What happens when billionaires decide that democracy is an obstacle to the future they want to build? Journalist Gil Duran argues that this question helps explain the alliance between powerful Silicon Valley figures and Donald Trump—and the ideas connecting Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, and JD Vance. In our conversation on Cults, Culture, & Coercion, we discussed his book, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy. His central warning is that some influential tech leaders want to replace democratic accountability with forms of corporate power. Their ambitions reach beyond lower taxes and fewer regulations to the question of who should govern.

Three themes run through the interview: proposals for societies governed by founders and corporations; the money and relationships carrying these ideas into politics; and beliefs that cast a small group of tech visionaries as the people destined to determine humanity’s future. Gil argues that understanding the cultic dimensions of these beliefs is essential to understanding their appeal and their danger. Peter Thiel’s own words make the stakes clear. In his 2009 essay The Education of a Libertarian, he wrote: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” He explored technological routes beyond conventional politics, including cyberspace, outer space, and settlements at sea. Democracy gives the public a say in decisions that affect everyone. It allows citizens to impose limits on powerful people and institutions. Thiel’s statement raises a basic question: whose freedom is protected when democratic participation becomes the obstacle?

Gil traces an important intellectual influence to The Sovereign Individual, the 1997 book by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg. It envisioned an information economy in which wealthy, mobile individuals could escape many constraints imposed by territorial governments. The publisher’s description and excerpt describe governments losing economic control and facing pressure to operate on market terms.

Mara teaches at Queens College, the very place where I was recruited into the Moonies cult in 1974. She came to the study of influence through advertising and media. I came to it through my experience in a destructive cult and my work helping others understand and recover from authoritarian control.

We had a great deal to talk about.

On Cults, Culture, and Coercion, we discussed her book, Hoodwinked: How Marketers Use the Same Tactics as Cults. It examines how commercial interests draw on our desire for belonging, our insecurities, and our trust in other people to shape what we buy and believe. Mara spent a decade working in advertising and television before questioning what she was helping accomplish. As she told me, getting people to watch more television could not be all she was supposed to do with her life. She returned to school, studied with Neil Postman, and earned a doctorate in media ecology, which examines how communication technologies change society. She has written numerous books and teaches at my alma mater.

Her background helps her explain what many of us encounter every day without fully understanding: the planning behind the pitch. A social media post may look spontaneous. A recommendation may feel like advice from a friend. A community may appear to have formed entirely around shared interests. Mara asks us to look more closely at the commercial arrangements and incentives behind those experiences. One of her most useful ideas is the “anxiety economy.”

We often hear that platforms compete for our attention. Mara argues that this description leaves out a crucial part of the business model. Anxiety can keep us engaged. We scroll because we are worried, encounter more upsetting material, and keep scrolling in search of relief. Along the way, advertisers have more opportunities to reach us. The proposed relief may be another video, a purchase, a course, or a membership. The underlying message is familiar: something is wrong with your life, and someone has what you need to fix it. This is an enlightening discussion.

What happens when you tell people what you actually believe? Kate Cohen discovered that the answer can be much less frightening, and much more interesting, than you expect. For years, she participated in religious life without believing in God. Then she became a mother. Faced with children who trusted her to explain the world, she found she could no longer present something as true when she did not believe it herself.

“I could not tell them something I didn’t believe was true,” she told me. “I just couldn’t do it.”

That commitment to honesty runs through our conversation on Cults, Culture, and Coercion. Kate is a former Washington Post contributing columnist and the author of We of Little Faith: Why I Stopped Pretending to Believe (And Maybe You Should Too). She now writes Scratch on Substack. We talked about raising children, questioning religious authority, defending democracy, and the ordinary acts of creativity that help us remain active participants in our own lives.

We did not agree about every label or every approach to religion. That made the conversation interesting and valuable. Freedom of mind includes the ability to explore different points of view while holding the other person with respect. Too many people today think is simplistic binaries and so if another thinks differently, they might get labeled as “less than” and in the worst case, an enemy.