Recently, I attended a Citizens Defending Freedom (CDF) event at the Community Center at American Beach. Seamus Bruner spoke about his new book, “Controligarchs.” I had heard a little about the book before they put this event together, but I dismissed it a conspiracy-laden, apocalyptic fever dream. Although Bruner was a very engaging speaker, he said little that changed my initial impression. After some introductory comments by CDF-Nassau head Jack Knocke, which seemed to carry the barely concealed “with us or against us” quality that has become a hallmark of the true-believer, Christian Nationalist crowd on the right, Bruner was introduced. He began his presentation by trotting out all of the right wing’s bugaboos: Bill Gates, George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg, the Rockefellers, the WHO, the World Economic Forum, et. al. The basic premise was that this evil group of Davos glitterati are involved in a conspiracy to control our money, our diet, our livelihoods, our … well, everything really. This group of powerful technocrats, as the theory goes, is using the climate change hoax to establish control over every facet of our lives. The cows, he posits, will be rounded up and slaughtered, and eventually we will be made to eat bugs. Smart thermostats will be installed in our homes and will lock us out during surges, when everyone is charging their EVs. AI technology will render millions of jobs irrelevant and create a new “useless” group of people who will eventually be eliminated in a mass depopulation program.
This nightmare view of a techno-totalitarian government, led by billionaires and technocrats, was something that I hadn’t given much thought about. In much the same way that J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy shed light on how a population of disaffected voters led to Donald Trump’s 2016 upset, “Controligargh” reveals an anti-expert, Deep State-wary view that is simmering just under the surface of America’s increasingly suspicious populace. Distrust of technology, anti-immigration hysteria, resentment over gender and diversity issues all coalesce to form a vision of the future that provides much less satisfaction, security and familiarity. Now I understand why the right always includes the word “fascist” in their litany of name calling when they talk about Democrats. Socialists, I get. Communists, hyperbole to be sure. But fascists? This from the party that is ready to install a wannabe dictator who is already trying to move beyond the reach of any accountability? But now I understand. Much like Mussolini, who rejected the equality of democracy in favor of a system of government where a few leaders would direct a population that wasn’t educated enough to determine what was best for them, these technocrats, or Controligarchs, as Bruner puts it, are threatening to lead us into a joyless future of want and deprivation.And the large crowd at this CDF event seemed to be fully on board. Many comments were met with murmurs of approval, and during the Q&A section, the audience questions focused largely on familiar Fox News targets like the Clinton Foundation, immigration hysteria, and issues involving diversity, equity, and inclusion. That Donald Trump was their guy was made abundantly clear at several moments throughout the evening.
So, Bill Gates is buying up farms to control the food supply. Elon Musk is implanting microchips into people with his company NeuralLink. And Mark Zuckerberg’s is launching a $36 billion plot to reengineer society and force you into tech addiction. Of course, one has to be a little paranoid to connect all these dots and reach a conclusion where a group of tech bigwigs get together to party with Oprah Winfrey and Barak Obama at Davos and discuss ways to make sure that in the future they will be the only ones to able fly around on private jets and eat steak. My problem with conspiracy theories is that things rarely fit together in such a neat package. People really don’t cooperate well enough to pull off most conspiracy theories. When you’ve connected all of the dots you’ve probably made your theory less likely, not more likely.
But is it total madness? Well, maybe not. When the Green Revolution introduced advanced fertilizers genetically modified seed stocks, and intensive farming methods it enabled society to cover a doubling of population from 1950 to 1980, changing American agriculture forever. So, things really do change. But as the world population now edges towards ten billion people - with many of those people trying to claw their way towards the comfort of the middle class – it is not hard to imagine that something, perhaps many things, will have to change in the way we all live. The question of which things change and who makes those decisions is a valid one. Will we, one day, be forced to reconcile ourselves to the fact that insects have become our primary source of protein? That certainly doesn’t sound good to me. I love the American middle and class all of its crazy comforts. I don’t want to eat bugs either. Americans have become uncomfortable with the notion of sacrifice since the days of the Greatest Generation, but it is completely understandable for people to be a little suspicious about who, exactly, will be making the tough choices we might face.