This episode explores the rise of Europe’s radical right and the philosophical currents fueling techno-authoritarianism in the United States, two movements converging through influential figures such as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Steve Bannon.
Across Europe, radical-right parties have surged faster than any other political bloc since the early 1990s. Today, they are either in government or propping up governments in Finland, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, and Sweden. Their common ground lies in antimigration sentiment, Euroscepticism, and hostility to climate policy, which is framed as an elite imposition on national sovereignty. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán articulates the strategy most clearly: not to leave the EU, but to conquer it from within. Their influence is visible both in obstructing EU foreign policy and in the “contagion effect” that pressures mainstream parties to harden stances on migration and climate.
At the same time, across the Atlantic, the intellectual scaffolding for techno-authoritarianism is taking shape in the United States. Inspired by the Dark Enlightenment (also known as neo-reactionary or NRx thought), thinkers like Curtis Yarvin frame liberal institutions, such as universities, the media, and the civil service, as “the Cathedral,” which enforces progressive orthodoxy. Their proposed alternative is GovCorp: a post-democratic model where governance is run like a company, with citizens reduced to consumers whose only power is to “exit” to rival city-states.
This is not abstract theory. Peter Thiel, co-founder of Palantir, channels much of this worldview into practice. He has argued that efficiency, not equality, should be the organising principle of governance. Palantir’s AI-driven platforms are already deployed by militaries and law enforcement agencies to analyse personal data, raising fears that a future administration, for instance, a second Trump presidency, could weaponise them to surveil and punish political opponents. Musk and Bannon, each in their own domain, amplify and legitimise this convergence: Musk through platforms and contracts, Bannon through narrative and mobilisation.
Global Crackdown examines how Europe’s radical right and America’s techno-authoritarian currents are not parallel but converging, two halves of a new anti-democratic order whose machinery of power stretches from Brussels to Silicon Valley.
