Curtis Yarvin (formerly obscure anon blogger Mencius Moldbug) has been going somewhat mainstream lately. He’s appeared on Tucker Carlson's show and recently had a somewhat positive (or at least neutral) Vanity Fair article written about him and the “New Right” movement that he is at the forefront of. Does this mean Moldbug and neoreactionaryism are going mainstream? Yes and no.
Moldbug (and others at the forefront of the New Right movement such as Bronze Age Pervert and Zero HP Lovecraft) have started a cultural and political movement that will change the future of the country, but those figures are not supposed to go mainstream themselves, only their ideas. Moldbug, BAP, and ZeroHP are to remain super-niche obscure figures that online autists know and adore, but people like them do not now and never will appeal to mainstream normies. Yet they can and will still change mainstream culture—though indirectly.
Their true audience is a new crop of elites. Someone like Elon Musk can read, understand, and appreciate Moldbug then filter his ideas, watered-down somewhat, to translate to his more mainstream audience. And other elites like Musk will do the same, translate BAP and Moldbug in their own way so that their particular audiences can understand and appreciate the ideas.
As the VF article explained, politicians like JD Vance and Blake Masters are already doing this. They have read Moldbug and agree with many of his ideas, but they will never cite Yarvin’s name in a campaign speech. The Medicis did not openly talk about Machiavelli—they just used his ideas to attain power. Moldbug is our modern Machiavelli. It is up to other elites to become the Caesar that takes down the Cathedral and becomes CEO of America.
Because Yarvin will not be directly involved in the eventual regime change, the result will not be the pure Moldbugian neocameralist vision. It’ll be a watered-down version, but that would still be a massive upgrade to the current Cathedral-controlled culture/system. Yarvin will not become a household name anytime soon, but centuries from now, mainstream political historians and philosophers may look back on this time and recognize Yarvin’s prophetic vision. Then “Moldbugian” may become an adjective as widely used as “Machiavellian” is today.
Many neoreactionaries are wondering why the Cathedral would allow a positive/neutral article about the New Right to be published in a mainstream establishment magazine like Vanity Fair. All previous Cathedral articles about Yarvin painted him as a racist and fascist, but this article paints him as a smart cool cult-like figure. The true motive of this article may be something that I previously feared: What happens if/when the Left co-opts Yarvin's ideas? The end result of Moldbug going mainstream could be AOCaesar.