The “Cognitive Élite” Seize Washington

The Washington Roundtable discusses the ideological underpinnings of Elon Musk’s DOGE with the former Democratic operative and San Francisco-based journalist Gil Duran. Duran writes about the so-called cognitive élite, the right-wing Silicon Valley technologists who want to use A.I. and cryptocurrency to unmake the federal government, on his newsletter The Nerd Reich.
This week’s reading:
- “The Most Powerful Crypto Bro in Washington Has Very Weird Beliefs,” by Gil Duran (for The New Republic)
- “Uncertainty Is Trump’s Brand. But What if He Already Told Us Exactly What He’s Going to Do?,” by Susan B. Glasser
- “The Felling of the U.S. Forest Service,” by Peter Slevin
- “Trump Is Still Trying to Undermine Elections,” by Sue Halpern
- “Who Gets to Determine Greenland’s Future?,” by Louise Bokkenheuser
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