald Trump, and the increasing takeover of what are supposed to be democratic institutions by capitalist right-wing oligarchs. If there was ever any doubt of this, it has become more and more undeniable in the active role that Elon Musk has taken in DOGE and in the government in general (appearing next to the President in press conferences in the oval office, and being present at national security meetings). Aside from Musk, other prominent donors such as David Sacks were appointed to government positions. And of course Trump himself was a real estate mogul and TV-millionaire who had never held public office before becoming President. Rather than deny this, the technocrats embrace this, subscribing to the neoreactionary thought of Curtis Yarvin, which explicitly advocates for doing away with democracy and running the country like a corporation.

As a reaction to this, there have been bouts of Left-Wing Populist violence. The first one of these of note was the murder of a UnitedHealthcare CEO by ​Luigi Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate. In his manifesto, Mangione described healthcare CEOs as “parasites” who “had it coming.” On social media, many Leftists sympathized with Mangione. As an educated, good-looking young man, he had many “fangirls” on social media.

Taylor Lorenz heaped praise on accused UnitedHealthcare CEO assassin Luigi Mangione and slammed the media for criticizing the legion of unhinged youths who consider him a hero or role model.

“It’s hilarious to see these millionaire media pundits on TV clutching their pearls about someone stanning a murderer when this is the United States of America — as if we don’t lionize criminals,” the influencer and former reporter for the New York Times and Washington Post told CNN in a bubbly interview.

“As if we don’t stan murderers of all sorts. We give them Netflix shows,” she added.

…

A Reddit community called r/FreeLuigi has more than 38,000 members, mostly girls and young women, who breathlessly proclaim Mangione’s innocence and gush about his matinee idol looks in a deranged internet echo chamber.

They share photos of the Luigi-themed T-shirts (some portraying him as a saint), sketches, cakes, embroidery and paintings they’ve created.

His adoring female fans send sacks of letters to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn where he’s currently being held. One admirer even sneaked a heart-shaped note to him concealed in a pair of argyle socks.

…

“You’re gonna see women especially that feel like, ‘oh my God, here’s this man who’s a revolutionary, who’s famous, who’s handsome, who’s young, who’s smart, he’s a person that seems like this morally good man,’ which is hard to find,” Lorenz said as she and CNN correspondent Donie O’Sullivan laughed gaily.

The Trump administration has taken the rare step of seeking the death penalty against Mangione, pushing for what would be the first Manhattan federal execution in 70 years.

— Taylor Lorenz defends Luigi Mangione fangirls in glib CNN interview: ‘Morally good man’, April 13 2025, The New York Post (https://nypost.com/2025/04/13/us-news/taylor-lorenz-defends-luigi-mangione-fangirls-on-cnn-as-a-morally-good-man/)

While this is going on, the Republicans are attempting to slash Medicaid benefits.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives recently adopted the U.S. Senate’s amended budget resolution for President Donald Trump’s ‘one, big beautiful’ tax policy package.

The blueprint mandates $4 trillion in spending cuts, while offsetting at least $1.5 trillion of the federal budget through cuts to federal programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) over a decade.

The projected federal cuts could impact as many as 41 million U.S. households that received SNAP benefits last year. In November, over 79 million people were enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

— Trump’s Tax Cut Risks Your SNAP, Medicaid Benefits, May 22 2025, Kiplinger (https://www.kiplinger.com/taxes/trumps-tax-cut-risks-snap-medicaid-benefits)

Since early 2025, Tesla has faced a surge of vandalism and arson attacks across the United States, as a protest against Musk’s role in the Trump administration (among other issues, such as his use of the Roman salute). Tesla cars and cybertrucks have been vandalized with swastikas or the word “Nazi,” and Teslas and Tesla charging stations have been firebombed and set ablaze. Stickers featuring Musk throwing up a Roman salute, with captions such as “fuck off Nazi Oligarchs,” “punch your local Nazi,” “make Nazis dead again,” and so forth are a common sight around major metropolitan downtown areas.

In 2016, most of the establishment — both on the Right and Left — were against Trump. Leftism was the ideology of the elites, and Trumpism was the ideology of the “forgotten men and women of America”, contradicting the Leftist view of themselves as champions of the working-class underdogs. With this shift from the elites to the Right, these Left-Wing Populist anti-elite protests will likely become increasingly attractive.

The Left-Wing Populists are motivated by the increasing erosion of democracy (which they characterize as fascist), and the deteriorating quality of life and financial conditions of middle class and working class American life. The Left-Wing Populists are also ideologically aligned with placing safeguards on AI technology. They are concerned about AI making high-paying and high-status white collar jobs obsolete, for instance. They are in favor of AI regulations involving intellectual property and the use of AI-generated material. They are also concerned with data privacy, both the personal data collected from consumers to train these AI models, and their capacity to introduce real-time “social credit scores” — ultimately seen as a violation of human rights.

The Techno-Progressives see these attempts to regulate AI as an impediment to the acceleration of technology, Capitalism, and the triumph of America over China.

Unfortunately, the Left-Wing Populists have a very shallow philosophical grounding for their beliefs, which makes them vulnerable. A truly consistent atheistic, materialistic, liberal-progressive ideology leads to Techno-Progressivism, as noted in “The Dark Enlightenment.” Thus, the best that this group can hope for is some small concessions here and there. They do not have the moral authority to reject the goals of Techno-Progressivism in their entirety, because to do so would be to explicitly acknowledge some non-materialistic, perennialist value of greater importance than material progress — that is, God.

As the transhumanist technologies of the future continue to accelerate, the Left-Wing Populists will be unable to ideologically combat them. Consequently, the Techno-Progressive ideology behind this accelerating technology, and the social ramifications of the Techno-Progressive Ideology, will become more explicit. Along with the technology itself, it will create a government and societal order that is more consistent with this ideology — something similar to Yarvin’s technocratic neocameralism. Human rights, democracy, and all the fruits of the Christian value system which Left-Wing Populists enjoy will no longer be ideologically defensible and will inevitably atrophy.

The missing ingredient in Left-Wing Populism is an ideological justification for its value system. This must come the Religious Right. Because the missing ingredient is God.

Anti-Techno-Progressivism on the Right

Christianity provides the basis for human rights, rather than a blank check for Techno-Progressivism. Its morality is based on the fact that all men are created in the image of God, and possess an immaterial soul. Every human has inherent dignity and worth simply by virtue of being human, because each person mirrors the divine. This is what led to the concept of civil rights in the first place.

All the peoples of the world are human beings, and there is only one definition of all humans... they are all capable of understanding the faith and salvation.
— Apologia, 1550, Bartolomé de Las Casas OP

For men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker... they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another's pleasure.
— Second Treatise of Government, John Locke

The dignity of the human person is a broad concept that can be applied to many areas. The right to privacy is based on the idea that each person possesses an inner life —reason, conscience, and moral agency — that is inviolable. Someone’s thoughts and the products of their will and intellect are the very essence of what makes them in Imago Dei.

Man is said to be made to God’s image inasmuch as the image implies an intelligent being endowed with free-will and self-movement.
— Summa Theologica I.93.4, St. Thomas Aquinas

Imago Dei implies that every person deserves respect not only in being but also in how they live and labor. The dignity of work is grounded in human participation in God's creative activity. Fair wages, safe working conditions, and limits on exploitation are based on the moral imperative to treat workers not as tools for profit but as persons made in God’s image.

It is neither just nor human so to grind men down with excessive labor as to stupefy their minds and wear out their bodies.

— Rerum Novarum, 1891, Pope Leo XIII

Work is a fundamental dimension of human existence... The basis for determining the value of work is not primarily the kind of work done, but the fact that the one doing it is a person.

— Laborem Exercens, 1981, Pope John Paul II

Because human beings are not disposable — each one bearing the unchanging dignity of Imago Dei — they should not be treated as replaceable cogs in a machine. Stability in employment respects the person's need for security, dignity, and ability to provide for family.

The right to a just wage and to job security is an essential part of the right to work.

— Caritas in Veritate, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI

Christianity will never accept the blurring of the line between the human and machine because machines can never be endowed with a human soul. Rather, there is an immutable human nature. This is why traditional Christians have rejected the first wave of transhumanism, transgenderism, which is an attempt by man to use technology in order to recreate an aspect of humanity— gender — in man’s own image. The same will most likely be true for subsequent transhumanist cultural battles.

The Vatican recently weighed in on the AI debate, firmly on the side of the decelerationists, in a document titled “Antiqua et Nova.” A summary of this document— “New Vatican document examines potential and risks of AI” — was published on the Vatican website on January 28, 2025 (https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2025-01/new-vatican-document-examines-potential-and-risks-of-ai.html).

The Pope’s warnings about Artificial Intelligence in recent years provide the outline for “Antiqua et Nova,” the “Note on the relationship between artificial intelligence and human intelligence,” that offers the results of a mutual reflection between the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Culture and Education. The new document is addressed especially to “those entrusted with transmitting the faith,” but also to “those who share the conviction that scientific and technological advances should be directed toward serving the human person and the common good”

…

Quoting Pope Francis, the document affirms that “the very use of the word ‘intelligence’ in connection to AI ‘can prove misleading’… in light of this, AI should not be seen as an artificial form of human intelligence, but as a product of it” [35]. “Like any product of human ingenuity, AI can also be directed toward positive or negative ends” [40]. “AI ‘could introduce important innovations’” [48] but it also risks aggravating situations of discrimination, poverty, “digital divide,” and social inequalities [52]. “the concentration of the power over mainstream AI applications in the hands of a few powerful companies raises significant ethical concerns,” including “the risk that AI could be manipulated for personal or corporate gain or to direct public opinion for the benefit of a specific industry”

Therefore, the Vatican shares many of the same positions as the Left-Wing Populists on a variety of issues. It teaches that technology is not be worshipped as a good for its own sake, but as a means to accomplishing other goods. It shares their concerns about AI technology’s potential dangers, including social inequality and the centralization of unchecked power into the hands of unelected tech oligarchs. It even seems concerned about the spread of “fake news,” ie “direct[ing] public opinion.”

But unlike the Left-Wing Populists, the Church backs up its positions with a consistent philosophy. Because the Church, unlike most Leftists, believes in the immutability and sanctity of human nature, the Church can draw a clear and stark contrast between non-human non-life and human life in a way that Leftists cannot. The very notion of “artificial” intelligence is categorically denied entirely. This is something impossible to do from a purely materialist paradigm.

It also means that, since human identity is immutable and inviolable, so too are human rights. Human rights can never extend to non-human non-life, nor can they be taken from human life. The document thus warns about confusing the two.

On human relations, the document notes that AI can lead to “harmful isolation” [58], that “anthropomorphizing AI” poses problems for children's growth [60] and that misrepresenting AI as a person is “a grave ethical violation” if this is done “for fraudulent purposes.”

Like the Left-Wing Populists, the Church also shows a concern for the rights of workers, and the threat that AI can pose to it.

The same vigilance is called for in the economic-financial sphere. “Antiqua et Nova” notes that, especially in the field of labour, “while AI promises to boost productivity… current approaches to the technology can paradoxically deskill workers, subject them to automated surveillance, and relegate them to rigid and repetitive tasks” [67].

The document even shares the Left-Wing Populist concerns over the accessibility of healthcare services.

It also warns that “the integration of AI into healthcare also poses the risk of amplifying other existing disparities in access to medical care,” with the risk of “reinforcing a ‘medicine for the rich’ model, where those with financial means benefit from advanced preventative tools and personalized health information while others struggle to access even basic services” [76].

The Church, against the Techno-Progressivists, does not see humanity as a tool for advancing technological progress, but rather technology is seen as a tool for advancing the Common Good of mankind.

Finally, the Note warns against the risk of humanity becoming “enslaved to its own work” [105]. Artificial intelligence, “Antiqua et Nova” insists, “should be used only as a tool to complement human intelligence rather than replace its richness” [112].

Contrary to what many Leftists may assume (due to a political conflation between social conservativism and liberal Capitalism), traditional Catholic teaching has long criticized Capitalism. The Christian anti-Capitalist political ideology of “Distributism” shares with the Marxists the desire to disperse the “means of production” across the population as much as possible, rather than allowing it to be dominated by a handful of powerful Capitalists or politicians.

“Quadragesimo Anno,” a 1931 encyclical by Pope Pius XI states, “The right of property must be preserved inviolate...but it must be subordinated to the common good.”

According to Catholic teaching, economic systems should serve the dignity of the human person and support subsidiarity, where decisions are made as locally as possible. As Distributist Peter Maurin said, “The world would be better off if people tried to become better. And people would become better if they stopped trying to become better off.”

Dorothy Day, co-founder of the “Catholic Worker Movement,” embodied Distributist ideals in action. An ex-socialist who converted to Catholicism, she lived among the poor, founded farming communes, and emphasized personalist economics, where dignity and respect for the human person were central.

Leftist Marxists who are motivated by defending the common person against Capitalist tyranny could easily find common cause with the Church, if not for their atheist priors. But the right-wing Landian Accelerationists have done an excellent job at proving that these priors lend themselves much more towards the ideology of Techno-Progressive Capitalist Technocracy, rather than away from it. If we are all just “atoms” then why should we care if the working class is oppressed? In fact, isn’t it the right of the strong to exploit the weak, if we live in a Darwinian world?

In addition, traditional Christian social teaching also complements the goals of the other right-wing anti-Techno-Progressive faction, the Nationalists.

Nationalists value the good of their nation as a whole — rather than any particular group within that nation, much less any foreign nations or international body — as the highest good towards which the State should be orientated. The Nation is usually conceived of as an identity rather than simply a administrative entity (the word “nation” is related to the word “natal” ie “by birth”). There are Civic Nationalists who define this Identity by a set of creeds such as the Constitution, Religious Nationalists who define this Identity by a shared religion, Ethnic Nationalists who define this Identity along racial or ethnic lines, and other Nationalists who define this Identity as a combination of these factors.

Nationalists are diametrically opposed to Globalists, who seek to blur the lines between National Identities via diversity within countries and open borders between countries. Diversity waters down the National Identity by importing a population that differs from the Nation’s creedal, religious, and ethnic heritage. Open borders creates homogeneity between different nations, usually in order to facilitate smoother international trade.

The effects of technology serve Globalism, and thus are necessarily opposed to Nationalism. Mass transit and instant global communication has made it easier for immigrants to enter a nation, incentivized free trade and thus open borders, and created an international workforce and international economy that can apply significant leverage to a nation’s domestic policies. As the international economy has grown, international organizations have out of necessity grown alongside it in order to manage it. And this is simply what has happened due to technology as it stands, leaving aside the effect of “accelerating” this technology.

Techno-Progressives such as Land, while they may at times acknowledge the existence of human genetic diversity, scoff at the idea of Nationalism. The National Identity, and any form of regulation or protectionism with National Identity as its justification, is to them a superstitious impediment to their goals. Immigration and a globalized economy means cheaper wages and fewer trade barriers, and thus a more efficient system to facilitate Capitalism and technological progress.

Atheist Techno-Progressivism has already put an end to creedal or religious “superstitions” as a basis for the National Identity. Gene editing will be the final nail in the coffin, putting an end to ethnic National Identity. One’s genes will no longer be determined by one’s ancestry, but will be chosen out of a catalog. Not only will the concept of a particular ancestral “race” be considered a social construct, soon even the concept of the “human race” will be as well, as man splices his DNA with non-human animals, merges with machines, or is simply one cell in a hyper-extropic “meta-organism.” Land himself says this in “The Dark Enlightenment.”

For racial nationalists, concerned that their grandchildren should look like them... Miscegenation doesn’t get close to the issue. Think face tentacles.

While Christianity may be universal in the sense that it considers all men to be created equally in the image of God and to be entitled to equal human dignity, it is far more amenable to Nationalism than Globalist Techno-Progressivism. It is true that Pope Francis criticized Trump’s nativist rhetoric and policies, and it is true that the Catholic Church’s stance is that immigrants must not be abused or deprived of human dignity. Nevertheless, even in the post-Vatican II age of the Catholic Church, the issue is not entirely one-sided.

One’s national identity is a part of one’s personal identity. As such, it is part of an individual’s human dignity, and worthy of defending. Thus, protecting the National Identity also falls into the broad category of defending human dignity. It is against human dignity to view all humans as interchangeable, deracinated, economic units — which is precisely how the Techno-Progressives see them. Whether it is a right-wing Techno-Progressivism that sees people as raw human resources that serve only to make the GDP go up, or a left-wing Techno-Progressivism that sees them as fodder in the struggle to create Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism, neither have any respect for an individual’s identity as belonging to a national community.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church even seems to imply that it is God’s will for man to be separated into distinct nations, and that man should not try to create a secular institution that serves as a Globalist Tower of Babel.

The covenant with Noah

56 After the unity of the human race was shattered by sin God at once sought to save humanity part by part. The covenant with Noah after the flood gives expression to the principle of the divine economy toward the "nations", in other words, towards men grouped "in their lands, each with [its] own language, by their families, in their nations".

57 This state of division into many nations is at once cosmic, social and religious. It is intended to limit the pride of fallen humanity united only in its perverse ambition to forge its own unity as at Babel.

— English Translation of the Cathechism of the Catholic Church for the United States of America © 1997, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. (https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/catechism/index.cfm)

Multiple Popes have affirmed this balance between the dignity of the immigrant and the dignity of the native explicitly.

As always the welfare of the country must be considered as well as the interest of the individual seeking to enter, and in the nature of things circumstances will at times dictate a law of restriction.

— Address to U.S. Senators, Oct 31, 1947, Pope Pius XII (https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/speeches/1947/documents/hf_p-xii_spe_19471031_senatori-usa.html)

States have the right to regulate migration flows and to defend their own frontiers, always guaranteeing the respect due to the dignity of each and every human person

Immigrants, moreover, have the duty to integrate into the host country, respecting its laws and its national identity.

— Message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI (https://international.la-croix.com/news/ethics/benedict-xvi-and-francis-differing-views-on-immigration/18404)

The term ‘nation’ designates a community based in a given territory and distinguished by its culture. Catholic social doctrine holds that the family and the nation are both natural societies, not the product of mere convention.

—“Memory and Identity,” 2005, Pope John Paul II (https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/a-nation-has-a-right-to-control-its-borders)

The exercise of such a right [that is, the right to immigrate to a particular country] is to be regulated, because practicing it indiscriminately may do harm and be detrimental to the common good of the community that receives the migrant.

— Message for the 87th World Day of Migration , 2001, Pope John Paul II (https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/a-nation-has-a-right-to-control-its-borders)

As for ethnic Nationalism, even this is not necessarily forbidden by the Church. In Pope Pius XI’s 1937 encyclical “Mit Brennender Sorge,” in which he criticizes the Nazi regime, he does not condemn the Nazis for believing in race per se, but for exalting race to the level of an idol.

Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community - however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things - whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.

Later in the encyclical, he writes:

No one would think of preventing young Germans establishing a true ethnical community in a noble love of freedom and loyalty to their country. What We object to is the voluntary and systematic antagonism raised between national education and religious duty.

Pope Francis’s positions regarding American immigration policy do not carry the authority necessary to override the teachings of previous Popes. When taken as a whole, the Church’s teachings do not pose a threat to Nationalism, unless it were to take a form which would deny the dignity of racial minorities or immigrants entirely.

A Techno-Progressive state, in stark contrast, would be both worse for the dignity of the immigrant on one hand, and the Nationalist on the other. A Techno-Progressive, race-realist, neocameralist state would at once erode away the foundations of the National Identity with open borders and free trade, while at the same time this state-corporation could impose whatever cruelties it deems fit on outsiders with no scruples. A Christian Populist society, on the other hand, would embrace the best parts of both the modern Right and modern Left while not falling into the dangerous extremes of either side.

Techno-Progressivism and Vance

To review:

1. The Techno-Progressives have supporters both on the Left and Right. These supporters are ultimately motivated by a shared set of assumptions based on atheism, materialism, liberalism, and progressivism. When taken to their logical conclusion, they lead to a belief in technological progress as the highest good.

2. The Techno-Progressives have identified and neutralized their two greatest enemies — the Religious Right and certain forms of Leftism such as Social Progressive Leftists, and environmentalists. Both groups are their natural enemies because they serve some non-materialist good aside from mere technological progress which technological progress threatens.

3. The Left-Wing Populists, who advocate for social justice for the working class and democracy, have so far been the first to resist the technocrats and their Techno-Progressive ideology. However, this resistance will not be sufficient because their worldview shares many of the same assumptions as the Techno-Progressive worldview and ultimately leads to it if it is consistent.

4. The Religious Right, which has been ostracized from the Trump coalition and his Techno-Progressive government, can provide the missing ideological grounding for Left-Wing Populism while sharing many of its end goals.

5. Thus, the Antithesis of Techno-Progressivism is Christian Populism, a fusion of Left-Wing Populism and Christian Nationalism. This will serve as the dissident political ideology of the emerging Technocratic Era and its Techno-Progressive consensus ideology.

Because the Left-Wing Populists are so ideologically anti-Christian, they are unlikely to ally with the Christian Nationalists. Instead, it is more feasible for the Christian side will have to adopt some Left-Wing Populist issues, while retaining their Christian value system.

But why would a right-wing, Christian, Nationalist, socially conservative movement be interested in Left-Wing Populism?

With the Left-Wing Populists being ideologically compromised, I believe that the regime is trying to neutralize the threat posed by their other opponents, the Christian Nationalists. The strategy they are using to do this is by manipulating them into supporting conservative establishment politics, in a blind, one-sided relationship in which their unquestioned loyalty to the Republican Party is never reciprocated by the GOP passing Christian Nationalist policies.

By taking advantage of Populism and other popular Left-Wing critiques of the Technocrats, the Christian Populists can steal the initiative from the Left, and lead the dissident movement against the Techno-Progressive bipartisan consensus.

This will undermine the current goals of the technocrat regime. The regime is attempting to unite the Right, including the Christian Right, around Trump, who represents the right-wing populism of 2016 while governing as a 2024 technocratic libertarian, thus bringing the dissident populist Right back into the Republican fold.

The ultimate manifestation of this JD Vance. JD Vance is a mysterious character with long and extensive ties to Peter Thiel and the technocrats. While only God can know the truth, I believe that his conversion to Catholicism might have been for political reasons, as part of a ruse to serve as a “pied piper” — redirecting the recent resurgence of the Catholic Church’s influence in American politics towards supporting the establishment GOP.

While in previous eras, the Religious Right was seen as an Evangelical phenomenon, during the last few years traditional Catholicism has begun to play an important role in the landscape of conservative American politics. This is best exemplified by the far-right Catholic Groyper movement, but it is not limited to them. It is also seen in mainstream conservative influencers, such as Michael Knowles and Candace Owens. Even the Post Left “Dimes Square” scene (itself tied to the Thiel influence network) is Catholic.

JD Vance was not raised Catholic, and had a vaguely Protestant upbringing. He was not baptized as a child. For much of his adult life, he was an atheist. He barely mentions Catholicism in Hillbilly Elegy, the 2016 book which first brought him into the cultural consciousness.

Vance mentions the word “Catholic” or “Catholics” only five times in the 264-page book, and he never engages with Catholic teachings in it. He wrote it between 2013 and 2015, several years before he became a Catholic, and gives no hint that he had ever considered Catholicism.

He also doesn’t dwell in his book on his atheism as a young man, a period he describes at length in his conversion essay in The Lamp.

— 13 things to know about J.D. Vance’s Catholic journey, Jul 21 2024, Catholic News Agency (https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/258347/13-things-to-know-about-jd-vance-s-catholic-journey)

Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019, six years before becoming vice president. Two years after his conversion, he ran for Senator of Ohio, backed by Peter Thiel’s super PAC “Protect Ohio Values” and Robert Mercer.

Vance’s conversion was also backed by homosexual Catholic billionaire Peter Thiel. Thiel had converted to Catholicism after being influenced by René Girard, a Catholic philosopher responsible for “Mimetic theory,” a pseudo-esoteric interpretation of the Christian faith which views the Crucifixion as the ultimate manifestation of “scapegoating,” a sociological phenomenon shared by various human cultures but perfected by “Judeo-Christianity.”

A homosexual billionaire influenced Vance’s outlook on life.

While a student at Yale Law School, Vance went to a talk by venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who was Facebook’s first outside investor and co-founded PayPal.

…

Thiel introduced Vance to the thought of René Girard (1923-2015), a French historian and philosopher whose writings, among other things, attracted Vance through the way he described Christianity as transcending the scapegoat myth of various cultures because Christ “has not wronged the civilization; the civilization has wronged him.”

Thiel, now 56, who identifies as a Christian and a conservative, is civilly married to a man. Vance worked for Thiel in venture capital, and Thiel was Vance’s major contributor in Vance’s successful run for U.S. Senate in Ohio in 2022.

— 13 things to know about J.D. Vance’s Catholic journey, Jul 21 2024, Catholic News Agency (https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/258347/13-things-to-know-about-jd-vance-s-catholic-journey)

Vance has also been criticized for supporting Pro-Choice policies for political reasons.

Vance hasn’t yet explained how his current position on abortion squares with his Catholic faith.

…

More recently, Vance has aligned his public positions on abortion with those of his running mate, former president Donald Trump, who has said he wouldn’t sign a federal limitation on abortion and that he wouldn’t ban abortion pills.

On abortion pills, Vance told an interviewer on NBC on July 7 that he supports a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that, according to him, said that “the American people should have access to that medication.” Pressed about mifepristone, one of the two abortion chemicals, he said he supports access to it.

Vance has not at this writing publicly explained how he integrates his Catholic faith with his current position on abortion.

But he seemed to contemplate this sort of situation in an interview with Dreher in August 2019, shortly after his conversion and three years before he was elected to public office.

He noted that politics “is in part a popularity contest,” and he pointed out a tension between getting votes and living a life of faith.

“When you’re trying to do things that make you liked by as many people as possible, you’re not likely to do things that are consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church,” Vance said then. “I’m a Christian, and a conservative, and a Republican, so I have definite views about what that means. But you have to be humble and realize that politics are essentially a temporal game.”

— 13 things to know about J.D. Vance’s Catholic journey, Jul 21 2024, Catholic News Agency (https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/258347/13-things-to-know-about-jd-vance-s-catholic-journey)

His wife, Usha Vance, is a practicing Hindu.

JD Vance's wife, Usha Vance, is the first Indian American second lady in the White House. Usha Vance is also the first Hindu second lady, having come from a deeply religious Hindu family.

In an interview with Fox News, the vice president-elect said his wife helped him "re-engage" with his Christian faith.

The couple, who met when they were both students at Yale Law School, got married in Kentucky in 2014 and were blessed by a Hindu pundit in a separate ceremony, per The New York Times.

— Is JD Vance Catholic? What about Usha Vance? What to know about the vice president's faith, Apr 21 2025, Cincinnati Enquirer (https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2025/04/21/what-religion-is-jd-vance-what-religion-is-usha-vance/83192503007/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

JD Vance has been quoted as saying he “feels bad” for taking his Hindu wife to mass.

Republican Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance opened up about converting to Catholicism in 2019 Saturday — and revealed he “feels bad” for dragging his Hindu wife to Mass every Sunday.

She “didn’t sign up to marry a weekly churchgoer” but she’s “more than OK with it,” the Ohio senator said of wife, Usha, during an oft-contentious interview with the New York Times.

…

“I feel terrible for my wife because we go to church almost every Sunday, unless we’re on the road,” Vance said.

— JD Vance ‘feels bad’ for taking Hindu-raised wife Usha to Mass after he converted: ‘Didn’t sign up to marry a weekly churchgoer, New York Post, Oct 12 2024 (https://nypost.com/2024/10/12/us-news/jd-vance-feels-bad-for-taking-hindu-raised-wife-usha-to-weekly-mass/)

However, while clearly not concerned with preventing abortions or in converting his own family to Catholicism, Vance does use his Catholicism to advocate for increased state power. Conveniently, unlike many Catholic teachings, this aspect of Catholicism is one that the anti-democratic Curtis Yarvin and Nick Land have no problem with.

The professors and media personalities in this [Catholic] network don’t all agree on everything — even on what to call themselves – but most go by “postliberal.” Vance has used that term to describe himself...

Postliberals do share some longstanding Catholic conservative views, such as opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.

But where Catholic conservatives of the past have seen big government as a problem rather than a solution, the postliberals want a muscular government — one that they control.

They envision a counterrevolution in which they would take over government bureaucracy and institutions like universities from within, replacing entrenched “elites” with their own and acting upon their vision of the “common good.”

“What is needed … is regime change — the peaceful but vigorous overthrow of a corrupt and corrupting liberal ruling class and the creation of a postliberal order,” wrote Patrick Deneen, a prominent author in the movement, in his 2023 book, “Regime Change.”

Vance has signaled his alignment with some of what Catholic postliberals advocate. He’s said the next time his allies control the presidency or Congress, “ we really need to be really ruthless when it comes to the exercise of power” and said Republicans should seize institutions, including universities “to make them work for our people.”

— JD Vance's Catholicism helped shape his views. So did this little-known group of Catholic thinkers, Sep 4 2024, National Catholic Reporter (https://www.ncronline.org/news/jd-vances-catholicism-helped-shape-his-views-so-did-little-known-group-catholic-thinkers)

Ultimately, the political objective of Vance’s Catholicism is probably a way to signal to young traditional men how “based” he is by repeating Right-Wing Twitter memes.

Vanceism is the worst of both the Right and the Left. It contains all of the degeneracy and moral cowardice of the Left, with none of the compassion. It contains all of the social Darwinism of the Right, without the preservation of traditional values or the National Identity.

If Christian Nationalism reflexively rejects anything seemingly too left-coded (including Christian values such as charity towards the less fortunate and defending universal human rights), then they will likely fall prey to this Vanceism — a Thiel-approved version of Catholicism. They will take the bait, and arrive back on the same cuckservative GOP plantation that Trump was supposed to be a break from in 2015. Vance will put the Trump genie back in the bottle, and the long bipartisan march towards Techno-Progressivism will continue unabated.

Instead, the most effective move for political dissidents during the Technocratic Era will be to transcend partisan politics. It will be to embrace both the compassion of the Left and the truth of Christian teaching. It will be a Left-Wing Christian Nationalism. A “Green” Religious Right. A Christian Populism.