As of today, don’t bother to look for The Rockbridge Network website. They don’t have one. But back in 2021, the Network circulated a brochure among the qualifying elite, and the brochure ended up in Document Cloud. That brochure is all you need to start getting worried.
Why worry?
It is not that The Rockbridge Network is wrong in stating that “the nation is in decline.” It is, given unsustainable national debt, disappearing manufacturing potential, significant economic inequalities, and sharp polarization.
It is not that The Rockbridge Network is wrong in stating that more effective leaders and policies are needed. Needed they are.
Where the Network becomes worrisome is 1) who is behind it, and 2) how it views itself.
By way of quick background: The Rockbridge Network was founded in 2019 by J.D. Vance (current US Vice President) and Chris Buskirk (venture capitalist and author, it seems). So far, the most conspicuous member/donors in the Network are Peter Thiel, Rebekah Mercer, Donald Trump Jr., David Sacks, and Marc Anderseen. They all have a couple of things in common: they are all very smart and very rich.
They have another thing in common – they wish to be viewed as beneficent aristocrats, who will populate seats of political power with other beneficent aristocrats.
Here is what journalist Elizabeth Dwoskin says on Linkedin, referring to her article, The secretive donor circle that lifted JD Vance is now re-writing MAGA’s future.
“This week I published my piece on the secretive world of donors around JD Vance that is now key to MAGA’s future. This network is led by Chris Buskirk, an Arizona insurance entrepreneur who quietly put tech elites at the center of power in Trump’s Washington. His efforts are grounded in a controversial theory: He believes a benevolent “aristocracy” is needed to move the country forward.”
So, we have a group of folks that are very smart, very rich, very exclusive, and very determined to do us the favor of picking for us our administrators and our rulers. What could go wrong?
Piles of money influencing politics.
Wealth has been a principal determining factor in modern politics. This has been especially apparent in the wake of 1) “irrational exuberance” (when assets are priced by public enthusiasm, not fundamental value), which helped populate the super wealthy class, and 2) the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which removed pretty much all restrictions on wealthy corporations and other groups to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections.
We should expect The Rockbridge Network to exercise an outsized influence in who gets elected and what legislation is passed.
Vertical integration enabled by money
The Rockbridge Network is not a regular think tank or political PAC. It functions on a centralized, top down concept. The wealth of its members enables the Network to develop vertical integration. Instead of supporting like-minded, independent entities, the Network establishes its own laser-focused entities. The brochure in question makes that concept clear.
“One way to think of Rockbridge is as an investment manager, a kind of political venture capital firm. It is our job to leverage our investors’ capital with the right political expertise to ensure results. We are pursuing political alpha.
Rockbridge Network will replace the current Republican ecosystem of think tanks, media organizations and activist groups that have contributed to the Party’s decline with better action-oriented, more effective people and institutions that are focused on winning.”
The brochure identifies Network Projects tasked with specific mandates:
The Media Project is responsible for public relations and messaging, rapid response communications, polling, area-specific coverage, influencers, investigative journalism, documentaries, and “projects for cultural influence and renewal.
Lawfare & Strategic Litigation “will identify leverage points where the law allows us to hold bad actors, including the media, accountable.”
The Transition Project will gather the people and the plans supposedly perfectly aligned with the Network’s objectives, and “be ready to govern effectively with conservative goals, from day one.”
The Red State Project “is building a centralized, organizing force in each state by hiring staff to coordinate like-minded groups to ensure we win .”
So far these entities have not been visible to the public, no more than the Network itself.
An aristocracy, if they can keep it.
All forms of government need the vigilance of the governed to avoid – or at least delay – decay. Our Republic is no different, as Founder Benjamin Franklin succinctly warned: “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
Earlier, another great mind, the philosopher Aristotle, also pointed to such decay in his treatise Politics, Part VII.
“Of forms of government in which one rules, we call that which regards the common interests, kingship or royalty; that in which more than one, but not many, rule, aristocracy; and it is so called, either because the rulers are the best men, or because they have at heart the best interests of the state and of the citizens. But when the citizens at large administer the state for the common interest, the government is called by the generic name- a constitution…
Of the above-mentioned forms, the perversions are as follows: of royalty, tyranny; of aristocracy, oligarchy; of constitutional government, democracy. For tyranny is a kind of monarchy which has in view the interest of the monarch only; oligarchy has in view the interest of the wealthy; democracy, of the needy: none of them the common good of all.”
Channeling Aristotle, Chris Buskirk’s personal (if not public) perspective on rule by the few is nuanced. One example is his discussion with Annika Nordquist, of New Books Network, on May 22, 2024. In this interview Buskirk advocated for a rule of the exceptional few (“optimize for highly creative small groups”). But readily admitted that an ideal aristocracy “is rare.” “It is always been flawed even when good.”
Let’s digest this
We have a group of extraordinarily wealthy, successful entrepreneurs/investors determined to stamp on the nation their view of a beneficent agenda via their wholly-owned “political venture capital firm,” The Rockbridge Network. This level of power, that is so far obscure, needs especially high vigilance from the governed. Will it get it?
What could go right?
There is nothing inherently wrong with an aristocracy – rule by the best minds of good character. Chris Buskirk pointed out in the above-mentioned New Books Network discussion, early America was an aristocracy.
Indeed, our Founders were exceptional of character, well educated, and committed to preserving the Republic for future generations. Among them were members of wealthy families like John Hancock, middle-class merchants like Sam Adams, and self-made innovators like Ben Franklin.
So, there is precedent for an American beneficent (although “flawed even when good”) aristocracy; and therefore there is hope that prominent members like Donald Trump Jr, Peter Thiel, and David Sacks will put the well being of the Republic ahead of a – totally understandable – desire to preserve their substantial personal interests.
Picture: Official White House photo of President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, with other administration officials posing in the West Wing Lobby, on June 5, 2025.
