Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal Inc.
Credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Democracy in America is dead, according to Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel.

No, not in the anthropological, Alexander-de-Toqueville sense. The PayPal co-founder means it literally.

“It’s not clear we’re living in anything resembling a democracy,” he told a crowd Tuesday at George Mason University. “We’re living in a republic that’s modified by a judicial system, that’s been largely superseded by these agencies that drive the decision-making.”

“Calling our society a democracy is very misleading,” Thiel went on. “We’re not a republic; we’re not a constitutional republic. We live in a state that’s dominated by these technocratic agencies.”

For even the typically colorful Thiel, this is a surprisingly blunt critique of the American political system. It fits into a much larger brand of Washington skepticism that’s become characteristic of Silicon Valley in recent years. And while much of it may ring true to the casual observer, it also draws its own critics.

Thiel says that organizations like the […]