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Bestselling book traces San Francisco tech's role in fostering fascism · Best of: Features

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  Bestelling book traces San Francisco Tech's role in fostering fascism. Written by
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  Silas Valentino. This article is being read by an automated voice generated
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  by Everlett. Speaking Truth to Power, specifically how major tech leaders closely
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  tied to San Francisco have swung toward fascist ideologies, is taking a
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  visible toll on journalist Gil Duran. Seated outside Cafe Rivelle near Dubos
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  Park last week, the Bay Area based author revealed between sips of
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  sparkling water that the past few years documenting the attack on democracy
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  from local billionaires has turned his beard gray. At least the laborious
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  reporting on Silicon Valley fascism hasn't gone unnoticed. Duran's new book, The
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  Nerd Reichs, is a New York Times bestseller, propelling him to engagements
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  around the country, and on stage at the Berlin Freedom Conference next
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  month. It's also ruffling feathers. He recently fended off threats to delete
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  his YouTube channel, and earlier this year his account on X was
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  suspended for the second time in his career after he called the
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  CEO of Balanter's Manifesto Fascism. The Nerd Reich is a humorous title,
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  but the laugh gets stuck in the throat when you begin to
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  consider just how percipient it truly is. Prominent tech figures are not
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  subtle about their authoritarian tendencies. All that Durand does with the book
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  is quote them verbatim. In two thousand nine, Peter Thiel famously admitted
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  that I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. Meanwhile,
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  Elon Musk fashioned a Nazi salute during a post inauguration celebration for
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  President Donald Trump in twenty twenty five. As for Mark Andreessen, whose
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  venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has invested in so many A area
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  companies that its portfolio page appears like the billboards along Highway one
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  hundred one, the major investor brazenly celebrates the architect of Italian fascism.
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  In his self published The Techno Optimist Manifesto from twenty twenty three,
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  Andresson calls Filippo Tommaso Marinetti a patron saint and paraphrases a quote
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  validating Tech's violent assault upon mankind. The line is from an essay
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  that Marinetti published in nineteen oh nine before he went on to
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  co author the Fascist Manifesto that helped launch Benito Mussolini. When Durán
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  and I met there was barely a table available at Cafe Revelle.
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  I chose the cafe intentionally, since it's a noted hub for employees
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  in the industry. I assume many of the
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  work for companies led by these men who extol how democracy is
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  outdated, and the only path forward is a reboot, which not only
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  enriches their companies, but consolidates their power. Duran arrived first and I
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  found him typing away at a laptop. I chuckled at how seamlessly
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  he fit in among this crowd. But instead of all birds and
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  a hoodie, Duran wore a brown modello beer that While they words
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  he writes may appear like the ranting of a madman shouting from
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  a soap box, Duran has only taken the time to listen and
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  repeat what the richest men in the city are saying, and perpetuating
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  with their fortunes. It was all true, right? No one's ever said
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  anything that I've written is not true. There's not one correction, Durand
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  said. But it's a matter of whether you want to acknowledge that
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  what they have been saying is what they are also doing. I
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  think that's become the major story of our time. Silicon Valley becoming
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  The government, while the Trump regime becomes Silicon Valley. So that's why
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  I think it came from San Francisco. This interview has been edited
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  for clarity and brevity. SF Gate. I'd like to begin broadly about
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  the role San Francisco played in generating a far right movement underneath
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  our noses. I chose this cafe because these folks are working for
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  those companies. And if you're working for the Facebook, you're working for
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  Mark Zuckerberg, who's working for Donald Trump. GILL DurAN. The attack on
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  American democracy is a project of venture capital and a project of
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  technology companies. What do venture capitalists do? They bet on disruption. They
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  bet on new technologies that have they promise of returning an outsized
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  profit of some kind. Having run out of, you know, burrito delivery
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  apps and legacy industries like taxis and hotels to disrupt, they've come
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  for government. They've come for politics. At least that's how Gary Tan
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  put it at the Network State Conference in twenty twenty three, which
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  is when I really started paying attention to what they were saying.
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  SF Gate, local tech leader started to change around 2023. Duran, there
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  was something I didn't understand. Like, how are they saying they're Democrats,
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  but all their talking points and policies are right wing? And why
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  are they teaming up with a Republican billionaire to oust four politicians,
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  portray the city as an apocalyptic mess, which it was not, in
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  order to create this moral panic and seize power? That's what really
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  caught my interest. And so I think that concentration of money being
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  used now as political power is the whole recipe there and what
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  Gary Tan said, which I think was true, was a confession. If
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  we can do it here, we can do it everywhere. S. F.
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  Gate. I'm personally fascinated by the strategy outlined in pandemic, what we've
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  short handed as the boom loop. To portray San Francisco as a
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  failed city. Duran. The Doom Loop went away, and now it's the
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  boom loop, right? But we had a bunch of recent shootings. A
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  guy was killed on Market Street. Someone walked around town stabbing people
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  and got arrested. I was on BART yesterday. There's people doing the
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  fentanyl fold. But there's not a bunch of people with phones whose
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  job it is to film that and put it on social media,
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  where the Daily Mail and Fox News and Newsmax pick it up
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  and make it the big story. Right? That all went away and
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  now it's the boom loop. Everything's great, everything's fine, and there are
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  no complaints. At the same time, what do we have in the
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  mayor? A mayor whose whole shtick is to cozy up with the
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  billionaires, expand surveillance, right? I think chasing the mayor of a city
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  like San Francisco, who's not a voice against fascism in politics, is
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  a major win for them. You know, Donald Trump just offered up
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  LA and San Diego as sacrifices to Iran. He didn't mention San
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  Francisco, which, as you know, for decades has been depicted as Sodom
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  and Gomorrah on the Pacific. S. F. Gate. You mentioned a few
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  times in the book how many of us in journalism missed this
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  as it was happening in our city. Duran, I think that a
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  lot of political reporters don't actually understand politics. Thinking about it as
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  someone who's been a communications director and press secretary, a lot of
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  political reporting is the metaphor of a dog chasing the ball. You
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  get a ball, you throw it, the dogs chase it. Here's the
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  quote. Here's the story of the day. What do you get spoon
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  fed? What's the scoop? A scoop is always something usually designed by
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  someone to give you’d a story that they want told. S.F. Gate,
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  what is it that I heard you say once about access journalism?
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  Duran. Access journalism is ass kiss journalism. So I think that a
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  lot of political journalists end up becoming very cozy, and when a
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  new narrative emerges, one. That's a little complicated, a little strange at
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  first, you're taught to avoid anything that looks like that. That's why
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  I think one of the biggest stories in American political history came
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  out, slithered out of San Francisco, and most people completely missed it.
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  SF Gate. The central person in the The Nerd Reich is Peter
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  Thiel. You shared how you reached out to him and exhausted all
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  your opportunities for an interview. If you had a sit down interview
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  with him, that are the questions you'd be most eager to ask?
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  Duran, how is this working out for you? His doesn't seem like
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  it's popular, right? It's sinking. Crypto markets have suffered greatly. The open
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  corruption, you know, how is this in any way superior to having
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  a Democrat in power? That'd be one. I would ask him about
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  the meaning of his Antichrist fixation. The Antichrist, as he describes it,
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  sounds a lot like Silicon Valley, like a venture capitalist. He says
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  the Antichrist would be defined by velocity in an effort to control
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  the world. That seems a lot like what's happening right now. I
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  would call it anti Christianity, especially when you look at what Silicon
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  Valley is investing in warfare, surveillance, the destruction of creativity and art
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  through AI. Other question I'd ask him is that you know you're
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  going to die, right? Because I don't think he knows he's going
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  to die. S. F. Gate. Well, his head is going to be
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  preserved like in Futurama. Duran. When you have wealth, you want power.
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  When you have power, you want wealth. When you have both, you
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  want to live forever and be God. That's when you're Farcast. Seph
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  Gate, an important person connected to Heel is the vice president. Duran.
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  You know, J.D. Vance is also part of the San Francisco story,
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  right? He went to law school, and while at Yale, he met
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  Peter Thiel. After hearing Thiel speak, he decides not to be a
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  lawyer after all and comes out to San Francisco to become a
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  venture capitalist at Mithrill Capital. And then after a little while here,
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  he begins his Peter Thiel funded political journey. SF Gate No other
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  city has been better for Donald Trump and MAGA than San Francisco
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  because of the amount of money that's fueled Trump two point zero.
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  There's a fair argument to be made that Bernal Heights his old
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  neighborhood made J. D. Vance more than Appalachia. Duran, he's a hillbilly,
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  not a ill billy. There was this big fundraiser for Trump. I
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  think he raised twelve million dollars here in San Francisco at David
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  Sack's house. That's apparently where they all said it's got to be
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  Vance for Vice President. The degree to which San Francisco has played
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  a role in creating this regime is audacious, because San Francisco is
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  supposed to be this blue city on the coast. S. F. Gate,
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  we pride ourselves as being a city of educated, hard working people,
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  and yet all around us this was happening. Duran, a new politics
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  has been created here. I
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  don't think in one thousand nine hundred and eighty four inches we
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  ever found out how the got Big Brother, but apparently they voted
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  for it. S. F Gate, I feel like so many of your
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  conversations always have to end with this look towards optimism. Is there
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  anybody local or any organization that you feel comfortable pointing to and
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  saying, Hey, they're actually not full of it? Duran. I think there
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  are a lot of voters and people in San Francisco who are
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  really aware of what's going on, and I think that they are
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  trying to find their path forward. I had an event last week
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  at Club Fugazi. There were three hundred people there. Last night I
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  was at a packed bookstore in Glen Park. It seems like people
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  are really aware, and they're aware of how it's connected to San
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  Francisco and the venture capitalists, so that gives me hope. I think
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  that you've got people in the city pushing back on. We got
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  the data center moratorium for forty five days. People are really radicalized
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  against Flock, against Palantir, against the Data Center. I think San Francisco
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  would be a perfect place in the future, maybe the old Westfield
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  Mall, for the site of the Museum of American Fascism, and how
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  venture capital fused with an apocalyptic right wing movement to attempt to
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  destroy American democracy in the first quarter of the twenty first century.
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  Tell the story of it here, you know. I don't want to
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  let the city off the hook.