On the Saturday of Pride weekend in late June, a long line of mostly men in suit and tie snakes around the side of St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Noe Valley, spilling out onto the block.
Some 700 people are here for an event hosted by the Hamilton Society, a right-wing debate organization that has deliberated political and ethical propositions once thought settled, such as whether eugenicist “gene editing is an ethical necessity,” and basic questions that keep college freshmen up at night, like whether “men and women can be friends.” This evening, they convene to decide on a new resolution: “that America needs a Caesar.” Apparently the question of dictatorship has been put back on the table.
When I make it past ID check and into the gymnasium, I’m greeted by what looks like a College Republicans conference sprinkled with startup types and Twitter microcelebrities. I spot a crypto influencer, a right-wing provocateur from Australia, a Libertarian Party officer, assorted venture capitalists, and contributors to tech right publications. Soft jazz wafts outward from the keyboard-bass-drum trio stationed at the center of the room.
Jazz trio performing background music before the debate starts. (Jimmy Wu / Bay Area Current)
While in line for a cocktail, I meet a Stanford physics professor who tells me she supports “Caesar with term limits.” I notice an old friend from college, now a YIMBY activist on a mission to network with local politicos. I then take a seat next to a young man who introduces himself to me, unprompted, as a “Christian fascist” and starts making the case for his political ideology. He’s safe to do so in this room, and he knows it.
When the debate is finally called to order, all the lights are dimmed, save for a stadium light casting its solitary beam onto the American flag at the center of the gym. The gym is silent. All are instructed to stand; a Hamilton Society officer leads a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance; we are seated. The event organizers begin by surveying the audience’s sentiment on whether the US should have a Caesar. Of the roughly 700 attendees at this event, about 200 raise their hands in favor; about 300 against. A Hamilton officer notes the discrepancy and snarls something about how many “pussies” have abstained.
The hosts also explain that the event is held under the Chatham House rule — an archaic British gag order, increasingly popular at tech events, that prohibits the attribution of quotes to their respective speakers. Basically, attendees can convey what was said, but can’t tell you who said it.
A stadium light illuminates the U.S. flag at the center of the gym. (Jimmy Wu / Bay Area Current)
Few have done more to advance this cause in blatantly anti-democratic terms than one of the two speakers on the pro-Caesar “affirmation” side of this debate: Curtis Yarvin, preeminent writer and thinker of the far-right neo-reactionary (NRx) movement who has been advocating for a “monarchy” or “CEO-style dictator” since the 2000s. No longer confined to dark corners of the deep right blogosphere, Yarvin is now cited as an ideological influence by JD Vance and the “house political philosopher” of Peter Thiel. He is joined by fellow pro-Caesar speaker Alex Petkas, a podcaster of ancient Greco-Roman thought with a PhD in Classics from Princeton.
One of these two, a man who clearly spends all day thinking about the Roman Empire, opens the debate by regaling the audience with tales of Julius Caesar: “The original Caesar did not want to be a Caesar himself,” he begins. Rather, he was a legitimately elected official who “rose within the Republican system, according to its rules.” In this speaker’s revisionist telling of history, Caesar was the Republic’s “darling greatest son,” who felt compelled to declare himself dictator of Rome because “its moral fibers were corrupted, and its institutions were corrupted.”
The speaker then turns his speech to the present-day United States, invoking a grab-bag of right-wing talking points: “An American Caesar,” he promises, “would seize control of the deep state…you can think of the American Caesar as a hereditary DOGE office.” Many in the audience laugh and stomp their feet in approval.
Venturing further in the direction of fearmongering and conspiracy, he warns: “We are facing electoral corruption on a scale we have never seen before,” potentially opening “the floodgates of mass immigration.”
Immigrants Against Immigration
That there is an “immigration crisis” is table stakes for the Hamilton Society. The pro-dictator partisans argue that a Caesar is necessary to carry out mass deportations; the opposition argues that an unaccountable ruler would not be interested in implementing deportations. Both sides promote the reactionary idea of immigration as one of the definitional problems of our time.
In January, the Hamilton Society dedicated an entire debate to the proposition that “America needs more skilled immigration to succeed.” According to an attendee of that debate, one audience member, an editor at Palladium Magazine, felt comfortable getting up to declare that “the Great Replacement is real,” referring to a far-right conspiracy theory that “elites” are plotting to replace white Americans with nonwhite immigrants.
Yet, other than the invited speakers, the majority of people grabbing the mic seem to be immigrants themselves. The first question from the audience comes from a “gentleman from Warsaw,” followed by more gentlemen from Central Asia, the UK, and Mexico City. The Stanford professor I spoke with before the debate, also an immigrant, introduces herself to the room as “the lady from Palo Alto.” One of the two South Asian men wearing cowboy hats says he’s from Atlanta.
There’s a hierarchy to these places of origin. When a “gentleman from Argentina” gets up to speak, a Hamilton officer murmurs in approval, “Based.” Another gentleman from Ukraine, however, is met with jeers: “Your face is disgusting,” and “Kick him out!” Some in the audience express their disapproval by hissing at him; others loudly stomp their feet. His mic is quickly confiscated and the chaos dies down.
At some point, one leader of the Hamilton Society has had enough. “Where are these guys coming from? Is anyone from the United States?”
A natural comedian, this Hamilton officer embarks on a speech of his own: “I talked to a girl once,” he begins, setting off a fit of laughter, stomping, and hissing among the audience. “She called me colonized.” In a wide-ranging monologue, he calls Abraham Lincoln a “tyrant” for “imposing a vision of civil liberties onto the nation,” celebrates the gutting of the Civil Rights Act, explains Hayekian economic theory in terms of “retarded” market actors, and identifies Gavin Newsom as present-day Caesar of California.
Just as the affirmation team uses parables of Romans, the anti-Caesar “negation” side uses parables of the Founding Fathers — Jefferson and Hamilton at a dinner party; the Sons of Liberty resisting British authority. They trade fable for fable, myth for myth.
But far from rejecting the premise of a dictator, the negation team argues that the U.S. needs a greater concentration of federal power. “The problem,” says one of the two, is that “right now, the president of the United States is not in charge of the administrative state.”
His teammate agrees: “We need a much more effective executive. But to do that, we don’t need to change our form of government.” He believes “regime-level power” can be achieved within the constitutional framework by having presidents ignore the Supreme Court, invoking a classic and likely apocryphal Andrew Jackson quote: “Justice Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.” Washington, Lincoln, and FDR wielded such personal power, in his view.
The MAGA right, as represented by Carl and Peterson, yearn for pseudo-dictatorial power without systemic reconstruction. Ultimately, however, they are constricted by their fealty to the Founding Fathers and their worship of the Constitution.
Their opponents, Yarvin and Petkas, realize this. With a tone of smugness, one of them declares that Carl and Peterson “have already made my argument” and mocks the two on the negation for advocating a “person who is not a Caesar, but somehow takes control of the administrative state.” The other Caesarist adds, “Our opposition and our side are in pretty tight agreement that at the very least, we need something Caesar-like.”
If the two sides are in such close agreement about both ends and means, where is the real opposition?
Left to right: Matthew Peterson (negation), Alex Petkas (affirmation), Curtis Yarvin (affirmation), and Jeremy Carl (negation). (Jimmy Wu / Bay Area Current)
The Left Looms Large
The real enemy, for the Hamilton Society, is not in the room: an insurgent left looms large over the debate.
“How do you ensure,” one gentleman from Warsaw asks in earnest, “that the Caesar does not become Caesar Mao, Caesar Stalin, Caesar Mamdani?” To which a speaker on the affirmation sympathizes: “The recent election in New York, victories by the DSA, shows the writing on the wall — that if we do not re-establish order, too much is at stake, and we will, in all likelihood, face America’s Stalin.”
Visions of the “red Caesar," a dictatorship of the proletariat, live rent-free in the heads of these right-wingers, who see a straight line from public grocery stores to the establishment of the gulag.
The same paranoias are on full display in live debates such as this one. Debates are a time-honored art form for the political right in this country, and increasingly, of the San Francisco tech world. Thankfully, real power — certainly the immense power needed to establish a Caesar-like dictatorship — can’t be won in a club for debate bros.
As one affirmation speaker reminds the audience, “Caesar’s not going to get elected by this caucus.” His opponent concedes that this question won’t be decided by “four dorks with Ivy League degrees and PhDs.”
Thank goodness for that. Let them debate all they want while the working class builds power.
Sign up for the Current Newsletter
Bay Area Current covers the news unabashedly from the left and highlights working-class issues that the media too often ignores. Yes, including today's tech ghouls.
"We are the frogs realizing the pot has been boiling the whole time": Google workers talk job security, internal culture shift, and building the union.
