Curtis Yarvin Was Right About Everything
The country's leading monarchist knew the Trump regime couldn't envision what winning looks like
In an era of rising authoritarianism and elite compliance with the first U.S. president to openly ignore the constitutional order, there was a prophetic voice in the far-right wilderness, one that had for years whispered sweet tyrannical nothings into the authoritarians' ears.
That whiny voice belonged to Curtis Yarvin, the tortured fascist philosopher and unembarrassed monarchist who has helped move authoritarianism from the wicked fringes of the internet into the beating heart of Republican Party politics over the past few years.
He took one look at the careerist stooges running the second Trump regime and he knew there would be no long game. Yarvin knew the president and the people charged with carrying out his grossly anti-constitutional agenda – with timely assists from the anti-constitutionalist Supreme Court – would not Get The Job Done. These people had neither the historical knowledge nor the will to destroy the underpinnings of American democracy and deliver the final body blows to the country's weakened institutions.
This regime, Yarvin understood, was cosplaying 20th century fascist movements. They were not for real. They still aren't.
Denny Carter
I take a lot of pleasure imagining Yarvin watch in real-time horror as the president, given the full and horrifying power of the unitary executive – that thing where a Republican president can do whatever he wants and stands above the law – renamed Lake Ontario as a childish jab at Canada after its leaders would not bow to him in trade talks. This, like much of what the president has done from his phone over the past 18 months, is a child's conception of power. It is the natural endpoint of an American conservative movement that has demonized intellectualism for more than half a century. It is in no way an Adult Thing To Do.
The fancy bottles of wine in Yarvin's home were in great peril the day Trump's anti-Canada tantrum ended with the existence of something Google is calling Lake America. RIP Yarvin's French merlot. You had a good run.
Way back in October 2025, I asked Bad Faith Times readers to take in Yarvin's blogging screed against the Trump regime and remember it during whatever came next. That's because Yarvin, along with a few other far-right thinkers, knew within weeks of Trump's swearing in that his people were not ready or willing to do what had to be done to end democracy.
There would be no rounding up the judges who might rule against the regime's agenda. There would be no camps for political opponents. There would be no sustained effort to scare high-profile Democratic Party elected officials or to effectively defund the party. There would be no long-lasting terror campaign against opposition strongholds like the one we witnessed in Minnesota.
Triggering the libs by shipping in some white South Africans and hunting Latino folks for sport in the streets of Portland and LA and D.C. and Chicago isn’t going to establish the kind of 1,000-year monarchy for which Yarvin pines. Snatching innocent people off the street and sending them to third-world death camps might be a good time for the masked blackpilled fascists operating above the law – everything they know about fascism they learned from scrolling on the X platform – but this will in no way be a kill shot for multicultural democracy, Yarvin believes. This is not the overwhelming show of force required in a nation of 350 million people.
"The second Trump revolution, like the first, is failing," Yarvin wrote. "It is failing because it deserves to fail. It is failing because it spends all its time patting itself on the back. It is failing because its true mission, which neither it nor (still less) its supporters understand, is still as far beyond its reach as algebra is beyond a cat. Because the vengeance meted out after its failure will dwarf the vengeance after 2020—because the successes of the second revolution are so much greater than the first—everyone involved with this revolution needs a plan B for 2029. And it is not even clear that it can wait until 2029: losing the Congress will instantly put the administration on the defensive."
Denny Carter
In Yarvin's ideal authoritarian nightmare world, the president would not have even considered renaming Lake Ontario in his economic war against our northern neighbors. He would have instead met with his top military brass and set in motion a full-scale invasion of Canada, or perhaps send ground troops to occupy a Canadian city until the country's leaders were ready to make a deal with the senile mob boss in the Oval Office. Force would have been the answer; not changing the name of a lake.
In Yarvin's world, the coming midterm apocalypse would be no issue at all for the ruling party, which has done everything in its power to ratfuck the election they will still lose soundly. In Yarvin's world, the president – maybe with another assist from the bad-faith actors that dominate the land's highest court – would simply cancel the midterm elections or delay them indefinitely. In Yarvin's world, there is no reason to fret over bad polling data that spells small-d democratic doom for the authoritarian party because in his world, there is no reason to abide by the rules and norms that have created and sustained the American empire.
Curtis Yarvin's red pill moment was falling for the bogus swift boat ratfuck against John Kerry in fall 2004. What an incredible loser.
— Denny Carter (@dennycarter.bsky.social) June 20, 2025 at 9:12 AM
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Yarvin wrote last year that the president and the officials who filter in and out of his regime "cannot even imagine what winning looks like." This was spot on back then, and it's even more accurate today.
Winning, for an outright authoritarian party that has nothing but contempt for democracy and the rule of law, means removal of the mechanisms pro-democracy forces have to compete against the regime and eventually overthrow it. In a twisted way, Yarvin's definition of winning means there is no game at all. The game is ended by those who believe they are the rightful winners, by virtue of their race or gender or intellect.
The "renaming" of Lake Ontario is some mix of stupid and maddening. It's not winning though. The fascist freaks who tell the tyrants and oligarchs what they want to hear know as much. Remember that next time your brain begs you to enter doomer mode.
Follow Denny Carter on Bluesky at @dennycarter.bsky.social.
