The “Cognitive Élite” Seize Washington

The Political Scene | The New Yorker | Mar 14, 2025

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

To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com with “The Political Scene” in the subject line.

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