Podcast / The Time of Monsters / May 4, 2025

The Secret Clubhouse for Reactionary Plutocrats

On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Chris Lehmann on the group chats where billionaires scheme and moan.

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The Secret Clubhouse for Reactionary Plutocrat | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Chris Lehmann joins Jeet Heer to discuss the Group Chats where billionaires scheme and moan.

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Entrepreneur Marc Andreessen speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2016, at Pier 48 on September 13, 2016.

(Steve Jennings / Getty Images for TechCrunch)

Silicon Valley has moved to the right in the last few years, with Elon Musk being the public face of a larger trend of tech lords aligning themselves with Trumpism. We now have a window into just how reactionary Silicon Valley has become thanks to reporting about private group chats where the tech elite gather to complain about wokeness and celebrate Donald Trump’s plutocrat-friendly policies.

My Nation colleague Chris Lehmann wrote about these group chats in a recent column. He joins the podcast to explain exactly why these wealthy leaders are becoming open supporters of autocracy.

The Nation Podcasts
The Nation Podcasts

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

After Iran War, Can America Still Be Trusted? w/ Annelle Sheline | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

The US/Israel war against Iran has been devastating to many US allies, both in the Middle

East and the wider world. It could easily lead to a Global Depression. Even before the

war, Annelle Sheline of the Quincy Institute noted that countries such as Qatar and

Saudi Arabia had good reason to wean themselves away from a close reliance on the

US. I talked to Annelle about the current state of the war and why it will only intensify

the alienation of traditional US allies.

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Even before February 28, the reasons for Donald Trump’s imploding approval rating were abundantly clear: untrammeled corruption and personal enrichment to the tune of billions of dollars during an affordability crisis, a foreign policy guided only by his own derelict sense of morality, and the deployment of a murderous campaign of occupation, detention, and deportation on American streets. 

Now an undeclared, unauthorized, unpopular, and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran has spread like wildfire through the region and into Europe. A new “forever war”—with an ever-increasing likelihood of American troops on the ground—may very well be upon us.  

As we’ve seen over and over, this administration uses lies, misdirection, and attempts to flood the zone to justify its abuses of power at home and abroad. Just as Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth offer erratic and contradictory rationales for the attacks on Iran, the administration is also spreading the lie that the upcoming midterm elections are under threat from noncitizens on voter rolls. When these lies go unchecked, they become the basis for further authoritarian encroachment and war. 

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Jeet Heer

Jeet Heer is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation and host of the weekly Nation podcast, The Time of Monsters. He also pens the monthly column “Morbid Symptoms.” The author of In Love with Art: Francoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman (2013) and Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essays and Profiles (2014), Heer has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The American Prospect, The GuardianThe New Republic, and The Boston Globe.

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