Election Recap

Tuesday night was a watershed moment for our country, and validation of a founding thesis at New Founding.

We launched New Founding in January 2021—in one of the darkest moments for our movement, as we faced widespread censorship, deplatforming, and lawfare. Our thesis was that in the face of political chaos and paradigm shift, an entrepreneurial or venture approach could address an acute need—providing open or aligned alternatives to hostile incumbent financial and tech platforms—and could help define an aspirational future for a movement deeply hungry for a positive vision.

We bet that this would come together through a partnership of the new "political right" and an emerging "tech right"—two groups that may not have seen themselves as part of the legacy conservative or GOP movement. We developed a message and vision that attracted people across these domains, and sought opportunities to make valuable connections within this growing network. As we heard from a growing array of top-caliber founders building companies that could realize key parts of a positive vision and seeking aligned capital, we launched our venture fund last fall. As people increasingly sought opportunities for real local agency and an integrated way of life, we launched an aligned charter community development to pioneer this concept in Appalachia.

And as we pursued these projects, a broader realignment took shape that brought many leading tech figures into political coalition with Trump, and elevated a message with particular appeal to younger men hungry to challenge the parasitic and often anti-human legacy regime. JD Vance embodies this new direction, and Tuesday's electoral victory cements this realignment—and crystalizes a movement focused on a new positive vision for American civilization.

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‍Federal impact:

The most obvious impact of this election is at the federal level with the change of presidential administration. Many political commentators offer insight into what to expect here, so I will limit mine to a few important points:

• The Trump team is far better prepared to pursue its agenda than in 2016, and has a much clearer sense of the political divisions and attacks it will face. But any substantive action will still mean a massive fight, and it's likely that much of its energy will have to go into checking a hostile regime that is still deeply entrenched in DC and other powerful institutions.
• Immigration and the border will be central issues for the new administration and will define a central condition of the next era: who is actually in America as this societal paradigm shift plays out?
• There is some room to reform the federal government, but the Trump administration will not stop the collapse of the legacy system. They will, rather, be able to limit the harm many institutions can do as they face inevitable disruption, and help usher in the transition to a new era where Americans recohere around new models of credibility and societal organization.

New Founding is not directly involved in federal politics, but we have close relationships with many who will enter the administration or otherwise play influential roles in DC. Several associated initiatives will build on the networks we have built to increase our presence in this world—letting us support administration priorities and lean into the new political coalition.

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State sovereignty:

While most immediate attention will be on the federal level, red states have an exceptional—and time-sensitive—opportunity. This arises from a combination of election implications and broader macro trends:

• Widespread decentralization and decline of large centralized bureaucracies (reversing global trends of the previous 150+ years).
• Key pillars of our legal regime, especially 14th Amendment doctrines, will remain hostile to state sovereignty.
• Presidential administrations have discretion over how aggressively to pursue these: Trump will restrain attacks, while a future administration may not.
• Federal agency capacity is likely to decline, reducing their future ability to attack state moves even if they have some color of law under the 14th Amendment.

Thus, states that move now—reasserting sovereignty and institutionalizing changes—have several years to establish precedent and build independent power bases against federal attacks. The longer these changes survive, the more resilient they will be. Five years from now, even a hostile Democratic administration may not be capable of extirpating a calculated and well-established red state project.

State-level migration and political sorting will also continue. If the first Trump administration is any indication, many leftists will react in extreme and hysterical ways to Trump’s actions. This will create cover for the sort of substantial red state projects described above (as attention is focused on some Trump-associated controversy), while in blue states it may produce even more radical policies that heighten contrasts with red state life—presenting opportunities for effective state and local bastions against this to attract even more people.

State politics are not a direct New Founding focus, but I am helping spearhead another new initiative that will advance a strong state-level agenda closely aligned with the broader New Founding vision. I expect to publicly announce this in early 2025.

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Private initiative:

Elon Musk summed up a theme of this election cycle Tuesday evening:

America is a nation of builders; Soon, you will be free to build

New Founding's mission has centered on the potential of private-sector initiatives to shape the future of our country. Where recently the federal government was an active threat to such initiatives, our people will soon be in place, and new positive partnership opportunities will emerge.

Both our venture and real estate units have proven our core theses of their strategies. We will be building on this traction to scale these funds—growing the institutional and geographic bastions that enable and benefit from the sorting described above, and shaping concrete pillars of our positive vision for America.

More broadly, this vibe shift has reached the mainstream, and there is a widespread movement toward the sort of positive building we have emphasized. The next few years are likely to offer exceptional opportunities: entrepreneurs know they have the space to take real risks in pursuit of the opportunities our societal transition opens up, investors know the most malevolent political threats will be checked, and Americans of all sorts make moves to position themselves for this new era.

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Broader theme:

This election was a sharp blow to an already-fragile managerial regime. As the managerial era ends, the landscape of future possibilities will expand across the federal, state, and private sectors. Whether the most significant changes come directly from the government or from outside developments like Bitcoin or AI models, we will see a wide landscape of possibilities—and some high-stakes fights over the shape of successor models. Political ideas once seen as fringe will become mainstream talking points. The path will be highly disruptive, and many incumbent institutions will collapse.

This widespread disruption offers opportunity. As I have previously discussed, a fractal local self-determination—or reduction of distant dependencies and favoring of local or aligned alternatives wherever possible—can position households, communities, companies, and states to survive a time of growing turmoil. Those that survive—especially those that build capabilities that will be scarce and valuable when legacy institutional and societal trust decline—can in turn play an outsized role in shaping the emerging order.

This moment will reward resilient institutions and bold actions. At New Founding, we are positioned to build on these trends, and we are excited for what we can achieve for America.