Dark Matter

The Group Chats Reshaping American Politics

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And somewhere in the encrypted space of Signal group chats, decisions are being made that will shape our politics long before they reach public view.

Ben Smith's revelatory Semafor report offers a disturbing glimpse into what might be called the dark matter of our political universe—the invisible forces that bend public conversation without being directly observable. What he documents isn't merely gossip among elites but a purposeful restructuring of American political alignment, conducted in spaces deliberately shielded from public accountability.

The scale of this transformation is breathtaking. As Smith reports, these group chats have become “the single most important place in which a stunning realignment toward Donald Trump was shaped and negotiated, and an alliance between Silicon Valley and the new right formed.” This isn't speculation—it's what participants themselves acknowledge, with one calling these chats “the memetic upstream of mainstream opinion.”

What makes this particularly troubling is how it connects to patterns I've documented in pieces like The Plot Against America, where I traced how a dangerous ideology born from the libertarian movement evolved from fringe theory to governing practice. The same figures who appear in Smith's reporting—Andreessen, Srinivasan, Lonsdale, Thiel's associates—are the key players in that ideological project. These private chats aren't just about political gossip; they're about coordinating the implementation of a specific vision for America's future—one where democracy itself is treated as obsolete technology ripe for “disruption.”

Several aspects of this phenomenon demand serious reflection:

First, the deliberate fragmentation of public discourse. When Lonsdale can argue fiercely with Srinivasan in private but declare publicly that they “will always be on the same side against communists and lefty journalists,” we see a collapse of genuine dialogue into strategic positioning. What appears to be spontaneous consensus is actually coordinated action, making democratic deliberation impossible.

Second, the asymmetry of power. While group chats exist across the political spectrum, Smith identifies something unique about the tech-right nexus—its coherence, its resources, its strategic focus. Chris Rufo's candid admission that he “looked at these chats as a good investment of my time to radicalize tech elites” reveals a purposeful realignment of American political power happening outside democratic processes or public scrutiny.

Third, the privatization of civic discourse. These spaces represent a retreat from the civic square into walled gardens where accountability is minimal and groupthink flourishes. When Andreessen celebrates them as “samizdat” in a “soft authoritarian” age, he inverts reality—equating the voluntary privacy of billionaires with the forced secrecy of Soviet dissidents, while simultaneously helping to create the very conditions of epistemic confusion he claims to resist.

The implications for democratic governance are profound. When policies and positions are workshopped in private among the powerful before being presented as spontaneous public consensus, the appearance of debate becomes theater. When disagreements that might illuminate public understanding are confined to disappearing messages among elites, citizens are deprived of the information needed for informed consent.

Most troubling is the conscious strategy to shape public perception while keeping the mechanisms of that shaping hidden. As Krishnan wrote, these chats are “the memetic upstream of mainstream opinion”—the source from which apparently organic ideas flow. This is not collaboration; it's coordination designed to appear as coincidence.

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And in group chats where messages vanish after seconds and billionaires shape consensus beyond public view, we face a crisis not just of politics but of epistemic authority itself—of how we know what we think we know, and who gets to shape the boundaries of acceptable discourse.

This isn't just about who wins elections. It's about whether the decisions that shape our collective future are made through democratic processes or in private spaces beyond public accountability. It's about whether power derives from public consent or private coordination. And ultimately, it's about whether democracy can survive when the most consequential conversations happen in spaces where messages disappear after thirty seconds.

The center must be held—not because it is easy, but because it is ours to hold. And holding it requires recognizing the invisible currents that shape our political reality before they can be contested in the open air of democratic deliberation.