Monarchism and the Pipeline Dynamic

Exposing the Clowns, Grifters, and Ideologues in Our Midst

Introduction

On 29 January 2014, the inimitable Mad Monarchist penned a piece titled Befriending Revolutionary Iran. At the time, it read like the raving of a royalist Cassandra. A decade later, it reads like Scripture. Every grim syllable has come to pass with uncanny precision, like clockwork wound by a lunatic. Just read for yourself:

Any monarchist today should be as appalled as I am at the number of people today who have any sympathy or, worse yet, support for the Islamic Republic of Iran. One can see this on both ends of the political spectrum and even among groups claiming to be neither left or right. You hear… people on the left saying that Iran is the … victim of western bullying and that the countries of the west are somehow making the Iranian regime violent and belligerent … On the other hand, there are those on the far right who have adopted the Iranian regime as some sort of hero for doing things like defying the liberal west, calling for violence against Israel and executing homosexuals. … That anyone claiming to be a monarchist or a lover of tradition could have any sympathy at all for the Islamic Republic of Iran, frankly, leaves me nearly speechless. … If you are a monarchist, if you are a traditionalist, if you believe that not everything in life should be subject to change on the whim of the temporary majority, there is absolutely, positively no reason, at all, for you to support the Islamic Republic.¹

Everything the Mad Monarchist warned of has now slithered into reality. If he’s still watching this carnival from some velvet-draped lair—or from some pearly balcony in the Lord’s Celestial Kingdom—he has every right to feel vindicated, and every reason to be disgusted. The rot in our ranks, once a faint whiff of stench, is now a full-blown moral septic tank. The monarchist community has not merely lowered its standards. In fact, some of its members seem to have pawned them off for meme clout and “anti-Zionist” dog whistles.

When Israel struck the terrorist state of Iran on 13 June 2025, the reactions that followed were a watershed moment. It exposed today’s “isolationists” as either uninformed idiots or dishonest antisemites, with little in between. Moreover, it exposes a sinister element that has embedded itself within the monarchist community, something that was already pointed out but—to our shame—was left largely unresolved.

Before I elaborate further on this element, I must first turn to a certain character who perfectly embodies it.

Spoon-Feeding Filth: Enter “The Aristocratic Utensil”

Among the more bizarre characters to emerge from the digital woodwork is the so-called “Aristocratic Utensil”—a man who posts under the guise of a top-hatted spoon and calls himself a monarchist. If VeggieTales had a villain rejected for being too absurd, this sentient piece of silverware would be it.

Scratch the surface of this culinary caricature, however, and the buffoonery turns rancid. Behind the monocled whimsy lies an ideologue who peddles monarchy the way televangelists hawk their “prosperity gospel” with boldness, passion, and with malicious intent. One glance at his digital trail of bile is enough to confirm what the more observant among us have suspected: this is no royalist but a reprobate. A spoonful of monarchist sugar, perhaps, but laced with the arsenic of bigotry.

Consider his reaction to the Israeli airstrikes on Iran. A sane monarchist might have seen an opportunity. The theocratic death cult that ousted the Pahlavis is on the ropes, its impending demise opening the door to a monarchical restoration. Any genuine monarchist would gladly receive such a prospect. Even RadMons who are very critical of Israel, like my colleagues Edmund Vox and Karl von Franz, welcomed this development.

But not our talking utensil. No, the spoon-head flat out denied Iran’s terror sponsorship with the conviction of Baghdad Bob.² He then cowered when confronted with evidence of Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism.³ Soon thereafter, when a diasporic Iranian woman protested against the regime, he mocked her in a brazen act of pettiness.⁴ This petulant blindness to evil was not incidental; it was the point.

The Aristocratic Utensil’s bias begins to make sense when one sees the common ground he shares with the Iranian regime. He blames Jews for their own persecution⁵, called them “hook-noses” with the malignancy of a schoolyard bully⁶, and openly stated that women ought to be treated like objects.⁷

With a turban and a beard, he could audition for the Ayatollah’s press corps. And why not? That geriatric Skaven is in desperate need of new friends now that Putin, Xi Jinping, and all of Iran’s terrorist proxies got cold feet when Trump rattled his saber. The spoon-head and the rag-head both sip from the same poisoned chalice. Like the Brownshirts of old, they both march in ideological lockstep, except that the spoon-head—being more similar to the Brownshirts—calls racism “based.”⁸

The Aristocratic Utensil, our monocled mascot of madness, is the epitome of the moral degeneracy the Mad Monarchist sought to expose. All he does is spoon-feed his audience, the misguided and the morally bankrupt, a rancid broth laced with antisemitism and terrorist apologetics.

MINOs Among Us

As detestable as the talking utensil is, he is no outlier but a symptom of a deeper rot. He is one of multiple ideological parasites who leech off the aesthetics of kingship while smuggling in their real creeds. Among them are racial supremacists who elevate blood “purity” over dynastic legitimacy, degenerate misogynists yearning for harems, Evolan esotericists lost in the fog of obscurantism, technocrats pining for boardroom thrones, and “moderate monarchists” who are merely republicans in denial. To describe this motley crowd, Karl von Franz coined the perfect term: Monarchists In Name Only, or MINOs.

This phenomenon is nothing new. In a previous article, I took Curtis Yarvin and the Neoreactionary crowd to task for their ahistorical, silicon-addled fantasies of a CEO-led autocracy. These techno-fetishists want not a king but a startup founder with a scepter, a Peter Thiel in ermine and epaulettes.⁹

Solmanthe1st, another colleague of mine, put it best his article “Becoming More Unbalanced in an Unbalanced World.” He identified two factions within the digital monarchist milieu:

On one end, you have more officialized, party-style organizations such as the “Monarchists of America” and "United Monarchist Party of America", which maintain their interactions with the Monarchist community via their social media activity… as well as through their writings on the Substack platform...

On the flip side, we have prominent self-proclaimed Monarchist influencers such as the Aristocratic Utensil, who have managed to strong-arm their way into ideological leadership through sheer force of influence and their control over a wide viewer base, leading to their perception as de facto mouthpieces for the movement. … Those like Aristocratic Utensil, who “blend” far-right politics with Monarchism, serve as a metaphorical hole at the bottom of the cup, so to speak, a siphon and pipeline to more extreme ideologies and beliefs that have little to do with Monarchism as a whole. … We are an aesthetic to them, much in the same way that Christianity and Traditionalism are.¹⁰

I cannot think of a more apt description of the internal crisis that we monarchists now face. The latter faction, the MINOs, wrap themselves in regal imagery while pushing narratives and fanciful platforms that would have given Metternich a brain aneurysm.

MINOs care not for the soul of monarchy. They want the iconography without the icon, the throne room without the sacrament, power without principle, robes without righteousness, and—particularly for those in the West—the crown without the cross. Christianity? A facade to feign piety. Tradition? An empty slogan to justify evils that are no longer commonplace. The dignity of human persons under divine order? Not interested! Swipe left. These are not monarchists. They are little Caesars of the meme world, keyboard Caligulas reveling in bigotry and bombast.

As Solman wrote with prescient sting, “Whether they admit to it or not, they would much rather live in a Republic that caters to their ideology than a Monarchy that doesn’t.”¹¹

Exhibit A: Spoonie. The man would rather keep Iran under a theocratic jackboot if it means keeping women in chains and Jews persecuted into extinction. God forbid the Shah return and allow his people—even women! even Jews!—to live in dignity.

In prophetic fashion, Solman—like the Mad Monarchist—has been vindicated by our talking utensil.

Real Monarchists Don’t Clap for the Guillotine!

Before we go further, a brief detour is needed to distinguish between two species often confused at first glance: constitutional monarchists and their lesser cousins, the so-called “moderate” monarchists. For clarity’s sake, I’ll call the latter what they truly are: Republicans in Denial, or RiDs.

When I brought this matter to Karl von Franz, he offered the perfect analogy. To paraphrase him as faithfully as possible, the relationship between constitutional monarchists and RiDs is like that between squares and rectangles. All RiDs are constitutional (or ceremonial) monarchists—but not all constitutional monarchists are RiDs.

The crucial distinction lies not in the structure of monarchy they support, but in where their heart and loyalty truly reside.

The genuine constitutional monarchist, while mistakenly operating within modern liberal constraints, still regards monarchy as a living principle. To him, that timeless institution is a moral inheritance worth preserving and defending. He see himself as part of a global and historical fraternity of monarchists. He is not afraid to question the prevailing “march of history” narrative peddled by republicans.

The RiD, by contrast, is a monarchist the way a football fan is a patriot: loud on game day, invisible the rest of the year. Scratch the surface and you will find his real loyalty lies not with crown and altar, but with ballot boxes, empty platitudes from the Enlightenment, and the current world order. The RiD is not a monarchist, not even a royalist. He is a doctrinaire liberal with a fetish for crowns. His ideal king must wave politely, speak softly, and never so much as frown at the monkey house that is parliament. Heaven forbid our sovereign exercise judgment! He might upset the sacred equilibrium of brunch, ballots, and BBC documentaries!

To illustrate the decay, Karl recalled how one such RiD began his descent into MINOism when he publicly objected to mourning Louis XVI. Why? Because that fool believed the Bourbon monarchy deserved to be overthrown. This isn’t mere historical ignorance; it’s philosophical betrayal. No true monarchist ever cheers the guillotine. Criticize policies, sure. But cheer the scaffold? That’s not moderation. This is an unconscious emotional attachment to the enemy. Moreover, it is also a polished, articulate, justified surrender dressed up in polite language and intellectual pretensions. In short, it is Stockholm Syndrome with commentary, like a smug pundit narrating their own captivity.

Of course, not every monarchist must defend every monarch. We need not bend over backward to vindicate the worst sins of someone like Leopold II. Nonetheless, there must be at minimum a baseline solidarity, a recognition that any ideological attack against any legitimate dynasty, be it absolute or constitutional, is by extension an ideological attack against us all.

To put it in a blunt summary, Karl argued that the true constitutional monarchist stands with monarchy before modernity. The moderate monarchist, the republican in denial, stands with the revolutions that tore down dynasties and guard the mausoleums built upon the ashes. He is a limp-wristed apologist for the modern world and a contemptible curator for the one that proceeded it.

And now that we’ve dealt with this particular breed of MINO, let us return to the wider pathology of MINOism itself.

Returning to the Roots

“So why do we cater to them?” Solman asked.¹² Yes, why do we?!

Well, the answer is an unpleasant but much-needed criticism of genuine monarchists like ourselves:

Monarchist discourse has found itself so intertwined with extremists is simply due to an odd mix of complacency, lack of progress, and desperation. … Typing up a storm on social media and making video essays on the flaws of democracy is easy; that is why anyone with an “out-there” ideology does it. Being active politically outside of that is difficult, especially for a system such as Monarchism. … This strange mix of emotions - too complacent to take real action, and too desperate … to remain entirely inactive - leads monarchist circles to pick at the low-hanging fruit… [T]hese sorts of people naturally make their way into our circles, and are never properly filtered … due to such a perceived need for recruitment, that we overlook the quality of our newfound membership. Ultimately, we trade bits of ourselves and ideals for the allegiance of those who have little to contribute, simply to feel better about our numbers.¹³

What makes this criticism of Solman’s even more damning for us RadMons is that this is one of the reasons why we have “radicalized.”

We call ourselves Radical Monarchists not because we want to retaliate with guillotines of our own, but because we go to the root. We are radicals in the original sense of the word: to be seekers of truth, not peddlers of aesthetics. We believe that monarchy is more than a flag-waving cosplay for Evolan reactionaries or closeted republicans. It is a moral order, a cultural inheritance, a sacred union that is metaphysically transcendental.

But have we made any substantial progress since our founding in late November 2021? If so, why are Solman’s concerns still painfully relevant?

Radical Monarchists, live up to our name!

Conclusion: Sunlight and Solidarity

For starters, we must make an example of the Aristocratic Utensil. Not with shrieking cancellations or digital lynch mobs, but with clarity and staunchness. The first step would be a formal, public disavowal from all monarchist groups. This would have a two-fold effect:

1. It would send a message to the grifters: monarchism is not your litterbox for ideological excrement.

2. It would provoke the Utensil’s sympathizers to out themselves.

Sunlight, as they say, is the best disinfectant. And boy, do we need to bleach the pantry!

For our second step, we must build solidarity not just among ourselves, but with the very people our enemies sneer at. That means standing with the Iranian diaspora. That means defending the dignity of the persecuted and the downtrodden. That means rejecting any “monarchism” that smells like compost piles dressed in powdered wigs.

If we monarchists wish to keep demagogues and grifters from siphoning the more uninformed sections of our movement, all monarchist groups—both legally recognized organizations as well as decentralized anonymous vanguards—must act as a single united front. We must stand in solidarity with the Iranian diaspora who have fled tyranny as well as those who still suffer under tyranny.

In short, the solution to the pipeline into madness is as old as truth itself: sunlight and solidarity.

References

1. https://madmonarchist.blogspot.com/2014/01/mad-rant-befriending-revolutionary-iran

2. https://x.com/Aris_Utensil/status/1933550053005930871

3. https://x.com/Aris_Utensil/status/1933569414055801280

4. https://x.com/Aris_Utensil/status/1934197556218909074

5. https://x.com/Aris_Utensil/status/1934187996036669728

6. https://x.com/Aris_Utensil/status/1934858703552790775

7. https://x.com/Aris_Utensil/status/1934219272118473005

8. https://x.com/Aris_Utensil/status/1935036905722106230

9. https://radicalmonarchists.substack.com/p/moldbugs-misstep-on-monarchy

10. Solmanthe1st, Becoming More Unbalanced in an Unbalanced World

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.