There is a long history of aggrieved men, feeling pressure from society to change their ways, who dream of a sovereign land — for men, by men — that could be their escape.
American history is littered with these plans, with men invariably claiming they were building utopian communities free from the corruption of a developing world. In modern times, we’ve seen efforts from peaceful men and radical separatists alike, with different ideologies and mindsets when it comes to religion, race and the need for violent action. At the core, however, this desire for a patriarchal society is rooted in male victimhood.
Across the globe, men are staring at their isolated lives, depressed wages and increasing social unrest — then turning to the “redpill” or communities like MGTOW (“Men Going Their Own Way”) for half-baked answers as to why they’re unhappy and how this can be blamed on modern society’s supposed hatred of men.
The newest wrinkle in this narrative is the Helicoptarian Constitocracy — a fringe movement with a tongue-twister name that wants to create a covert society exclusively for men, built on a hyper-libertarian interpretation of “freedom.” Constructed around a 20-page constitution, the HC philosophy is so wonky it almost seems like an act of trolling. But it’s found purchase with young Extremely Online® men who are deeply tuned in to alt-right memes, fascinated by cryptocurrency and dreaming of a radical new future, sans taxes and women’s suffrage.
I first stumbled across the Helicoptarian Constitocracy while researching Korea’s “dishwashing” theory, which was discussed by a melange of incels and MGTOW men on Poal, a “free speech” forum overrun with hateful content. The original post came from a Korean commenter who claimed he had translated the HC constitution, and several people in the thread seemed motivated to spread the gospel — none more than a user dubbed 7e62ce85, the creator and moderator of the Helicoptarian forum on Poal.
In one reply to the “dishwashing” theory post, they decried the falling birth rate in the U.S., using slurs to make racist claims that Black and brown people are “having kids on welfare,” then laid out a framework for how men could overthrow existing society by establishing their own community, implementing sovereign rule and enacting male supremacy by law. “I have to admit I am tempted to declare women property, it’s doubtful they will willingly join us anyway,” 7e62ce85 wrote. “Let’s try a little European styled “soft-tradiationalism” [sic] first though before we go full sharia.”
There’s little evidence that this group has much momentum in new memberships, but it has attracted a handful of true believers that want to buy in. Exactly how they’ll go “full sharia” is detailed in the constitution, written in first person and overflowing with ill-conceived theories. The mission of the HC is “economic freedom, male authority, parent rights and physical removal of violent ideologies.” But the way in which the constitution guides men to that goal illuminates the intersection of pop culture, pseudoscience and male rage, and how these factors swirl into a manifesto for male separatism.
Ironically, the HC condemns “violent ideologies” like socialism and feminism by installing an explicitly violent worldview that just happens to prioritize men. For all its boasting about a new way for men to live, it’s a lot of banal white supremacist rhetoric, interwoven with a hatred of women. “I wish to be clear and acknowledge that the white race and westerners are currently being eradicated in a ‘white genocide.’ The powers that be have implemented extreme feminism which destroys the white family while at the same time importing other races and even enabling terrorism. All of this is again funded by the tax money paid primarily by whites and other productive members of society, leaving them with less to start their own families,” the constitution reads.
The misogyny leans heavily on the teachings of 20th-century anthropologist J.D. Unwin, whose text Sex and Culture posited that growing sexual liberalism and female agency doomed growing societies to stagnation and ultimate collapse. The book is jammed with pseudoscientific explanations and a deeply racist view of “primitive” versus “developed” societies, but it’s prominently cited alongside Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and, oddly, the 1997 film Starship Troopers as the main inspirations behind the movement.
The HC distills those influences into one main policy aim: To build true “freedom” by banning taxation and women’s ability to vote. “Women as a class are more likely to exhibit parasitic behavior and that is why you absolutely must not let them vote. The second women can vote, they vote for higher taxes and handouts. The second you allow that, your society is doomed,” the constitution reads.
The cognitive dissonance is astounding, and it’s partly why the manifesto reads like it was written by a redpilled teenager on an Adderall binge, blending elements of evolutionary pseudoscience (a la Jordan Peterson), conspiracies about communists and Jews and an anything-goes interpretation of libertarian economics. The moral code is effectively “survival of the fittest:” “If they are not intelligent, they will starve without welfare and if they are intelligent and free, they will do science, explore the world and other wholesome activities,” the constitution asserts.
What kind of wholesome activities, exactly? The list notes that citizens have the right to bear all arms, including military vehicles and weapons of mass destruction; their right to free speech includes hate speech, invasions of privacy, libel and producing pedophilic content. In a nod to the fascists who love eugenics, parents can use genetic engineering on their children. By law, marital rape isn’t recognized; elsewhere, domestic abuse gets rebranded as “communicative violence,” with a warning that “white knights” who try to intervene between a man and his wife may be shot and killed “in self defense.”
None of this falls under the HC’s prohibition of “violent movements,” because the Constitocracy technically has no desire to “threaten others with violence or wish to kill non-followers,” even if the name of the organization is rooted in a far-right meme about executions under the fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet. Naturally, the group literally depicts feminists, socialists and Muslims being thrown out of a cartoon helicopter on its site.
Becoming a citizen in this world requires signing up for “service” to the minarchist government, designed to only provide basic military and police services, or paying a modest annual citizen’s fee of “100 grams of silver,” or about $75 as of press time. Beyond that, you can sign up to buy a plot of land, as the HC claims it now has two large properties in the U.S. or Europe, complete with “whites only” plots for those who want racial purity.
The person promoting these claims is the anonymous 7e62ce85, who has mentioned himself as “the founder” of the movement on at least one occasion. They’ve been pushing this for at least four years, when the ideas of HC gained traction on the now-defunct forum Voat. The secrecy around this alleged available land, and the lack of anyone talking about their own successful purchases, makes this “land offer” feel like a disguised grift for cash. The upfront cost is the dollar equivalent of 11.1 ounces of silver, or about $250, submitted via Dash or Bitcoin Cash.
While 7e62ce85 claims that one man has bought land, there is hardly any evidence of momentum behind this separatist movement, which illustrates the disconnect between those who want to lead the fringe right and the actual political reality on the ground. There is ambition in spades, here: The HC constitution references the need for an “underground railroad” of men to help build its foundation, and urges radical steps: “In [the early] phase, you must work to embrace the black market and cryptocurrency. In this context black market does not refer to hard crime, but rather working for untaxed cash payments if possible.”
Elsewhere, it legitimizes “sabotage” and “assassinations” as political tools, noting that falsely reporting officials and “other powerful members” in society is a good way for the “system to attack itself.” And in the meantime, a network of HC affiliates are pumping out propaganda like the crude alt-right animation series “Murdoch Murdoch,” which promotes hate speech and violence as a source of liberty and lulz.
There is a long history of separatist movements in America, including gendered ones like the lesbian communes known as “Womyn’s lands” and religious ones preserved by communities like the Amish. But this idea of utopia has become one of the most favored goals by men on the fringe right, thanks to the blend of doomsday-prepper principles and extremist politics beloved on sites like 4chan and Poal. It’s evidence of just how niche the extreme edge of American politics has become in the age of decentralized finance and cries for a culture war.
Yet despite all the new interpretations, such movements are driven by tired racist and sexist tropes that continually blame “progressive thought” and social change as inherently harmful to men. The boogeymen of Big Tech censorship, “cultural Marxism” and feminism are deemed as existential threats to male culture, whatever that meant in the first place. The solution proposed, meanwhile, is just a lazy amalgamation of ideas championed by white supremacists and Nazis of yore.
The HC’s constitution is a dream of male self-reliance taken to an illogical conclusion: Men have the power to do anything they want, as long as they’re shielded from the all-powerful influence of women, immigrants and basic civil rights. But its believers fail to see that they’re digging themselves into an impossible dream after failing to confront the uncertainties of the real world, in all its entropy.
Fascism grows when economic hardship, political extremism and social strife lead people to draw lines in the sand and fight irrationally for the illusion of agency and power. For a generation of young men educated by the toxicity of the alt-right internet, and the violent lulz embraced within, the salve for hardship is to run toward the utopia of separatism — even one that reads like a giant joke, helicopter cartoons and all.
Eddie Kim
Eddie Kim is a features writer based in Los Angeles, covering social and cultural issues for MEL.
