This Week: VDARE defies order to sell out their anons; Bukele offers you his protection

VDARE goes down with the ship rather than give up their writers

The selective prosecution of political enemies is nothing new, but they used to maintain at least the performance of objectivity.

In 2018, New York Attorney General Letitia James publicly campaigned on a promise to target her political enemies, and got puff pieces from NPR and the Washington Post.

Now, she is threatening anti-immigration nonprofit VDARE with bankruptcy unless they divulge the identities of their anonymous writers as part of a subpoena regarding the Berkeley Springs Castle in West Virginia.

Obviously the identities of those writers has nothing to do with the provenance of their property, any more than a New York Attorney General has anything to do with a real estate purchase in West Virginia — but unfortunately VDARE incorporated their nonprofit in New York (back in 1999, when that wasn’t an obviously crazy thing to do), which puts them in Letitia James’ jurisdiction.

Without ever explicitly charging them with any wrongdoing, James has succeeded in bleeding VDARE for over a million dollars. The process is the punishment.

VDARE could, of course, hand over the names of their writers (who would certainly become unemployable in any corporate setting) — but the Brimelows have made the courageous decision to defy the order, and close up shop rather than roll on their people.

Two important lessons from this fiasco:

1. Nonprofit status is dangerous for anyone with unauthorized opinions.

Nothing the Brimelows did was out of the ordinary or at odds with the wishes of their donors — but the accounting and reporting requirements imposed by 501(c)(3) status are onerous, and defending your actions against a hostile and determined State is probably not worth the tax breaks.

Of course, this amounts to a massive subsidy for leftist action in the US through tax-advantaged NGOs — but not much can be done about that until red-state AGs are willing to respond in kind.

2. Minimize your professional and investment exposure to blue jurisdictions.

Incorporating in Delaware was a $55 billion mistake for Elon Musk. Douglass Mackey got a kangaroo court in Brooklyn (despite posting from Manhattan) because the prosecution argued that the data passed through Brooklyn on its way to Georgia and California. Donald Trump’s real estate holdings in New York created the justification for a $454 million penalty (for perspective, his 2016 campaign cost $600 million).

These are high-profile lawfare cases, but even basic property rights are increasingly at risk. Squatting laws have made ownership of real estate — especially rental properties, but in some cases even personal homes — a very dicey proposition in Atlanta, New York, Seattle, and other leftist-controlled cities.

You should get out if you can.

Bukele offering free passports to skilled immigrants

On Saturday, Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele announced that his nation will award 5,000 free passports, including full citizenship and voting rights, to “highly skilled scientists, engineers, doctors, artists, and philosophers from abroad”.

In December 2023, El Salvador began offering citizenship to foreigners who make a $1 million donation to various Salvadorian government development projects, so Bukele values these 5,000 passports at $5 billion (though it’s not known how many crypto gorillionaires have shelled out for the golden visa.)

People on the inside tell me that Bukele is not interested in turning El Salvador into an expat playground — but obviously his ambitions for the country as a “Singapore of the Western Hemisphere” require foreign investment.

Lee Kwan Yew was able to expand his nation’s economy into finance, tech, and services because it was built on one of the world’s most important shipping lanes. El Salvador’s present assets are its natural beauty, and good governance (if you can keep it.)

Bukele rightly frames his interventions as common sense, sidestepping questions of ideology — but he has already redefined El Salvador, at least in terms of its public image, & his ambition seems to extend to disrupting the Westphalian system itself.

Most of his American fans seem to view El Salvador as essentially a place to revive the American Dream: property rights, rule of law, freedom to build, freedom to innovate.

It’s a great pitch for Statecraft as a Service, and that's nothing to turn up your nose at — but Americans are currently living through the death throes of pragmatic civic nationalism: America as international shopping mall. They should be wary of any club that would accept them as members.

It was a powerful model while it lasted; can Bukele make it more robust? Is it enough to build the state on personal allegiance and confidence in him? Or does he have in mind a distinct ideological program, a Salvadorian Dream to which he hopes American exiles will assimilate?

EXIT News

• Last week's hot seat was a success — lots of different perspectives on the virtue of jumping out of the nest versus building gradually on the side; also the pros and cons of staying in FAANG, building a tech company to sell, or starting a “boring business”. We put our guy in touch with a recruiter and several AI/ML experts, and will be checking in again in six months.

• Tonight, we'll discuss building while the world ends. We’re all waiting for the bottom to fall out — but while it should inspire urgency, it seems to mostly generate paralysis. We'll talk through the psychological roadblocks, and identify some plans that make sense. If you want to join us, sign up at exitgroup.us.

• Several of the guys are putting together lunch meetups this month in Utah Valley, Dallas/Fort Worth, and Seattle. Members can check the chat for more details.

• Cocktail hour meetup links for Austin (4/26), Boston (5/24), and New York City (6/21) below the fold for paid subscribers; as always, members-only meetup invites will be sent via email.