am main street initiative
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">pjt 2025</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">city jrnl BS apr 2022</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.6; background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This past weekend, attendees at a conference at Saint Vincent College learned that on Truth Social, Donald Trump’s social media alternative to Twitter (which banned him in January 2020), users compose “truths” instead of “tweets.” Last month, technical glitches caused the new platform to acknowledge that it was “currently experiencing slow distribution of truths.” That and its corollary, the swift proliferation of falsehoods, describe much of public life in the era of Covid. The nine conference speakers, assembled by Brad Watson, director of Saint <b>Vincent’s Center for Political and Economic Thought, addressed the atmosphere of crisis and panic that has driven the policies of government and private organizations and transformed educational and cultural institutions since March 2020.</b> The conference, titled “Politics, Policy, and Panic: Governing in a Time of Crisis,” assessed how these developments have damaged constitutional government, the rule of law, and the well-being of the American people. Yet its existence induced an ironic moral panic in Saint Vincent’s administration, which has now issued a groveling letter of apology for the alleged sins of one of the speakers and forbidden Watson to post videos of any of the lectures.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Governing elites and institutional and corporate leaders are generally vociferous supporters of social justice. Yet speaker after speaker showed how these groups have cruelly abandoned broad swathes of vulnerable Americans—including children, the working class, black Americans, and the urban poor<b>—in implementing scientifically uninformed, politically partisan, and self-serving policies.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The first talks focused on the ruinous effects of governmental responses to Covid. <b>Scott Atlas</b>, who in 2020 served on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, presented data detailing the devastating and entirely foreseeable <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/panic-pandemic" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.4s ease 0s;">costs of lockdowns</a></span><span style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);">, which contravened long-established best practices for handling pandemics. Lockdowns produced serious learning loss; increased child abuse, substance abuse, and psychiatric illness; extensive unemployment for low-wage earners; missed cancer treatments and undetected illnesses; and exploding obesity. <b>Some Saint Vincent faculty members who did not attend Atlas’s talk objected to his inclusion in the conference.</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);">Jeffrey Tucker, founder of the Brownstone Institute</b><span style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);">, noted that the lowest social strata have always borne the greatest burdens of pathogenic disease. Following the </span><i style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">New York Times</i><span style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);">’s advice to its readers—stay safe and have your groceries delivered—</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">the “laptop class” used the working class to develop herd immunity</span><span style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);">. Tucker, who said that he has “never worried more about inequality in the United States,” maintained that this was a fundamental violation of the social contract. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Jeffrey Anderson</b>, president of the American Main Street Initiative, stated that mask and vaccination mandates are <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/joe-bidens-anti-constitutional-vaccine-mandate" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.4s ease 0s;">prerogatives of legislatures</a>. Anderson argued that, in unilaterally imposing such mandates, Trump, Joe Biden, and most state governors torpedoed what James Madison called the “double security . . . to the rights of the people” afforded by the Constitution: the separation of powers and the separation of federal and state governments.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.6; background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other speakers tackled the political and psychological effects of digital technology and information manipulation. Allison Stanger, a professor of politics and economics at Middlebury College, spoke on “Who Elected Big Tech?” Stanger, who is writing a book on that subject, addressed the challenges that tech giants pose to democracy, human values, and national governments. She has defended the free and open exchange of ideas at significant personal cost. In 2017, Antifa thugs gave her a concussion when she stepped between them and the conservative political scientist Charles Murray.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.6; background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Political scientist Wilfred Reilly of Kentucky State University explored how statistical ignorance, bias, or chicanery contribute to a culture of fear and promote harmful media myths. Surveys have historically found that the United States is one of the least racist countries in the world. But, Reilly observed, when questions of the form “Would you work with/date/befriend a black/Asian/etc.?” were replaced with questions about <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">perceptions</i> of racism, the U.S. ranking fell precipitously. In a widely reported <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/least-racist-countries" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.4s ease 0s;">2022 survey</a> of the least racist countries, the U.S. ranks 69 out of 78; China, infamous for persecuting its Uyghurs, ranks 66.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);">Hillsdale College</b><span style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);"> professor of government David Azerrad’s talk “</span><b style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);">Only Black Lives Matter: Racial Hysteria in Contemporary America</b><span style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);">”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> brought out aggrieved students who recorded his lecture. Azerrad reflected on how the special arrangements extended to black Americans, including lower academic standards and de facto immunity in many cities from prosecution for low-level felonies, profoundly disserves both them and their fellow citizens. His frankness, precision, and patience in dealing with strongly worded objections and emotionally charged audience questions modeled a combination of intelligence, courage, and commitment to teaching and learning rarely found in academia.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);">Keith Whittaker, the founder of </span><b style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);">Wise Counsel Research</b><span style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);">, used the topic of financial panic to explore the nature of panic in general, a continuum of manic-depressive madness in which idol-worship is followed by scapegoating. </span><b style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);">Johnny Burtka, President and CEO of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);"> derived seven crucial lessons for students from the “Mirror of Princes” tradition inaugurated by Xenophon and Han Fei and developed by Cicero, Aquinas, Machiavelli, and Erasmus, among others. My own talk, “The Organization of Hatreds and the Crisis of </span><i style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">Logos</i><span style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);"> in America,” surveyed the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> collapse of essential American institutions, especially educational ones. I argued that the real crisis of our time is one of political speech and agency, replaced by large-scale governmental or institutional action undertaken by elites acting in the name of, but without the advice and consent of, those they claim to serve and represent.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That argument was later vindicated. On April 10, a <a href="https://www.stvincent.edu/news/2022/statement-regarding-cpet-conference-speaker.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.4s ease 0s;">letter of apology</a> to the campus community for Azerrad’s talk was put out over the signature of the Dean of the School of Business, Economics, and Government. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);">An informed source tells me that he is a good man, and that the letter, which states that Azerrad’s “point of view . . . may be interpreted as a form of invidious discrimination which inherently degrades the sanctity of human life” and promises that “we will never endorse the message of anyone who deprecates the struggle of those who have been victimized by bigotry,” is not his writing. Because the College has forbidden Watson to post the videos to YouTube, few will be able to judge for themselves the accuracy of the letter’s characterization of Azerrad’s talk.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.6; background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I said in my lecture that Americans face a bleak future if we cannot restore the habits of mind and character in which individual freedom and political liberty are grounded. The shameful actions of Saint Vincent’s administration show how much work needs to be done if we hope to do so.</font></p><div class="m_article-byline" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 60px; padding-top: 20px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(171, 171, 171); margin-bottom: 60px; background-color: rgb(240, 243, 255);"><div class="wysiwyg" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; line-height: 1.6; font-stretch: condensed;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.city-journal.org/contributor/jacob-howland_1464" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.4s ease 0s;">Jacob Howland</a> is McFarlin Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Tulsa. His latest book is </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Glaucons-Fate-History-Character-Republic/dp/1589881346" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.4s ease 0s; margin-bottom: 0.5em;">Glaucon’s Fate: History, Myth, and Character in Plato’s Republic</a><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">.</em></font></p></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.americanmainstreet.org/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.americanmainstreet.org/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our Beliefs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">America thrives when policymakers focus on everyday Americans,<b> adhere to our Constitution</b>, and <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">prioritize Main Street over Wall Street.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our Mission</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We vigorously defend the American way of life, with persuasive arguments that combine statistical insights, philosophical rigor, and rhetorical appeal. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The National Debt</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Are Cops “Systemically Racist”—and is America?</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>---</b></font></div><div><p class="sqsrte-large" style="margin: 0px 0px 1rem; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">main Street Americans are under assault from the radical Left, after decades of having been neglected or undermined by establishment “elites.”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b> Fueled by abundant financial backing,</b> establishment institutions and <b>woke leftists enjoy widespread intellectual support</b> for their ineffective or destructive ideas, while there is comparatively little intellectual support for the ideas that benefit everyday Americans and the American way of life. </span></font></p><p class="sqsrte-large" style="margin: 1rem 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="font-weight: 700; overflow-wrap: break-word;">The American Main Street Initiative provides that crucial intellectual support.</span> A nimble think tank, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AMSI focuses on issues of great importance to Main Street Americans and provides unflinching, persuasive, and</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> intellectually rigorous content</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">[ABOUT MASKS?!]</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> in high-visibility outlets. In doing so, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: 700; overflow-wrap: break-word;">we shape the debate—in favor of everyday Americans, the Constitution, and the American way of life.</span></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>---</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Featured Articles</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Elon Musk Is Right: There’s Very Little White-on-Black Crime</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">American Greatness</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now that Elon Musk has dared to draw attention to a compelling editorial cartoon based on official federal crime statistics, as those stats debunk the Left’s prevailing narrative about race and crime in the U.S. Read more.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The Harm Caused by Masks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">City Journal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Evidence continues to mount that mask mandates were perhaps the worst public-health intervention in modern American history. Read more.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Getting the Candidate We Deserve</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Claremont Review</b> of Books</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The current presidential-selection system was designed by the left wing of the Democratic party and doesn’t remotely serve Republicans or the nation well. It should be replaced with a system that combines the best of old and new—one based on the process by which we ratified the Constitution. Read more</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Learning from Lincoln on Abortion</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>American Greatness</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many of the same arguments that Abraham Lincoln made during the slavery debate apply today to the abortion debate, and his blend of rhetorical persuasiveness and political prudence provides an example for wise pro-lifers to follow. Read more</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Our Democracy," Not Our Constitution</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Claremont Review of Books</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Left loves “our democracy” (or at least that phrase) but not our Constitution, as it is now attacking the design of the Senate (specifically its equal-state representation). In truth, the founders got it right, as equal-state representation prevents big cities from dominating the Senate. Read more.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Why America Needs a Main Street Initiative</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>American Greatness</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Main Street-oriented policymakers need compelling intellectual support from outside groups—just as establishment-oriented policymakers enjoy abundant support for their efforts.” Read more</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Biden, Claiming ‘Systemic Racism’ in Policing, Defies Science</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Wall Street Journal</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The best data suggests that America is not a land of "systemic racism," but a land of justice. Read more</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The Masking of America</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Claremont Review of Books</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">”Many Americans have been taught to believe that masks work—at least a little—and that wearing them comes at a minimal cost. Nearly the opposite is true.” Read more</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Press & Media</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American Main Street Initiative president <b>Jeff Anderson talks with American Moment’</b>s Saurabh Sharma about the<b> national debt, Obamacare</b>, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Jeff’s experience working in the Trump administration,</span> and why you should care that Disney closed the Magic Kingdom’s most popular ride.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Wall Street Journal features Jeff Anderson’s mid-term election analysis in “Notable & Quotable.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Ed Whelan at National Review, highlights “</b>Learning from Lincoln on Abortion” as offering “valuable and encouraging political lessons for pro-lifers.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">John Bachman Now</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Jeff Anderson discusses mask hypocrisy and the insanity of masking kids.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Wall Street Journal featured Jeff Anderson’s letter to the editor on Ben Sasse’s notion of “civic pluralism.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“A new think tank unmasks the left.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">- Fred Barnes in the Washington Free Beacon on the American Main Street Initiative </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Tucker Carlson Tonight</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Jeffrey Anderson: Masked faces undermine human individuality</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“What’s the harm [in wearing masks]?...Jeffrey Anderson, maybe more than anyone in recent months, has thought deeply about that question. He just wrote...‘The Masking of America,’ which we strongly recommend.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">— Tucker Carlson</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Power Line blog</b> cites “Jeffrey Anderson on the Midterms.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">George Will in The Washington Post: </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“The American Main Street Initiative, a think tank, says the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations compiled more debt held by the public, adjusted for inflation, than did all previous presidents combined. And if the national debt rises for 60 years at the rate it has risen during the previous 30, it will then exceed $1.5 quadrillion. (A quadrillion is a thousand trillions</span>.)’” Read more</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Wall Street Journal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">features the article “Kids Full of Life, Adults Obsessed with Death” in “Notable & Quotable.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Coverage of Anderson’s essay, “Do Masks Work?”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>New York Post, “Power-seeking pols are trying to create a never-ending pandemic”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Washington Examiner, “Do masks actually work? The best studies suggest they don't”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Tennessee Star,</b> “Science on Mask Usage Indicates Scant Benefit”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Key Issues</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Item 1 of 4</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The American Main Street Initiative</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The American Main Street Initiative is a<b> 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.</b></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Leadership</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div><b>Jeffrey H. Anderson served as the Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) at the U.S. Department of Justice (2017-2021). Outside of government, he has had more than 1,000 pieces published in national outlets. </b></div><div>
</div><div>Anderson earned a Ph.D. studying America’s founding principles at<b> Claremont Graduate University</b>. A former U.S. Air Force Academy professor,<b> he served as the Senior Speechwriter to the Secretary of Heath and Human Services, co-founded and ran a successful start-up (The 2017 Project),</b> and was a <b>Hudson Institute </b>Senior Fellow before becoming the Director of BJS. <b>A leader in the Obamacare debate, Jeff authored “The Winning Alternative to Obamacare.</b>” He later developed “The Main Street Tax Plan” to promote economic growth, reduce the national debt, and benefit the median American.</div><div>
</div><div>Jeff also co-created the Anderson & Hester College Football Computer Rankings, which were part of the Bowl Championship Series throughout its 16-year run. </div><div>
</div><div> Board of Advisors</div><div>
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</b></div><div><b>Fred Barnes</b></div><div>
</div><div>Michael Barone</div><div>
</div><div>Charles R. Kesler</div><div>
</div><div>Heather Mac Donald</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jeffrey H. Anderson is president of the American Main Street Initiative and served as director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2017 to 2021.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Articles by Jeffrey H. Anderson</b></div><div>Getting the Candidate We Deserve</div><div>Getting the Candidate We Deserve</div><div>Time to redesign the GOP presidential nominating process.</div><div>“Our Democracy,” Not Our Constitution</div><div>“Our Democracy,” Not Our Constitution</div><div>Packing the Supreme Court and the Senate.</div><div>In the Red</div><div>In the Red</div><div>Our glidepath to insolvency.</div><div>The New Main Street Coalition</div><div>The New Main Street Coalition</div><div>What it will take to win in 2024.</div><div>The Masking of America</div><div>The Masking of America</div><div>Faceless people make compliant subjects, not good citizens.</div><div>Dreaming of a Post-Obamacare World</div><div>Dreaming of a Post-Obamacare World</div><div>Health care in a post-Obama America.</div><div>Up From Obamacare</div><div>Up From Obamacare</div><div>A review of The Pipes Plan: <b>The Top Ten Ways to Dismantle Obamacare, by Sally C. Pipes</b> and Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis (Independent Studies in Political Economy), by John C. Goodman</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">klavern</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.44px; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">jeffrey Anderson, former Trump appointee to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, joins Spencer to analyze the dubious science of mask mandates. Anderson’s essay, which was featured on Tucker Carlson Tonight, identifies how masks have been used to make Americans more submissive and erode our form of government.</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">not a book summer 2021</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div class="col-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; width: calc(100% - 400px); margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">should <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">never </em>fully return to our maskless society where only health care providers donned a mask, because judicious use of masks will continue to save lives” (emphasis added). This is not the fringe statement of some obscure crank. It is the view of two doctors at New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine, one of the nation’s most prestigious medical schools, writing in a <span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b>New York Daily News</b></span> op-ed this spring.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253);">Now that the COVID-19 pandemic is retreating, it may seem absurd to propose further mask </span><b style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253);">mandates</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">in response to lesser—or even seasonal—viral threats</span><span style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253);">. But Julia Carrie Wong, writing in the </span><em style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box;">Guardian</em><span style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253);">, reports that many Americans like their masks just fine. Francesca, a 46-year-old, fully vaccinated professor in New York, will not abandon her “invisibility cloak” just yet. “It has been such a relief to feel anonymous,” she explains. “It’s like having a force field around me that says, ‘don’t see me.’” Becca, a 25-year-old bookstore employee near Chicago, reports that she and her co-workers “prefer not having customers see our faces,” because “[w]ith a mask, I don’t have to smile at them or worry about keeping a neutral face.” Bob, a 75-year-old retiree in New Jersey, says wearing a mask “frees” him from having to “appear happy.” Aimee, a 44-year-old screenwriter in Los Angeles, likes the “emotional freedom” that comes from wearing a mask: “It’s almost like taking away the male gaze.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ostensibly, the point of wearing masks is not to furnish oneself with an emotional crutch but to prevent viral transmission. Many Americans have been taught to believe that masks work—at least a little—and that wearing them comes at a minimal cost. Nearly the opposite is true</span><span style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253);">. </span><b style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253);">The best scientific evidence invites a far less rosy assessment of masks’ effectiveness than is broadcast by public health officials</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">.NOTE UTTER LACK OF EVIDENCE</span><span style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253);">] And the dubious health benefits of widespread mask-wearing come at an enormous social cost, which is almost never acknowledged by those writing and enforcing the mandates.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seeing and showing the face is a fundamental aspect of human existence. A society that forgets this straightforward truth will likely also fail to realize that faceless people may make for compliant subjects but not generally for good citizens. (We may distinguish those cases when masks are worn for special occasions—Halloween, Carnevale, classical Greek plays.) Nor will COVID-19 be the last time public health officials and governors demand we embrace mask-wearing. The question is whether Americans—and the legislators who most closely represent them—will realize the high costs of wearing masks before this new and noxious practice becomes ingrained in our culture.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In its worldwide impact, the COVID-19 pandemic has been the worst in a century. As a threat to Americans’ health, however, it is closer to the 1968 Hong Kong flu or the 1957 Asian flu—neither of which noticeably altered Americans’ everyday lives—than to the 1918 Spanish flu. In a head-to-head comparison, COVID-19 makes the Spanish flu look like the Black Death of medieval Europe. According to the best available figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and elsewhere, the typical American under the age of 40 in 1918 was more than 100 times as likely to die of the Spanish flu than the typical American under the age of 40 in 2020 was to die of COVID-19. Whereas COVID-19 sadly shortened the lives of many older people already in poor health, the Spanish flu took people in the prime of life and left orphans in its wake.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Americans’ reaction to COVID-19, however, has been radically different from their behavior in 1968, 1957, or even 1918. Writing in the <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Wall Street Journal</em>, the Hoover Institution’s Niall Ferguson recalls that President Dwight Eisenhower asked Congress for $2.5 million in additional funding for the Public Health Service during the Asian flu. Overall, Congress has authorized about 2 million times that much for COVID-19. In 1957, there were no widespread school closures, travel bans, or mask mandates. Ferguson quotes one person’s recollection of those days: “For those who grew up in the 1930s and 1940s, there was nothing unusual about finding yourself threatened by contagious disease. Mumps, measles, chicken pox, and German measles swept through entire schools and towns; I had all four…. We took the Asian flu in stride.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One major difference between then and now is the increased role of public health officials. Long before their ascension, Socrates made clear in Plato’s <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Republic</em> that he did not want doctors to rule. Philosophers or even poets would be better governors of society, because they at least attempt to understand political and social life in its entirety and minister to the human soul. Doctors, by contrast, tend to disregard the soul: it is the nature of their art to focus on the body in lieu of higher concerns. Moreover, Greek philosophers and poets alike celebrated courage in the face of death—Plato’s Socrates and Homer’s Achilles were undeterred from their noble missions by fear of the grave. But rule by public health officials, under which we increasingly live today, encourages excessive risk-aversion and almost transforms cowardice into a virtue.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: center;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wear the Mask, Neanderthal</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Surgical masks were designed to protect patients’ wounds from becoming infected by medical personnel, not to prevent the spread of viruses. <b>When COVID-19 hit our shores, the CDC initially recommended that most Americans not wear masks.</b> On April 3, 2020, the CDC abruptly reversed this position. Surgeon General Jerome Adams explained that “new evidence” had revealed that “a significant portion of individuals with coronavirus lack symptoms” and “can transmit the virus to others <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">before</em> they show symptoms” (emphasis added).</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a rationale for wearing masks, this did not entirely make sense. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “potentially pre-symptomatic transmission…is a major driver of transmission for influenza.” Yet the CDC does not (yet) recommend that seemingly healthy people wear masks during flu season. It seems likely that the CDC panicked in April and wanted to be seen as doing something. Plus, public health officials are naturally enthusiastic about public health interventions. Here was an opportunity to introduce an intervention that would previously have been unthinkable to Americans. Granted, the research on masks’ effectiveness, or lack thereof, had not changed to suggest healthy people should wear masks. But why quibble about evidence in the interest of a good cause?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The day after the CDC endorsed nationwide mask-wearing, President Trump announced, “I won’t be doing it personally.” From that instant, the mask quickly became a symbol of civic virtue—a sort of Black Lives Matter flag that could be hung from one’s face.<b> For many it conveyed a trio of virtues: <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">I’m unselfish; I’m pro-science; I’m anti-Trump. </em></b>What it also conveyed, incidentally, was rejection of longstanding Western norms, unhealthy risk-aversion, credulous willingness to embrace unsupported health claims, and a pallid view of human interaction.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The most reliable science on whether masks are effective in stopping the transmission of viruses comes from randomized control trials (RCTs), almost all of which were conducted before COVID-19 began. RCTs, in which researchers assign subjects randomly to different groups and study how those groups react to various forms of treatment, are the gold standard in medical research. They make it very hard for researchers to produce their own preferred outcomes. Observational studies, so called because researchers merely observe outcomes in pre-existing scenarios without being able to isolate one specific cause of those outcomes, are as much sociology as medical science. They introduce more bias and are far more apt to be politicized. Anyone doubting that researchers in the COVID-19 era have been more likely to benefit from generating pro-mask findings than anti-mask findings, might also be interested in some oceanfront property in Wuhan.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253);">Randomized control trials have found little to no evidence that masks work to prevent viral transmission—either from the wearer to others or vice versa. In fact, some significant evidence from RCTs indicates that masks <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">increase</em> transmission. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One team of researchers, led by Raina MacIntyre at the University of New South Wales, explained how masks could actually be counterproductive: “The virus may survive on the surface of the facemasks” and “transfer pathogen from the mask to the bare hands of the wearer.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253);"><b>Forcing children to wear masks is particularly unreasonable.</b> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Minors are far less apt to spread the virus,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253);"> and CDC statistics show that <b>99.9% of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have been of adults</b>. Few spectacles are more ridiculous than that of school kids, outside, playing sports, wearing masks. Moreover, the WHO guidance on mask-wearing for children is comical in its implausibility: “Before putting on the mask, children should clean their hands…at least 40 seconds if using soap and water…. Children should not touch the front of the mask [or] pull it under the chin…. After taking off their mask, they should store it in a bag or container and clean their hands.” Sure. Got that, kids?</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A 2020 study by Professor Henning Bundgaard and his team in Denmark is the only RCT that has tested the effectiveness of mask-wearing against COVID-19. <b>It found that 1.8% of those participants in the group wearing masks, and 2.1% of those in the unmasked control group, became infected with COVID-19 within a month.</b> This difference was not statistically significant. The study must have had difficulty getting published, since it appeared months after it was conducted. Once it was eventually released, Vinay Prasad, a medical doctor at the University of California, San Francisco, described it as “well done” but noted (critically) that “[s]ome have turned to social media to ask why a trial that may diminish enthusiasm for masks…was published in a top medical journal.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In attempting to justify its mask guidance on its website, the CDC has relied almost entirely on observational studies while studiously disregarding RCTs—aside from criticizing a couple of the more revealing ones, like Bundgaard’s, that do not support the agency’s guidance or goals. Anyone who thinks the CDC is an impartial, politically neutral agency, dedicated solely to the pursuit of scientific truth, should perhaps consider the recent e-mail evidence that the teachers union and Joe Biden’s White House effectively rewrote sections of the agency’s return-to-school guidance. Like so many unelected leaders, CDC officials consider themselves more accountable to “stakeholders” than to the American people. That is why the founders vested power to make policy decisions—of all sorts—in elected legislatures rather than in remote bureaucrats. Yet legislatures have largely been AWOL during the coronavirus period, while public health officials and executive branch leaders have reveled in their newfound powers.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: center;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What’s in a Face?</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even if masks did work, what should we sacrifice to wear them? In addition to being unattractive, masks are uncomfortable and make it harder to breathe. It is not uncommon to see a mask-wearer pull his or her mask out of the way just in time to cough or sneeze—which is understandable, since otherwise the mask effectively becomes a used handkerchief that remains affixed to one’s nose and mouth. Human beings were meant to feel the sun and wind on their faces, not a (potentially moist) piece of fabric. Even Muslim women’s veils are apparently more comfortable than masks. One York University professor told science writer Sandy Ong, “I find my face gets very hot when I wear a face mask, whereas with the niqab it generally doesn’t.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But comfort is not the only reason masks and veils offend our sensibilities. Westerners, at their best, recognize that each individual human being is unique and has inherent value. Perhaps in part as an expression of this belief, we have always ensured the visibility of the face—the part of the body that principally gives expression to one’s thoughts and feelings. Other civilizations place less value on individual liberty and are also less committed to republicanism. Thus political philosopher Pierre Manent, addressing debates in France over the use of veils in Muslim communities, writes: “It is by the face that each of us reveals himself or herself at once as a human being and as this particular human being…. To present visibly one’s refusal to be seen is an ongoing aggression against human coexistence. Europeans have never concealed the face, except the executioner’s.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When we look at our fellow human beings’ faces, we tend to process the whole face at once. Almost needless to say, a mask covering the lower two-thirds of the face greatly disrupts such processing—which is harmful to children, especially to babies. One wonders how much damage we have done to those born in 2020 by blocking our faces from them during their crucial first year of life. Stanford medical professor Jay Bhattacharya states that “the evidence is overwhelming that masking can harm children’s developmental progress.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All of this helps to answer the blithe question so frequently posed by mask enthusiasts: what’s the big deal? It is a very big deal. Masks hide from view the familiar faces, infectious smiles, and warm glances that bring light and color to everyday life. To dismiss this loss so cavalierly is to devalue human warmth and sociability in a remarkably callous way. In his detailed study of emotions, Charles Darwin observed that human beings’ reliance on facial expressions is a key difference between us and animals. He wrote an entire book on the subject, <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals </em>(1872). Communication, according to Darwin, was “of paramount importance to the development of man.” Human communication is “much aided by the expressive movements of the face and body,” and the face is “the chief seat of expression.” Darwin adds that we immediately perceive the importance of facial expressions “when we converse on an important subject with any person whose face is concealed.” It is worth noting that this is precisely why the mask <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">appeals</em> to its most devoted fans, like the ones quoted above from the <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Guardian</em>: longing to wear masks means longing to hide from human social life.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: center;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Face of Freedom</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In sum, not only do masks apparently not work as advertised, they are uncomfortable and unhygienic. They obscure our humanity and undermine our children’s development. They prevent us from seeing the emotions, sensibilities, and affections of others, or sharing our own. They limit communication and erode understanding. They profoundly compromise human interaction and substantially reduce our quality of life.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 33px; letter-spacing: 0.02em; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Public health officials understand none of this. They pretend that mask-wearing is an action without a cost. Or perhaps, because they are neither trained nor inclined to look at the whole picture of human society, they are simply blind to these costs. Their guiding light is the avoidance of risk—narrowly defined as the risk of becoming sick or dying. The risk of stifling, enervating, or devitalizing human society is not even part of their calculation. Under their influence, America has been conducting an experiment in mask-wearing based largely on unsupported scientific claims and an impoverished understanding of human existence. It is an experiment we should not repeat.</font></p></div><div class="article__author-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 20px 0px; width: calc(100% - 400px); margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 253);"><div class="row" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; width: 780px;"><div class="col author-info-bio" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; min-height: 1px; line-height: 33px; width: calc(100% - 80px);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jeffrey H. Anderson is president of the American Main Street Initiative and served as director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2017 to... <a href="https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/author/jeffrey-h-anderson/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 600;">read more</a></font></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div>