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The Claremont Institute: The Anti-Democracy Think Tank

It was once (mostly) traditionally conservative and (sort of) intellectually rigorous. Now it platforms white nationalists and promotes authoritarianism.

Katherine Stewart/August 10, 2023

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Earlier this year, nearly 1,000 supporters of “National Conservatism” gathered at the semicircular auditorium of the Emmanuel Centre, an elegant London meeting hall a couple of blocks south of Westminster Abbey, to hear from a range of scholars, commentators, politicians, and public servants. NatCon conferences, as they are often called, have been held in Italy, Belgium, and Florida and are broadly associated with what is increasingly called the “New Right.” In London, speakers denounced “woke politics,” blamed immigration for the rising cost of housing, and said modern ills could be solved with more religion and more (nonimmigrant) babies. The break room was lined with booths from organizations such as the Viktor Orban–affiliated Danube Institute, the U.K.-based conservative think tank the Bow Group, the Heritage Foundation, and the legal powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom, which is headquartered in Arizona but has expanded to include offices in nearly a half-dozen European cities.

When I attended NatCon London in May, I heard a number of American accents in the crowd, and I was not surprised to see Michael Anton, a former national security official in the Trump administration and a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, a right-wing think tank, on the lineup. These days, Anton and other key representatives of the Claremont Institute seem to be everywhere: onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC); at the epicenter of Ron DeSantis’s “war on woke”; and on speed-dial with GOP allies including Josh Hawley, J.D. Vance, and Donald Trump.

Most of us are familiar with the theocrats of the religious right and the anti-government extremists, groups that overlap a bit but remain distinct. The Claremont Institute folks aren’t quite either of those things, and yet they’re both and more. In embodying a kind of nihilistic yearning to destroy modernity, they have become an indispensable part of right-wing America’s evolution toward authoritarianism.

Extremism of the right-wing variety has always figured on the sidelines of American culture, and it has enjoyed a renaissance with the rise of social media. But Claremont represents something new in modern American politics: a group of people, not internet conspiracy freaks butcredentialed and influential leaders, who are openly contemptuous of democracy. And they stand a reasonable chance of being seated at the highest levels of government—at the right hand of a President Trump or a President DeSantis, for example.

Claremont represents something new in modern American politics: a group of people, not internet conspiracy freaks but credentialed and influential leaders, who are openly contemptuous of democracy.

What is their worldview, their mission? It starts, of course, with a redefinition of America’s national identity. Launching into his NatCon speech, titled “Britain’s Grand Strategy for the 21st Century,” Anton hailed Brexit as “Britain standing up for herself against the globalist Borg.” With a sly swipe at U.S. support for Ukraine (“A Russia that has difficulty reaching, much less crossing, the Dnieper does not seem much like a threat to cross the channel,” he said), he was unequivocal in his assessment that “wokeism” is at the heart of the threat to the West.

“It is tempting to want to think of foreign policy in the traditional way, as threats from predatory empires and nation-states. But that is not the threat that we face today, not the main one,” Anton said. “This ideology was not born in our countries” but “has taken root here and in America. It has captured our elites and our institutions. And I am sorry to say we are partly to blame because so far, at any rate, we have failed to stop it.”

There is a story you hear from the podiums at gatherings like NatCon and CPAC, and if you go to enough of them, it will sound as familiar as a classic rock song. It goes something like this: The sum of all our problems—and the greatest threat that the American republic has ever faced—is the rise of the “woke” elite. Cosmopolitan, overeducated, gender-fluid, parasitic, and anti-Christian—the leaders of this progressive cabal worship at the shrine of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion offices, which they use to elevate undeserving people of color and crush hardworking “real” Americans. They control “the regime,” or so the song tells us: “the administrative state,” the institutions of culture, law enforcement, even the military. Any and all means to annihilate the power of the woke, up to and including political violence and overturning elections, must be seriously considered if we (right-thinking Americans) are to “save our country.”

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It’s not just the NatCon types who are humming this tune; it has permeated other sectors of the American right. In the run-up to the 2023 Road to Majority Policy Conference, an annual gathering of religious right activists, strategists, and politicians that took place in Washington, D.C., in June, seasoned Christian right strategist Ralph Reed sent out a fundraising email asserting, “Woke culture and anti-Christian, anti-American radicals drive our public life further and further from the Light of God’s Word.” From the main stage of the conference, Ron DeSantis railed against the “woke mind virus”; Vivek Ramaswamy took a swipe at the “administrative state”; and Josh Hawley asserted that “woke corporations” and “Marxists in the C-suite” are “pushing relentlessly this Marxist agenda,pushing relentlessly this religion of woke.” At the gala dinner, Trump delivered a rambling attack on his political opponents in the Democratic Party, whom he accused of “trying to impose their blasphemous creed of woke communism.”

Ironically, the folks pushing this rescue-America-from-the-woke narrative don’t look much like the hardworking “real” Americans they purport to speak for. Educated, urbane, politely attired —they look a bit more like the villains of the tale than the people who are supposed to be rising up against the regime. There is something detached from reality in this story about how one part of the upper middle class is going to save the country from the other part. Yet, under Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, this conviction has become something close to the official ideology of the third most populous state in the nation. Donald Trump too has shifted his rhetoric to claim ownership of what is, in essence, an ultra-MAGA narrative.

Why has so much of the American conservative movement embraced the story that the principles of equality and the pursuit of a more just society are the greatest threats to Western civilization today? Who or what is responsible for giving these paranoid ideas an intellectual veneer? The Claremont Institute gets you much of the way to an answer.

Founded in 1979 in the city of Claremont, California (but not associated in an official way with any of the five colleges there), the Claremont Institute provided enthusiastic support for Donald Trump in 2016. Individuals associated with Claremont now fund and help run the National Conservativism gatherings;Claremont Institute chairman and funder Thomas D. Klingenstein also funds the Edmund Burke Foundation, which has held those National Conservatism conferences across the globe. Claremont is deeply involved in DeSantis’s effort to remake Florida’s state universities in the model of Hillsdale College—a private, right-wing, conservative Christian academy in Michigan whose president, Larry Arnn, happens to be one of the institute’s founders and former presidents. Claremont honored DeSantis at an annual gala with its 2021 “Statesmanship Award,” and the governor returned the favor by organizing a discussion with a “brain trust” that included figures associated with the Claremont Institute. If either Trump or DeSantis becomes president in 2024, Claremont and its associates are likely to be integral to the “brain trust” of the new administration. Indeed, some of them are certain to become appointees in the administrative state that they wish (or so they say) to destroy.

“What the Hell Happened to the Claremont Institute?”

The saga of the Claremont Institute in the Trump years is readily told as one of moral collapse. Once upon a time, the men of the Claremont Institute (they are almost all men; more on that in a moment) idolized George Washington for his “prudence” and “civility.” From its founding up through the Obama years, the institute was certainly situated on the right, but it was not, or did not seem to be, conspicuous for its extremism. It was probably best known for publishing the Claremont Review of Books, which was sized and laid out to resemble The New York Review of Books, as if to suggest that it was in direct competition with its more established and exalted Manhattan counterpart.

But in 2015–16, the Claremont men threw their support behind the man who descended that golden escalator with a mouthful of hateful rhetoric. In an earlier time, they defended intellectual rigor against the alleged relativism of contemporary academic culture. But now they provide a platform for white nationalists, racist “replacement” theorists, and the Pizzagate man. Nate Hochman, the erstwhile DeSantis staffer who was fired after he reportedly created and distributed a campaign video featuring Nazi imagery in July, is a former Claremont Institute Publius Fellow (2021). ”Most haunting of all—they once hailed the United States as “the best regime in Western civilization.”But in the aftermath of Trump’s defeat in 2020, Claremont board member John Eastman was instrumental in the plot to recruit fake electors and overturn the election—and the men of Claremont rose to his defense. Eastman currently faces potential disbarment in California and appears to be a person of interest in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations. Yet Claremont board member and founder Christopher Flannery has called John Eastman a “hero” and has asked us instead to condemn “the Stalinist machine” (meaning U.S. federal law enforcement) for persecuting him. Eastman was the unidentified (and uncharged) co-conspirator 2 in the August 1 indictment of Trump over his January 6 actions. (Claremont did not respond to emails from The New Republic asking if the institution endorsed Eastman’s behavior on this matter, in addition to some other issues addressed in this piece.)

The Claremont Institute’s seeming embrace of political violence against the government of the United States is not limited to Eastman’s efforts to whip up the mob that gathered at the Ellipse in preparation for the assault on the Capitol, nor can it be excused as mere metaphorical excess in the war of ideas. “Given the promise of tyranny, conservative intellectuals must openly ally with the AR-15 crowd,” argues author Kevin Slack, a professor at Hillsdale College, in a lengthy book excerpt published in Claremont’s online magazine,The American Mind. “Able-bodied men, no longer isolated, are returning to republican manliness in a culture of physical fitness and responsible weaponry. They are buying AR-15s and Glock 17s and training with their friends, not FBI-infiltrated militias or online strangers but trustworthy lifelong friends to build a community alongside.”

“What the hell happened to the Claremont Institute?” asks Laura K. Field, a senior fellow at the Niskanen Centerand a scholar in residence at American University, in an insightful series in The Bulwark. Daniel W. Drezner has described the institute as“the poster child for the devolution of conservative thought.” Over at National Review, Mona Charen has written that Claremont “stands out for beclowning itself,” and adds that its fellows have “thoroughly jettisoned their devotion to truth and virtue.” In conversation with me, Bill Kristol dismissed the current incarnation of Claremont as “off-putting and depressing and stupid.” Steve Schmidt, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, was even more direct. Claremont, he told me, “is becoming like the West Point of American fascism. It has collected a creature cantina, like the Star Wars scene, and has nurtured and midwifed the birth of a political ideology” that “leaves most commentators deeply discomforted by calling it by its name.”

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But is it really a story of decline? Or are we simply seeing the true face of the beast, now that it has stepped into the limelight of significant political power? “It’s not like there were no signs of ideological trouble or shortsightedness at the Claremont Institute going back nearly to the start,” Field told me. “The more I read, the less surprised I am.” In Kristol’s view, too, the signs were there. “If you look at the Claremont Review of Books 10 years ago, there were some intelligent articles.” However, Kristol noted, “What I would say is that some of them have fallen into legitimizing violence and really fundamental illiberalism. Not all of them are there.... But because they are so unwilling to call out extremists on their own side, I give them no credit.”

A broad survey of the Claremont Institute’s trajectory since its founding confirms Kristol’s intuition. The pathologies appear to have been present at the creation, too, and they have always seemed to matter more than any specific policy agenda or political personality that the institute supports. But the suggestion that the rise of the kind of disordered thinking that Claremont embodies is something that just happened to America’s conservative movement, as if by accidental impact with some outside force, is far too optimistic. Over the past five decades, wealthy conservatives have conducted a grand experiment in American political discourse by investing heavily in organizations and think tanks that have sought to shift the center of public debate in a direction favorable to their interests and privileges. The Claremont Institute is representative of the many operations that blossomed with this well-financed effort. The unintended consequences of the experiment are now the story. When you pay people to be unreasonable, you attract many unreasonable people. They drown out the reasonable people. And they just want to blow the place up.

The Intellectual Background, Part 1: Jaffa and Strauss

The intellectual origin story of the Claremont Institute begins in the 1970s with a circle of graduate students gathered around Harry Victor Jaffa, a charismatic professor of political philosophy. Jaffa’s story begins about three decades before that, when he experienced in the 1940s the equivalent of a red-pill moment.

Jaffa gratefully attributed this awakening from somnolent acceptance of relativism to his mentor,Leo Strauss, the German-born Jewish political philosopher who later found a home at the University of Chicago before his death in 1973. As a graduate student at Yale, by his own account, Jaffa had lived “within the historicist dogma that we are all prisoners of our own time, and that we had no access to any truth outside of it. Strauss frees one from this prison….” Plato’s dialogues, Aristotle’s treatises on ethics, and the rest of the works that he studied with Strauss are more than just great, Jaffa realized in his moment of clarity; they are the source of absolute truth, which is far more durable than the compromising relativisms of liberal dogma and reveals something that can be called “natural right.”

The other teaching that Jaffa took from Strauss is that the great philosophers don’t always say what they mean. According to Strauss, philosophers routinely engage in “esoteric” and “exoteric” writing. That is, they disguise their most important teachings in the face of political persecution (with which Strauss, as a German Jew who escaped to the United States, may have had some familiarity) and pass them along to followers in between the lines, as it were. The implication is that philosophical writings are deeply political. They have an external message, aimed at influencing the public in some way. But only their intellectual fellow travelers can decode the internal meaning of the texts.

Jaffa was a complex figure, and not without appeal to progressives. Central to the vision articulated in his seminal work on the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, Crisis of the House Divided, is the argument that equality is the founding principle of the American republic, and that Lincoln achieved incomparable greatness in wielding this principle against slavery.

Strauss is even harder to pin down, politically speaking. A defining experience for him seems to have been the failure of the Weimar Republic, which he possibly took as a failure of liberalism. The theory of esoteric writing sometimes appears to rest on the premise that human society is incapable of the kind of rational, deliberative government that liberal democracy requires. Only Strauss and his followers can handle the eternal truths vouchsafed to us by the Greeks, it seems to suggest; most ordinary people must be content to live in what Plato called “the cave”—a state of permanent delusion.

Even such a brief review of this Straussian legacy raises some subtle questions. How do we know that absolute truth landed in the texts of Plato and Aristotle and not, say, Lao Tzu? If the real message was intended to be misread, how can we ever know that our self-appointed interpreters have decoded it correctly? The great minds of Claremont, however, do not do subtle. In their work, these tensions stand out as blatant contradictions.

A case in point would be the work of Charles Kesler. The long-time editor of Claremont’s book review, Kesler tends to show up in reporting on the Claremont Institute as its éminence grise, lending a patina of intellectual respectability. You can get a feel for Kesler’s style of Straussian natural rights analysis from his interpretation of the speech that Trump delivered at the Ellipse on January 6, 2021. Where Trump says that former Vice President Mike Pence and other Republican leaders in Congress would be “ashamed of themselves throughout history, throughout eternity” if they failed to overturn the election, Kesler sees proof that Trump believes in “a form of right, based not merely in history but in ‘eternity.’’’ Trump the Platonist—who knew?

Although it is usually unwise to judge a book by its cover, an exception can be made in the case of Kesler’s Crisis of the Two Constitutions (whose title is an homage to Jaffa’s book on the Lincoln-Douglas debates). Between the covers of Kesler’s sequel to Jaffa, readers will find potshots at “the 1619 riots” (Kesler’s label for the George Floyd protests of 2020); extended attacks on “multiculturalism”; analysis of why liberalism “looks increasingly, well, elderly” (hint: Joe Biden); representations of Donald Trump as a “truth-speaker”; and, of course, sweeping and deeply partisan generalizations about American history.

Fortunately, for those who might wish to access the underlying claims in Kesler’s book about American history, it’s all there on the cover. In a custom-drawn cartoon in shades of red and yellow, the U.S. Capitol stands in the distance, majestic and forlorn. Barring the entrance squats a nasty-looking monster with vaguely racialized features. It is labeled “the living Constitution.”

The monster represents the great evil of the world as Kesler appears to understand it. This evil is called variously “historicism,” “nihilism,” and, most despicable of all, “progressivism.” Historicism is the doctrine that we are all “prisoners of our own time,” to borrow Jaffa’s phrase; nihilism is the supposedly consequent view that there are no absolute truths or values; and progressivism is the self-destructive political program that afflicts people who are presumed to have mistakenly fallen for nihilistic historicism. In Kesler’s version of the history, the influence of the German philosopher Hegel (1770–1831) accounts for the rise of historicism, a gateway drug to nihilism, while the supposedly arch-progressive Woodrow Wilson is responsible for the creation of the dreaded “administrative state.”

Off to the right on Kesler’s book jacket, a small but heroic knight on horseback flies the flag of the true United States Constitution (“We the People,” it reads). Call him the white knight of Claremont; he tilts his lance in the direction of the beast of progressivism. In fact, in the cartoon, he looks set to storm the Capitol.

The book was finished before January 6, 2021, but came out about a month afterward. The timing was impeccable.

In Kesler’s version of American history, the Progressive Era is when the country’s decline began. Kesler is not alone in peddling a dark narrative of American collapse, though the dates and details can vary. As Laura Field explained to me, “One pattern I’ve noticed is that when they look back … it’s like they think there was some magical moment in history, a blip in time in 1866, 1933, or 1966, or what have you, when there was a perfect equilibrium, and all racial or civil rights problems were solved.” The absurdity of this proposition shows that the “creature cantina” at Claremont, as Steve Schmidt puts it, has little interest in learning from the study of the past. They are driven instead by the hatred of groups or aspects of life in the present that they map onto a fictional narrative involving an imaginary past. This isn’t intellectual history; it is cartoon history, rooted in some kind of reactionary pathology.

The Intellectual Background, Part 2: About Schmitt

One figure from the history who should matter in any assessment of the Claremont Institute, not in the official pantheon but not far below the surface either, is the ultraconservative German political theorist Carl Schmitt. Unlike Strauss, Schmitt is very easy to place, politically speaking. He was a Nazi and a vicious antisemite: not just a fellow-traveling Nazi, but an influential legal adviser to the regime who promoted book burnings, worked to destroy the careers of Jewish scholars and scientists, and refused to participate in de-Nazification after the war. And yet, he was instrumental in getting Leo Strauss the scholarship that helped him leave Germany in 1932; Strauss thanked Schmitt for providing him with “the most honorable and obliging corroboration” of his scholarly work that he had ever been accorded.

Like Strauss, Schmitt was unhappy with the Weimar Republic, which he perceived as unforgivably weak. He took his unhappiness out on the very idea of liberal democracy. Liberalism, he argued, is a failure because it refuses to acknowledge the distinction between “friend” and “enemy”—a distinction that he took to be the foundation of all politics. What makes humans special and genuinely political, according to Schmitt, is that they are willing to fight one another and die for a higher cause. The other defect of liberalism, according to Schmitt, is that it fails to acknowledge that the sovereign must be he who can act in a “state of exception” or “state of emergency.” That is, a ruler must be able to break all the rules, ostensibly in the name of the common good, or he isn’t much of a ruler at all.

At first glance, Schmitt’s friend-enemy distinction might sound like a way of separating citizens from “foreigners.” And indeed Schmitt, in works such as The Concept of the Political, pointed to enemies both foreign and domestic. But the main source of his appeal to contemporary conservatives is the latter. To today’s right, the more important enemies are those citizens (liberals and insufficiently conservative conservatives) who either fail to acknowledge that we have enemies or are supposedly plotting against the country. Trump (who may be presumed innocent of any direct knowledge of Schmitt’s work) explained the gist of the point at the 2022 Road to Majority conference. “The greatest threat facing this country is not our foreign enemies, dangerous as they may be,” he said. “The greatest threat is the internal enemy. And I think you all know who I’m talking about.”

Schmitt’s antisemitism, too, was more complex (if no less despicable) than it first appears. “The Jew,” in his thought, was the paradigm of the secularized, cosmopolitan, educated elite on which liberalism necessarily relies. While the nature of Schmitt’s antisemitism is the subject of some debate, observers note that it did not follow traditional theological patterns but was rooted in his political theory. His antisemitism was thus an expression of his anti-liberalism filtered through the grotesque racial prejudices of his time. Some of his successors would learn how to draw on the same anti-liberalism while dropping the antisemitism in favor of hating on other groups ostensibly playing the same role. “At a time of dizzying and dynamic technical change, instantaneous communication, abolished borders, and global, de-territorialized conflict, Schmitt proves a prescient guide,” Claremont contributor Aaron Zack wrote in his largely favorable review of Schmitt’s 1942 book, Land and Sea: A World-Historical Meditation, published in the Claremont Review of Books in January 2017. “It is well worth reading.”

Michael Anton, who warns of the possible rise of a left-wing Caesar.]

This background is helpful in assessing the most infamous essay ever to appear in the Claremont Review of Books—or at any rate the essay universally thought to mark the birth of the new Claremont. Published in September 2016 under the byline Publius Decius Mus and later attributed to Michael Anton, “The Flight 93 Election” was said to make “the intellectual case” for Trump. The election of Hillary Clinton, Anton asserted, would be the equivalent of a terrorist attack on the United States. If we’re all going to die at the hands of the Al Qaeda–like Democrats, the argument went, we have no choice but to join the alternative.

A Clinton presidency would mean “pedal-to-the-metal on the entire Progressive-left agenda” combined with “vindictive persecution” of conservatives.Yet having established that as a given, Anton directs most of his polemic against the representatives of “Conservatism, Inc.”—that is, those squishy, closet liberals who are too sanguine about a Clinton presidency, and who fail to recognize that Trump is the only alternative and that the only answer is to rush the cockpit.

At the time, Bill Kristol characterized Anton as a minor-league Carl Schmitt, noting on Twitter, “From Carl Schmitt to Michael Anton: First time tragedy, second time farce.” In communication with me, Kristol emphasized the connection anew. “If you look at recent issues, it becomes like Carl Schmitt,” he said of the Claremont Review. “They are sending the message that extreme measures are needed to defend against the tyranny of liberal Democrats. They seem to want to blow through all the guardrails and are OK with that.”

The Pathologies of Manliness

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Of Claremont’s 41 fellows and senior fellows, all but three are male, and nearly all appear to be white. All 19 board members appear to be male. Nevertheless, they seem extraordinarily preoccupied with their manliness.

Recently, The American Mind featured an interesting piece on that score from a frequent contributor who calls himself “Raw Egg Nationalist” (REN). REN is the author of a cookbook. He advocates “slonking,” that is, a diet he describes as part of “a physical and political ethic built around the massive consumption of raw egg.” The eggs are said to help with bodybuilding and other manly pursuits. (Remember Rocky Balboa arising before dawn and chugging down raw eggs?) But the benefits don’t end there! It turns out that raw eggs can also counteract “the globalists’ plan for world government.” In Tucker Carlson’s 2022 film, The End of Men, REN joins with other figures in the “manosphere” to link the consumption of animal products with a back-to-the-land nationalism meant to strengthen the traditional moral values of Western males.

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The big problems with the world today, according to REN, include “the agricultural revolution and its consequences” and a “crisis of masculinity.” “We have it drilled into us, this instinctive revulsion for inequality in any form. And actually, I think we need to ask instead whether inequality has its uses,” REN muses. “Maybe men and women shouldn’t work together in the same spaces.” Another big problem would appear to be ugly people, by which REN seems to mean the kinds of people who show up at racial justice events. In an interview with Jack Murphy, who was a Lincoln Fellow at Claremont, REN has this to say about the Black Lives Matter protesters of 2020: “All of these people look the same. I mean, they are hideously ugly, malformed people.” REN’s publisher, as it happens, is Antelope Hill Publishing, otherwise known for its Nazi and white nationalist titles, such as Michael, a novel written by the young—I kid you not—Joseph Goebbels (“Antelope Hill Publishing is proud to present a new English edition….”).

REN is far from the only writer with woman problems to score a platform at the Claremont Institute (he’s written frequently for The American Mind). In 2021, a Boise State University political philosophy professor named Scott Yenor went viral—not in a good way—with a speech at the National Conservatism Conference in Orlando, Florida, in which he characterized women with professional aspirations as “medicated, meddlesome, and quarrelsome.” Yenor’s views could hardly have been news to Claremont. Six months previously, the institute had invited him to deliver a keynote on “Feminism and the American Future.” Yenor seized the opportunity to inveigh against women’s pursuit of economic security and a satisfactory sex life. He maligned the “pernicious trajectory of feminism” and argued that it is “fatal to family life and fatal to the country.”

Claremont hired Yenor to be the think tank’s inaugural senior director of state coalitions for its new center in Tallahassee, Florida.From his speeches and writings, it would seem his actual plan looks more like an affirmative action program for reactionary males. “Every effort must be made not to recruit women into engineering, but rather to recruit and demand more of men who become engineers. Ditto for med school, and the law, and every trade,” he said. According to Yenor, state officials should conduct civil rights investigations of academic programs (“especially colleges of nursing and education”) that attract larger numbers of women than men. Ron DeSantis’s wife, Casey, tweeted her support for Yenor’s appointment, saying, “Thrilled to welcome @scottyenor from the Claremont Institute to his new home in Tallahassee.”

As Bill Kristol observes, the fanaticism here is even worse under the surface. “They are not just against the legalization of same-sex marriage,” he said. “They are so extreme they are for permitting gender discrimination in salaries, changing divorce law to what it was 70 years ago, for criminalizing homosexuality. They don’t want to say that because of political reasons, but certainly you don’t get the sense that they feel any compulsion to restrain their extremist rhetoric.”

Setting aside the rabidly misogynistic agenda, the most curious thing about Yenor’s work is just how unserious it is. If you want to make the case that women’s struggle to realize inherent natural rights and secure equality under the law is connected to various social ills in some way, you could look in places for evidence to test that remarkable hypothesis. You might, for example, compare countries with different levels of gender equality, economic outcomes, life expectancy, and health measures. You would surely want to explain the inconvenient fact that some of the places that are least hospitable to women’s rights happen to be those with the worst social and economic outcomes for all people. You might consider that, around the world, the countries that seem to best satisfy Yenor’s urgent desire to keep the genders in their lanes are also among the most repressive, unsafe, nepotistic, economically unstable, and corrupt. You would, at the very least, want to consider alternative explanations for the collapse of marriage rates among working-class Americans and the decline in male health indicators, such as the erosion of working- and middle-class wages and job security, the decline in manufacturing, and the rise of a winner-take-all economy.

But Yenor doesn’t have to do analysis, because Claremont already gave him the answer. The culprit, ever and always, is relativism, historicism, nihilism, progressivism, “wokeism,” and—since it’s all the same thing to them—feminism. So if working-class men are suffering, that can only be because the “woke left” has mounted a merciless assault on—here’s a word Yenor uses a lot—“manliness.”

Manliness. Where exactly did that word enter the conversation? In the Claremont world, manliness is a bit of a dog whistle, and Senator Josh Hawleyhas blown on it hard with his recent book, Manhood. True to Claremont formula, Hawley traces the crisis to our departure from ancient sources. When we were schooled in the classics, we had “moral uprightness”: “Machiavelli called it virtù” (from the Latin vir, meaning “man”); and the Bible has “a mission for men.” You might think that the man who raised his fist on January 6 and then scurried as fast as his legs could take him from the manly men attacking the Capitol would see some complexity in the issue, but Hawley does not. The problem, as ever, is the “priests of wokery,” as he said at the 2023 Road to Majority Conference, who have apparently succeeded in infiltrating the C-suites and learned to dispense their toxic doctrines through the corporate hierarchy.

Hawley, Yenor, and REN, however, are just taking a page from an earlier chapter in Claremont history. The story of manliness at Claremont might be said to begin with Harvey C. Mansfield Jr., the author of the 2006 book Manliness. A fixture of the Harvard University government department for decades, Mansfield counts as nobility among Claremont’s extended family.His father, Harvey Sr., helped Harry Jaffa land a career-making teaching job; Harry introduced Harvey Jr. to Leo Strauss; Harvey Jr. was Charles Kesler’s teacher.

Manliness offers a lightly informed romp through some work in biology and the social sciences on gender and sex, from which we supposedly learn that gender stereotypes are all true. “War is hell but men like it,” and women will never make good soldiers because “they fear spiders.” The patriarchy is just a biological fact of life. “Lacking as women are, comparatively, in aggression and assertiveness, it is no surprise that men have ruled over all societies at almost all times,” Mansfield concludes. And that’s that.

Mansfield is at least twice as subtle as REN; he knows enough to divide manliness into two basic types. The bad type is “nihilistic.” In a neat exercise of philosophical jiujitsu, he argues that the real problem with feminism today is that it tries too hard to be “manly”—but (gotcha!) in the bad, nihilistic way. This is especially true for Mansfield’s bête noire, Simone de Beauvoir. As Diana Schaub elaborates in a retrospective on Mansfield’s book in the Claremont Review, “Manly nihilism was embraced by the woman warrior, Simone de Beauvoir, who refashioned it into radical feminism’s womanly nihilism.” If it sounds like Mansfield is blaming harlot Eve and her uppity sisters for ruining manliness for everyone, that’s because he is.

To Harvard Professor Harvey C. Mansfield Jr., our problems started with Simone de Beauvoir.

Mansfield is far too sophisticated—or perhaps too Straussian—to openly argue for stripping American women of the rights they have fought for over the past two centuries. The “‘public sphere,’” he insists, should remain “gender neutral.” But in the “private sphere” (don’t bother looking for any definition of how the spheres are distinguished), those highly accurate stereotypes should reign triumphant. Only by acknowledging that men alone can be properly manly can we retain the “moral moorings” of manliness, as Schaub sees it. Meanwhile, the need for men alone to perform manliness has been pretty much standard practice for non-gender-neutral societies from South Sudan to Taliban Afghanistan.

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In short, Manliness is not the lowbrow male supremacy that bubbles up from the manosphere into the pages of The American Mind. It is the kindly, highbrow version of it. The raw egg fellow and Florida’s new thought leader on anti-woke education don’t represent a break with Claremont’s misogynist past. The novelty is just that REN and Yenor are departing from the Straussian code and saying the quiet part out loud.

Sticking It to the Bugmen

Apart from the “Flight 93” masterwork of intellectual Trumpism, Michael Anton contributed at least one other piece that, in a happier world, would mark a turning point in the history of the Claremont Review of Books. That would be his review of a book titled Bronze Age Mindset, whose author goes by the nameBronze Age Pervert (BAP) and has since been identified as Costin Alamariu, who received his Ph.D. in political philosophy from Yale.

BAP writes as if he were some modern-day Zarathustra descended from a mountaintop cyber-collective. “I was roused from my slumber by my frog friends,and I declare to you, with great boldness, that I am here to save you from a great ugliness,” he intones. (The “frog” meme is widely associated with the far-right blogosphere.) If a right-wing Yale Ph.D. student woke up one morning after another dateless night on 4chan and thought he was the second coming of Nietzsche, this is the book he might write.

BAP abhors women. He refers to them as “roasties” (a crude reference to female genitalia), “whores,” and “property.” The “liberation of women,” BAP whines, amounts to an “infection” from which the West “can’t recover without the most terrible convulsions and the most thorough purgative measures.”

He isn’t into gay people either. He thinks they represent “the most profound of social and political problem” (sic) of the modern world.Then again, as he recounts in his book, he managed to ejaculate without touching himself while gazing upon an ancient statue of a Greek boy; so perhaps he is part of the “problem”? For what it’s worth, Alamariu sprinkles his Twitter feed with images of muscled beefcake. Oh, and that Twitter feed is also a collection point for racial hate.

BAP thinks the Bronze Age was just great. This would be the same Bronze Age in which human sacrifice was widely practiced, a great many humans were enslaved to other humans, and more. But none of that bothers BAP, because he identifies with Achilles and the master race—those superior beings who ride herd over their inferiors without apology, without false ideas about human equality, without woke politics. “The free man is a warrior,” he says; “the only right government is military government.” He encourages his followers to join the military, where he seems to think they will be able to organize coups against womanly democracy (or as he, Yenor, and much of the manosphere call it, “the gynocracy”).

So why would Michael Anton want to promote this clinically perfect example of the resentment-addled misogynist? Perhaps it’s because they have in common the same imaginary enemy. Both hate “the left, or what I have termed the Bug-man,” as BAP puts it (Nietzsche’s term was “the last man”). Anton and others at Claremont, as we know, simply call them “the woke.”

The Bugmen, to stay with BAP, are the “pretentious bureaucrats” who harbor “titanic hatred of the well-turned out and beautiful.” They believe in “social justice” and “first-world regimented hygiene” (BAP doesn’t like clean, well-lit streets “made safe for women” because they kill “the mood of the city”). And they are right now operating a “global slave project” for the benefit of the “gynocracy.” To the finely tuned ears of Claremont, that sounds like a description of the Democratic Party.

BAP seems to agree. He tells his followers that a tactical alliance with conventional right-wingers “would get you 99% of what you want.” He urges political leaders who are persuaded by his plan to bring back the Bronze Age to “use Trump as a model of success.” But he is savvy enough to advise those of his followers who go into politics to disavow his work publicly, and even suggests they should attack it. Oddly, the men of Claremont have ignored this sage piece of Straussian advice.

Claremont has a deep bench when it comes to fascist enthusiasts, however, and it may have found a more presentable representative foil than BAP in Curtis Yarvin, a blogger sometimes described as a political theorist. Yarvin is very much on board with the anti-Bugmen agenda, but he spares us most of the male anxiety and faux-Nietzsche rhetoric. Mostly he delivers the message in the self-congratulatory patois of the tech bro: America needs a “reboot.” Napoleon and Lenin are to be admired because each was “a start-up guy.”

Yarvin’s term for those who rule the modern world is “the Cathedral” (though he has been known to slip into talk about “dark elves” and “hobbits,” too). His proposed solution, like BAP’s, is the iron fist. He thinks America needs a king, a dictator with total military power, and he offers tips on how a president might become such a kingly king. The plan: Ignore court rulings and laws you don’t like, and maybe have “taped behind your balls, a non-fungible token (NFT) which controls the nuclear deterrent. Now that’s power.”

Swaggering talk about a super-empowered dictator appears to have tremendous appeal to the men of Claremont. In their pseudoclassics way, naturally, they frame it as the rise of an American Caesar. How glorious! Sometimes, the reveries are tucked inside high-sounding language about “statesmanship.” The “man of action” is Claremont’s favorite character in Aristotle, mainly because, as in the case of Christopher Rufo, the former Claremont fellow behind the anti–critical race theory hysteria, the men of Claremont explicitly aspire to become such figures themselves.

What will the manly dictator do once in power, apart from smashing the Cathedral to bits? Yarvin has little to say on that point. Who cares about the morning after? Like BAP, he practices what Nietzsche called “grand politics.” It’s all about magnificent gestures and look-at-me explosions. Details are for the Bugmen.

Anton’s approach to the Caesar question is particularly revealing and provides an example of what Straussianism has come to mean at Claremont. In his 2020 book, The Stakes, along with his appearances on several podcasts, including a two-hour discussion with Yarvin, he frames the prospective rise of a fascist dictator as prophecy, not policy, and insists that he laments such an eventuality. But then he turns around and declares that we have a choice. On the inevitable slide into a post-constitutional order, we can have a Blue Caesar or a Red Caesar. The Blue version—a combination of “Hillary Clinton and Pol Pot,” according to American Mind contributor Charles Haywood—would, Anton writes, rally “all the power centers and commanding heights of our society” to the cause of the “state-directed persecution” of conservatives. The Red one would at least draw from the part of the population with high “social capital,” which is fit to manage the “necessities” of life—this appears to be Anton’s euphemism for Trump-supporting, non-ruling-class Americans. But such a Red Caesar is unlikely, says Anton, because—woe to us!—conservatives are still too weak and disorganized.

Anton pretends merely to offer predictions grounded in wisdom of the ancients. But his target audience would have little trouble deciphering the hidden message for today. “Me, I like, if not love, the idea of a Red Caesar,” gushes Haywood. Nathan Pinkoski, a ­Claremont fan writing for First Things, the go-to journal for right-wing theoconservatives, explains Anton’s communications strategy: “In good Straussian fashion, what he teaches is not what he says. With great moderation, he explicitly teaches us how to act prudently within the framework of the republican constitution; with great daring, he implicitly teaches us how to act prudently when the republican constitution is gone.” In other words, Straussianism at Claremont means pushing authoritarian fantasies in not-so-secret code while cosplaying ancient philosophers.

So, who gets to join the secret society of latter-day Greco-Roman authoritarians? A strange fact to remember is that Costin Alamariu, a.k.a. the Bronze Age Pervert, got his Ph.D. from Yale. Curtis Yarvin has degrees from Johns Hopkins, Brown, and the University of California, Berkeley. Anton is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley. Their hero Ron DeSantis has both Harvard and Yale on his C.V. Manly man Josh Hawley is Stanford and Harvard. Yes, Virginia, these very men are themselves the Bugmen. When they talk about sticking it to the administrative state or fantasize about having their dictator-buddy tell all the liberals to suck on it, they seem to be dreaming about revenge on the professors, administrators, and fellow students who were mean to them on their way up.

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It is with that in mind that one can make sense of the strangest aspect of the Claremont pathology: its obsession with elite higher education.

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Adventures in Higher Education: or, Claremont Goes to Florida for Spring Break!

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Only last year, the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida was just an idea on a piece of paper. But it quickly picked up $3 million in state funding, thanks to advocacy from the Council on Public University Reform, a mysterious group whose representative, Joshua Holdenried, previously worked at the Heritage Foundation and has a long history of working with conservative religious causes. The Florida legislature then approved an additional $10 million. According to the Council on Public University Reform’s draft proposal, the center would hold the power to appoint its own staff and educators in classics, history, and the humanities without consulting the existing faculties at the university.

The nonprofit behind the Hamilton operation is headed by a Claremont Review contributor, and the center’s arrival was music to the ears of Claremont’s Florida man, Scott Yenor. A hint about the center’s ideas in civics education may be gleaned from its decision to hire Pinkoski, who took up his position as a visiting faculty fellow at the center around the same time he published a review in First Things of a key text in the white supremacist canon: Jean Raspail’s The Camp of the Saints.

Published in France in 1973, Raspail’s novel imagines the horror that unfolds when one million nonwhite immigrants land on French shores. The subhuman invaders, as Raspail describes them, wallow in their own feces and delight in trampling over the misguided liberals who thought to welcome and feed them.The book has long been a favorite among white supremacists, but Hamilton’s man thinks it is a work of “genius” that exposes the—you guessed it—“cancel culture” and “nihilism” that is stabbing the West in the back. The Camp of the Saints is “the most important dystopian novel of the second half of the twentieth century,” he writes. Move over, Handmaid’s Tale!

The Hamilton Center is one of many such centers springing up around the nation. It is also one piece of DeSantis’s plan for higher education in Florida, along with the makeover of New College. Rufo, the anti–critical race theory guru, now serves as a trustee of New College, the small, liberal-friendly state school that the governor hopes to convert into an ideologically right-wing academy. Joining him on the board, as noted above, is Charles Kesler.

Fortunately for us, Rufo has been as transparent about his plan for the nation’s universities as he was for whipping up the fraudulent hysteria on critical race theory. (“The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘Critical Race Theory,’” he explained on Twitter.) In a lecture delivered in the safe space of Hillsdale College, Rufo revealed that America’s universities—all of them, apparently, with the exception of Hillsdale and a handful of allies—are in the hands of the woke and discriminate rampantly against right-wingers. The time has come, said Rufo, to counter this nefarious tendency with a new, parallel university system that would hire the right people and fire the lefties, and teach a pedagogy more in line with his beliefs.

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One person who gets it, by Rufo’s own estimation, is journalist and January 6 conspiracist Darren Beattie, whom Trump appointed to the commission that encourages the preservation of Holocaust sites. Beattie gushes about the results of the program in Florida so far, citing an unsigned piece in Revolver News, a right-wing outlet, that compares the right-wing reconquest of Florida’s university system with Napoleon’s lightning victory over the Austrians in 1805.

Beattie was too far out even for the Trump administration; he was fired after it emerged that he spoke at a conference attended by well-known white supremacists. A listserv for Claremont alumni swiftly accumulated messages of support for Beattie that included some amount of racist and white nationalist commentary, notably from alt-right troll and Holocaust denier Charles Johnson. That prompted some participants holding respectful positions to withdraw from the listserv; eventually, Claremont shut it down. But Johnson himself had been, in fact, a Publius Fellow at Claremont and a contributor to the Claremont Review. And he had scored a flattering foreword to his own book on Calvin Coolidge from none other than his eminence, Charles Kesler.

Charles Kesler blames it all on Hegel—and Woodrow Wilson.

Why is Claremont helping to normalize white supremacist narratives? The political capital to be made from playing to racial grievance in the Trump era is perhaps too obvious to belabor. It is much more interesting to note that the tendency long preceded the Trumpian turn. The men of Claremont routinely complain, as Kesler does in his Crisis of the Two Constitutions, that the contemporary academy has it in for “dead white males.” It is tempting to dismiss such claims as just another grievance narrative from those living white males who feel themselves to be the true victims of discrimination in today’s America. But this would be to overlook the role that such grievances play in consolidating the Claremont position on intellectual history. In the meta-narrative that Claremont absorbed from Strauss and Jaffa, greatness comes from a distinctive civilizational tradition, one that got its start in Athens, then picked up something in Jerusalem to become “the West.”

The Claremonters generally do not, on balance, explicitly identify this tradition with a racial group. Some are savvy enough to include a smattering of people of color in their narratives (Frederick Douglass being a favorite). But their followers likely have little trouble grasping that the whole point of reviving The Camp of the Saints is to conflate the desire to preserve civilization with the fear of other races and peoples. John Eastman’s views on race may be presumed to be benign, but those of the Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol on January 6 are not. And yet the Proud Boys’ oath could just as well serve as a Claremont motto: “I am a proud Western chauvinist. I refuse to apologizefor creating the modern world.”

A truly scholarly history would show that what we call “the West” is the work of human interactions spanning the globe. The fabled Greeks drew inspiration from as far afield as India, and many encounters with different cultures shaped history decisively. It is also clear that not every person who has mattered in the process was white or male. But Claremont doesn’t do intellectual history, properly speaking. There is a better name for what it does do, and that is identity politics.

Claremont has had few qualms about pursuing its version of identity politics across the board. Affirmative action is just fine, according to Claremont’s Florida model, as long as it is used to boost the kind of people who make the right sort of noises about the “gynocracy” and demonstrate an interest in white supremacist novels. The administrative state is a good thing—provided you can funnel taxpayer money to ideologically correct centers of learning. Meritocracy is the great American ideal, but only when “merit” is defined as advocating for what your ultrarich patrons already know to be true. Cancel culture is a good thing, too, as long as you are using state power to ban books you don’t like.

To be sure, there are some excellent critiques to be made of diversity programs, and maybe some of these critiques make it through the apocalyptic rhetoric coming out of Claremont. What you won’t hear, however, is any serious consideration that such programs came into being to address real problems in a diverse society with a long history of racial oppression and rank discrimination. That’s because the men of Claremont aren’t here to propose practical policy solutions to the problems facing America. They come to rile up a grievance-addled base and satisfy their own resentments—and to raise enough money to keep the circus on tour.

They Don’t Shoot Administrative States, Do They?

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In his Crisis of the Two Constitutions, Kesler names “the administrative state” as both the ideal of “Progressivism” and the font of all evil. He appears to have borrowed most of the argument, along with the strange fable about Hegel and Woodrow Wilson, from John Marini, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute whose association with the organization goes back to its very beginnings in the 1970s.

The critique of “the administrative state” has a long history and touches on issues of concern in any modern democracy. As noted by Dwight Waldo, the subtle political theorist and onetime federal official who brought the idea to attention in a 1948 book, the administrative apparatus of the modern state has emerged as a new and powerful political function, distinct in important ways from a traditional conception of the legislature and executive. The administrative state often attempts to justify its power through an ideology valorizing scientific efficiency and managerial expertise. Yet, as Waldo points out, government administrators engage in inherently political tasks; they seek negotiated solutions among constituencies, and they ultimately answer to a democratic people through their elected representatives. The sensible critique of the administrative state, then, is a complicated one. The point isn’t to destroy it—surely we’ll want to hold on to the air traffic controllers and food safety inspectors—but to ensure that it remains accountable to the people in a democratic polity.

But the Claremont Institute doesn’t do complicated, and Marini is a case in point. He is a black-and-white kind of thinker, and one can get a sense of where he locates the color line from his analysis of Donald Trump’s candidacy for president in 2016. Marini lauded Trump for his interest in “unifying the country” by “appealing to the common good.” And “Trump has appealed to the rule of law and has attacked bureaucratic rule as the rule of privilege and patronage.” In brief, Trump represented “an existential threat” to the administrative state, according to Marini, and the secret reason why many progressives oppose Trump is that they love nothing more than the smell of bureaucracy in the morning.

In Marini’s narrative, the administrative state is not to be reformed; it is inherently illegitimate. “The tacit premise of the rational state, and the defense of the administrative state,” he claims, “rests upon the assumption that the power of government cannot be limited,” which, in his reading, directly contradicts the wisdom that the Founders supposedly gleaned from Aristotle. Consequently, as his co-author, editor, and fellow Claremonter Ken Masugi writes, “The administrative state is the modern face of tyranny—an issue on which thinkers as diverse as Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt apparently agree.” The references are apt indeed. Marini’s critique of the administrative state, and even his identification of Hegel as its evil mastermind, tracks Schmitt’s critique of the liberal (Jewish) order with uncanny precision.

So who, according to Marini, is to blame for the rise of the administrative state in America? Marini’s answer: The “knowledge elites in the bureaucracy” who have manipulated public opinion in a dastardly plot to advance their bureaucratic power. Shorter Marini: The Bugmen did it. So what are we to do about air traffic, food safety, the environment, defense? Who knows. Details. Go ask the Bugmen.

Four years of the Trump presidency afford us some insight now into what the “deconstruction of the administrative state,” to borrow Steve Bannon’s phrasing of the Claremont idea, looks like on the ground: epic levels of corruption, nepotism, incompetence, polarization, and politicization. The best illustration of the tendency, as it happens, comes from the tenure of Claremonter Michael Pack as head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (whose flagship is Voice of America). Pack was president and CEO of Claremont Institute from 2015 to 2017. His reign at Voice of America began late in Trump’s term, lasted seven months, andended two hours after President Biden took office. During those seven months, Pack “inspired multiple formal investigations and rebukes” from various federal and D.C. judges who found that he acted “illegally and even unconstitutionally,” according to NPR reporting. “I don’t think he had a plan other than to just blow the place up,” said Dan Hanlon—a former top aide to Trump’s chief of staff who was himself appointed by Trump to the agency. “We would come in at nine o’clock and stamp out at five o’clock,” Hanlon said. “And we played foosball all day. And we would just sit there, commenting about how absurd this whole thing was.”

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Broadly speaking, the kind of anti-government nihilism that Marini preached and Pack practiced has two natural constituencies. The first consists of those people who generally do not suffer from discrimination and who, unaware of the role of the administrative state in creating and sustaining their privilege, see no place for government in securing their civil rights. The second consists of those economic interests whose activities cause harm (such as pollution or the degradation of communities) or depend on monopoly profits, and who therefore do not wish to be regulated.The Claremont Institute fills its rosters with members from the first group but fills its coffers with representatives of the second. If you want to understand the Claremont Institute phenomenon, the oldest adage of journalism is indispensable: follow the money.

What Money Buys When It Thinks It Is Buying Ideas

Apart from whatever small dollars it wrings from anxious recipients through its mass mailers, the Claremont Institute appears to get the largest chunk of its money from Tom Klingenstein, the New York–based finance executive who serves as its current chairman.

Claremont has other funders, too. The Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, Donors Trust and the Donors Capital Fund, and the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation—all have chipped in. These are among the same groups that top the list in funding climate science denialism; the privatization of public education; the reduction of taxes for the rich, especially of inheritance taxes; and other causes known to warm the hearts of billionaires.

Thomas D. Klingenstein, a main Claremont financial backer.

The direct funding from ultrawealthy interests is really only part of the story of how money has made Claremont. Claremont heroes such as Ron DeSantis, Josh Hawley, and J.D. Vance are to an important extent creatures of the donor class. The money that these political leaders receive from their wealthy friends turns into power for Claremont.

It would be a simple story if the money flowing to Claremont was merely there in pursuit of financial self-interest—and to some extent it is. Many of the donors would love to deconstruct the administrative state, after all, since it stands in the way of many of their privileges and moneymaking activities. So they will put up with the raw eggs, the Bronze Age nuttery, the woman-hating, and all that, as long as it delivers lower taxes and “small government.”

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But what can history tell us about this kind of compromise? What will happen to the moneyed interests if BAP gets his military dictatorship, or if Anton’s Red Caesar steps forth?

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I put the question to Steve Schmidt, and he lit up with enthusiasm. He urged me to read a speech thatHitler gave in 1932 in Dusseldorf to an audience of business executives. Hitler makes an explicit argument against democracy, he said, and “it’s not an unsophisticated argument—it’s what Tucker Carlson said every night on Fox and now on Twitter.” The core of the argument, in its American form, is that “America needs a Caesar.” Why does America need a Caesar? “To protect freedom and liberty—because democracy threatens the privilege of those who ‘built the country,’” Schmidt continued: “All fascist movements require the cooperation and capitulation of conservative movements. The conservative party is the party that is devoured by fascism in any type of right-wing fascist descent.”

The kind of authoritarianism that Claremont is peddling did not happen to the conservative movement by accident. It is the predictable result of the massive investment that conservative money made over the past 50-plus years in polluting American political discourse with its massive complex of ideological factories.

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Having spent a fair amount of time exploring the mind of Claremont in preparation for this piece, I find Schmidt’s analysis extremely convincing. It does, however, leave me with a loose end that I think of as the Klingenstein problem. When we suggest that conservatives are cooperating with and capitulating to authoritarians, we are supposing that they still see the alliance in rational, transactional terms. We implicitly assume that they know that they are making a pact with the devil, and we fault them for a moral failure or perhaps a lack of foresight. But that doesn’t describe Klingenstein at all. He clearly has been drinking the same Kool-Aid that was intended for the working classes. He isn’t capitulating to the forces that promise to destroy the foundations of his own wealth and privilege; he actively wants to become one with them.

The kind of authoritarianism that Claremont is peddling did not happen to the conservative movement by accident. It is the predictable result of the massive investment that conservative money made over the past 50-plus years in polluting American political discourse with its massive complex of ideological factories. When you spend enough to spread unreasonable ideas, you will get an unreasonable society. You might even become a bit of a crank yourself. It goes back to a problem at least as old as Plato. If your power depends on lying to the people, that doesn’t make you noble. It just leaves you with a choice: Accept that you are a fraud, or embrace the lie.

Katherine Stewart @kathsstewart

Katherine Stewart is the author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism.

Read More: Magazine, September 2023, Feature, Cover Story, Politics, The Soapbox, The Claremont Institute, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Michael Anton, Leo Strauss, Harry Jaffa, Carl Schmitt, Illiberalism

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former president Donald Trump was at the center of the criminal charges filed this week related to his attempts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, but he was not alone: 18 other people were indicted with Trump under racketeering charges brought by a grand jury convened by Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis. Right Wing Watch is publishing brief profiles of some of Trump’s fellow indictees. In this segment, former Trump attorney John Eastman.

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John Eastman, Unrepentant Insurrectionist, Unsuccessful Pardon-Seeker

John Eastman, a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, “has long advanced positions on the far-right fringe of the legal community on issues ranging from immigration to LGBTQ equality to separation of church and state,” as Right Wing Watch noted in a December 2020 profile. As part of Trump’s legal team, Eastman was an energetic advocate for the fringe theory that Vice President Mike Pence could and should unilaterally refuse to accept certified Electoral College votes from swing states won by President Joe Biden.

Eastman was hit with nine counts in the Georgia indictment, according to the Daily Beast, including:

Eastman is the founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence at The Claremont Institute, which former Right Wing Watch investigative reporter Jared Holt called “an increasingly white nationalist think tank” back in 2019, the year that Claremont made “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec a fellow. Just this month, journalist Katherine Stewart dubbed Claremont “the anti-democracy think tank” in a deep dive for The New Republic.

As Right Wing Watch was among the first to report, Claremont’s chairman Thomas Klingenstein hosted and posted online a three-part interview with Eastman that was clearly designed to let him portray his work on behalf of Trump’s bid to stay in power in the best possible light. Eastman continued to promote claims about election fraud that were debunked long ago, and he refused to “discount” even the most “out there” and “far-fetched” fraud claims—presumably a reference to fellow Trump election lawyer and indicted co-conspirator Sidney Powell’s fantastical and unproven claims about international conspiracies to rig voting machines.

The final segment of Eastman’s interview was published on the day of Trump’s arraignment in Washington, D.C. in his first criminal indictment related to the 2020 election (Eastman was an unnamed and unindicted co-conspirator in that indictment). Eastman justified his actions as necessary to save America from a left bent on its destruction, and he told Klingenstein that if Pence had followed his advice, and riots erupted across the country in protest, he would have counted on the military to recognize Trump as their commander-in-chief and restore order. The unrepentant Eastman told Klingenstein that he would still give the same legal advice today.

Eastman’s role in Trump’s attempted coup was highlighted in one of the public hearings held by the congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection. Eastman was at the forefront of the Trump team’s relentless behind-the-scenes campaign to pressure Pence to violate the Electoral Count Act over the objections of White House attorneys.

Eastman even helped rile up the crowd at Trump’s rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, by repeating false charges about voting fraud, “demanding” that Pence stop the count and send the question back to swing state legislators.

That afternoon, Pence’s chief counsel Greg Jacob texted Eastman as the mob was attacking the Capitol, saying “Thanks to your bullsh**t, we are now under siege.” In a response uncovered by the Jan. 6 committee, Eastman replied that “the siege is because you and your boss [Pence] did not do what was necessary.” But even then, Eastman wasn’t done, imploring Jacob “to consider one more relatively minor violation [of the Electoral Count Act] and adjourn for ten days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations.”

Eastman later emailed indicted co-conspirator Rudy Giuliani asking to be put on Trump’s pardon list, but despite all that he did to help Trump stay in power, a pardon was not forthcoming.

Back in January, Eastman appeared on a religious-right prayer call organized by supporters of Trump’s efforts to stay in power, where he quoted scripture, described himself as a champion of truth, and portrayed his legal troubles as a Stalinist form of legal persecution.

Claremont chair and interviewer Klingenstein, a major donor to far-right causes, describes himself in the “about” section of his YouTube channel as someone who “believes that we are in a cold civil war.”The description of Klingenstein continues: “The enemy—what he calls the ‘Woke Comms’—are winning, in large measure because Republican leaders have yet to engage. His essays, speeches and plays all encourage Republicans to do just that—to think, talk, and act as if we are at war.”

Tags: John Eastman Tom Klingenstein Capitol Insurrection Jan. 6 Trump Indictment Claremont Institute

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the right-wing media echo chamber pushed a completely fictional talking point that Silicon Valley Bank had supposedly donated $73 million to Black Lives Matter, based on distortions from a far-right think tank. And in Fox News’ rush to amplify the falsehoods, which fit the network’s preposterous political narrative that SVB was a “woke bank,” purported “news” personnel behaved no differently from the network’s opinion hosts.

As a prime example of Fox’s “news” personalities pushing blatantly partisan falsehoods, on the morning of March 15, Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy claimed: “Roughly $73 million went to Black Lives Matter-related causes” from the bank. [vid]

and later that night, Fox host Sean Hannity said that Silicon Valley Bank “diverted a massive amount of money to left-wing causes. Now, get this, this is what we have discovered, that includes a whopping $73 million to BLM-related groups."[vid]

this is the same network that, as recently unearthed text messages and emails have shown, will actively reprimand and penalize its alleged “straight news” reporters for debunking misinformation pushed by its opinion hosts and their guests. As such, nobody in the network would have any incentive to even try to unearth the facts, because Fox News is not in any sense a real news organization.

Actual SVB donations to Black Lives Matter: $0.00

The charge itself that SVB contributed over $70 million to Black Lives Matter or closely aligned organizations is based on a supposed “BLM-funding database” maintained by the Claremont Institute, a right-wing and openly anti-democracy organization that is also closely tied to disgraced former law professor John Eastman, who was closely involved in former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

The Associated Press confirmed that the database does not show any spending to Black Lives Matter, and obtained a comment in which Claremont explained it was including “reparative initiatives,” which it called “race-based, discriminatory hiring programs; race-based, sub-prime lending; partisan voter initiatives; and DEI efforts.” The AP also obtained a comment from the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, which confirmed it did not receive $70 million from the bank, and added: “Even if we did, the idea that this type of contribution would be controversial is rooted in a pathology that Black organizations don’t deserve to be funded.”

In addition, professor Rodney Ramcharan at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business explained to the AP what actual evidence of bank failure due to “woke” business practices might look like, if such a thing existed. “The bank would have suffered loan losses—writing down bad loans made to ‘woke’ firms,” he explained. “So this is not a matter of opinion, but actual data. Instead, there are no unusual loan losses or loan loss provisioning.” (Claremont had cited “sub-prime lending” as a component of such alleged “woke” practices.)

The database labels any donations that support Black people as “BLM”

Writing for the newsletter Popular Information, Judd Legum, Rebecca Crosby, and Tesnim Zekeria reported that the Claremont Institute’s own database shows a total of $0 in donations to any officially branded Black Lives Matter organization. Instead, the organization’s database also includes spending that it describes as being for “organizations and initiatives that advance one or more aspects of BLM’s agenda.”

Under this amorphous criteria, Popular Information found that Claremont had included a pledge that SVB made in 2021 to spend $50 million over the course of five years for the company’s internal initiative to connect women, Black people and Latinos with startup funding and leadership connections in venture capital. Nearly all the rest came from a $20 million pledge to “support additional COVID-19 relief” and establish a “full-ride, needs-based University Scholarship program to students at Arizona State University, Florida A&M University, Tulane University, and Xavier University.” Both Florida A&M and Xavier University of Louisiana are prominent historically black colleges and universities. (It’s unclear why Claremont lumped in funding for Arizona State and Tulane.)

Talking Points Memo editor-in-chief Josh Marshall also examined the rest of the database on supposed BLM-related corporate spending, and found that Claremont’s appraisal of corporate spending throughout the business world essentially boiled down to “it seems adjacent to Black people, so that’s ‘BLM.’” These included any corporate donations to such longstanding organizations as the United Negro College Fund and the NAACP, or minority-focused business groups such as the Executive Leadership Council or the Forum to Advance Minorities in Engineering, the latter of which was founded in 1976 by DuPont. (Also tagged as “BLM” spending in the Claremont’s database were corporate grants to the American Heart Association and U.S. Vaccine Adoption Grants.)

Keep in mind, Popular Information had also pointed out that the database defines the BLM agenda as allegedly being to “undermine capitalism, the nation state, and Western civilization.” By extension, Claremont is essentially accusing any corporate spending on Black education, health outcomes, or business development to be part of a plot to destroy Western civilization. This is the fabulist message that Fox’s reporters and the rest of the right-wing media ecosystem were so eager to spread.

Fox News drove the right-wing echo chamber’s amplification of false SVB claims

Fox’s alarmist coverage of the supposed link between SVB’s corporate giving and the BLM movement clearly spanned both its purported “straight news” side and opinion hosts, with the two camps voicing the exact same line over and over on Fox News, Fox Business, and the network’s digital properties.

Fox was not alone in spreading this falsehood; many right-wing media outlets pushed the same lies. A New York Post headline read: “SVB donated $73M to Black Lives Matter movement, social justice causes.” An article from The Federalist was headlined: “Silicon Valley Bank Pledged Nearly $74 Million To Black Lives Matter Causes.” The Washington Times, citing The Federalist, wrote: “SVB donated more than $73 million to the Black Lives Matter movement and other social justice causes.” A Washington Examiner headline read: “SVB collapse: Bank donated over $70 million to Black Lives Matter groups before closure.” Gateway Pundit declared in its headline: “Woke Silicon Valley Bank Gave Over $73 Million to Black Lives Matter Movement.” A Daily Caller headline stated: “Silicon Valley Bank Committed Over $73 Million To BLM And Social Justice Causes Before It Collapsed.” And it went on and on and on.

In an amazing turn of events, Breitbart actually issued a correction, noting that “the Claremont Institute’s definition of ‘Black Lives Matter’ included a far wider range of organizations,” and giving credit that “left-wing writer Judd Legum appropriately flagged these issues.”

So as of now, Breitbart has exhibited more journalistic responsibility than the entire roster of Fox News, including one of the network’s White House correspondents.

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rww Tags: Ali Alexander Gary Bauer Jack Posobiec Jenna Ellis Marjorie Taylor Greene Tom Fitton Capitol Insurrection House select committee on Jan. 6 Jan. 6 Judicial Watch

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Alaska Republican state Representative David Eastman stunned his fellow lawmakers on Monday when he declared society benefits when children who are so badly abused die, because there’s less financial cost to the state for their care.

“In the case where child abuse is fatal, obviously it’s not good for the child, but it’s actually a benefit to society because there aren’t needed government services and whatnot over the whole course of that child’s life,” Rep. Eastman said (video below) during a hearing of the Judiciary Committee, as the Anchorage Daily News reports.

When pressed, he continued, saying: “Talking dollars, now you’ve got a $1.5 million price tag here for victims of fatal child abuse. It gets argued periodically that it’s actually a cost savings because that child is not going to need any of those government services that they might otherwise you know, be entitled to receive and need based on, you know, growing up in this type of environment.”

Trevor Storrs, president and CEO of the Alaska Children’s Trust who was testifying at the hearing countered, “I’m really, I’m not even sure how to answer that, that there’s a cost saving to fit that to the death of a child. The impact that that has on a family and us as a society, when a child is lost, especially to child abuse, neglect is unmeasurable and it’s it’s a hugely tragic.”

READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene: ‘Democrat’ Voters Should Be Banned from Voting If They Move to Red States (Video)

A Democratic state lawmaker, Rep. Andrew Gray, “later recounted that he and his husband had adopted their child from the foster care system who had several adverse childhood experiences. He said it may not have been intended, but the implication from Eastman’s comments was that his child was better off dead.”

”I would just say for me personally, my child is the greatest joy I’ve ever had — that there is no price tag on that,” Rep. Gray said.

This is far from the first time Eastman has stunned his fellow lawmakers. Last month the Anchorage Daily News reported he “compared a speech given by President Joe Biden to one given by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in 1938. The post included a photo of Hitler and a link to the text of his speech. The link went to a Holocaust-denial website.”

Rep. Eastman, according to a Politico report on his court “trial for disloyalty,” has a lifetime membership to the Oath Keepers, a far right “militia” group that has been called an “organized violent extremist group.” Oath Keepers’ founder and leader Stewart Rhodes was found guilty by a jury of seditious conspiracy over his actions surrounding the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

Eastman, according to his campaign website, was named “an Abraham Lincoln Fellow by the Claremont Institutefor the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy.” The Claremont Institute is a far-right think tank that has been home to former Trump attorney and “coup memo” author John Eastman (no relation.)

READ MORE: ‘Egregious Security Breach’: Top House Democrat Blasts McCarthy for Handing Tucker Carlson 41,000 Hours of J6 Video

On his personal Twitter page Eastman posted a video supporting this past weekend’s “Rage Against the War Machine,” an event allegedly for those opposed to U.S. supporting Ukraine over Russia’s illegal war against that sovereign nation. Notably in attendance at what has been suggested was a pro-Russia rally were Ron Paul, Jill Stein, Tulsi Gabbard, and Dennis Kucinich.

A former Tea Party activist, Eastman is now a pro-MAGA extremist who attended Trump’s Jan. 6 speech and later walked to the Capitol. He falsely blamed the attack on the Capitol on Antifa, while claiming that the 2020 election was “abused to such a degree that, in my view, it can no longer be called an election.” He said he attended the events that day in D.C. because “I think there’s a lot of justified concerns.”

Watch Rep. Eastman’s remarks about the “benefits” of fatal child abuse below or at this link.

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House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection released a 150-page summary of its findings and voted Monday to send the Justice Department criminal referrals for former President Donald Trump and others who assisted his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Right-wing political groups and leaders generally responded either by ignoring the historic action altogether or by dismissing it as a partisan move without engaging substantively with the committee’s extensively documented findings.

Far-right activist Ali Alexander, who was a leader of the so-called “Stop the Steal” effort to overturn the 2020 election and keep Trump in power, called the committee’s criminal referrals “a coup against the voters.” Alexander, who participated in the recent disastrous Kanye West and Nick Fuentes appearance on Alex Jones’ show that turned into a festival of praise for Adolph Hitler, also released a statement purportedly on behalf of “Team Ye,” accusing Democrats and the “Republican Establishment” of working together “to rig our GOP primary or choose which candidates can be in the ballot before the American Voter.”

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton took to Twitter to charge that “’January 6’ is all about Biden/Left seeking to suppress/jail political opponents who blow the whistle on their election misconduct — and suppressing political opponents in 2024…” Fitton shared a video of himself claiming that “The left has decided that if you are challenging results they like in elections, you’re breaking the law and you should be jailed and prosecuted.”

Fitton also retweeted Claremont Institute Senior Fellow Jeremy Carl’s suggestion that the threat to democracy was somehow not Trump’s effort to overthrow the election or the violent effort to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, but the committee’s investigation: “A completely partisan House panel is trying to work hand-in-glove with a completely partisan DOJ to bring criminal charges against the previous U.S. President. If you still think we live in a functional democracy you need to wake up and realize what time it is.”

Former Trump attorney and self-styled “America’s lawyer” Jenna Ellis claimed, “It’s all a political pretext with zero basis in fact or law”—a ridiculous statement given the committee’s meticulous gathering of evidence, including testimony from many Trump administration officials.

Not to be outdone, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene dismissed the House committee as “communist.”

Writing in his daily email newsletter, longtime religious-right activist Gary Bauercalled the committee a “kangaroo court” and referred to the criminal referrals as outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi “seeking to extract one last act of revenge against Donald Trump.” Bauer was similarly grumpy about the committee referring four Republican congressmen to the House ethics committee for refusing to comply with committee subpoenas. Bauer didn’t defend their defiance of the law but railed against what he called a “despicable precedent established by petulant progressives.”

Pizzagate promoter Jack Posobiec greeted the conclusion of the committee’s final public meeting with a message on Telegram: “Bring it, demons.” Posobiec didn’t pass up the chance to raise money, urging his readers Monday night to buy Christmas presents from MyPillow using a code that would presumably give Posobiec a cut: “Jan 6 wasn’t an insurrection to overthrow the govt but promocode Poso is an insurrection to overthrow prices this Christmas!”

The committee is reportedly set to release a massive amount of additional documentation Wednesday.

Tags: Ali Alexander Gary Bauer Jack Posobiec Jenna Ellis Marjorie Taylor Greene Tom Fitton Capitol Insurrection House select committee on Jan. 6 Jan. 6 Judicial Watch

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When the results of 2022 midterms came in on Election Night, one saw some patterns emerging. Democrats were performing much better than expected, and many of the Republicans who were defeating Democrats in statewide races in swing states tended to be traditional conservatives rather far-right hyper-MAGA conspiracy theorists.

Hyper-MAGA, ultra-Trumpian candidates, in fact, lost key gubernatorial races in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan, while many of the GOP governors who were reelected — Ohio’s Mike DeWine, Georgia’s Brian Kemp, New Hampshire’s Chris Sununu — were more traditional conservatives. One saw some ticket splitting in New Hampshire; Sununu was reelected by around 15 percent, while far-right MAGA conspiracy theorist Don Bolduc lost to incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hasan by 9 percent.

DeWine and Sununu are often slammed as RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) by the MAGA crowd, but unlike Arizona’s Kari Lake, Michigan’s Tudor Dixon or Pennsylvania’s Doug Mastriano — Republican gubernatorial nominees who ran on ultra-MAGA platforms — they won. Conservative Washington Post opinion columnist Henry Olsen had a blunt comment in his November 22 column: “College-educated voters just aren’t into MAGA.”

READ MORE: 'College-educated voters just aren’t into MAGA': Conservative slams Arizona election deniers for GOP losses

But “weird” Republicans, The New Republic’s Graham Gallagher emphasizes in an article published on November 25, aren’t going away. In fact, they have achieved more and more prominence in the GOP and are making their presence felt in some right-wing think tanks such as the Claremont Institute.

“The ascendant weird right will likely struggle to sell its deeply anti-patriotic vision to many voters,” Gallagher explains. “In these segments of the mostly young, online-influenced American right, the optimistic vision espoused by Ronald Reagan’s ‘morning in America’ has been discarded. The elite educated right has moved even beyond the overt pessimism of Donald Trump’s ‘American carnage’ — now, disgust with equitable citizenship, personal liberty, and democratic self-governance is commonplace. Fed by an endless outrage cycle and a motivated and well-resourced donor class willing to pour money into increasingly reactionary think tanks like the avowedly anti-democratic Claremont Institute, right-wing thinkers and activists have begun to identify the foundational pillars of the United States itself with immorality and adopted a new fascination with medieval Catholicism and imported European extremisms.”

Gallagher points to “the right-wing embrace of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin” and former Rep. Allen West’s obsession with the Medieval Knights Templar as examples of how “bizarre” the “online weird right” can be. Others include beliefs that “real men don’t eat soybeans, seed oils are dangerous, meat substitutes will turn men into women and…. the best diet is all-meat.” And Gallagher cites some specific examples of how “weird” MAGA candidates could be in the 2022 midterms.

“Blake Masters and J.D. Vance — two Republican candidates for Senate funded in part by tech billionaire and new-right linchpin Peter Thiel — have embraced new-right ideas and actively courted the ‘weird right,’” Gallagher observes. “Vance has questioned whether women should leave violent marriages; Masters has praised domestic terrorist Theodore Kaczynski’s infamous manifesto, argued against legal access to contraception, and openly said that democracy is a smokescreen for the masses ‘stealing certain kinds of goods and redistributing them as they see fit.’ Americans on balance like democracy; legal contraception is almost universally popular; and Kaczynski’s unpopularity is so widely assumed that pollsters rarely ask about him. Masters, perhaps unsurprisingly, lost his bid to unseat Mark Kelly, and Vance badly underperformed in his blood-red home state.”

READ MORE:Why 'much-diminished' Sarah Palin no longer stands out in the MAGA movement she helped create: journalist

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dobbs amicus

JOHN C. EASTMAN ANTHONY T. CASO Counsel of Record CONSTITUTIONAL COUNSEL GROUP 174 W. Lincoln Ave., #620 Anaheim, CA 92805 (916) 601-1916 atcaso@ccg1776.com

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/maga-zealotry-conservative-think-tank/

For many years, the Claremont Institute was known promoting traditional Goldwater and Reagan conservatism. The right-wing think tank was founded in 1979 by students of the late Harry V. Jaffa, who had been a speechwriter for Sen. Barry Goldwater during his 1964 presidential campaign. But in recent years, Claremont has taken what critics consider a much more authoritarian turn, wholeheartedly embracing the MAGA ideology of former President Donald Trump and his allies.

Journalist Elisabeth Zerofsky takes a look at Claremont’s influence in an article published by the New York Times on August 3. Claremont aren’t as well-known as the Heritage Foundation or the libertarian CATO Institute — two other think tanks on the right — but Zerofsky emphasizes that it has become increasingly influential.

“The Claremont Institute is not a conventional think tank…. Yet Claremont’s reach is extensive,” Zerofsky explains. “Claremont scholars have collaborated with Ron DeSantis andhelped shape the views of Clarence Thomas, Tom Cotton and the conservative activist Christopher Rufo, and the Institute received the National Humanities Medal from President Trump in 2019. When Trump failed to win reelection, some Claremonters accused Democrats of using the pandemic to unconstitutionally change election laws to benefit themselves.”

READ MORE:** [**'Barely concealed bloodlust': Claremont Institute laid out detailed plan for using cops to overturn Trump’s election loss

Zerofsky notes that Claremont scholars reflect “the tenor of the right” in 2022.

“Students of classical texts, Claremont scholars don’t always subscribe to the decorum once associated with Republican politics,” Zerofsky observes. “Trump’s boorishness is of a piece with what some of them view as the rough-and-tumble nature of political life.”

Claremont isn’t shy about publishing controversial articles in its online publication The American Mind. For example, Claremont senior fellow Glenn Ellmers, in 2021 wrote a highly controversial essay in which he argued that the 80 million Americans who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 were “not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term.” And Claremont’s Charles R. Kesler has argued that the U.S. is experiencing a cold civil war.

“The view that America’s founding principles are being fatally undermined by progressives seems to be at the root of what Kesler and others at Claremont find so disastrous in the presidency of Joe Biden,” Zerofsky writes. “Kesler does not participate in some of the more bellicose performances of his colleagues and did not attend a recent panel discussion they organized titled ‘The Lies of the Ruling Class.’ He told me that he disagreed with how Ellmers, the Claremont senior fellow, had characterized Biden voters as ‘non-Americans’ and told him so. But he shares in the moral battle they see at the heart of today’s conflict.”

READ MORE:**[**'The institute is badly damaged': Think tank behind John Eastman is reeling after sticking by him

Zerofsky notes that Jaffa, who died in January 2015 at the age of 96, “didn’t live to witness the rise of Donald Trump.” And one of Jaffa’s sons, 70-year-old Philip Jaffa, argues that his father wouldn’t like what Claremont has evolved into.

“He is adamant that the Claremont Institute has turned against his father’s teachings,” Zerofsky reports. “He cited an essay by Christopher Caldwell about Robert E. Lee that The Claremont Review ran last spring, which called Lee the ‘moral force of half the nation.’ Philip noted that this directly contradicted his father’s teachings. ‘I have come to watch the Claremont Institute embody the very things that my father criticized in the conservative movement,’ Philip Jaffa told me when I spoke with him.”

READ MORE:**[**A libertarian pinpoints the disturbing desire for 'herrenvolk democracy' that has taken hold of the GOP

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Angry Right-Wing Moms Are Trying to Have Librarians Arrested by “Constitutional Sheriffs”

BY JESSICA PISHKO

NOV 04, 2022

Pippin wearing a "Moms for Liberty" shirt and placing her hands over stacks of books.

Jennifer Pippin, president of the Indian River County chapter of Moms for Liberty, helped launch a criminal investigation of her local school library, seeking to criminalize Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, among other books. Giorgio Viera/Getty Images

In March, special counsel to the sheriff of Hamilton County, Tennessee, Coty Wamp, was campaigning for district attorney when she met with a group of parents calling themselves Moms for Liberty. Wamp said afterwards that she had facilitated a meeting between the “parents’ rights” group and the sheriff’s office because she thought law enforcement could help the group in its goal of banning books. “I think that there’s going to come a time with some of these books where it crosses a criminal line,” Wamp said. “It’s called contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” Wamp won that promotion to district attorney and was one of the earliest law enforcement figures to begin to establish a frightening new alliance between far-right sheriff’s offices and the radical right-wing parent’s group seeking to upend America’s educational system.

After Wamp’s meeting, she did not shy away from the possibility of filing charges for “criminal” books, although she later told Jezebel that she did not intend to suggest she was going to go about arresting librarians. Whatever her actual intentions, the alliance Wamp sought to foster is a dangerous one and one that is spreading.

Across the country, members of Mothers for Liberty, a far-right group focused on banning library books and whitewashing school curricula, have appealed to sheriffs as allies in these goals. Much like the partnerships between sheriffs and militia members, or sheriffs and election deniers, this alliance is another example of how sheriffs have become the arm of the law willing to enforce the radical agenda of the far-right. It also shows how determined groups like M4L are to be seen as having legal legitimacy—and how willing sheriffs are to provide it.

I have spent the past few years reporting on far-right sheriffs and their allies and confidants. One notable change since 2020 has been the increasing number of women who identify with the politics of far-right groups like the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association. While most people associate groups like CSPOA with hyper-masculine-fueled violence, women are often key facilitators between these groups and voters.

Much of this alliance emerged during the pandemic, when far-right parent groups opposed masking in schools. On forums like Facebook, these parents, mostly mothers, passed around information about the so-called constitutional sheriff movement, citing its members as potential allies. This blossomed into an anti-public-school movement focused on altering classroom curricula to eliminate material about racism, sex, or LGBTQ people; policing classrooms and libraries; eliminating requirements for all forms of vaccines as well as masking for COVID; and pushing parents to embrace home-schooling as an ideal way to escape federal and state government indoctrination.

While many anti-mask and election conspiracy rallies were filled with men clad in military-style apparel and carrying long guns, women presented a softer side and turned out in equal—if not stronger—numbers, in my observation. During the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association’s “Arise USA Resurrection Tour” last year, the two women founders of Freedom Angels appeared onstage to talk not just about resisting mask and vaccine orders but also about establishing entire communities free from government regulation, like food co-ops and alternative home-schooling. Large public events sponsored by CSPOA drew crowds approaching gender parity.

Moms 4 Liberty—their slogan is “Parents’ Rights”—is just one of these influential women-led groups. It was formed in Florida by Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice after both lost their reelection campaigns for their respective local school boards. Their latest conference theme was “Joyful Warriors,” another example of how far-right women mitigate the toxic masculinity associated with groups like the Oath Keepers, border militias, and the Proud Boys. According to recent reporting by Mother Jones, the group now claims 100,000 members across 38 states.

While M4L has been accused of various direct actions like harassing local school board officials with emails, calls, and threats, it has lately begun to approach county sheriffs as a way to legitimize its grievances and gain actual traction in criminal courts. Granted, it hasn’t been too successful yet. But these alliances suggest that should it not achieve its goals via democratic means, M4L is perfectly willing to find its own firepower.

One strategy has been to bring criminal complaints to sympathetic sheriffs, which become “sex crime” investigations, further spreading the QAnon-influenced anxieties that children are being recruited or brainwashed by sex predators presenting as progressives. In the spring, Jennifer Pippin, who is an M4L chapter chair, filed a criminal complaint against a school library in Indian River County, Florida, for failing to remove dozens of books flagged by the members as inappropriate. The original list of books for examination included more than 150 titles, and while some were removed, not all of them were. In an email, Pippin told a member of the school board that she was focused on “ALL of the books currently in the libraries that have sex, rape, drugs etc etc in them that need to be removed immediately so they don’t get into the hands of anymore students in our district.” She threatened, “I’m holding all of you accountable.”

Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers—who last year was aSheriff Fellow at the far-right think tank Claremont Institute—assigned a sergeant to investigate the issue, reviewing emails between an M4L representative and various local officials. There were even annotated pages of the books in question, including sections of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a 2005 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer about a 9-year-old boy whose father is killed in the 9/11 attacks. (The book has been the subject of previous attacks by some parents since it was published.) The pages are annotated with handwritten notes like “sexual encounter” and “masterbation.”

The six-week investigation resulted in a 74-page report, which concluded that “no crime occurred.” Whether patently unconstitutional charges are ultimately filed in cases like these, though, is not the issue. The chilling effect of the threat is.

That threat is real. In a letter to the school superintendent, Flowers wrote that “the totality of the circumstances do not allow us to make an arrest in this case,” but added, “We do not feel that this content is appropriate for young children even though it does not rise to the level of a crime.” Flowers then recommended “stricter oversight” for children’s books.

Other sheriffs—especially those in Florida, where M4L began and has garnered support from Gov. Ron DeSantis—have conducted similar investigations into so-called dirty books, and while no criminal charges have resulted thus far, they indicate that going to the sheriff is an accepted strategy. In Flagler County, Florida, another M4L member filed an almost identical complaint to Pippin’s. And in Polk County, Florida, a dark money group called County Citizens Defending Freedom funded a series of complaints about books (under the guise of citizen complaints) to Sheriff Grady Judd, who deemed the material “vile and nasty and inappropriate” but not pornographic. Judd added that the matter was “under review to determine if there will be a criminal investigation” based on additional complaints, which all appear to have stemmed from the same dark money group that produced the initial complaints.

Sheriff candidates in many counties are also courting M4L members as political allies, appearing alongside them at events, providing legal legitimacy to their fears, and contributing to the spread of misinformation. Sheriff Wayne Ivey of Brevard County, who was recently exposed for potentially trying to bribe political candidates he did not like to exit races and endorse his preferred candidates, has embraced M4L-allied members for school board.

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, Sheriff Vic Regalado did an April speaking event with an M4L county chair in which he supplied background on “applicable laws,” explaining that many criminal laws do not apply to book banning, even things that would “make a normal person puke.” He noted, however, regarding a book of poetry, “If an individual on the streets of Tulsa, Oklahoma, were showing this to a child, they would be in cuffs like that”—snapping his fingers—“and they would be prosecuted, but I don’t know that they would be convicted in today’s world.”

“This is now accepted,” he continued, waving a page around, arguing that a jury would be unlikely to convict because “a lot of parents are apathetic,” and blaming in particular single mothers. He ended by promising to consult with the district attorney about “how we can insert law enforcement into this thing.”

It might seem unusual to have elected law enforcement—especially in a time of much-hyped fears of violent crime and alleged understaffing—insert themselves into whether a book should be in a school library. Sheriffs, as politicians, need not justify the use of their resources, though, whether they are used to solve murders, investigate non-existent election fraud, or thoroughly report out whether Jonathan Safran Foer’s book about 9/11 is too sexy for the youths.

The alliance between sheriffs and M4L makes further levels of political sense as well. Local police chiefs are unlikely to be allies, as their budgets are scrutinized by city leadership and they tend to be in larger cities. Sheriffs serve longer terms than police chiefs and are politicians at heart, having the ability to deploy time and personnel however they see fit, with little if any oversight. And even if there were oversight, in most states where M4L is active, it has the support of state actors and other powerful politicians. Investigating a school book is both safe, easy, and popular in these jurisdictions, especially compared with solving actual crime.

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https://theweek.com/politics/1003035/the-far-right-contemplates-an-american-caesar

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OPINION

The intellectual right contemplates an 'American Caesar'

Jan. 6 was a badly planned rehearsal for the real deal

Damon Linker

JULY 28, 2021

How does ideological change happen? Why do certain political ideas and possibilities that appear outrageous and even unthinkable at one moment in history come to be considered options worth taking seriously? What causes the Overton window to shift dramatically in one direction or another?

The answer has something to do with the dynamics of partisan coalitions. To cite a fairly anodyne example, Ronald Reagan took over the Republican Party in 1980 by expanding the GOP's appeal to the right as well as to the center-left. Those who supported Gerald Ford in 1976 were joined by conservative activists who had passionately favored Barry Goldwater in 1964, right-wing populists in the South and Midwest who had cast ballots for George Wallace in 1968, and the more moderate voters across the country who came to be called "Reagan Democrats." The result was broad-based support for deep tax cuts, sharply increased defense spending, and amped up confrontation with the Soviet Union — a synthesis of positions that seemed to be a non-starter just a few years earlier but which, thanks to Reagan's political skills and their intersection with contingent changes in political culture, became a stable ideological and electoral configuration of the GOP for the next 36 years.

The GOP has shed a lot of voters (as a share of the electorate) since its high-water mark in 1984. But with the rise of Donald Trump, the shape of the party's coalition also began to change. Some of the shift has been class-based, with white and Latino voters lacking a college degree flocking to the Republican Party and highly educated urban and suburban voters fleeing it.

But Trump also actively courted the right-wing fringe — the militia movement, quasi-paramilitary groups like the Proud Boys, neo-Nazis, overt racists, and outright xenophobes. These voters are a tiny portion of the party, but they punch above their weight, as we learned on Jan. 6, when a small handful of these extremists took the lead in initiating the mayhem and violence on Capitol Hill that afternoon while most of the intruders simply followed along rather cluelessly. (This point, along with much else in this column, is elaborated with depth and insight in the "Aftermath of January 6th" episode of the consistently excellent Know Your Enemy podcast.)

With most Republican officeholders and media personalities refusing to condemn the actions of the insurrectionary mob that invaded the Capitol to stop congressional certification of the 2020 election results — or Trump's decisive role in inciting that mob — and some of them instead endorsing an evidence-free conspiracy involving the "deep state" and the FBI, the GOP has verified that the Overton window has shifted sharply to the right. What would have until quite recently been considered unacceptable forms of political dissent have been legitimized. That's how the once unthinkable becomes a new normal.

A parallel process of line-shifting has been unfolding among conservative intellectuals, most of whom responded to the launch of Trump's presidential campaign six years ago with a mixture of disgust and incredulity. The dismissal didn't last. While many shifted to the center and refused to endorse Trump's hostile takeover of the party, plenty of others went along with it, adjusting their prior positions to bring them into alignment with the nominee on policy and attitude. No commentator did so with more enthusiasm or popular impact than Michael Anton.

A former director of communications for New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (where he was briefly my boss) and former speechwriter for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Anton penned the most notorious and rhetorically scalding case for supporting Trump. Published in early September 2016 in the Claremont Review of Books online, "The Flight 93 Election" portrayed Trump as a final, last-ditch opportunity for conservatives to wrest control of the country back from those (like Hillary Clinton) who aimed at nothing less than its thoroughgoing destruction.Rush Limbaugh paid tribute to the power of the argument (and amplified it for a vastly larger audience) by reading the essay aloud, paragraph by paragraph, on his radio show. In doing so, Anton, with Limbaugh's help, gave legions of Trump-skeptical conservatives permission to vote, even to express outright enthusiasm, for the untested right-wing populist.

After Trump's victory, Anton went on to serve the new president on the National Security Council. That lasted a little more than a year. Once he had left the White House, Anton returned to writing and speaking publicly in defense of Trump and in favor of his re-election. Two months before the 2020 vote, he predicted an attempted "coup" from the left if Democrat Joe Biden didn't prevail.When events unfolded in precisely the opposite way — with Trump losing the vote, refusing to accept the result, and attempting a hapless coup of his own to stay in power — Anton said nothing to acknowledge either the irony or the error. Quite the opposite, in fact. In the months since Trump left office, Anton has been doing his best to throw open the doors of the conservative intellectual world to ideas once considered far too extreme for American politics.

How extreme? So extreme that in late May, Anton set aside nearly two hours on his Claremont Institute podcast ("The Stakes") for an erudite, wide-ranging discussion withself-described monarchist Curtis Yarvin about why the United States needs an "American Caesar" to seize control of the federal government, and precisely how such a would-be dictator could accomplish the task.

With this conversation, Anton seems eager to shift the Overton window far beyond anything resembling liberal democracy. In its place, he would substitute an elaborate, historically and philosophically sophisticated justification for tyranny.

It's important right at the outset to make a few things clear about the Anton-Yarvin conversation. First, Anton doesn't explicitly endorseYarvin's most outlandish ideas, which blend a far-right love of unlimited executive power with the techno-utopianism of Silicon Valley. (Yarvin created the Urbit digital platform and co-founded the tech company Tion, while also gaining considerable notoriety with the alt-right blog "Unqualified Reservations," written under the pen name Mencius Moldbug.)

In fact, at several points Anton goes out of his way to declare in a tone of mock seriousness that as someone affiliated with the Claremont Institute, which has long advocated for a return to the principles of the American founding (including the Declaration of Independence's denunciations of monarchical tyranny), he can't stand behind Yarvin's sympathy for dictatorship. Yet it's also true that at no point does Anton offer a substantive critique of Yarvin's arguments and assertions. He merely expresses pragmatic or tactical objections, as if the primary fault in Yarvin's ideas is that they are unrealistic.

Then there's the matter of terminology. I have described Anton's conversation with Yarvin as helping to shift the Overton window away from liberal democracy and toward a defense of tyranny. Yet this isn't how either man understands the American present. Rather, they agree early on in the podcast (around minute 24) that the current American "regime" is most accurately described as a "theocratic oligarchy" in which an elite class of progressive "priests" ensconced in the bureaucracies of the administrative state, and at Harvard, The New York Times, and other leading institutions of civil society, promulgate and enforce their own version of "reality."

Anton and Yarvin treat this assertion as given and then proceed to talk through how this theocratic oligarchy might be overturned. (One of their substantive disagreements concerns how long this regime might last if it's not directly challenged. Anton is hopeful it will collapse of its own incompetence and corruption, while Yarvin thinks the current "clown world" could continue onward for decades or even a century, with the United States slowly decaying into something resembling a Third World country.)

Once the conversation really gets going (around minute 45), Yarvin makes clear that he has a highly idiosyncratic take on American history. In his view, roughly every 75 years, a "Caesar" seizes dictatorial powers and institutes "substantive regime changes." George Washington did this in 1789. Abraham Lincoln did it again in 1861. And FDR did it last in 1933, speaking in the closing passages of his First Inaugural Address about the national emergency of the Great Depression and the need to wield unprecedented government power to combat it, which he did with the New Deal.The U.S. today is overdue for its next political transformation — one that would settle the country's "cold civil war" from above.

Yarvin's top choice to become the next American Caesar is Elon Musk, though both men acknowledge that he's constitutionally ineligible for the role because he was born in South Africa. This provides an occasion for them both to joke about how great it would be for him to run, win, and demand to be made president anyway, in defiance of the Constitution. (Anton makes sure to clarify that their jovial chit-chat about flagrantly disregarding the letter of the Constitution is "not an endorsement" of actually doing so. Later on, they likewise joke about how great it would have been for Trump to declare himself the personal embodiment of the "living Constitution.")

But what exactly is Yarvin proposing and Anton entertaining here? Is it nothing more ominous than a New Deal from the right? As the conversation unfolds further, beginning around an hour and twenty minutes into the podcast, it becomes clear that Yarvin has something much more radical in mind (even if his peculiar constellation of assumptions prevent him from recognizing just how extreme it is).

The trick, for Yarvin, is for the would-be American Caesar to exercise emergency powers from day one. How? Caesar should run for president promising to do precisely this, and then announce the national emergency in his inaugural address, encouraging every state government to do the same. Taking advantages of "ambiguities" in the Constitution, he will immediately act to federalize the national guard around the country and welcome backup from sympathetic members of the police (who will wear armbands to signal their support for Caesar).

When federal agencies refuse to go along, Yarvin suggests, Caesar (whom he now begins referring to as "Trump") will use a "Trump app" to communicate directly with his 80 million supporters on their smart phones, using notifications to tell them that "this agency isn't following my instructions," which will prompt them to rally at the proper building, with the crowd "steered around by a joystick by Trump himself," forming a "human barricade around every federal building, supporting Trump's lawful authority." Where maybe 20,000 people stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, millions responding to the Trump app would be much more effective — a modern-day version of the paramilitary groups that ensured Lincoln's safety during the hard-fought, dangerous 1860 campaign for president that preceded the Civil War (and the president's subsequent suspension of habeas corpus and shuttering of hundreds of newspapers).

When Anton asks how Trump-Caesar should respond to Harvard, The New York Times, and the rest of the theocratic oligarchy blaring air-raid sirens about the imposition of dictatorship, Yarvin indicates that it would be essential to "smash it" with one blow.To suggest that Caesar should be required to deal with "someone else's department of reality is manifestly absurd." Going on, Yarvin explains that "when Caesar crosses the Rubicon, he doesn't sit around getting his feet wet, fishing. He marches straight across the Rubicon" and uses "all force available." Once that happens, the whole world can be "remade."

The podcast concludes with Anton quoting another Claremont writer (Angelo Codevilla) on how Trump dropped "the leadership of the deplorables," which is waiting to be picked up by someone "who will make Trump seem moderate." Yarvin responds approvingly with a quote by Serbian dictator and indicted genocidal war criminal Slobodan Milošević, who said the goal should be that "no one will dare to beat you anymore."

Defenders of Anton, Yarvin, and the Claremont Institute will say that this thoroughly appalling discussion was just that — some casual talk, idle musings, a fantasy disconnected from reality. Yet fantasies are outgrowths of our imaginations and hopes, and they help set our expectations, including our conception of what is possible and desirable in politics.

The indisputable fact is that a leading and longstanding conservative institute in the United States hosts a podcast by someone who served as a senior official in the presidential administration of a man who may run again for the nation's highest office in a few years. And on an episode of that podcast, this former official and his invited guest genially rehearsed arguments about why a future president would be justified in turning himself into a tyrant, and how he could set about accomplishing this task.

Which means that on the starboard side of American politics, the Overton window has now shifted far beyond the boundaries of democratic self-government to a place broadly coterminous with fascism.

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According to a report from the Washington Post, the California-based think tank that was home to Donald Trump attorney John Eastman is reeling after having its reputation irreparably damaged by sticking by him after it was revealed he was one of the main architects of the Jan 6th insurrection and riotthat shocked the nation.

As the report notes, the Claremont Institute in Upland was previously known for a staid "America-first, originalist ideology" as it pumped out position papers for conservative policymakers.

As the WaPo's Marc Fisher and Isaac Stanley-Becker wrote, the institute jumped on to the Trump bandwagon,with some misgivings in 2016, and some members are ruing the day after Eastman became a central figure in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election -- and then the institute hesitated before disavowing him and his work.

"In the final months of 2020, he [Eastman] burst into the national consciousness as he helped lead Trump’s drive to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He wrote confidential memos urging then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject official electoral vote totals and went on former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon’s show to build support for his widely discredited theory.And, on Jan. 6, he rallied Trump supporters at the Ellipse before a mob stormed the Capitol," the report states before adding that he later "he fell from grace" and was forced to resign from Chapman University where he had previously served as the dean of the law school.

Until recent events overtook him, the Claremont Institute stood by him, at one time issuing a statement in support by condemning the “widespread lies peddled by malicious domestic political opponents” while complaining about the “blackout on the Claremont Institute or on John.”

All of that has changed now, the report states, as one former institute fellow lamented, "How on Earth does Eastman get to this point of being ready to jettison the Constitution?” It’s by pushing deeper into this idea of natural rights, which justify any means necessary to preserve the republic. … That’s how Claremont goes from this quirky intellectual outfit to one of the main intellectual architects of trying to overthrow the republic.”

According to Charles Kesler — a senior fellow at the institute -- "I’m persuaded that John was wrong in the advice he gave Trump. ... Whether his actions will hurt us or not, I’m not sure. It’s awkward and it raises some questions.”

Ralph Rossum, who oversaw Eastman’s PhD work at Claremont Graduate University, claimed too much damage has been done.

“His reputation is in tatters, and the institute is badly damaged,” he stated before adding that some of Eastman's former admirers at the institute, "... are grappling with how to gracefully separate themselves from him.”

According to the report, one outsider thinks the institute will survive the reputational damage.

"There’s been a subtle retreat from Eastman,” explained David Swartz, a sociologist at Boston University, “but the institute is doing well despite the publicity about Eastman. Their network of influence continues to spread.”

According to longtime conservative commentator Bill Kristol, the Claremont Institute "saw Trump as a vehicle for their ambitions,” adding, "They always had a streak of radicalism, which could be provocative and interesting.”

"They had a big impact in legitimizing the demagoguery, the mean-spirited willingness to demonize outsider groups,” he suggested.

You can read more here.

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west va v epa

BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE THE CLAREMONT INSTITUTE’S CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL JURISPRUDENCE IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS

JOHN C. EASTMANANTHONY T. CASO Counsel of Record CONSTITUTIONAL COUNSEL GROUP 174 W. Lincoln Ave., #620 Anaheim, CA 92805 (916) 601-1916 atcaso@ccg1776.com

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Fani Willis:

On Tuesday,subpoenas were served to seven Trump World confederates:Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), who also phoned Raffensperger on behalf of the brooding soon-to-be-ex-commander in chief; Trump's television attorney Rudy Giuliani and his associate Jenna Ellis; coup architectJohn Eastman (who was behind the coordinated campaign to send fraudulent slates of electors to Washington from multiple swing states that Trump lost); as well as three lesser-known lawyers – Jacki Pick Deason, Kenneth Chesebro, and Cleta Mitchell – the latter of whom was present for Trump's clandestine chat with Raffensperger.

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EASTMAN justifies election fuckery b/c deep state , also says secret compartment of bogus votes in machinesGUK

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/john-eastman-2020/

The Trump advisor who wrote the infamous pseudo-legal justification for overturning the 2020 election also helped to create a blueprint for what Donald Trump could do to hang onto power by force.

John Eastman joined a couple dozen right-wing operatives in simulating the aftermath of a closely contested election. The report was published in mid-October 2020 and co-sponsored by the Claremont Institute, the think tank where Eastman works.

The authors of the report are clear their simulation had a very serious purpose: to prepare real public officials for real violence in the event of a disputed election. The authors say they fully expected the necessary preparations to crush dissent would be perceived as the run-up to a military coup. But in their view, that couldn't be helped. It was important to come up with legal justifications for overwhelming political violence before the election, they said.

The report is a blueprint for how Donald Trump could fuse federal power, local police and criminal gangs like the Proud Boys to hang onto power. It seems to foreshadow Eastman's plan for a procedural coup on January 6, except projected onto Biden supporters.

The Claremont simulation started from the assumption that left wing violence was a "near-certainty" and that Trump's Defense Department, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security must be prepared to crush Biden supporters in the event of a contested election.

The simulation starts from the following half-baked premise: All the networks call the contest for Biden on Election Night, because he appears to have won Texas, bringing his electoral vote total to 270.

Somehow, all the networks fail to notice that Russia had taken the entire electoral apparatus of Texas offline before all the votes came in. (This wouldn't get past Steve Kornacki, let me tell you.) Texas goes back in the "too close to call" column. Biden is still two electoral votes ahead, but the nation explodes with rioting and arson by "antifa" and Black Lives Matter. Fourteen police officers are shot on election night.

Thus begins Choose Your Own Adventure: Death Squads. There's an elaborate procedural and legal backstory about how an uncertain Election Night metastasizes into a constitutional crisis to be worked out probably by the Supreme Court, but I won't bore you with it because it's obviously a figleaf. This is a manual for state violence.

With the nation in flames, the players have Trump's Department of Defense deploy military personnel carriers to multiple states, which local mayors rudely call "tanks." These pesky mayors aren't cooperating with the Trump administration's desire to clamp down on dissent.

So, their police departments go completely rogue and join forces with the Trump administration. The NYPD seems to have overthrown Bill De Blasio. The Chicago Police Union refuses to protect Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Federal law enforcement with no identifying insignias encircle the White House to defend it with heat rays.The Proud Boys, Three Percenters and Oath Keepers form posses to "assist."

Tellingly, Eastman and his fellow players assume that pro-Biden forces will try to gather at the Capitol on January 6. So they thwart their political adversaries by tracking their phones, setting up police checkpoints and using Trump's Homeland Security fusion centers to identify and detain their leaders. The players protect the Capitol with an army of federal agents, snipers and of course more heat rays. Trump's FBI hunts down more antifa leaders in the DC suburbs.

War games often reveal more about the players than they do about the future, and this exercise is no exception. The report shows that John Eastman and his confederates expected a disputed election would set off a wave of civil unrest that would culminate in the US Capitol on January 6, supported by insurrections at key state houses that same day. The report projected this strategy onto Biden supporters, but that's exactly what Trump confederates did on January 6.

A showdown on January 6 might feel inevitable in retrospect, given the horrific events of that day. But it wasn't an obvious choice. January 6 was the date of the certification of the presidential election, which has historically been a pro-forma affair. Results have already been decided.

The states have certified their election results, the Electoral College already has voted and all that's left to be done is the little ceremony during which the Congress counts the electoral votes. It doesn't make sense to have your last stand to win a contested election after the results are already set in stone, unless you think you can change them.

John Eastman did in fact come up with a crackpot legal excuse for how Mike Pence could throw the election to Trump. His argument was to the law as creationism is to biology, but it was good enough for Trump. We know Trump pressured Pence to act on Eastman's advice. Eastman shared a dais with Trump as well as Rudy Giuliani at the rally immediately before the siege. The crowd was chanting "Hang Mike Pence," because Pence had refused to comply with Eastman's scheme.

Eastman later claimed he wasn't serious about the memo, but the results of this simulation suggests he and fellow right-wingers had sized up the certification of the presidential election as their moment to stage a procedural coup with physical reinforcements waiting.

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https://www.thebulwark.com/the-decay-at-the-claremont-institute-continues/

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when the Claremont Institute, America’s Trumpiest think tank, is in the news nowadays, it is mostly because of John Eastman, the institute senior fellow who wrote the notorious “coup memos” for Donald Trump.Last month, a federal judge ruled that Eastman and Trump were likely involved in a criminal conspiracy together. The ruling arose from a civil suit concerning Eastman’s claim that some of his documents should not be disclosed to the House Jan. 6th Committee, and the judge only opined on possible criminal behavior because it factored into the narrow decision regarding Eastman’s claims. Still, the ruling is an important reminder of what was at stake with Eastman’s work for Trump: nothing less than a concerted effort to overturn a democratic election and thwart the peaceful transfer of power, which, had it succeeded, would have brought on a major constitutional crisis. The judge ordered Eastman to hand over to the committee 101 documents he had been withholding, and Eastman has grumblingly said he will comply—although he now wants to withhold another big batch.

The Eastman saga has been the most prominent Claremont Institute-related drama in recent weeks, but it hasn’t been the only one. The institute’s descent into Trumpian trolling, conspiracism, and fringe extremism has continued to have bizarre ripple effects. It is worth taking a look at some episodes of the last few weeks and what they reveal about the institute’s character—and how Claremont’s leaders seem to understand that character themselves.

Last month, theAmerican Mind, the Claremont Institute’s web magazine, published an article called “The Decline is Real.” Brimming with male sexual anxiety, the piece discusses some research suggesting that testosterone levels and sperm levels are falling in Western populations. It edges up close to replacement theory. And it gripes about “clownworld”—“Soy boys. Simps. Plant-based lifestyles. Polyamory. Incels. Furries. Et cetera… honk honk!”—and suggests that the “dissident right” is “unique[ly]” well suited to making men manly.

But the problem with the piece is less its content than the author’s background. The American Mind has made something of a habit of publishing pseudonymous writers: “Peachy Keenan,” “The Huntsman,” “Horatius,” “Rebecca,” “Privata,” and others. So it is, too, with the article worried about Western man’s sperm count—but its pseudonymous author, “Raw Egg Nationalist,” stands apart for having recently published a book with a Nazi publishing house. As in: a publishing house that is infatuated with Adolf Hitler.

I wish I were joking or exaggerating. What Raw Egg Nationalist’s American Mind byline doesn’t tell you is that his Raw Egg Nationalism Cookbookis published by Antelope Hill Publishing. Antelope Hill is a small publishing house that translates and publishes books like A New Nobility of Blood and Soil, by Richard Walther Darré, described in this way on the Antelope Hill site:

Richard Walther Darré, an Obergruppenführer in the SS, was the leading “Blood and Soil” ideologist of Germany and served his people as Reich Minister of Food and Agriculture. This book,A New Nobility of Blood and Soil, was massively popular in the Third Reich and led to a strengthening of the agrarian and agriculturalist movements. Highly influential on Hitler, the principles in this book are foundational to the National Socialist worldview.

Antelope Hill, we learn, is proud to present this new translation of Darré’s book, which is the first English-language edition. A *Daily Beast* article from January referred to Antelope Hill as “openly fascist”; a blog that tracks reactionary racism labeled it “a white supremacist publishing company”; and Amazon has faced calls to stop selling its products. The Antelope Hill Twitter and Instagram feeds contain promotional material that playfully celebrates “uncle Hitler.” To celebrate Hitler’s birthday yesterday, Antelope Hill offered a discount on all its books, and an even bigger discount on a collection of Hitler’s speeches, with the cutesy discount code “birthday_boy”:

The Claremont Institute seems to have no qualms publishing one of Antelope Hill’s main authors.

And it is impossible to believe that the publishers of the American Mind do not understand who Raw Egg Nationalist is and what he stands for.

For one thing, he appeared as recently as November 11 of last year on Jack Murphy’s podcast. Murphy was a Lincoln Fellow at the institute last summer, and numerous prominent Claremont folks have come on his podcast since its inception in 2018. For example, Matthew Peterson, the founder and original editor of the American Mind, was Murphy’s guest a couple of weeks before Raw Egg Nationalist, and Glenn Ellmers, a Claremont senior fellow, was on the show a few days before that.

Other Claremonters Murphy has hosted include Ryan Williams (president of the Claremont Institute); Thomas G. West (senior fellow and a member of Claremont’s board of directors); Spencer Klavan (an editor at the Claremont Review of Books and features editor at the American Mind); Jack Posobiec (2019 Lincoln Fellow); Michael Anton (Claremont senior fellow); Christopher Caldwell (Claremont senior fellow); Dave Reaboi (Claremont fellow and 2012 Lincoln Fellow); and Arthur Milikh (executive director of Claremont’s Center for the American Way of Life). Several of Murphy’s other guests have been alumni of Claremont’s fellowship programs, including Breitbart writer Allum Bokhari, anti-critical-race-theory activist Christopher Rufo, and Trumpist conspiracy theorist Darren Beattie.

In short: Jack Murphy is a Claremont intimate, and his hosting Raw Egg Nationalist is another indication that the latter is a known quantity to the Claremont crowd.

Murphy’s interview with Raw Egg Nationalist is, unsurprisingly, offensive. The two men share an interest in bodybuilding as a way of life; during a discussion of the relationship between mind, body, and aesthetics, Murphy asks Raw Egg Nationalist to explain how he understands the relationship between physiognomy and politics. Raw Egg Nationalist says:

I think that it’s difficult . . . today not to see just how closely linked together nutrition and lifestyle and political orientation are. . . . Bring up all of the mug shots from the “mostly peaceful protests” of last summer and you’ll see that all of these people look the same. I mean, they are hideously ugly, malformed people.

Raw Egg Nationalist concludes that the left has abandoned all concerns with health and “is for a kind of dysgenic existence.” It follows, then, that, “the right, or some people on the right and some traditionalists, just have to be for a healthy physical lifestyle. I think it’s that simple.”

Murphy agrees: “It really is. And I was out on the streets during all the riots in Washington, D.C., and I’ve seen the protesters right up front.”

The exchange, which takes place ten minutes into their conversation, offers a crystal-clear glimpse of this Claremont writer’s character, in case his choice of publishing house isn’t already enough of a tell.

it’s worth saying more about Jack Murphy.

Murphy is a prominent influencer in the “Manosphere” and the founder of a secretive manliness club called the Liminal Order. “Jack Murphy” is also a pseudonym. His real name is reportedly John Goldman, a fact that became common knowledge in December of last year following salacious revelations about his past.

In 2018, Murphy wrote a blog post about sending his girlfriend to have sex with a stranger from Tinder. This became known as Murphy’s cuck article,” and it caused a stir on the right—both the family-values right and the cult-of-masculinity right. It further turned out that Murphy had participated in amateur pornography, and that he had been placed on administrative leave from a job with Washington, D.C.’spublic charter schools for wildly misogynist and racist screeds he had posted online.

The revelations about Murphy/Goldman received coverage last December from conservative journalists like Rod Dreher at the American Conservative, Mary Harrington at UnHerd, and Megan Fox at PJ Media. (This scrutiny came after an earlier period of wagon-circling: Two months earlier, one Twitter user was blocked by several prominent Catholic integralists after he criticized their acceptance of Murphy.)

But a far more tragic story was unfolding right around the time of Murphy’s scandals: On December 27, a deadly shooting spree in Denver left six people dead, including the alleged shooter, Lyndon McLeod.

Before the tragedy, McLeod was a far-right novelist who wrote under the pseudonym Roman McClay. The Denver shootings followed the plot of his novels, and two of his victims were mentioned by name in the books.

McLeod was also a fan of Jack Murphy’s, and he even appears to have been a member of Murphy’s club, the Liminal Order.

What’s more, Murphy returned the future mass shooter’s admiration. In an online post from February 2020, he deemed Roman McClay’s work “an epic three volume masterpiece.” (He praised the work of reactionary writers Bronze Age Pervert and Curtis Yarvin in the same context.) After the Denver shootings, even Anthony Dream Johnson, the self-professed “President of the Manosphere,” was willing to denounce Jack Murphy. But Claremont stayed mum.

To summarize: One of Claremont’s future Lincoln fellows had an unconventional sexual relationship with his girlfriend that he wrote about publicly, created pornography, broadcast truly vile racist and misogynist views, and celebrated the violent fictions of a person who would later use them as a roadmap for conducting his own mass shooting.

you will recall Murphy’s Claremont-heavy roster of podcast guests before his scandals in December. The description for one of those episodes contains this intriguing line: “Ryan Williams, The President of the Claremont Institute, explains to Jack Murphy why they engaged with Bronze Age Pervert, Curtis Yarvin, and Jack Posobiec.”

The interview took place in March 2020, the month after Murphy praised McLeod’s violent novels. Much of it is dedicated to standard-fare Claremont grievance-mongering against identity politics, multiculturalism, and the left. But almost an hour into the conversation, Murphy does ask Williams directly why Claremont decided to engage with “underground new media figures” like Bronze Age Pervert (BAP), Yarvin, Posobiec, and himself.

First, he praises Williams for Claremont’s engagements with “your grassroots population,” mentioning Michael Anton’s review of Bronze Age Pervert’s book in the Claremont Review of Books and a BAP symposium at the American Mind. “This was, like, a big signal to me that you guys understood the landscape,” Murphy says. “So can you tell me how the Bronze Age Pervert connection came to be?… How did it all work out? Would you do it again?”

Williams is prepared for this. Beginning cautiously, he says that he and others had noticed BAP’s “weird little book” floating around among young folks on the right and wanted to talk to Claremont’s “very boomer” audience about it as a youth phenomenon. He also wanted to communicate the way “some of his older peers and fellow travelers at Claremont talked about politics and took seriously this energy amongst the young on the right that was sort of up for grabs.”

Williams acknowledges the dangers involved in making these overtures, and says that Claremont traditionally stands for equal rights and believes reactionary politics is a “dead end.” He appears to suggest that his goal in engaging BAP’s audience was to show them an alternative approach and outlook.

But soon Williams starts to hedge. Sounding increasingly sympathetic to what Murphy calls the “grassroots,” he praises BAP’s book as a piece of philosophical art, and admits that they published Anton’s piece in part “to stir things up.” He concedes that Claremont had something to prove: that “we weren’t just fusionist Reagan Republicans,” but are instead “open to new ideas” and “not . . . afraid of the arguments that are gaining some traction on the right.”

Then Williams takes a more evangelical turn. He talks about how important it is to bring eclectic and heterodox thinkers like Yarvin to new readers in order to “continue the conversation.” He and Murphy gloat about how these thinkers have influence in Trump’s White House. Williams argues that the very online landscape of the New Right is an “increasingly huge thing” that is quickly replacing and delegitimizing the old media. After windily defending the right-wing conspiracy theoristJack Posobiecas “nothing but a gentleman and respectful, an engaged discussant in our seminar and a family man,” Williams insists on the importance of engaging seriously with “this new media landscape” and “this growing cohort of people with huge influence.”

He resumes a cautious stance at the end of the episode. In case the audience has forgotten, Williams reminds listeners that Claremont hopes to be the teacher and fearless influencer in its relationship with Murphy’s “grassroots,” not the one being taught and influenced.

Murphy, though, heard things differently: “I really commend you guys for . . . the direction you’re taking the organization. I respect it. It got my attention. If the Bronze Age Pervert thing was meant to be a bat-signal to the young and new right and the internet right—well, we heard it, we saw it, here we are.”

Williams chuckles at the mention of the bat-signal and doesn’t object to the characterization of Claremont as inviting Murphy and his ilk into its domain. He thanks Murphy for his public-spiritedness, saying that “America is a better place because of what you do, so keep doing what you do.” The Claremont Institute would accept Murphy as a Lincoln Fellow the following year.

Maybe Raw Egg Nationalist will make the cut for 2022.

this trip through the Claremont underworld ends with a return to a more familiar and respectable side of the institute: a March 17, 2022 episode of the Power Line podcast hosted by Steven Hayward and featuring guests Charles Kesler and John Yoo. Titled “The Claremont Question,” the episode raises explicit questions about the coherence of the organization and the relationships among its various constituents.

Hayward is a resident senior scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley and a graduate of Claremont Graduate School. Kesler is a professor at Claremont McKenna College and the founding editor of Claremont’s premier publication, the Claremont Review of Books. Yoo, a professor at Berkeley Law School, is best known for authoring the Bush administration’s notorious “torture memos,” which made him a figure of perennial controversy. It is a sign of strange times that he is among the least polarizing figures in Claremont’s orbit today.

The title of the episode suggests that the three longtime Claremont associates might address the institute’s efforts to accommodate Murphy’s “grassroots.” But while Ryan Williams showed a measure of confidence and security in responding to Murphy’s questions, this conversation went differently. The 44-minute Power Line talk alternates between chummy banter, outrage at the left, and the occasional nod to non-MAGA realities. It is also full of awkward yuks and guffaws. Hayward, Kesler, and Yoo may represent the Claremont Institute’s old guard—the conservative intellectuals who like to have deep conversations about statesmanship and the Founders and the dangers of progressivism—but they don’t have any of the confidence one might expect from them. A mood of uneasiness prevails. The three men often fall into anxious laughter at one another’s bad jokes.

“My goodness!” Hayward begins. “The Claremont Institute has everybody’s attention these days, and lots of enemies on the left and on the right. . . . I’m not quite sure where to begin!”

After reviewing the facts, he asks Kesler to explain the sources of controversy at Claremont.

From the perspective of, say, Bronze Age Pervert and company, Kesler makes a handful of “normie” admissions: His colleague John Eastman’s plan for Vice President Mike Pence was “impossible” and “not credible”; Jan. 6th was “a terrible stain” on the Trump presidency; Trump should probably cede the stage to a younger Republican to draw a better contrast with Biden. But before Kesler gets to all that, he acknowledges a simpler truth: Trump was a boon for Claremont. Everything is going great at the institute, and some of their good fortune has resulted directly from their public pro-Trump stance. Subscriptions to the CRB are at an all time high and growing, he says. They have real momentum.

But given everything that has been going on at Claremont, the discussion is awfully evasive. For example, while the three men agree on the most salient part of the Eastman debacle—that there was no real dispute over any state electors—they do not grapple with the implications of that admission. Instead, they act as though Eastman’s various legal notions about Pence’s decision-making authority on Jan. 6th are still worth taking seriously. The truth is closer to this: Eastman can interpret the law however he pleases, but because there was no serious dispute about the electors, his ideas are, at best, perfectly irrelevant to the reality of the situation.

Yoo says that Eastman “got the facts wrong but the law right.” Imagine if someone understood the laws governing murder but merely “got the facts wrong” in a given case: it would be the definition of a miscarriage of justice. And when Hayward, Kesler, and Yoo concede that there were no disputed electors, they unwittingly imply that Eastman’s perspective runs closer to delusional fabrication than to serious legal commentary, let alone reasonable advice to a sitting VP with a crucial role to play in the peaceful transfer of power.

Rather than grapple with that truth, the group praises Kesler for expounding the Eastman controversy in the pages of theClaremont Review of Books. They revel in the seriousness of a followup exchange between Eastman and critic Joseph Bessette in the CRB. They take credit for presenting “both sides” of the issue “utterly without snark or invective on either side.” And Kesler prides himself on allowing the magazine not to take a stance on such “very complicated” issues.

To be clear, Bessette’s critique of Eastman’s position is excellent. The problem is that the CRB’s “both-sides” approach launders Eastman’s arguments and gives them false legitimacy.

And what the CRB did for Eastman, Hayward’s Power Line conversation does for Claremont as a whole. The three members of the old guard are reticent about Eastman, their “friend and colleague,” throughout the episode. This reflects a larger unwillingness to attempt a substantive reckoning with Claremont’s recent past.

That past includes plenty of cynical publication decisions—among them, Anton’s solicitous review of Bronze Age Pervert’s book; institutional decisions to grant fellowships to conspiracy theorists and extremist influencers; an eagerness to publish authors too timid to put their real names on their articles, including an author who sends his writing to a Nazi publishing house. Does Charles Kesler think these decisions represent a brave stance on the part of the institute?

Conservatives are very good at calling out instances of excess zeal and censoriousness on the left. But the decline at the Claremont Institute demonstrates inverse dangers: namely, the cratering of accountability and good judgment. The Claremont old guard acts as though the rest of what’s happening at the institute isn’t their concern, and with a few exceptions the intellectuals of the New Right operate the same way with respect to the Claremont Institute: as though there are no right-wing viewpoints or associations that can be unequivocally condemned, no liberal norms that don’t deserve challenging, no fringe that’s too fringey for them.

In its outreach to the Manosphere, in its welcoming of fascist-curious and bigoted Trumpy writers, not to mention its months of support for lies about the last presidential election, the institute is allying itself with some of the most dangerous tendencies in politics.

The Power Line episode ends on a surreal but fitting note:

Steven Hayward (abruptly): Well, we never really did get to the contents of the issue, but that would take us four or five hours. Thank you, Charles; thank you, John.

John Yoo (genuinely surprised): That’s it? It’s over?

Hayward (cheerfully): I think we’ve taxed our listeners long enough with our quips and jests.

Charles Kesler (deadpan): Do you mean to ask . . . is that all there is?

(guffaws all around)

That’s it: no reckoning, no grappling, no calling to account. Instead, we are left with a throwaway reference to a wry little song byPeggy Lee. But “Is That All There Is?” also happens to capture the essence of intellectual life at Claremont today: the carnival atmosphere, the old boys’ club, and the deca

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// heartland reverse engr: we will be destroyed by evil dems, so therefore they did not win/will not rule?

an 3 22

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/far-right-biden-presidency/

a Georgetown University history professor is shedding light on the real reason why far-right Republicans still believe the unfounded claim that President Joe Biden's presidential win was illegitimate.

While its no secret that election conspiracy theories and false claims of widespread voter fraud have run rampant since former President Donald Trump lost his bid for re-election, there is a reason why Republicans "are convinced the outcome of the election was illegitimate regardless of whether or not there were specific procedural irregularities."

In an analysis published via The Guardian, Thomas Zimmer, a Georgetown University history professor with a concentration on the United States' democracy, referenced a controversial essay written from the perspective of a far-right conservative.

The essay, titled “ ‘Conservatism’ is No Longer Enough,” was penned by conservative writer Glenn Ellmers for The Claremont Institute's right-wing publication, American Mind.Zimmer notes:

"It is notable that Ellmers makes no claim that the 2020 election was 'stolen' – he doesn’t allege manipulation, voter fraud, or conspiracy, and in fact explicitly acknowledges that more people voted for Biden than for Trump. He does not peddle conspiracy theories. Yet Ellmers maintains that the outcome of the 2020 election is illegitimate and must not be accepted."

Zimmer then highlighted another key takeaway from Ellmer's piece:

"Ellmers is outraged precisely because he accepts the fact that a majority voted for Biden, that 'authentic Americans' have become the minority in a country which they are supposedly entitled to dominate. Here we have a striking glimpse of the depth of despair underlying the pervasive siege mentality on the right. What’s scandalous about the 2020 election, in this interpretation, is not that it was “stolen”, but that “un-American” forces straightforwardly won."

Zimmer's analysis also delved into the disturbing ideology behind the majority of Republican voters' thinking in regard to Biden being an illegitimate president.

"What is most alarming is the underlying ideology that leads so many on the right to consider Democratic victories invalid – even if they concede there was nothing technically wrong with how the election was conducted," Zimmer wrote. "It has become a core tenet of the Republican worldview to consider the Democratic party as not simply a political opponent, but an enemy pursuing an 'un-American' project of turning what is supposed to be a white Christian patriarchal nation into a land of godless multiracial pluralism."

Zimmer added, "Conversely, Republicans see themselves as the sole proponents of 'real' America, defending the country from the forces of radical leftism, liberalism, and wokeism."

He went on to explain Republicans' beliefs of the Democratic Party. "Even if they don’t subscribe to the more outlandish conspiracies propagated by Trumpists, many Republicans agree that the Democratic party is a fundamentally illegitimate political faction — and that any election outcome that would lead to Democratic governance must be rejected as illegitimate as well."

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guy from OC, standup fail [graduation?]

thatdanesh guy

https://twitter.com/bizartis/status/1453741148204195840

Facebook:

https://facebook.com/zackary.fett

Redoubt Antifascists

@RedoubtAFA

·

Oct 27, 2021

LMAO HE HAS DELETED HIS WEDDING PHOTOS PAGE

https://fetteltothemetal.com/photos

Redoubt Antifascists

@RedoubtAFA

·

Oct 27, 2021

Anyway, this is why Zackary Edward Fettel deleted his wedding website.

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/100216017956

"When do we get to use the guns?’ The police should be able to take that guy’s guns.

BY BRYAN CLARK

The Idaho Statesman, OCTOBER 28, 2021

Excerpt…

The main speaker was Charlie Kirk, the co-founder of Turning Points. Kirk’s hucksterism is obvious. He is a traveling salesman at heart.

Snip…

According to the nonprofit organization’s tax filings, Kirk was paid about $330,000 last year. Turning Points reported earning about $10.3 million from fundraising events, more than a quarter of its total revenue for 2020.

Snip…

The man, claiming the state had fallen into tyranny, asked Kirk: “When do we get to use the guns?” — to applause and cheers from many in the audience.

Then, to remove any doubt that this aspiring Brownshirt wasn’t being metaphorical or facetious but was, in fact, asking when to start murdering political opponents, he continued: “That’s not a joke. I’m not saying it like that. I mean, literally, where is the line? How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?”

Kirk did not respond with a simple message like: “Terrorism is wrong. You shouldn’t do it.” Instead, he cast political violence as a tactical blunder. It would play into the hand of the same hidden media-deepstate-Democrat forces trying to institute tyranny by installing Joe Biden as president, he claimed.

Continues…

https://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/article255354321.html

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devos and chao quit after jan 6 but now 80

https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/betsy-devos/

no lnx

Betsy DeVos’ foundation is giving $640,000 to right wing group whose 'scholar' wrote Trump-Pence coup memos

David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement January 12, 2022

The foundation belonging to anti-public school activist and former Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her husband, is handing a right wing group, The Claremont Institute, $640,000.

“The Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation donated $240,000 to Claremont in 2020 and approved another $400,000 to be paid out in the future, tax records show,” Rolling Stone reports in an article titled, “Revealed: The Billionaires Funding the Coup’s Brain Trust.”

The Claremont Institute is home to John Eastman, who was best known (and currently serves) as the chairman of the anti-LGBTQ organization NOM, the National Organization For Marriage. Eastman agreed to “retire” as a law professor at the Chapman University School of Law exactly one week after he delivered a speech, on stage with Rudy Giuliani, at Donald Trump’s rally that preceded the violent and deadly January 6 insurrection.

But only later would Americans learn that John Eastman was the architect and author of several documents, now called the “coup memos,” detailing how Vice President Mike Pence could, effectively, steal the election for Donald Trump on the fateful day of the insurrection.

Eastman continues to serve as a Senior Fellow at The Claremont Institute, and in his role as the Founding Director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence.

The Bulwark, founded by prominent conservative never-Trumpers, last year wrote: “That Claremont has been unparalleled in its intellectual submission to Trumpism should give us pause.”

In 2019, Claremont welcomed as a Lincoln Fellow the conspiracist and “ king of fake news” Jack Michael Posobiec III. Posobiec, already well known as a promoter of the Pizzagate hoax and the Seth Rich conspiracy theory, was then working as a correspondent and host for the One America News Network (OANN), which became one of the major promoters of false claims about the 2020 election. Claremont remains proud of the affiliation with Posobiec, with an institute official recently calling him “one of the best public political voices in America”—just days before it was revealed that a right-wing website Posobiec frequently promoted was a Russian disinformation project.

And among the latest crop of Lincoln Fellows is Charlie Kirk, the founder of the right-wing youth-mobilizing group Turning Point USA. Kirk bragged about sending “80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight” for Trump on January 6. After his slimy “Falkirk Center,” co-founded with Jerry Falwell Jr., imploded, Kirk was ousted from Liberty University. The Claremont Institute has welcomed him with open arms.

As Americans now know, Eastman also counseled President Donald Trump in other areas, but in a shocking revelation which The New York Times and other news outlets reported late last year, Eastman sat in the Oval Office with Trump attempting to pressure the outgoing vice president to act to overturn a free and fair election.

Later, on January 6, Eastman, The Washington Post reported, would blame Pence for the violent attempted coup which included Trump supporters hunting for Pence inside the Capitol, a gallows and noose just outside, chanting repeatedly, “hang Mike Pence.”

What was essentially an attempted assassination of a sitting vice president came barely hours after Eastman – who to this day remains a Claremont Institute “scholar” – at the Jan. 6 spouted “conspiracy theories about voter fraud.”

Here is John Eastman, chairman of a Federalist Society practice group, at the pre-insurrection rally spouting conspiracy theories about voter fraud. He concludes: \u201cAnybody that is not willing to stand up and [vote to overturn the election] does not deserve to be in the office!\u201dpic.twitter.com/auD2vXSjNE

— Mark Joseph Stern ***FAIR COLAs FOR SLATE*** (@Mark Joseph Stern ***FAIR COLAs FOR SLATE***) 1610553789

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/trump-attorney-eastman-went-directly-to-arizonas-house-speaker-with-his-insurrectionist-scheme-report/

John C. Eastman — a far-right attorney, Donald Trump ally, MAGA Republican and prominent figure in the Claremont Institute — has horrified constitutionalists because of his authoritarian plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. And one of the Republicans he reached out to directly, according to the Arizona Republic, was Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers.

Referencing reporting in the Arizona Republic, Talking Points Memo's Cristina Cabrera notes that on January 4, 2021, Eastman contacted Bowers directly "to pitch a legal theory on how Arizona's electors ought to be tossed away before Congress" certified "the electoral votes on January 6."

Arizona was one of the five states that went for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election but flipped to now-President Joe Biden in 2020; the others were Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump falsely claimed that he was the real winner in Arizona but was deprived of a victory because of widespread voter fraud, but official bipartisan recounts confirmed that Biden, in fact, won the state.

Regardless, Trump lawyer Eastman was more than happy to promote Trump's false claims of widespread voter fraud. And because of Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and other Trump lawyers, the United States came dangerously close to a constitutional crisis during the late 2020/early 2021 lame duck period. The violent insurrectionist assault on the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6 was unprecedented in U.S. history.

Cabrera notes, "Eastman has claimed he was only…. offering hypotheticals and had no intention of overturning the election. But January 4, the day he spoke to Bowers, was also the day he presented his election-stealing scheme to (Vice President Mike) Pence. Both reported examples show Eastman pressing Republicans to subvert the election, not simply offering disinterested legal advice."

The fact that Eastman has been so prominent in the Claremont Institute is important. Founded in 1979, the right-wing think tank has been around for 42 years — and in the past, it favored a more traditional brand of conservation. Claremont's founder, the late Harry V. Jaffa, was a speechwriter for Sen. Barry Goldwater during his 1964 presidential campaign. But Claremont has taken an increasingly dark and authoritarian turn in recent years, fully embracing Trump's MAGA movement and pushing far-right conspiracy theories. In a notorious essay for the American Mind published on March 24 and headlined "Conservatism Is No Longer Enough," Glenn Ellmers (a Claremont senior fellow) argued that most people living in the U.S. are no longer Americans in the true sense. Ellmers' essay was right out of the Viktor Orbán/Vladimir Putin/Marine LePen school of hyper-nationalist far-right authoritarianism.

Eastman, like Ellmers, has championed the MAGA movement vigorously. And more traditional conservatives and libertarians such as those at The Bulwark have been appalled by his scheme, outlined in a two-page memo, for overturning the 2020 election results.

According to Cabrera, "Eastman's reported conversation with Bowers fell on the same day as the attorney's Oval Office meeting with Pence, during which Eastman laid out his now-infamous memo explaining how the vice president could hijack Congress' certification process to keep Trump in power. Eastman proposed that Pence throw out electors from the swing states Biden had won, including Arizona, and let the GOP-controlled state legislatures or U.S. House Republicans choose new electors…. The Arizona Republic's new report on Eastman apparently trying to personally lobby an individual state Republican leader reveals the extent to which the lawyer tried to make his cloak-and-dagger scheme, which was fully backed by Trump, a reality."

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==

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/eastman-pitch-coup-plan-arizona-gop-leader

john Eastman, the conservative legal scholar who drew up a full scheme to have then-Vice President Mike Pence throw out certain states’ 2020 electoral votes to steal the election for Donald Trump, reportedly took his ideas straight to at least one Republican leader in a state Trump lost.

According to the Arizona Republic’s latest report in its multi-part series on Trumpworld’s efforts to invalidate Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona, Eastman reached out to state House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) personally on Jan. 4 to pitch a legal theory on how Arizona’s electors ought to be tossed away before Congress certifies the electoral votes on Jan. 6.

Eastman has claimed he was only ever offering hypotheticals and had no intention of overturning the election. But Jan. 4 — the day he spoke to Bowers — was also the day he presented his election-stealing scheme to Pence.

Both reported examples show Eastman pressing Republicans to subvert the election, not simply offering disinterested legal advice.

bowers reportedly asked Eastman during their talk, “Has this ever been done before?”

The lawyer said no, but told Bowers he ought to do it anyway and let Trump’s legal team deal with whatever litigation might arise from the gambit, the Arizona Republic reported.

But the GOP leader reportedly wasn’t sold.

“It’s never been done in the history of the country, and I’m going to do that in Arizona?” he asked, according to the Arizona Republic. “No.”

Eastman’s reported conversation with Bowers fell on the same day as the attorney’s Oval Office meeting with Pence, during which Eastman laid out his now-infamous memo explaining how the vice president could hijack Congress’ certification process to keep Trump in power. Eastman proposed that Pence throw out electors from the swing states Biden had won, including Arizona, and let the GOP-controlled state legislatures or U.S. House Republicans choose new electors.

Since details about Eastman’s blueprint for his proposed coup came out this September, the lawyer has publicly insisted that he never thought that the memo’s legal theories carried any weight and that it was only intended to detail “available scenarios that had been floated.”

But Eastman’s denials utterly collapsed in late October, when the lawyer told an undercover progressive activist that he absolutely believed his reasoning in the memo was solid.

The Arizona Republic’s new report on Eastman apparently trying to personally lobby an individual state Republican leader reveals the extent to which the lawyer tried to make his cloak-and-dagger scheme, which was fully backed by Trump, a reality.

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scott perry frdm cock --> bossert to trump

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11 21 an

On January 2, Trump lawyer John Eastman called into Steve Bannon's *War Room*podcast to explain how to steal the election. Eastman told Bannon that Vice President Mike Pence could still overturn Biden's victory. The interview was part of an extremely public campaign by Trump and his closest allies to lobby Pence to steal the election during the certification ceremony.

One of Eastman's crackpot theories was that the vice president has the unilateral power to accept or reject electoral votes at his whim, or failing that, to somehow "send the election back" to Republican-controlled swing state legislatures that would disregard the will of their people and replace Biden's electors with Trump's.

Eastman was Trump's master of self-serving constitutional bafflegab. His job was to spin elaborate pseudo-legal theories to justify Trump's assault on democracy. It was Eastman who wrote the notorious memos outlining his fanciful legal arguments for why the vice president has the power to unilaterally reelect himself. Eastman also co-wrote a blueprint for how Trump could use the military, the police, and criminal gangs to hold onto power after a disputed election. Eastman even spoke at Trump's rally on the Ellipse, making wild allegations of election fraud before Trump set the mob on the Capitol.

To understand January 6, you have to think in terms of an inside game and an outside game. The inside game was to steal the election procedurally. The outside game was to gather a mob to terrorize officials into going along with it. Eastman was a conceptual architect of both the paper coup attempt and of the plan for the political repression that Trumpists expected to follow in the wake of the theft.

READ:A growing threat is emerging from the theocratic wing of the GOP — but many liberals are missing it

It all comes back to the Big Lie of massive Democratic voter fraud in the swing states. Trump used the fantasy of a stolen election to gather his supporters in Washington for a "wild protest" on January 6, whip them into a rage and set them on the Capitol. Eastman used the same lie to justify his schemes to overturn the election procedurally.

In his various memos and public appearances, Eastman presented several paths to overrule the will of the people, but his ultimate justification was always the same: Democratic "fraud" in the swing states invalidated their certified slates of Biden electors.

Therefore, he maintained, Mike Pence was entitled to unilaterally cast aside the electoral votes and count alternate slates of fake electors in their place or discard the votes from those states altogether, denying either candidate the necessary 270 votes and throwing the election to the state delegations in the House.

As Eastman wrote in his second memo, Trump would prevail, "if the Republicans in the State Delegations stand firm." At the time, the GOP caucus was deeply divided over whether to back Trump's paper coup, and Pence was signalling he was not willing to play his assigned role.

READ:'Whole case is a mess': Internet stunned as judge lets Rittenhouse choose final jurors in raffle system

Hence the need for extra muscle on the outside.

This fits with what another key conspirator has said about his reason for gathering a mob on January 6. "We […] schemed up putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting," said Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander, regarding his motives. He wanted to "change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside."

After an extended rant about the cowardice of Mike Pence, the last order Trump gave the mob before sending them down Pennsylvania Avenue was that they must give "boldness" to "weak Republicans."

Trump's command echoed Eastman's language in the longer of the two memos in which he described his own scheme as "BOLD, certainly."

Read:'Conspiracy nuts': DeSantis is in the hot seat after his aide gets caught pushing anti-Semitic theory

The label "coup" conjures up images of a military takeover, but a procedural coup under the threat of violence is still a coup.

Denialists try to mislead by pointing to the insurgents' relatively light weaponry and saying: "You don't think they meant to overthrow the US government with that, do you?" But the plan was never to physically seize control of the government. Insurgents just had to bully Pence and House Republicans into reversing the election for Trump.

Trump's advisors were well aware that reversing a free and fair election would provoke national outrage and widespread protests. Eastman's blueprint for leveraging the military, the police, and criminal gangs to hold onto power would work as well or better after a procedural coup as it would after an uncertain Election Night (the scenario nominally entertained in the report). A stolen election would putBiden supporters in the streets where the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers would be waiting for them, prepared to start or escalate violence wherever they could. This kind of unrest was exactly what Eastman warned local officials to be prepared to suppress.[see war game bs?]

We eagerly await what Bannon and Eastman will tell the January 6 committee, but what they've already said is utterly damning.

READ:Ocasio-Cortez gives an impassioned speech blasting Kevin McCarthy after Gosar's 'incitement of violence'

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omg yikes

https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/trump-2655520362/

no lnx

'Barely concealed bloodlust': Claremont Institute laid out detailed plan for using cops to overturn Trump’s election loss

Travis Gettys and Raw Story November 08, 2021

The right-wing Claremont Institute published a report in mid-October 2020 that gamed out a scenario where Donald Trump would remain in office through an alliance between law enforcement and militant extremists.

The report was prepared by attorney John Eastman, who authored a memo laying out another strategy for keeping Trump in office, and former Trump deputy national security advisor K.T. McFarland, as well as Kevin Roberts, then-executive director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, alt-right figure Jeff Giesea and right-wing blogger Charles Haywood, reported The Bulwark.

"Despite the authors' pretensions to scholarship and rigor — 'for a simulation to be valuable, the other side gets a vote and actions must be based in realism' — the final document is a frenzied and paranoid piece of work, revealing of the anxieties and aspirations of the authoritarian right," writes columnist Christian Vanderbrouk. "Practically, the report is an instruction manual for how Trump partisans at all levels of government — aided by citizen 'posses' of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers — could, quite literally, round up opposition activists, kill their leaders, and install Donald Trump for a second term in office."

Most of the predictions in the report, titled "79 Days to Inauguration," did not come to fruition, such as the authors' belief that some states' voting results would be fatally tainted by cyber attacks and suspicious fires, and left-wing mobs did not converge on Washington, D.C., to incite violence, and police did not execute antifa/Black Lives Matter leaders as part of a federal operation.

"A barely concealed bloodlust runs through the report," Vanderbrouk writes. "This isn't a serious wargame or a policy study so much as a bowdlerized retelling of The Turner Diaries."

The report was produced in response to the bipartisan Transition Integrity Project's (TIP) exercise on "Preventing a Disrupted Presidential Election and Transition," which considered the prospect of Trump refusing to concede an election loss and made recommendations for avoiding a crisis -- which seems to be the opposite intent of the Claremont Institute's exercise.

"To the extent that the Claremont-TPPF report offers recommendations, they are mostly focused on how to emerge victorious from the chaos, including preparation 'for destructive urban unrest [with] potential targets includ[ing] ballot counting facilities, government buildings, especially state capitols and city halls, as well as television and radio studios,'" Vanderbrouk writes. "The Claremont task force seems either resigned to—or perhaps energized by—the view that 'prudent steps are likely to be spun as preparations for a military takeover or coup and may result in negative consequences either way.'"

"Either way. It's as if they're steering into the violence instead of trying to avoid it," he adds. "The message is clear:do whatever it takes to crush your opponents and all will be forgiven in the second Trump term."

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/the-claremont-institute/

no lnx twt

How a little known right-wing think tank continues to add fuel to Trump's 'Big Lie'

Meaghan Ellis November 05, 2021

Former President Donald Trump may have had an overwhelming number of supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol to "stop the Steal, but one conservative think tank is still helping to perpetuate the big lie.

According to Vice News, the Claremont Institute and its top-ranking members played a dominant role aiding Trump as he attempted to overturn the presidential election.

Per Vice:

"Claremont Institute leaders' actions leading up to, during, and after Jan. 6 are the culmination of five years of increasingly alarmist rhetoric and calls to action from the think tank, whose embrace of Trump and Trumpism have helped mainstream fringe views into the Republican Party ecosystem by positioning themselves as the vanguard in an existential "cold civil war" between true Americans and anti-American progressives."

One leader in particular was Trump loyalists and lawyer John Eastman. Not only did he attempt to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election but he also echoed many of Trump's biggest lies about the election being stolen.

Like many of the conspiracy theorists, Eastman claimed "dead people voted" and Dominion Voting Systems' "'machines contributed to that fraud' by 'unloading the ballots from the secret folder,'" Vice reports.

“All we are demanding of Vice President Pence is this afternoon at 1 o'clock he let the legislators of the state look into this so we get to the bottom of it and the American people know whether we have control of the direction of our government or not," Eastman claimed. “We no longer live in a self-governing republic if we can't get the answer to this question. This is bigger than President Trump. It is the very essence of our republican form of government and it has to be done. And anybody that is not willing to stand up and do it does not deserve to be in the office."

As proof of the think tank leaders' actions, the publication also pointed to tweets and messages that made their stance quite clear. Vice highlighted a tweet shared by Claremont Institute president emeritus and senior fellow Brian Kennedy's tweet just one day before the Jan. 6 insurrection.

"We have been on Capitol Hill all day. We are in a constitutional crisis and also in a revolutionary moment," Kennedy tweeted on Jan. 5. “We must embrace the spirit of the American Revolution to stop this communist revolution. #HoldTheLine."

Claremont Institute President Ryan Williams also echoed similar claims in a YouTube video saying, "The mission of the Claremont Institute is to save Western civilization."

Welcome to the Claremont Institute

www.youtube.com

Political analysts have weighed in to explain just how disturbing the Claremont Institute's actions are as there are concerns about similar incidents occurring in the future.

"Laura K. Field, a political theorist at American University, recently explained why it is so disturbing.

"It's incredibly concerning. They're desperate to take on the role of leading the charge in terms of providing arguments for the anti-democratic populism of Trump, Field explained. "They really want to do everything they can to keep Republicans in power, even if it means manipulating through bad-faith measures the levers of power."

There are also concerns about the future because ongoing attacks leveled at America's voting systems "could lead to more distrust and division and skepticism about various institutions in the medium-to-long run."

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The Conservatives Dreading—And Preparing for—Civil War - The ... ›

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https://morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/how-deplorable-is-the-claremont-institute

no lnx

How Deplorable Is the Claremont Institute?

Plus: our Sunday mailbag

Charlie Sykes

Oct 3

What the Hell Happened to the Claremont Institute?

ICYMI, this piece in the Atlantic is worth your time: “The Conservatives Dreading—And Preparing for—Civil War.” Emma Green’s interview with Claremont’s deplorable president, Ryan Williams, is revealing on multiple levels. Here’s one exchange:

Green: Many on the right seem to no longer believe in reality. QAnon gets a lot of hype, but many people on the right promote stories and narratives that aren’t supported by evidence or facts, especially about the 2020 election.

Are you at all preoccupied with this problem? I’ve noticed, for example, that one of your Publius fellows this year is a legislative assistant for Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose views certainly do not line up with reality. Does that concern you at all?

Williams: We believe in truth and reason. The question is whose truth and whose reason. That’s part of the contested quality of our national politics. And it’s not just the right. A third of the country thinks the election was given to Biden fraudulently. That includes a lot of Democrats.

Our national standard at the elite-media level these days seems to be something far from the truth. We’re no Q fans at Claremont. But it should not be surprising that, in our ideologically divided times, we have real division over truth and reality….

It gets worse, because the reality is much, much worse, as Laura K. Field wrote in her comprehensive takedown, “What the Hell Happened to the Claremont Institute? How the once-distinguished conservative think tank plunged into Trumpism, illiberalism, and lying about the election.”

Her piece is essential background reading for this weekend’s other bombshell story about the role that Claremonter John Eastman played in Trump’s attempted coup. As you recall, Eastman wrote a detailed memo laying out the ways that VP Mike Pence could overthrow the elections. As the NYT reports, the Trump White House asked him to write the coup memo — and Eastman played a key role in a meeting two days before the insurrection. Via the NYT:

Shortly after New Year’s Day, the White House called Mr. Eastman and asked him to fly to Washington to meet with Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence. Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, and Mr. Pence’s legal counsel, Greg Jacob, first met with Mr. Eastman, giving them a sense of what Mr. Eastman was planning to argue to Mr. Trump in their meeting with the president the next day, Jan. 4.

In that subsequent meeting with Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence, Mr. Eastman was the only adviser to the president in the room.

“It started with the president talking about how some of the legal scholarship that had been done, saying under the 12th Amendment, the vice president has the ultimate authority to reject invalid electoral votes and he asked me what I thought about it,” Mr. Eastman said.

The article also includes this interesting detail:

Mr. Eastman had put himself on the radar of Mr. Trump’s political aides during the election when Jenna Ellis, a legal adviser to Mr. Trump’s campaign, had shared on Twitter an article Mr. Eastman had written.The article, in an echo of racist questions stoked by Mr. Trump about where President Barack Obama had been born, questioned whether Kamala Harris, Mr. Biden’s running mate, could legally become president because her parents had not been born in the United States.

Now, confronting election results that showed Mr. Trump lost, one of Mr. Trump’s aides reached out to Mr. Eastman to see whether he could come over to the hotel to help Mr. Trump’s team.

And, in case it is needed, a reminder about Claremont:

Image

Secession, you say?

A new poll is a reminder of why the talk of Civil War, secession, and coups is so dangerous.

— Significant numbers of both Trump and Biden voters show a willingness to consider violating democratic tendencies and norms if needed to serve their priorities. Roughly 2 in 10 Trump and Biden voters strongly agree it would be better if a “President could take needed actions without being constrained by Congress or courts,” and roughly 4 in 10 (41%) of Biden and half (52%) of Trump voters at least somewhat agree that it’s time to split the country, favoring blue/red states seceding from the union.

Meanwhile, in Arizona…

A Trump-backed candidate for governor is explicitly running on a platform of overturning the election.

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emma green

"let me start big. The mission of the Claremont Institute is to save Western civilization,” says Ryan Williams, the organization’s president, looking at the camera, in a crisp navy suit. “We’ve always aimed high.” A trumpet blares. America’s founding documents flash across the screen. Welcome to the intellectual home of America’s Trumpist right.

As Donald Trump rose to power, the Claremont universe—which sponsors fellowships and publications, including the Claremont Review of Books andThe American Mind—rose with him, publishing essays that seemed to capture why the president appealed to so many Americans and attempting to map a political philosophy onto his presidency. Williams and his cohort are on a mission to tear down and remake the right; they believe that America has been riven into two fundamentally different countries, not least because of the rise of secularism. “The Founders were pretty unanimous, with Washington leading the way, that the Constitution is really only fit for a Christian people,” Williams told me. It’s possible that violence lies ahead. “I worry about such a conflict,” Williams told me. “The Civil War was terrible. It should be the thing we try to avoid almost at all costs.”

Read: Republicans like Bob Corker have nowhere to go

That almost is worth noticing. “The ideal endgame would be to effect a realignment of our politics and take control of all three branches of government for a generation or two,” Williams said. Trump has left office, at least for now, but those he inspired aredetermined to recapture power in American politics. My conversation with Williams has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

Emma Green: What do you see as the threats to Western civilization?

Ryan Williams: The one we have focused on at the Claremont Institute is the progressive movement. [Progressives think that] limited government, in the Founders’ sense—checks and balances, robust federalism, a fairly fixed view of human nature and the rights attendant to it—all has to give way to a notion that rights evolve with the times.

The biggest institutional part of [the progressive movement] is this large bureaucracy or administrative state, which is insulated from control by the executive or even, increasingly, by Congress.

I would say the leading edge of progressivism now is this kind of woke, social-justice anti-racism. It’s a threat to limited government because it seems to take its lead from scholars like Ibram Kendi, who has proposed a Department of Anti-racism that would basically have carte blanche control over local and state governments.His definition of racism is any policy that results in disparate outcomes for different groups. And we take issue with that. You always have different outcomes between different groups. Human nature is varied. We all have different talents. The pursuit of equal results is only going to be successful in a new woke totalitarianism. I realize that sounds a little hyperbolic, but that seems to be the road we’re on.

Green: We’re going to unpack “woke totalitarianism” in a second, but I want to make sure I’m understanding your starting point correctly. When you say Western civilization, it sounds like you’re not necessarily describing people situated in geography or time but rather a set of ideas that you believe are falling out of fashion or are being actively destroyed by various forces in society. Am I getting you right?

Williams: You can never really divorce a set of ideas and principles from the people in which it grew up. America is an idea, but it’s not just that. It’s the people who settled it, founded it, and made it flourish.

Green: Just to ask the question directly, do you mean white people?

Williams: No, not necessarily. I mean, Western civilization happens to be where a lot of white people are, historically, but I don’t think there’s any necessary connection between the two. The ability to believe in natural rights and a regime of limited government the way the Founders did is not reserved only to white people.

Green: So you believe that there are American citizens of other backgrounds who belong in Western civilization—not just white people.

Williams: No. I think “white” is a pretty arbitrary category—

Green: People of European descent.

Williams: Okay, fair enough. No, it’s not an exclusive inheritance of that.

Green: One beef in the Claremont universe is what you all call “Conservatism, Inc.”: the professional-class conservatives who do panel discussions and run multimillion-dollar think tanks that produce white papers that ultimately don’t lead to anything, in your view. You guys are basically a think tank too. Why aren’t you just a slightly different version of Conservatism, Inc.?

Williams: Fair enough. Our target is not to say that good work doesn’t go on at the large conservative think tanks. But we think we’re in a real regime crisis right now. Our political elites and cultural and corporate institutions seem to believe in a way of doing government that is fundamentally at odds with the original, founding view—or even the view of Lincoln. We disagree on what men and women are; on what human nature is; what rights are. That’s a real crisis. We would love if our bigger brethren focused exclusively on what we think are the real threats: identity politics; this ideology of anti-racism and wokeness,which you said we’ll get to; the notion that borders are anachronistic and even racist, and that citizenship is global rather than national; that China is our main rival; the rise of big tech.

Green: Let’s talk about identity politics and being “woke.” People throw those terms around a lot, and they can obscure more than they illuminate. What do you actually mean when you say you stand against them?

Williams: There are a few strands. The most ascendant one right now seems to be critical theory, which was born in France in the ’60s and migrated to American universities. It has birthed all of these academic centers—gender studies, anti-colonialism, African American studies. It has some core tenets: There’s no such thing as truth in politics; it’s all about narratives and power, and we can’t know truth, fundamentally. There’s no such thing as natural rights; politics is making sure discrete identity groups, especially the ones who’ve been oppressed over time, now have an opportunity to express themselves.

That means deconstructing and disrupting what was the dominant narrative for a long time, which was the Founders’ regime of natural rights. One of theinstitutional vehicles for it was the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was meant to fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence for Black Americans coming out of segregation. But the courts and administrative agencies quickly turned against the color-blind, equal-opportunity vision of the founding and toward affirmative action—this calculation of current oppressor or past oppressor, and the pursuit of equity and social justice. Now this seems to mean that we’re really not going to be where we need to be until all groups are equally represented and have the same outcomes for, say, home ownership, wealth, the proportion of CEOs, or members of Congress. That seems to be the goal of wokeism.

Green: I take it that you would not disagree with the basic spirit of the civil-rights movement, which was to disrupt the legal regime of racism enforced by the state primarily against Black Americans?

Williams: No, I don’t disagree with that.

Green: But you do disagree with how you see this manifest on the left today. Do you have an alternative vision of what racial justice or equality—or whatever term you would use—should look like in 2021? How should we address continuing, legally sanctioned discrimination, assuming you think such a thing exists?

Williams: A true regime of nondiscrimination is when the state cannot disadvantage or advantage any group based on their skin color or ethnicity. That’s the original promise of the Declaration of Independence. It is, in many ways, a color-blindConstitution.

The counter from the left is that there’s systemic racism that has built up over years by certain legal systems. I would have to see some real proof of that. The main evidence seems to be that there are disparate results, thus there’s systemic racism.

Green: Let’s take one concrete policy example. The prison system in the United States disproportionately incarcerates Black men. Reasons for this include laws around sentencing, such as three-strike rules, or the possession of certain drugs being punished more harshly than others. This is an area of policy where the left and the right disagree, fundamentally, about the role race has played in the creation of the current carceral system.

So I guess the question is, in your vision of America, is this a problem? And is it a problem caused by racism?

Williams: It would depend on what is driving the disparate results. We would have to separate out the extent to which sentencing is truly discriminatory—and it ought not to be, if it is—and the extent to which the high incarceration rate of Black Americans is due to their much higher propensity to commit violent crime.

Until we can talk about that—if we can acknowledge that on the left and the right—it would be a wonderful starting point to try to dig into some of the issues you’re talking about, like the different classification of drugs being more associated with one group or another. We have to start, though, with the acknowledgment that a lot more Blacks are in prison because they commit violent crimes at a much higher rate [than Americans of other races]. Whites commit violent crime at a much higher rate than Asians do, so I don’t mean to suggest a racial crime hierarchy. But it’s just a fact we have to acknowledge.

Green: But certain crimes are more likely to be seen by the state, right? It’s easier to enforce against petty theft than white-collar crime. The other thing you might say is, okay, there are poor Black communities where more crime happens, but there are reasons why that’s happening: Those communities have been systematically neglected over time. And we as a society should change that.

I’m pressing you on this because it seems like the people in your orbit spend lots of time opposing the progressive program, but I don’t see you articulating a vision of how to appropriately right these kinds of wrongs.

Williams: To the extent that we can discover real discrimination, solely on the basis of race, we ought to.But we need to reject the notion that different outcomes are de facto evidence of discrimination. There are plenty of examples of poverty, even acute poverty, not leading to crime. I think it has a lot to do with culture, family, and all the rest. I want us to be honest social scientists about the pathologies plaguing America.

Read: What Texas abortion foes want next

Green: Glenn Ellmers wrote an essay for The American Mindabout why the Claremont Institute isn’t conservative. One of the things he writes is that some people residing in the United States—“certainly more than half”—are not Americans in any recognizable sense.

What does it mean to declare that more than half of the people residing in the country are not truly American?

Williams: Glenn was, of course, being provocative and polemical. But if Claremont thinks real Americanism is a belief in the principles of the American founding, we have to acknowledge that a good portion of our fellow citizens don’t agree with our principles and conclusions about what politics is for. If we differ on those fundamental things, we’re really two Americas.

Even during the Civil War—I think we’re more divided now than we were then. As Lincoln said, we all prayed to the same God. We all believed in the same Constitution. We just differed over the question of slavery.

Green: This picture you’re painting of unity around a certain set of ideas, principles, and beliefs about the nature of man and God doesn’t feel accurate to the founding conditions of the United States. America was founded as a place where people who had really out-there ideas could come and live peaceably in geographic proximity to one another, eventually governed under a shared constitution. Lots of religious radicals were involved. America was founded on the principle that people needed to tolerate one another, but no more.

How is that different from today, when we are continuing to experience turmoil over who we are and what we believe and what our orientation as a nation should be?

Williams: Well, most of the Founders of America were Christians. There were radicals, to be sure. But there was much more consensus back then on what human nature is—on monotheism, broadly speaking, but really Christianity as well.

Of course, Maryland was a bunch of Catholics who wanted their own place. But there was much more consensus on what government ought to do: to secure the blessings of liberty andnatural rights. First among them was freedom of conscience—your freedom to worship as you see fit. I would reject your assertion that pluralism ruled the day in the founding. Pluralism is a term that comes up much later in the American tradition, meaning that the regime is indifferent to the types of groups that are in the country. I don’t think the Founders would have maintained that at all. They thought natural rights were the possession of human beings across the globe, but the conditions for securing good government and protecting those rights were often unavailable. It took a certain bit of luck and civilizational tradition and learning and philosophy to get there.

In many ways, the miracle of America was to solve the problem that had plagued Western Europe for so many years, which was that every religious difference was an existential political difference that led to civil war and misery and depredation. With Madison and Jefferson leading the way, we solved the political-theological problem—that’s the fancy term from Leo Strauss. They solved it well enough that we could all live together as fellow citizens.

That consensus was around for quite a while—broadly speaking, constitutionalism and limited government. We disputed over those things, but everyone thought the Constitution was a good thing and that government ought to protect rights. The glaring problem that plagued us for many years was the obvious contradiction of slavery to the principles of the Declaration.But there weren’t really any Founders who defended slavery as a good thing. Maybe a few from South Carolina, but that was about it. There was a moral consensus, even if they lived up to it imperfectly, embodied in our constitutional culture. We’ve lost that. If we disagree that human biology is a good guide to male- and femaleness, we’re a long way from the consensus of the founding.

Green: Do you think America can hang together in 2021 without Christianity at its core?

Williams: I’m ambivalent about that question. I think it would be bad for America if that longtime Christian core disintegrated. The Founders were pretty unanimous, with Washington leading the way, that the Constitution is really only fit for a Christian people.

I would modify that a bit and say a majority Christian people could maintain that. But if you don’t think your rights ultimately come from a Creator, you’re halfway down the road to our modern confusion.

Green: Writing in the Claremont universe often has a dire tone to it. The essay “The Flight 93 Election” is one example of this, or that Glenn Ellmers essay.

The thing I always wonder is: What’s the end game? If you truly have a sense that the American project is in crisis; that our country is not one but two entities; and that what’s at stake is nothing less than our ability to be a free people governed under a shared constitution—are you guys, like, stockpiling weapons?

Williams: The ideal endgame would be to effect a realignment of our politics and take control of all three branches of government for a generation or two. The goal would not be thereconquest of blue Americabut rather the restoration of the constitutional regime that we think has been lost.

We have to find some modus vivendi to go forward. If we’re two Americas, one of the more perfect solutions might be the return of federalism—the feds laying off in many respects. Let red America be red and blue America be blue. It’s obviously more complicated than that, because even in red states you have plenty of Democrats, and vice versa. But we need to restore a robust federalism, one that allows states much more leeway. We’ve gone much too far into the realm of federal control, arbitrariness, and overreach.

Read: The knives come out for Josh Hawley

Green: Republicans have lost the popular vote in nearly every presidential election in the last three decades. Do you worry about a project of minority rule—trying to assert your vision upon a country where many, many people do not agree with even your basic premises about what the American republic should look like?

Williams: I reject the premise that just because the popular vote isn’t won, you don’t possess a constitutional majority. We have an Electoral College system for a reason. Democracy, for the Founders, was a means to the end of the protection of rights. They set up a republic, not a democracy. The rule of pure numbers was never the touchstone of justice for the Founders. But the persistent inability of the right to win popular majorities—that is a problem. Ours is a project of persuading our fellow citizens, even independents and Democrats, that the current regime is on the wrong track.

Green: As a descriptive matter, do you think you guys are actually speaking for a silent majority in America that’s actually sympathetic to your goals?

Williams: That’s a testable proposition. I hope so. Trump showed the way it could be done. That was just the beginning.

Green: Many on the right seem to no longer believe in reality. QAnon gets a lot of hype, but many people on the right promote stories and narratives that aren’t supported by evidence or facts, especially about the 2020 election.

Are you at all preoccupied with this problem? I’ve noticed, for example, that one of your Publius fellows this year is a legislative assistant for Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose views certainly do not line up with reality. Does that concern you at all?

Williams: We believe in truth and reason. The question is whose truth and whose reason.[sounds kinda post-structural? or we have the right one ] That’s part of the contested quality of our national politics. And it’s not just the right. A third of the country thinks the election was given to Biden fraudulently. That includes a lot of Democrats.

Our national standard at the elite-media level these days seems to be something far from the truth. We’re no Q fans at Claremont. But it should not be surprising that, in our ideologically divided times, we have real division over truth and reality.Our national elites, and especially media elites, seem to be an ideological wing of left America rather than neutral arbiters of truth. It shouldn’t be a surprise that a good portion of the disaffected right turns to alternative sources for their political information. Many of those sources are cranks and lunatics, but that’s also nothing new. We’ve always had a robust tradition of firebrands and conspiracy theorists. It’s very American, in a way.

Green: Your answer is strikingly postmodern: You seem to be elevating the existence of multiple narratives, which may or may not hold elements of the truth. It’s also mostly a critique of the other side—a lot of people hate the media and think they don’t say true things. But if you’re trying to articulate what truth is as it relates to the American founding and ethos and mission, I would think you would be singularly concerned with the affairs in your own house. Greene has said she doesn’t think 9/11 happened. She thinks the Rothschilds started wildfires using giant space lasers.We are in a fraught time for coming to a shared consensus about what reality is. Are you doing your part to keep your house clean?

Williams: On the MTG question, it’s always been part of our project to educate folks who work in national politics, policy, journalism, etc. So I don’t think it’s suspect in the least for us to improve the staff of Congress, no matter who the congressperson is. Of course we’re concerned in policing our own house and making sure that there are not, in our political and intellectual coalition, people who reject fundamentally what we think is right. That battle is ongoing.

But I will contest what you said. I didn’t mean to elevate the notion of competing narratives. People are increasingly unsure of where to get valid information. A huge contributor to that has been our elite media.

Green: Do you feel like there is a hopeful future for America, or do you think we are headed toward some sort of generationally defining conflict that could potentially be violent?

Williams: I worry about such a conflict. The Civil War was terrible. It should be the thing we try to avoid almost at all costs.

A lot of normal Americans just want to go about their daily lives, raise their families, and make sure that our kids are successful. It’s really not that ideological, ultimately. I place a huge amount of hope in that. At the national level—the elite level—we have to advance intellectual ideas that we think are true, and the politics that we think will be the most successful. But we underestimate the extent to which we can lower the temperature in America and move forward with a lot more unity.

Green: I’ll look for that the next time I read theClaremont Review of Books—that effort to make sure our temperatures are lowered.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/sheriff-s-fellowship/

no lnx

One far-right, Trump-inspired think tank is adding more fuel to the extremism fire.

According to The Bulwark,The Claremont Institute is at the center of a new initiative called the "Sheriff's Fellowship." The disturbing new movement is described as an incentive to "weaponize 'patriotic law enforcement officers' to counter 'the perversion of the justice system by which the revolutionary left seeks to advance its totalitarian agenda.'"

In short, these types of sheriff groups classify more as "militias with badges, guns, and formal law enforcement powers. Or, if you like, secession-by-sheriff."

While the Sheriff's Fellowship is a new initiative for Claremont, the publication notes that other similar organizations like the Constitutional Sheriffs have existed for quite some time.

"Although the Oath Keepers, another anti-government extremist group that recruits from law enforcement, have garnered more media attention in recent years," the Anti-Defamation League said in their report, the Constitutional Sheriff movement "has arguably had more success infiltrating law enforcement, including at the executive level."

The central tenet of [the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association], borrowed from the anti-government extremist sovereign citizen movement, is that thecounty sheriff is the ultimate authority in the county, able to halt enforcement of any federal or state law or measure they deem unconstitutional.

Trump, members of his administration, and well-known law enforcement officials have echoed the values and beliefs highlighted by the Claremont Institute. In fact, during a previous interview, Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions (R) lauded the practices of "Anglo-American" law enforcement.

"Since our founding, the independently elected sheriff has been the people's protector, who keeps law enforcement close to and accountable to people through the elected process," said Sessions. "The office of sheriff is a critical part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement. We must never erode this historic office."

Sheriff Mark Lamb, the sheriff of Pinal County, Ariz., is also seen as an upcoming member of the Republican Party. The law enforcement officer, who describes himself as "America's Sheriff," who "fashions himself as more of a vigilante resister, with a heavy dose of anti-government, sometimes militant rhetoric."

Lamb supported the "stop the steal" campaign in Arizona and has expressed sympathy for the Jan. 6 rioters. He has called vaccine mandates "garbage" and spoke at a recent anti-vaccine rally in Phoenix, where he told supporters, "We're going to find out what kind of patriots you are. We're going to find out who is willing to die for freedom." He also makes direct appeals to citizens, an effort that looks more dangerous after former President Donald Trump riled up supporters on Jan. 6.

For example, Lamb, an ardent defender of the Second Amendment, has spoken in support of the formation of private militias — "well within the Constitution," he told a group of supporters in March — and emphasized the power of sheriffs in Arizona, an open-carry state, to call local civilians into service to "suppress all affrays, insurrections and riots that comes to the attention of the sheriff." Last year, as Black Lives Matter protests swept across the country, he formed a local civilian "posse" to assist his office with law enforcement, even though there were no such protests in Pinal County.

Milwaukee's Sheriff David Clarke, a known vocal supporter of Trump, has also expressed extremist views. In the days leading up to the January 6 insurrection, Clarke even urged Capitol rioters not to comply with law enforcement.

"ALERT!!!," Clarke wrote on Facebook at the time. "If you attended the Trump rally in Washington DC last Wednesday and are contacted by the FBI or they come to your home, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TALK TO THEM. DON'T LET THEM IN YOUR HOME EITHER. POLITELY TELL THEM TO LEAVE AND CLOSE THE DOOR."

"If you did not go into the US Capital (sic) you do not have to explain why you exercised your Constitutional right to assemble," Clarke wrote. "TRUST NO GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL right now."

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ref

https://morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/militias-with-badges

chls sykes

yes, it could get worse.

The Claremont Institute — the home of John Eastman, author of the blueprint for overthrowing the presidential election — has a new initiative for undermining the rule of law.

And if you are not alarmed, you ought to be.

The Trumpian institute is launching a programto weaponize "patriotic law enforcement officers" to counter "the perversion of the justice system by which the revolutionary left seeks to advance its totalitarian agenda."

In announcing its new "Sheriff’s Fellowship" the institute tied together last year’s urban disorders, Covid-19 lockdowns, and “the electoral disaster of 2020,” and declared that “our nation's conservative movement needs a countervailing network of uncorrupted law enforcement officials.”

Specifically, Claremont envisions a cadre of sheriffs “not beholden to bureaucratic masters, and whose geographic boundaries, jurisdictional latitude, and - most important - direct connection and responsibility to citizens, places them on the frontlines of the defense of civilization.”

Think of it as militias with badges, guns, and formal law enforcement powers. Or, if you like, secession-by-sheriff.

Indeed, Claremont is late to the game. The so-called Constitutional Sheriffs have been a thing for quite a while now.

“Although the Oath Keepers, another anti-government extremist group that recruits from law enforcement, have garnered more media attention in recent years,” the Anti-Defamation League said in their report, the Constitutional Sheriff movement “has arguably had more success infiltrating law enforcement, including at the executive level.”

The central tenet of [the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association], borrowed from the anti-government extremist sovereign citizen movement, is that the county sheriff is the ultimate authority in the county, able to halt enforcement of any federal or state law or measure they deem unconstitutional.

This is no longer simply a fringe movement confined to a few rural counties.

Trump and members of his administration cultivated and encouraged the sheriffs’ movement, and openly embraced leading figures like Arizona’s Joe Arpaio. Former Attorney General Sessions famously praised what he called “the Anglo-Saxon heritage” of the office.

“Since our founding, the independently elected sheriff has been the people’s protector, who keeps law enforcement close to and accountable to people through the elected process,” Sessions said. “The office of sheriff is a critical part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement. We must never erode this historic office.”

Milwaukee’s Sheriff David Clarke — who was named Constitutional Sheriff of the year in 2013 — became a prominent Trump surrogate and was, reportedly in line for a position in Trump’s Department of Homeland security.

More recently, Clarke urged January 6 participants to refuseto cooperate with law enforcement authorities.

"ALERT!!!," Clarke wrote. "If you attended the Trump rally in Washington DC last Wednesday and are contacted by the FBI or they come to your home, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TALK TO THEM. DON'T LET THEM IN YOUR HOME EITHER. POLITELY TELL THEM TO LEAVE AND CLOSE THE DOOR."

"If you did not go into the US Capital (sic) you do not have to explain why you exercised your Constitutional right to assemble," Clarke wrote. "TRUST NO GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL right now." [twt pix]

clarke has since fallen into well-deserved obscurity, but the hot new face of the movement is Mark Lamb, the sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona.

In a new Politico profile, Lamb calls himself ‘America’s Sheriff,’ who “fashions himself as more of a vigilante resister, with a heavy dose of anti-government, sometimes militant rhetoric.”

Sheriff Lamb is the very model of the modern Trumpian law enforcement official. Politico reports:

Lamb supported the “stop the steal” campaign in Arizona and has expressed sympathy for the Jan. 6 rioters. He has called vaccine mandates “garbage” and spoke at a recent anti-vaccine rally in Phoenix, where he told supporters, “We’re going to find out what kind of patriots you are. We’re going to find out who is willing to die for freedom.” He also makes direct appeals to citizens, an effort that looks more dangerous after former President Donald Trump riled up supporters on Jan. 6. For example, Lamb, an ardent defender of the Second Amendment, has spoken in support of the formation of private militias — “well within the Constitution,” he told a group of supporters in March — and emphasized the power of sheriffs in Arizona, an open-carry state, to call local civilians into service to “suppress all affrays, insurrections and riots that comes to the attention of the sheriff.” Last year, as Black Lives Matter protests swept across the country, he formed a local civilian “posse” to assist his office with law enforcement, even though there were no such protests in Pinal County.

**

Now, fresh off its role in trying to overthrow the 2020 election, Claremont wants a piece of that action. Here is how a recent fund-raising letter for Claremont described the Trumpian think tank’s new program:

• The current revolution against the American regime, involving as it does both crime and political malfeasance, requires a coordinated response from patriotic law enforcement officers. Those whose "chain of dependency" is directly to the people of their region - officers not beholden to the centralized ( and often corrupt) bureaucracies of federal or state governments, nor the vicissitudes of easily pressured city officials.

• Sheriffs are appropriate for this response. Since their beginnings as "shire-reeves" ("county watchmen") centuries ago in England, sheriffs have been intimately connected with, and answerable to, the people of their "shires" and therefore the first layer of protection, and last line of defense, for the people's rights.

• Our project will equip sheriffs with strategic knowledge and end their isolation. Their efforts will be supported, enhanced, and multiplied through a reliable like-minded network of fellow sheriffs and others with complementary areas of expertise and potency.

(Here is a screen shot of the letter.)

If Claremont gets its way, there will be sheriffs like Joe Arpaio, David Clarke, and Mark Lamb all across the country.

You are not worried nearly enough about what that might mean.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/john-eastman-2655317174/

John C. Eastman — the far-right attorney, Donald Trump ally and Claremont Institute extremist who devised a memo outlining a game plan for preventing now-President Joe Biden's Electoral College certification by Congress on January 6 — is being slammed as dangerously authoritarian by his critics, while Eastman and his Claremont colleagues see him as a victim of cancel culture. But Niskanen Center senior fellow Laura K. Field, in an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on October 18, lays out some reasons why Eastman's cancel culture claims are nonsense.

Field explains, "You may know the Claremont Institute as the intellectual home of John Eastman, the lawyer behind the infamous six-point memo, who helped President Donald Trump concoct his plan for rejecting the Electoral College results on January 6…. In recent weeks, the Institute has been entangled in a dispute with the American Political Science Association. APSA is the country's premier professional association for political scientists, and the dispute with Claremont concerned Eastman's participation in APSA's annual conference. Spoiler alert: The conference is over, Eastman did not participate, and Claremont is claiming it has been censored — and even affirmatively defending Eastman and naming him in its latest fundraising efforts."

Eastman's claim that widespread voter fraud robbed Trump of a victory in the 2020 presidential election is a lie. Biden enjoyed a decisive victory, defeating Trump by more than 7 million in the United States' popular vote and winning 306 electoral votes. And numerous vote recounts in the states that Biden won, from Pennsylvania to Arizona, have made it abundantly clear that Biden legitimately won both the popular vote and the electoral vote — period.

Field argues that if the American Political Science Association and others shun Eastman, their criticisms of him are well-founded.

"Most members of the American Political Science Association are not fools, and they see the clear and immediate threat that Eastman's actions posed to American democracy," Field notes. "And so, when some APSA members noticed that the Claremont Institute was still maintaining ties to Eastman and that Claremont would be featuring Eastman on two panels at APSA's big annual meeting, they started pushing back."

Field continues, "They tweeted. They posted on Facebook and on blogs. They debated the appropriate course of action. People noticed that Claremont has apparently been using its involvement at APSA as a fundraising tool. In the week leading up to APSA's meeting this year, a few hundred individuals signed an open letter requesting that Eastman and Claremont be ousted from the conference. It seemed all but certain that there would be in-person protests of the Claremont panels at APSA."

But Field goes on to offer a "full disclosure," noting that the open letter "cited my July essay for The Bulwark about Claremont."

"While I was glad to see the letter circulating, I did not sign it," Field writes. "I am uncomfortable with the idea of any kind of ideological test for participants in political science conferences."

The Bulwark article that Field is referring to, published on July 13 and covered by AlterNet that day, was a scathing critique of theClaremont Institute — a right-wing think tank founded in 1979 by students of the late Harry V. Jaffa, who was a speechwriter for conservative Sen. Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign. Field's article, headlined "What the Hell Happened to the Claremont Institute?", had no problem with Goldwater conservatism; The Bulwark, for all its Trump-bashing, is still a right-wing website. But Field slammed Claremont for rejecting traditional conservatism and taking a toxic plunge into Trumpism, conspiracy theories and election denial. As Field and others at The Bulwark see it, Claremont has degenerated into an abyss of authoritarian thinking.

But while Field didn't sign the open letter, she remains vehemently critical of what Claremont has became.

"These days, though, the Claremont Review is not what it once was, and Claremont's web publication, the American Mind, routinely publishes pieces that damage the Institute's reputation for intellectual integrity," Field writes. "And so, their involvement in APSA is one of the few external legitimating elements remaining. Once that is lost, so goes much of the intellectual patina that is the Claremont trademark."

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1021 an

legal expert George Conway is blasting the Claremont Institute for defending John Eastman (photo, with Giuliani on Jan. 6), the man who wrote the now-infamous "Eastman Memo" which many see as instructions to then-Vice President Mike Pence on how to overturn the 2020 presidential election on January 6.

"Claremont's statement that Eastman did not seek to have Vice President Pence unilaterally determine the validity of electoral votes and overturn the election is a bald-faced, disgraceful lie," says Conway, who successfully argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court and won a unanimous decision, and had been under consideration to be Donald Trump's solicitor general or an assistant attorney general.

Conway was referring to a statement from the Claremont Institute, the pro-Trump conservative think tank where Eastman is employed as a senior fellow. Claremont has embraced right wing extremists, granting fellowships to Fox News' Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin, Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro, CRT conspiracist Christopher Rufo, and even Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec.

The Washington Post Monday accused Claremont of trying to "whitewash" Eastman's "road map for overturning Trump's loss."

Eastman, who happens to be the chairman of the nearly-defunct anti-LGBTQ group National Organization For Marriage (NOM) and supported Uganda's efforts to jail LGBTQ people for life, was forced to "retire" as a law professor after blowback from speaking at Trump's pre-insurrection rally, ginning up the troops, and falsely claiming Trump had won the election.

In its statement defending Eastman today, Claremont decried "a recent combined disinformation, de-platforming, and ostracism campaign," also known as holding Eastman accountable by using his own words.

Here's Conway's tweet...

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Claremont Institute is an American conservative think tank based in Upland, California. The institute was founded in 1979 by four students of Harry V. Jaffa.[3] The Institute publishes the Claremont Review of Books, as well as other books and publications.

The institute was an early defender of Donald Trump.[3] After Joe Biden won the 2020 election and Donald Trump refused to concede while making false claims of fraud, Claremont Institute senior fellow John Eastman aided Trump in his failed attempts to overturn the election results.[4]

History

The institute was founded in 1979 by four students of Straussian political theoristHarry V. Jaffa, a professor emeritus at Claremont McKenna College and the Claremont Graduate University, although the Institute has no affiliation with any of the Claremont Colleges.[3] Under Jaffa and Larry P. Arnn, the institute became a leading Straussian-influenced conservative think tank, publishing on topics such as statesmanship, Lincoln scholarship and modern conservative issues.[5][non-primary ^source ^needed]

Arnn served as its president from 1985 until 2000, when he became the twelfth president of Hillsdale College.[6] Michael Pack was president from 2015 to 2017.[7] Ryan Williams was named president in 2017.[6]

The Claremont Institute publishes The Claremont Review of Books,[8] The American Mind,[9] The American Story Podcast[10] and Claremont Books.[11] The Washington, D.C., branch of the Claremont Institute, called the Center for the American Way of Life, opened in February 2021.[12]

The Claremont Institute provides fellowships.[13] Fellowships in the past have gone to prominent figures on the right such as Laura Ingraham, Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin and Mary Kissel.[14][15][16] The institute caused controversy by granting a fellowship in 2019 to the Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec.[17][18][19] National Review columnist Mona Charen wrote that "Claremont stands out for beclowning itself with this embrace of the smarmy underside of American politics."[17] In 2020, *Slate* magazine called the institute "a racist fever swamp with deep connections to the conspiratorial alt-right", citing Posobiec's fellowship and the publication of a 2020 essay by senior fellow John Eastman that questioned Kamala Harris' eligibility for the vice presidency.[20][21]

Trump advocacy and connections

The institute was an early defender of Donald Trump.[3] The* *Daily Beast stated Claremont has "arguably has done more than any other group to build a philosophical case for Trump’s brand of conservatism."[22]

In September 2016 the institute's Claremont Review of Books published Michael Anton's "The Flight 93 Election" editorial. The editorial, written under a pseudonym, compared the prospect of conservatives letting Trump lose to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election with passengers not charging the cockpit of the United Airlines aircraft hijacked by Al-Qaeda.[23][24] The article went viral and received widespread coverage across the political spectrum. Rush Limbaugh devoted a day of his radio series to reading the entire essay.[25] Anton would go on to serve under President Trump as spokesman for the National Security Council, holding the position from 2017 to 2018.[24]

In 2019, Trump awarded the Claremont Institute with a National Humanities Medal.[26][27] In June 2020, former Claremont Institute president Michael Pack became head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) under Trump.[28]

During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the institute received between $350,000 and $1 million in federally backed small business loans from Chain Bridge Bank as part of the Paycheck Protection Program. The institute stated this would allow it to retain 29 jobs.[22][29]

With Trump and his advisors, Eastman made a failed attempt on January 4, 2021, to persuade then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, and he spoke at Trump's rally on January 6, 2021, before the attack on the Capitol.[4]

Biden years

In 2021, Claremont senior fellow Glenn Ellmers wrote a controversial essay in Claremont's The American Mind arguing that the United States had been destroyed by internal enemies and that "Most people living in the United States today — certainly more than half — are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term."[30][31][32][33]

Publications

The Claremont Institute publishes the Claremont Review of Books. The CRB is edited by Charles R. Kesler and features regular columns by Martha Bayles and Mark Helprin. The Institute also publishes The American Mind. Claremont Vice President of Education Matt Peterson serves as editor; and James Poulos is executive editor. The publication has featured essays by Newt Gingrich, Sen. Todd Young, Sen. Marco Rubio, Rep. Jim Banks, and Sen. Tom Cotton.[34][35][36]

Staff

Reference

---

bulwark

https://www.thebulwark.com/**what-the-hell-happened-to-the-claremont-institute/**

Just before 11 o’clock on the morning of January 6—an hour before President Donald Trump began riling up his “Save America” rally in front of the White House, and two and a half hours before the U.S. Capitol was overrun—Rudy Giuliani spoke to the rallygoers. By his side on the dais stood John C. Eastman, then a law professor at Chapman University and a visiting scholar at the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado Boulder. Wearing a dark suit with a red striped tie, a red and cream paisley scarf, a camel overcoat, and a brown brimmed hat, Professor Eastman cut a suave figure next to the grimacing man who, two decades and a lifetime ago, had been dubbed America’s Mayor.

According to Giuliani’s introductory remarks, Professor Eastman’s job that day was to explain what had happened the night before in Georgia: “How they [the Democrats] cheated and how it was exactly the same as what they did on November 3rd.” Eastman took to his task with gusto. Chopping the air with his hands, he asserted that dead people had voted and that state election officials had ignored or violated state law.

But his main focus was the voting machines. According to Eastman, the “old way” of doing fraud “was to have a bunch of ballots sittin’ in a box under the floor,” but now “they put those ballots in a secret folder in the machines.”From there, Eastman’s theory goes like this: When 99 percent of the vote was in, the Democrats pulled a trick. By this point they knew who had and hadn’t voted, and they knew how many more votes would be needed for Democrats to take the lead in the count. So they paused the counting, took out their stash of electronic ballots, matched each of “those unvoted ballots with an unvoted voter,” and “put them together in the machine,” marked as Democratic votes. “And voila! We have enough votes to barely get over the finish line. We saw it happen in real time last night, and it happened on November 3rd as well!” At one point he elaborated: “You don’t see this on Fox or any of the other stations” but you can see it in “the data.”

Eastman, who had reportedly spent the day before in the Oval Office arguing to Vice President Mike Pence that he had authority to intervene in the counting of the Electoral College vote, ended with an impassioned plea for Pence to allow state legislators to look into these matters, so that “we get to the bottom of it, and the American people know whether we have control of the direction of our government or not.” Eastman became very animated, pumping his fists and yelling:

We no longer live in a self-governing republic if we can’t get the answer to this question! This is bigger than President Trump! It is the very essence of our republican form of government, and it has to be done! And anybody that is not willing to stand up to do it does not deserve to be in the office! It is that simple!

As wild as this presentation was—with a tenured law professor arguing that the only way to preserve our system of government is for Congress to heed conspiracists—Eastman’s moment was one of the tamer parts of the rally. Everyone knows what followed.

After the mob attack of January 6, Professor Eastman, under pressure, resigned from his faculty position at Chapman University. He was also stripped of his public duties at the University of Colorado Boulder (for which action he is reportedly preparing to sue).

But one place where he is still welcome is the Claremont Institute. Eastman is a senior fellow at the four-decade-old conservative think tank; a member of its board of directors; and the founding director of its Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a shingle under which he sporadically files lawsuits and amicus briefs. When Eastman resigned from Chapman, he defended himself in the American Mind, a Claremont web magazine. In Claremont’s flagship publication, the Claremont Review of Books (CRB),one of the institute’s foremost scholars, Charles C. Kesler, defended him in turn. Eastman may be persona non grata at institutions wary of anti-democratic conspiracy theorists, but at the Claremont Institute he fits right in.

Some of the people affiliated with Claremont—like Eastman and much of the CRB crowd—are tenured academics with long careers in the classroom. Others—especially those who form the chorus in the American Mind—are controversialists habituated to today’s right-wing modes of arguing and trolling. People from both categories have spent the past five years giving intellectual succor to Donald Trump. Many of the people associated with Claremont, including several of its most prominent figures, have gone all in for MAGA—some even embracing its most authoritarian, paranoid, and racist strands.

The Claremont Institute used to be one of the principal places for conservative intellectuals to come together. It was founded by scholars who were taken seriously even by people who disagreed with them, and some such scholars still publish in the pages of the CRB. That Claremont has been unparalleled in its intellectual submission to Trumpism should give us pause. After all, in some respects the Claremont crowd is precisely the sort who should have known better: deeply read in political philosophy and history, and familiar with the many warning signs that Trump would be a damaging and divisive president.There is also a sense, however, in which the Claremont crowd’s submission to Trump was the most predictable thing in the world—the simple culmination of a political theory rooted in jingoism and denial.

Either way, the story of Claremont’s embrace of Trumpism is a long and complicated one. But with Claremont growing—arguably in influence and certainly institutionally—and with Trump-style politics continuing to dominate American conservatism, even six months after the violent attack on the seat of government, understanding what happened at Claremont is more than just an interesting case study in the time-worn problem of wannabe tyrants and intellectual subversion to power. What happened at Claremont is also of serious practical concern for anyone interested in the democratic future of the country.

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https://www.claremont.org/

PUBLIUS FELLOWSHIP

LINCOLN FELLOWSHIP

JOHN MARSHALL FELLOWSHIP

SPEECHWRITERS FELLOWSHIP

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHTS

SHERIFFS FELLOWSHIP

Caroline Beckman is the founder and CEO of Nouri, a proactive gut and immune health solutions company. She has founded, advised, and invested in over 10 food, beverage, technology, and sustainable resource companies that have partnered with leading retailers around the world. Recently, she has published work on microbiology illustrating how effective delivery of good bacteria can reduce the incidence of viral infections. Caroline is a Thiel Fellowship recipient and a proud college dropout.

Emile Doak is the executive director of The American Conservative. He is a graduate of Georgetown University,where he studied political philosophy and theology, and previously worked in education before returning to the field of his studies. His writing has appeared in The American Conservative, First Things, Front Porch Republic, Crisis Magazine, and elsewhere. A proud native of Herndon, Virginia, Emile lives in the historic district of his hometown.

Emile Doak is the Michael Burstein Lincoln Fellow for 2021.

Scott Glabe is a partner at Husch Blackwell LLP, where his practice focuses on national security and investigations. He previously served as the acting under secretary for policy at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and represented the White House as an associate counsel and special assistant to the President. He also worked for the U.S. House of Representatives in senior legal and policy roles including staff director of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Scott holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, an M.S. in Defense and Strategic Studies from Missouri State University, and an A.B. in Government from Dartmouth College.

Pedro L. Gonzalez is associate editor of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. His writing has appeared in the New York Post, Newsweek,Academic Questions,theWashington Examiner, The American Mind, The National Interest, American Greatness, and elsewhere. He has appeared on TuckerCarlson Tonight, The Hill's Rising with Krystal & Saagar, and other programs.

Charlie Kirk is the founder and president of Turning Point USA, the largest and fastest growing conservative youth activist organization in the country with over 250,000 student members, over 450 full and part-time staff, and a presence on over 2,000 high school and college campuses nationwide. In 2020, Charlie also served as the Chairman of Students for Trump, which activated hundreds of thousands of new college voters on over 350 campuses in battleground states. His social media reaches over 100 million people per month and according to Axios, he is one of the "top 10 most engaged" Twitter handles in the world. A New York Times and Amazon best-selling author of “The MAGA Doctrine: The Only Ideas that Will Win the Future,” Charlie is also the host of “The Charlie Kirk Show” podcast, which regularly ranks among the top-10 news shows on Apple podcast charts. As of October 2020, Charlie took his podcast to broadcast, and became the host of one of America's-fastest growing, nationally syndicated daily radio shows on the Salem Radio Network live from 12 - 3 PM ET.

Charlie Kirk is the Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Lincoln Fellow for 2021

Adam Korzeniewski is a combat veteran of the United States Marine Corps. He worked in the Trump Administration at the Treasury Department and Commerce Department. He is a subject matter expert on financial policy, trade and industrial policy, technology, national security, and the census. He previously worked in finance and on several statewide and Federal elections. He attended Columbia University for undergraduate study and University of Pennsylvania Wharton for an executive education program. President Trump appointed Adam to the Presidential Council for Improving the Federal Civic Architecture in 2021. Adam is currently working on a number of exciting projects that will be announced this year.

Adam Korzeniewski is the Richard and Jacqueline Lombardi Lincoln Fellow for 2021.

Steven McGuire is director of theMatthew J. Ryan Center for the Study of Free Institutions and the Public Goodand assistant teaching professor in the Augustine and Culture Seminar Program at Villanova University. He studies the history of political thought, focusing in particular on the theme of modernity and its critics. He is the co-editor of Eric Voegelin and the Continental Tradition, Subjectivity: Ancient and Modern, and Nature: Ancient and Modern. His writing has also appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Broad and Liberty, The Public Discourse, Church Life Journal, Modern Age, Perspectives on Political Science, and the Political Science Reviewer. He holds a B.A. from the University of Lethbridge, an M.A. from the University of Saskatchewan, and a Ph.D. from the Catholic University of America.

Seth Meyer is a partner at Keller Lenkner LLC. He represents clients in arbitration and litigation at the trial and appellate levels. Seth’s practice focuses on complex litigation, including representing state and local government entities in connection with the opioid crisis. Seth has handled cases on a broad array of subject matters, including antitrust, bankruptcy, contracts, class actions, fraud, labor and employment, mergers and acquisitions, products liability, securities, and unfair trade practices. Before joining Keller Lenkner, Seth was an attorney at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, D.C. and Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Chicago. Seth is an adjunct professor in the Center for Legal Studies at Northwestern University. He is also listed on the National Trial Lawyers’ 40 Under 40. Seth served as a law clerk for Judge Richard F. Suhrheinrich of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was elected to Order of the Coif and served as In Brief editor on the Managing Board of the Virginia Law Review. He earned his undergraduate degree in three years, summa cum laude, from Northwestern University.

Arta Moeini is an international political theorist and a revisionist scholar of Nietzsche and Modernity whose research spans questions of civilizational decline and cultural renewal (particularly in the West) and post-liberal political orders. Dr. Moeini has previously served as a senior advisor for policy at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). He is the director of research at the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy (IPD), a foreign affairs think tank committed to advancing realism and restraint in U.S. foreign policy. Dr. Moeini is also a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship (CSS) at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. as well as an elected member of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. He holds a B.A. in Political Science and Near Eastern Studies from University of California Berkeley, an M.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins SAIS, and a Ph.D. (with distinction) and M.A. in Government from Georgetown University.

Jack Murphy is an author, a journalist, and an entrepreneur. Jack interviews top thinkers, news makers, and world leaders on his popular podcast, Jack Murphy Live, and his book, “Democrat to Deplorable,” was a top seller. Jack founded the international men’s organization, the Liminal Order in 2019, and he works tirelessly to promote the values of the Order around the country. Previously Jack was the executive director of two Washington DC Charter Schools where he was a successful school turn-around operator. He has a BA in Economics from George Mason and a MA in International Affairs and International Finance from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Anthony Sabatini serves as a member of the Florida House of Representatives, representing District 32 in central Florida.  He has had five of his legislative bills signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis. He has filed and sponsored legislation on a variety of issues, such as legislation to crack down on Big-Tech censorship, mandate the use of E-Verify, make Florida a Second-Amendment Sanctuary, tighten election laws, eliminate corporate welfare, prohibit mandatory vaccines during COVID-19, and to prohibit transgender surgeries on children.  As an attorney, Sabatini fought the emergency orders of Florida’s local governments through numerous legal battles during COVID-19.  He also serves as a captain in the Florida Army National Guard.  He received his B.A. and J.D. from the University of Florida.

Terry Schilling is president of American Principles Project (APP). He has spent most of his career working in public policy and electoral politics to protect working families and the American way of life. In 2010, he managed his father’s congressional campaign in Western Illinois where they won by over 10 points in an entrenched district that was held by Democrats for almost 30 years. At APP, Terry has pioneered new ways to test messages and identify persuadable voters using family issues. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, USA Today, Newsweek, Politico, First Things, and many more. He is a graduate of Franciscan University in Steubenville, OH. The eldest of ten children, Terry lives in Virginia with his wife, Katie and their five children.

Terry Schilling is the Gary and Lisa Lainer Lincoln Fellow for 2021.

Jeremy Schwarz serves as general counsel and senior advisor to Miami Mayor Francis X. Suarez, where he has overseen the design, development, and execution of the Miami Forever agenda, which leverages climate-adaptive technology and conservative policies to drive economic growth, new climate-adaptive infrastructure, and Miami’s emergence as a global tech hub. Prior to this, he served as chief of staff to Mayor Suarez from 2019 to 2021. He is a lifetime member of Leadership Florida and a Florida Blue Key member. Inspired by Tom Brokaw’s The Greatest Generation, he joined the United States Navy. Jeremy was blessed to be assigned to Florida as an officer in the United States Navy, where he was forward deployed to the Persian Gulf and the Horn of Africa under Operation Iraqi Freedom. He received his BA from Fordham University; a PhD from Cambridge University, and a JD from Harvard Law School, and served as alaw clerk to Governor Rick Scott.He has held fellowships at Cambridge and Harvard; and previously served as a corporate lawyer with an international law firm. As a disabled veteran, he currently serves as chairman of the Veteran Legal Services program of the United Way of Miami, where he works to secure veterans’ access to education, healthcare, and general services.

Jeremy Schwarz is the Robert and Ruth Green Lincoln Fellow for 2021.

Robby Stephany Smith is national security advisor at the Coalition for a Prosperous America, consultant for Defense Priorities, and current student at the U.S. Naval War College. She served as senior advisor to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft in her Washington, DC office, special assistant in the Bureau for International Organization Affairs at the U.S. Department of State during the Trump administration, legislative director for Congressman Chip Roy of Texas, assistant director for policy and outreach at the Conservative Partnership Institute, military legislative assistant for Senator Mike Lee, and as a staffer in the office of Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling. Robby holds a BA in political science from Texas A&M University and a Master’s in Public Service and Administration from the George H.W. Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M.

Robby Stephanie Smith is the Ronald Gabriel, M.D., Fellow for 2021.

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Michael Knowles, Lincoln Fellow 2020

Christine Budasoff, John Marshall Fellow 2020

Daniel McCarthy, Lincoln Fellow 2020

Jace Yarbrough, John Marshall Fellow 2020

Rachel Bovard, Lincoln Fellow 2020

Allum Bokhari, Lincoln Fellow 2020

Pavlos Papadopoulos, Lincoln Fellow 2020

David Wilezol, Publius Fellow 2012, Speechwriter Fellow 2017

Riva-Melissa Tez, Lincoln Fellow 2020

Curt Mills, Publius Fellow 2019

Matthew Boose, Publius Fellow 2020

Elle Rogers, Publius Fellow 2020

Zachary Reynolds, John Marshall Fellow 2019

Anna Smith Lacey, Lincoln Fellow 2019

Christopher Bedford, Lincoln Fellow 2019

Gabriela Gonzalez-Araiza, John Marshall Fellow 2019

David Reaboi, Lincoln Fellow 2012

Jacki Pick, Lincoln Fellow 2011

David Deavel, Lincoln Fellow 2019

Editor, Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture;

Visiting Assistant Professor of Catholic Studies, The University of St. Thomas.

Naweed Tahmas, Publius Fellow 2019

Director of Content, Firehouse Strategies

Michael Cotton, John Marshall Fellow 2019

Law Clerk, Judge Don Willett, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

Jennifer Bryson, Lincoln Fellow 2019

Visiting fellow from the Hudson Institute. Founder of the Zephyr Institute and of LetAllPlay.org.

J.D. Rimann, Publius Fellow 2019

First Year Law Student at Southern Methodist University Dedmon School of Law

Josh Craddock, John Marshall Fellow 2019

Clerk for Chief Judge Timothy M. Tymkovich, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

Ugonna Eze, Publius Fellow 2018

Law Student at the University of Chicago

Gil Barndollar, Lincoln Fellow 2018

Military Fellow-in-Residence at the Catholic University of America’s Center for the Study of Statesmanship

Jarrett Stepman, Lincoln Fellow 2018

Columnist for The Daily Signal

Frank Chang, John Marshall Fellow 2018

Law Clerk to Jennifer Walker Elrod, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

Arielle Mueller, Speechwriters Fellow 2018

Press secretary for Senator Marco Rubio

David Azerrad, Publius Fellow 2007

Director of B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics and AWC Family Foundation Fellow at The Heritage Foundation

Tim Chapman, Lincoln Fellow 2015

Executive Director Heritage Action

Paul Schwennesen, Lincoln Fellow 2012

Ranch Owner and PhD Candidate

Chris Barkley, Lincoln Fellow 2016

Policy Director, Senate Republican Policy Committee

Bre Payton, Publius Fellow 2018

Staff Writer at The Federalist

Cameron Norris, John Marshall Fellow 2018

Associate at Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC

Raheem Kassam, Lincoln Fellow 2018

Journalist and Author

Charles Correll III, Publius Fellow 2018

Staff Assistant for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Elisha Krauss, Lincoln Fellow 2016

Host and Contributor at The Daily Wire

Rob Satrom, Lincoln Fellow 2016

Counterterrorism Policy Advisor, U.S. Department of State

Damon Ansell, Lincoln Fellow 1998

Director of Corporate Affairs for Diageo Africa Regional Markets

Marjorie Jeffrey, Publius Fellow 2017

PhD Candidate in Political Theory at Baylor University

Chuck DeVore, Lincoln Fellow 2004

Vice President of National Initiatives for the Texas Public Policy Foundation

Alexandra Harrison, John Marshall Fellow 2016

Associate at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP

Joseph Tartakovsky, Publius Fellow 2006

Contributing Editor of the Claremont Review of Books

Mary Beth McConahey, Publius Fellow 2007

Assistant Director of the Center for Political and Economic Thought, Saint Vincent College

Ryan T. Anderson, Publius Fellow 2007

William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow in American Principles & Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation, Editor of Public Discourse

William Haun, John Marshall Fellow 2013

Associate Attorney at Shearman & Sterling LLP

David DesRosiers, Publius Fellow 1994

President at the Real Clear Foundation

Ilan Wurman, John Marshall Fellow 2012

Associate at Winston & Strawn LLP

May Davis, John Marshall Fellow 2015

Special Assistant to the President and an Associate White House Staff Secretary

James Baehr, Lincoln Fellow Fellow 2012

Assistant United States Attorney at the United States Attorney's Office

Chris Malagisi, Lincoln Fellow 2012

Editor-in-Chief of the Conservative Book Club

Kaytlin Roholt, Marshall Fellow 2014

Judicial Law Clerk at United States District Court for the District of Columbia

Ben Shapiro, Publius Fellow 2006

Editor-in-Chief The Daily Wire

William Smith, Lincoln Fellow 2015

Founder & Chief of Staff for Congressman Gary Palmer (AL-06)

Ben Weingarten, Publius Fellow 2015

Founder & CEO of ChangeUp Media.

Ryan Walsh, 2012 John Marshall Fellows

Chief Deputy Solicitor General of Wisconsin.

Melika Willoughby, Publius Fellow 2016

Communications director for Kansas GovernorSam Brownback.

Ms. Willoughby’s duties include speech writing, press releases, interview preparation, and grassroots engagement.

Paul Teller, Lincoln Fellow 2005

Chief of Staff, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz

Day in and day out, Paul keeps the office of Senator Ted Cruz running smoothly, working tirelessly on behalf of the people of Texas and the conservative movement.

Cheryl Miller, Publius Fellow 2002

Director of Educational Programing,

Hertog Foundation

Cheryl organizes and recruits for advanced seminars in war, grand strategy, economics, and political thought. Her programs are geared toward everyone from high school students to rising young professionals.

Mollie Hemingway, Lincoln Fellow 2014 

Senior Editor, The Federalist

A longtime journalist, Mollie Hemingway writes about culture, policy, and the political horse race for one of the Right’s hottest new web magazines.

Keith Urbahn, Lincoln Fellow 2014

President and Founding Partner, Javelin

Keith works with authors, journalists, political figures, and organizations on book and television deals, website and app design and development, and public relations.

Brittany Corona, Publius Fellow 2013

State Programs and Government Relations Director at The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.

Brittany oversees 19 states and provides policy analysis to advance parental choice in education. Her research and commentary has appeared in National Review Online, The Federalist, and The Daily Signal.

Scott Keller, Lincoln Fellow 2013

Solicitor General of Texas.

Scott represents the state of Texas is all manner of litigation. He has argued multiple cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

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disambiguate inst from CMC from grad school? ever connected?

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see Glantz

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eastman wingnut

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1021 ah an

When arch-conservative Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming criticizes President Joe Biden's economic policies, it is obvious that she still considers him the loyal opposition — and the feeling is mutual. But there is a school of right-wing thought that doesn't regard Biden or any other Democrat as the loyal opposition. In an article published by The Atlantic on October 1, journalist Emma Green takes a look at far-right MAGA Republicans who fear that the irreconcilable differences of Red America and Blue America may lead to an all-out civil war.

Members of the Claremont Institute, a far-right think tank, have been saying that Republicans and Democrats aren't just members of competing political parties, but are, in effect, living in two separate countries. Describing Claremont as the "intellectual home of America's Trumpist right," Green notes that Claremont President Ryan Williams and his colleagues "believe that America has" become "two fundamentally different countries, not least because of the rise of secularism."

During an interview with Green, Williams claimed, "The Founders were pretty unanimous, with (George) Washington leading the way, that the Constitution is really only fit for a Christian people."

Williams, during the interview, didn't say that another civil war is something he looks forward to. But he fears that the United States' political divisions will lead to major violence. The Claremont president told Green, "I worry about such a conflict. The Civil War was terrible. It should be the thing we try to avoid almost at all costs."

On March 24, Claremont's website, the American Mind, published a controversial essay by senior follow Glenn Ellmers, — who wrote, "Most people living in the United States today — certainly more than half — are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term." Ellmers' article was headlined "'Conservatism' Is No Longer Enough" and explained why Claremont rejects traditional conservatism.

Green asked Williams, "What does it mean to declare that more than half of the people residing in the country are not truly American?" — to which he replied, "Glenn was, of course, being provocative and polemical. But if Claremont thinks real Americanism is a belief in the principles of the American founding, we have to acknowledge that a good portion of our fellow citizens don't agree with our principles and conclusions about what politics is for. If we differ on those fundamental things, we're really two Americas."

Williams added, "Even during the Civil War — I think we're more divided now than we were then. As (President Abraham) Lincoln said, we all prayed to the same God. We all believed in the same Constitution. We just differed over the question of slavery."

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no lnx

Trump lawyer who planned election overthrow to speak at conference despite objections

POLITICS

by: Lee Hedgepe

Posted: Sep 23, 2021

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — When John Eastman speaks during the American Political Science Association’s annual conference next month, he may want to tread lightly. Political scientists from across the country are condemning Eastman and chiding their own organization for allowing the former Trump lawyer to participate in the discipline’s most important annual meeting.

Just 56% of Americans can name all three branches of government — that’s actually a 15-year high

Eastman made national headlines this week following the publication of a memo he wrote last year that outlined a six-step plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

@APSAtweets do the right thing. By the very least condemn anti-democratic movements and figures and balance said panels with serious academics #JohnEastman #APSA2021 #January6th https://t.co/Ghi27Bi8O2

— Dr. Yotam Ophir (@ophiryotam) September 22, 2021

Eastman is scheduled to participate in two panels at APSA, both run by the Claremont Institute, which lists him as a senior fellow on its website. The “virtual roundtables” are scheduled for Sunday, October 3, and are titled “The 2020 Elections and the State of American Conservatism” and “The Supreme Court’s Current and Future Direction.”

Dr. David Karpf, an associate professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, said Wednesday that Eastman’s plan to overturn the presidential election puts his views well outside the legitimate marketplace of ideas.

“If that was published as a blog post,” Karpf said of the memo, “I would call it laughable trash. Since it was presented to the Vice President of the United States, I would call it treason.” The memo said that then-Vice President Mike Pence should refuse to recognize electors from seven states and declare Trump president.

If Eastman after 1/6 is not a bridge too far then what is; and further, why would I stay as a member in APSA when they let that stand?

— Justin Walsh (@JustinWalsh_) September 21, 2021

“The main thing here,” Eastman wrote, “is that Pence should do this without asking for permission—either from a vote of the joint session or from the Court.”

That suggestion, according to Karpf, was beyond the pale. “That’s overthrowing free and fair elections,” he said.

Eastman’s notoriety goes beyond that memo. In 2020, he was widely criticized for an op-ed he wrote that suggested Kamala Harris is not an American citizen. Eastman, who was a law clerk for Clarence Thomas, was also a professor at Chapman University School of Law. He retired from that position after giving a speech at the January 6 “Save America” rally that preceded the storming of the U.S. Capitol.

“He’s not a political scientist, but he and the Claremont Institute try to gain legitimacy by having little panels at APSA, where they present those sorts of arguments, or at least don’t have those arguments criticized,” Karpf, who is an APSA member, said. “That’s dangerous for American politics and APSA should not be associated with it.”

APSA giving John "Trump Coup" Eastman a platform to legitimate his views is their dumbest decision since holding a conference in New Orleans in the middle of hurricane season https://t.co/wNLq8A4B1b

— Seva (@SevaUT) September 22, 2021

Karpf said that he believes those who attend the conference should make their views on Eastman and the Claremont institute clear. “Claremont should not be welcome anymore,” he said. “That’s not about the diversity of ideas. That’s about recognizing that there are some ideas that are so far outside of the boundaries of American political discourse that we should be not lending them our platform.”

This is not the first time political scientists have taken issue with APSA. In 2011, scholars opposed John Yoo’s participation in that year’s annual meeting. Yoo was a lawyer for former Pres. George W. Bush, who wrote documents outlining the alleged legality of torture techniques. In their response to members’ objections, APSA’s governing council said that it supported members’ right to protest Yoo’s presence “as we support the right of APSA members to produce panels and speakers on topics they think it important for the association to consider.”

In that letter, APSA clarified that “organizers of the affiliated group panel on which he participated,” not APSA itself, invited Yoo to the meeting. “These groups exist explicitly to bring forward diverse points of view,” the letter continued.

It would be kind of cool if John Eastman got arrested during the APSA panel though.

— Justin Zimmerman (@JZPhilosophy) September 21, 2021

Like Yoo, Eastman is set to participate in a panel organized by an outside group, the Claremont Institute. On its website, Claremont Institute solicits donations of $5,000 to “support” its panels at the annual APSA conference.

“You may designate a gift at any level to APSA panels,” the Claremont page continues, “where our scholars teach the true principle of government and their application to today’s policies.”

For his part, Karpf has said he supports the diversity of ideas wholeheartedly. “I agree with the stance that we should have a diversity of ideas at the conference. I also would readily acknowledge that there are gray areas where it’s a difficult call,” he said. “But I think every political scientist, who has spent any time in America in the past four years, certainly since January 6, can look at that memo and immediately acknowledge that that is nowhere close to the line. There are difficult cases. And then there is this. This is not a typical case. This is so far beyond the line.”

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-sordid-record-of-john-eastman-the-latest-right-wing-lawyer-on-trumps-legal-team/

this week, President Donald Trump sought to join—in his personal capacity as a presidential candidate—a request made by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to the U.S. Supreme Court to allow Texas to sue Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in an effort to overturn the results of the presidential election by disenfranchising those states’ voters. Many legal observers consider the Texas filing to be, in the words of election law expert Richard Hasen, “utter garbage.” But that hasn’t stopped more than a dozen Republican attorneys general from seeking to join the effort.

The lawyer representing Trump in his request to join the Texas effort is John Eastman, a law professor who has long advanced positions on the far-right fringe of the legal community on issues ranging from immigration to LGBTQ equality to separation of church and state. Eastman appeared on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show this week to talk about the Supreme Court’s “original and exclusive” jurisdiction over disputes between states. He noted that the Court has asked defendant states to respond to Texas’s motion asking for Supreme Court permission to sue the four states.  “My gut’s they’re going to take it and look at it on the merits,” he said.

Eastman, a former law clerk for the hard-right Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, directs the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Claremont Institute, which former Right Wing Watch investigative reporter Jared Holt called “an increasingly white nationalist think tank” in 2019. That year, Claremont made “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec a Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Lincoln Fellow....

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nature 406 2000

https://www.nature.com/articles/35018718

Supporters of the US tobacco industry have failed to silence one of its most prominent academic critics.

An appeals court in California has ruled that Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), can use his position to back the state government's anti-smoking efforts.

In 1997, Californians for Scientific Integrity — a group set up at a Sacramento attorney's office by the industry-sponsored National Smokers Alliance — sued Glantz in an attempt to stop him using his academic position to help the state of California fight smoking.

The group alleged that Glantz's 15 years of campaigning was a misuse of public funds. It also charged that the university's approval of his activities was a violation of the rights of those Californians who did not agree with the anti-smoking cause.

But two weeks ago, a three-judge panel of the Third District Court of Appeals in Sacramento rejected the allegations, reaffirming the right of any faculty member at the University of California to campaign against smoking.

“It makes me very glad to work at a university that takes academic freedom and public interest very seriously and has the courage to stand up to … the tobacco industry,” said Glantz, who is widely known for challenging the industry's claims that it was unaware of the dangers of smoking.

Citing statements on a recruitment flyer, he claims that Californians for Scientific Integrity “was set up for the express purpose of suing the University of California and silencing me”.

“It was clear intimidation,” he adds. “But this shows you can stand up and beat them.”

Mark Perry, a Washington DC-based attorney with the firm of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher that represents the suing group, did not answer a request for comment. Perry has said separately that no decision has been reached on whether to appeal to the California Supreme Court.

Nor was there a response from the Claremont Institute, a conservative think-tank in California that filed a ‘friend of the court’ brief in support of the group.

Although the decision only addresses the rights of university staff to campaign against smoking, it could be far-reaching. Along with other cases, any faculty member of a Californian public university could use it to affirm his or her right to campaign for any cause endorsed by the state legislature.

Last month, Glantz, who conducts research in UCSF's cardiology division, won the annual Public Service Achievement Award of the lobby group Common Cause for his “tireless and tenacious” efforts against smoking. In the past, pro-smoking groups have attacked him in both California and Washington — accusing him of falsifying a result in a study of the effects of ‘second-hand smoke’, and seeking to cut off his research funds.

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https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Court-rules-professor-can-use-his-job-to-fight-3054189.php

Court rules professor can use his job to fight smoking

By Bob Egelko Published 4:00 am PDT, Tuesday, July 11, 2000

The tobacco industry's leading nemesis in California can continue to fight smoking from his perch as a UC professor, says a state appellate court.

An industry-allied group, Californians for Scientific Integrity, sued the University of California in 1998 over Stanton Glantz's use of his university job and resources to push for tougher state action against smoking. The suit contended Glantz's activities were a misuse of tax money.

But the 3rd District Court of Appeal said Glantz's activity was authorized by the Legislature, which has directed the state to "play a leading role in promoting a smoke-free society by the year 2000."

Glantz, a professor of medicine at UC-San Francisco, was a founder and former president of Californians for Nonsmokers' Rights. He has worked for state and local bans on smoking in public buildings and for stronger messages in state-funded anti-smoking ads.

His studies on smoking and health have been disputed by tobacco companies, which have tried to get Congress and the California Legislature to cut off his government funding. The suit by Californians for Scientific Integrityinitially included a challenge to the validity of a study by Glantz that found that prohibitions on smoking in restaurants did not hurt tourism. That claim was later dropped and the group ultimately sought only to halt the alleged misuse of state funds for lobbying.

"They were attempting to intimidate me and the university," Glantz said Monday. "The university stood up to the thugs in cigarette companies again and won again."

Mark A. Perry, a lawyer for the group that sued the university, said no decision has been made on a further appeal. He said he disagreed with the court's conclusion that the general statements in state law about a smoke-free society authorized Glantz to use state funds to promote anti-smoking policies.

Perry denied Glantz's assertion that Californians for Scientific Integrity was a front for the tobacco industry, but said it is partially funded by the National Smokers' Alliance, which draws funding from tobacco companies.

The appellate ruling Thursday upheld a decision by Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Joe Gray to dismiss the suit without a trial. The court said California law forbids certain types of state-funded political activities, such as the use of state funds to influence election campaigns, but does not prohibit activity that the Legislature itself has authorized. <

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https://books.google.com/books?id=RplatBlLnGUC

Pesticides in the Terrestrial and Aquatic Environments: Second National Research Conference

Front Cover

Diana L. Weigmann

DIANE Publishing, 1994 - 555 pages

0 Reviews

Includes 50 research papers on risk assessment, monitoring, toxicity, waste disposal, environmental regulations, pesticide contamination of drinking water supplies, wastewater sludge, groundwater and surface water, and much more.

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http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/pizzagater-jack-posobiec-granted-fellowship-by-increasingly-white-nationalist-think-tank

California-based conservative think tank The Claremont Institute has been working to define and attack multiculturalism as part of a campaign aimed at shaping national rhetoric ahead of the 2020 presidential election, and its top voices have employed nationalist rhetoric and sought untraditional figures to meet its ends.

The Claremont Institute, founded in 1979, is influential within the conservative movement nationally. The organization’s approach to influencing politics is three-fold: it educates conservative influencers, it publishes the Claremont Review of Books, and it files legal briefs and engages in litigation. In May, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed the organization’s 40th Anniversary Gala in California. Founding Director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence John Eastman is a figure that conservatives have often turned to when opposing LGBTQ equality and immigration issues.

Claremont Institute provided early support of President Trump’s 2016 candidacy, including its publication of a now-notorious anonymous essay called “The Flight 93 Election,” which described a potential Hillary Clinton presidency as “Russian Roulette with a semi-auto,” and a vote for Trump as a heroic act on a par with the passengers on September 11, 2001, who rushed the cockpit of their hijacked plane. The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf described the essay at the time as “flagrant sophistry that should embarrass The Claremont Institute.” But instead of feeling ashamed, it appears the organization has ratcheted up its overt support for Trump, and is seeking to intellectualize white nationalist talking points, akin to what Fox News host Tucker Carlson does.

Today we find another work of sophistry on the front page of The Claremont Institute’s website, an article titled “Defend America—Defeat Multiculturalism.” In the essay, Claremont Institute president Ryan P. Williams writes that “today’s multiculturalist enforcers seek to erase and replace America,” an echo of the “replacement theory” and assertions of “white genocide” put forward by white nationalist and white identitarian groups around the world. (Last year, Right Wing Watch reported on Tucker Carlson’s appropriation of the theory to assert that black South Africans were seeking to steal the land of white farmers.) A note on the Claremont Institute piece states that the essay is a “launching document” for a Claremont Institute effort “in defense of America against the threat of multiculturalism” ahead of the 2020 general election. Williams writes:

If we do not reverse multiculturalism’s advance, it will continue to undermine our country and constitutionalism, destroying the possibility of a common good and a life of civic peace. Indeed, multiculturalism threatens to take down western civilization as whole.

By multiculturalism, we do not mean the mere presence of many cultures, races, or ethnic traditions, which are a fixture of modern American life and can be found across our states, communities, institutions, and private associations. One of America’s—and Americanism’s—great virtues has always been the maintenance of a wide realm of liberty and civic society in which a vibrant mix of cultural heritages and individual excellence could flourish.

America’s most important politico-cultural virtue, though, has been the insistence to its current—and especially potential—citizens that they assimilate to a certain view of justice embodied in the Declaration of Independence and safeguarded by our state and national political institutions, first and foremost the U.S. Constitution. E pluribus unum (“out of many, one”), America’s motto, means that assimilation has always been in our national DNA.

Williams writes that right-wing conservatives and intellectuals in America “have a disordered view of priorities and policies, of ends and means,” which has led many people on the Right to “misinterpret and underappreciate President Trump’s virtues and his significance as a political phenomenon.” Multiculturalists, Williams continues, pose an existential threat to the nation. Williams writes that Claremont Institute will employ rhetorical campaigns “to fuse civic nationalism with the popular, cultural, and historical touchstones of American greatness.” And over the past few months, its commentators have made clear just what exactly they mean by “American greatness.”

In an episode of Claremont’s Institute’s podcast “The American Mind,” James Poulos says that “social justice dogma” seeks “the wholesale repudiation of American justice as we’ve known it since the Founding.” On the podcast, Williams compares social justice efforts to slavery and Communism during the Cold War. Williams says the analogy “isn’t perfect, but I think, thinking of it that way, at a regime level challenge, is the proper way to think about it.” Multiculturalism, Williams says, threatens to destroy America “and could be the downfall of Western civilization as a whole.” On the same episode of the podcast, Tom Klingenstein, Claremont Institute chairman, claims that multiculturalism “aims at the destruction of America and the West.”

Conrad Black, who was pardoned of fraud and obstruction of justice convictions by Trump earlier this year, wrote at Claremont Institute that “waves of desperate people in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America who have tried to swarm into Europe and North America more closely resemble, though they are less organized, the barbarian masses who surged into the Western Roman Empire in the fifth and sixth centuries.”

These sentiments published by the Claremont Institute, reverberate with white nationalist philosophy as it was popularized and mainstreamed with the rise of Trump during the 2016 election. The Southern Poverty Law Center notes that fighting multicultural programs has been a common cause of white nationalists and paleo-conservates.

Vox reporter Jane Coaston pointed out that Claremont Institute had selected One America News Network pundit Jack Posobiec, a notorious “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorist with past ties to extreme-right figures, as a Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Lincoln Fellow for 2019. The institute will host Posobiec for a week-long fellowship in August alongside figures working closely with the White House, Capitol Hill, and State Department. Mona Charen at National Review wrote earlier this month that the selection of fellows, including Posobiec, should embarass The Claremont Institute “for beclowning itself with this embrace of the smarmy underside of American politics.”

Tags: Conrad Black Jack PosobiecJames PoulosJohn EastmanRyan P. WilliamsTom Klingensteinconspiracy theorieswhite nationalismClaremont Institute

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https://news.yahoo.com/why-did-rightwing-troll-charles-c-johnson-want-to-meet-with-commerce-secretary-wilbur-ross-090000636.html

the  year 2018 was not an especially auspicious one for Charles C. Johnson, a Holocaust denier whom the Boston Globe has deemed “one of the country's most notorious Internet trolls.”

a Michigan father and son his site had accused of having been responsible for the killing of protester Heather Heyer during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., the year before, despite their having nothing to do with the murder. The murder was actually committed by a white nationalist." data-reactid="23" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In June, Johnson agreed to pay a settlement reported to have been as high as $25,000 to a Michigan father and son his site had accused of having been responsible for the killing of protester Heather Heyer during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., the year before, despite their having nothing to do with the murder. The murder was actually committed by a white nationalist.

That same summer, Freestartr, a site Johnson founded that was used to raise money for Nazis and extremists, shut down. GotNews.com, a font of fake news that he ran, also met its demise.

who had been informally involved with the Trump campaign — remained an influential figure, a kind of right-wing martyr maligned by media and technology elites. Even so, he retained untrammeled access to the highest reaches of the Trump administration." data-reactid="25" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Despite that, Johnson — who had been informally involved with the Trump campaign — remained an influential figure, a kind of right-wing martyr maligned by media and technology elites. Even so, he retained untrammeled access to the highest reaches of the Trump administration.

That much is clear from his surprising exchange with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on June 25, 2018.

“Hi Secretary Ross,” the markedly informal email sent by Johnson that day begins. “Great chatting with you the other day.” Johnson proceeds to say that he would be “speaking before about 30 congressmen on tech issues” in Washington and “would love to meet” with Ross as well.

Ross responded about three hours later, in an email apparently typed from his iPhone. He explained that he had to fly to Wisconsin in order to attend the groundbreaking for a plant opened by Foxconn, the Chinese electronics manufacturer. He urged Johnson to schedule a time for them to meet by going through Macie Leach, a senior adviser to the commerce secretary who had overlapped with Johnson at Claremont McKenna College, a small and prestigious California liberal arts university with a reputation for a conservative student body.

“Sounds good,” Johnson replied, copying several Commerce officials, as well as another email account belonging to Ross. The subject line of his email was “Tech discussion with Sec Ross.”

Ross and Johnson did meet that summer, according to a person familiar with the matter, but Johnson’s request for a subsequent meeting in October was turned down.

It is not known what they discussed, but Johnson is a vocal critic of what he views as bias against Republicans and conservatives in the tech and social media world, while the Department of Commerce oversees the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. President Trump has amplified such complaints, raising them recently in a meeting with Twitter founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey.

well known. Three years before, he had been booted off Twitter for threatening to “take out” Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson. His fundraising sites welcomed campaigns by neo-Nazis like Richard Spencer and Andrew Anglin." data-reactid="39" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Department of Commerce would not confirm that a meeting between Ross and Johnson took place. Questions remain about why a high-ranking government official would entertain a figure as divisive as Johnson, especially since by late 2018 Johnson’s affiliation with white supremacists and other fringe figures was well known. Three years before, he had been booted off Twitter for threatening to “take out” Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson. His fundraising sites welcomed campaigns by neo-Nazis like Richard Spencer and Andrew Anglin.

rejected Johnson’s bid to have his Twitter ban lifted. (Johnson may have found a way around the ban; shortly after an exchange with Johnson, this reporter was followed on Twitter by @charles46532569, an account purporting to belong to “charles johnson.” The account followed, and shared messages from, accounts associated with several right-wing figures. Johnson denied to Yahoo News that the account was his, replying with an emoji of a sunglasses-wearing visage.)" data-reactid="40" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The exchange with Ross came several days after a California superior court rejected Johnson’s bid to have his Twitter ban lifted. (Johnson may have found a way around the ban; shortly after an exchange with Johnson, this reporter was followed on Twitter by @charles46532569, an account purporting to belong to “charles johnson.” The account followed, and shared messages from, accounts associated with several right-wing figures. Johnson denied to Yahoo News that the account was his, replying with an emoji of a sunglasses-wearing visage.)

Johnson headed to Washington amid these defeats, though it’s not known which members of Congress he tried to brief, and on what subject. No evident record of such a meeting exists, but Johnson clearly relished the access he had to the Trump administration and conservative members of Congress.

In 2017, he had posted on Facebook, “10 years ago I came to California with $50. I knew no one. Now the money I made and saved from odd jobs, poker, and risk taking has made me a multimillionaire before I turned 30 and bitcoin has hit $10k. Now I hang out with cabinet members and congressmen. What a country.” It is not clear which cabinet members, or legislators, Johnson was referencing.

“It's concerning that a reputed Holocaust denier is familiar enough with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross that he can apparently reach the Secretary via a private email account,” said Charisma Troiano, communications director for Democracy Forward, a progressive group that obtained Ross’s emails through the Freedom of Information Act. “The public deserves to know why.”

Ross’s email address is redacted in the documents reviewed by Yahoo News. However, Democracy Forward had specified in its Freedom of Information request that it sought “all communications sent to or from any nongovernmental email address established, controlled, or used by the Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.” The back-and-forth with Johnson, therefore, had to have been conducted at least in part via an email address affiliated with Ross but not issued by the federal government.

Several high-ranking Trump administration officials have been found to have used private emails for government business." data-reactid="54" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em;">During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump frequently castigated his Democratic competitor, Hillary Clinton, for using a private, off-site email server while serving as secretary of state for President Obama. Several high-ranking Trump administration officials have been found to have used private emails for government business.

In a text-message exchange with Yahoo News, Johnson expressed concern that he would be “falsely” accused “of being a troll or worse,” which made him hesitant to “engage with the #fakenews.”

Johnson later sent a statement denying that he was a Holocaust denier and claiming that he was a supporter of Jewish causes. He also pointed out that one of his lawyers was an Orthodox Jew, presumably as proof that he harbored no anti-Semitic tendencies.

Johnson also depicted himself as a free speech advocate, not a supporter of extremist causes. And he said that he was not the author of the false GotNews.com report about the Charlottesville killing. He said the settlement in the case was for a lower amount than what has been reported elsewhere (that is, $25,000).

who once authored a book on President Calvin Coolidge, would have the standing to discuss with Ross. The Department of Commerce has broad oversight of U.S. trade, though Trump has ceased to seek Ross’s counsel on that issue." data-reactid="58" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em;">Of his exchange with Ross, Johnson would only say it was “a national security matter.” It is not clear what topic pertaining to national security Johnson, who once authored a book on President Calvin Coolidge, would have the standing to discuss with Ross. The Department of Commerce has broad oversight of U.S. trade, though Trump has ceased to seek Ross’s counsel on that issue.

Johnson reached out to Ross again in October 2018, saying he had “something of international import to discuss.” Leach, the senior Commerce adviser, appears to have handled the request, forwarding it from her personal email address to her Department of Commerce one. This time, however, Johnson was not as fortunate as he had been over the summer. “The requested meeting did not occur,” a Commerce spokeswoman said.

Ross remains the commerce secretary, though his credibility has been seriously tarnished by his handling of the Trump administration’s effort to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census. He is routinely spoken about as on the verge of losing his job.

Johnson’s current occupation is unclear, though he told Yahoo News he wants to be called an “entrepreneur.” The substance of his present-day entrepreneurial activity is unknown.

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https://www.nas.org/articles/will_the_other_claremont_colleges_defend_free_speech

A version of Rachelle Peterson's article originally appeared on Campus Reform. The full article is below.

When Claremont McKenna College announced it would punish seven students who blockaded the entrances to Heather Mac Donald’s speech in April, it did something few colleges have shown the backbone to undertake. It enforced campus policy in defense of free speech. In April President Hiram Chodosh said protesters had engaged in behavior that “violates College policy” and promised they “will be held accountable.” In July, the College suspended five students and placed two on conduct probation.

Claremont McKenna deserves some credit. I recently offered one-and-a-half cheers; to earn all three, Claremont should have prevented the blockade in the first place and kept order during Mac Donald’s talk. But at least the college followed through on President Chodosh’s vows to hold some students accountable.

We should now turn our attention to the other six institutions that, along with Claremont McKenna College, make up the Claremont University Consortium: Pitzer College, Pomona College, Claremont Graduate University, Keck Graduate Institute, Harvey Mudd College, and Scripps College. One hundred seventy students participated in the protest against Mac Donald. Claremont McKenna identified twelve of the 170 as Claremont McKenna students, of which it punished seven. The other 158 protesters either could not be identified, or were not Claremont McKenna students.

Where did these other speech obstructers come from? According to Claremont McKenna, some are students at the other Claremont consortium colleges. CMC claims to have sent the deans at these colleges “evidence of policy violations” by their students, and asked them “to review this evidence under their own conduct processes.” Claremont McKenna has banned four non-CMC students from visiting campus, on the grounds that they “played significant roles in the blockade.” But it is up to the administrators of the other colleges to take steps to suspend, fine, or otherwise punish students who broke college policy by disrupting Mac Donald’s talk.

Whether the other Claremont colleges follow President Chodosh’s lead in executing punishments will be a serious test of their commitment to free speech. A mob of protesters, many of them students, tore down a fence, swarmed police officers, and formed human chains across entrances out of spite for Mac Donald’s right to speak. Suspected policy-breakers should be given a fair investigation, with an opportunity to present any exculpatory evidence. But breaking college rules should come with consequences—especially when those rules concern a central purpose of higher education, the protection of intellectual freedom.

I asked each of the Claremont Consortium institutions whether they have investigated their students’ behavior during the April blockade. Three have begun reviewing evidence, and one plans to wait until the fall to investigate. Two believe none of their students participated or violated policies.

Here are the responses from each of the Claremont institutions.

Pitzer, Pomona, and Scripps are currently looking at evidence of potential student policy violations.

Pitzer College Vice President for Student Affairs Brian Carlisle:“Pitzer is in communication with Claremont McKenna College. We are currently reviewing all information provided.”

Pomona College Dean of Students Miriam Feldblum, via Marylou Ferry, Vice President, Chief Communications Officer: “We did receive photographs and information from CMC to review, as referred to by CMC in their recent statement, and that is in process of being reviewed with Dean Townes and Dean Waugh, who are the deans who oversee judicial affairs, and advise Judicial Council.

“With regard to our approach, this past spring, we had conversations in our campus Student Affairs Committee (SAC), which is a faculty committee, currently chaired by Prof. Paul Cahill, and SAC oversees the student handbook and can make changes to student judicial council processes and with ASPC student government, that our usual process when there are complaints about general behaviors during a demonstration (such as the use of bull horns in buildings or some disruptive behavior during a demonstration) often involve a dean's warning regarding the demonstration policy, whether to specific students or more generally when we cannot identify specific students, and that future violations could be addressed by the Judicial Council or a Dean's Sanction.

“With regard to an investigation, our general process with regard to claims of policy violations is that Dean Townes and Dean Waugh will determine the need for an investigation, oversee the investigation if appropriate, and then proceed from there, again, as appropriate.”

Scripps College Director of Media and Public Relations Karen Bergh:“Your query to President Lara Tiedens was forwarded to me as per our protocol for such inquiries. The statement you can use for Scripps regarding the student issue at CMC is that ‘we have received information from CMC and are reviewing the matter.’  There is no additional information at this time.”

Harvey Mudd College will review the evidence in the fall, when classes resume.

Harvey Mudd College Communications Officer Timothy L. Hussey:“In regard to your emails to President Klawe and Dean Jacobsen, the chair of our Disciplinary Board will follow up with CMC in the fall, when students return to campus, to discuss any allegations of HMC students violating the Demonstration Policy and any subsequent Honor Code actions.”

Claremont Graduate University and Keck Graduate Institute believe none of their students participated in the protests against Mac Donald.

Claremont Graduate University President Jacob Adams:  “To the best of the university’s knowledge, no Claremont Graduate University (CGU) students were involved in the April 6 protest at Claremont McKenna College (CMC), and CMC has not turned over any evidence that CGU students were involved in the matter.”

Keck Graduate Institute Dean of Student Engagement and Enrollment Services Sofia Toro: “We have reviewed the information by CMC and did not identify any KGI students.”

This means at least four of the Claremont institutions may have students who violated college policy. Harvey Mudd College President Maria Klawe, Pitzer College President Melvin L. Oliver, Pomona College President G. Gabrielle Starr, and Scripps College  President Lara Tiedens, we’re watching you. Whether you investigate fairly and promptly, enforce order, and punish policy-breakers will show whether you respect free speech.

see earlier art'l

==

also CMC  http://www.cmc.edu/salvatori/

fake news:

For instance, it enlisted the organization (together with think-tanks like the Reason Foundation, Hoover Institute, Heritage Foundation and Claremont Institute) to write op-ed pieces that were planted in newspapers attacking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its determination that Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) was a carcinogen and its attempt to regulate Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). (See page 4 of this planning document.[5])

==

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Claremont_Institute_for_the_Study_of_Statesmanship_and_Political_Philosophy

Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy

From SourceWatch

From the Claremont Institute web pages:[1]

"The mission of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy is to restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life.

"The Claremont Institute finds the answers to America's problems in the principles on which our nation was founded. These principles are expressed most eloquently in the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that 'all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…'

"To recover the Founding principles in our political life means recovering a limited and accountable government that respects private property, promotes stable family life and maintains a strong defense.

"The Institute's work is only beginning. Today, our state and federal governments spend vast and increasing sums of public money for less and less good. The public sector continues to grow at the expense of the private. Regulations intrude into every corner of our lives. Schools no longer perform. Police and courts no longer protect. Good businesses are being driven to extinction by excessive and discriminatory controls, and as a result good jobs continue to disappear. Dependence grows and opportunity wanes with each passing year.

"The Claremont Institute believes that informed citizens can and will make the right choices for America's future. Through its books, policy briefings, conferences and seminars, and now through the new electronic media of the World Wide Web, the Institute engages Americans in an informed discussion of the principles and policies necessary to rebuild our civic institutions.

"Founded in 1979, the Claremont Institute's work is national in scope, but gives special emphasis to the problems of our country's largest state, where the Institute is based. Institute studies like the the pioneering 1988 book, The Imperial Congress (co-published with the Heritage Foundation), innovative policy proposals such as our 1995 'Contract with California,' our ongoing work on the cultural attacks on the American family, and our decade-long involvement in the critical debates over environmental regulations and property rights law--all have earned the Institute a reputation for sound scholarship and diligence in the service of constitutional government.

"America's Founders endowed our Republic with sound principles and a framework for governing that is unmatched in the history of mankind. The prosperity and freedom of America can only be made secure if they are guided by a return to these basic principles as our country enters the 21st Century."

Contents

[hide]

1 Funding

2 Claremont projects

3 Personnel

3.1 Board of Directors

3.2 Board members

3.3 Board of Advisors

4 Claremont Institute Links

5 Contact

6 References

Funding

The following foundations gave money to the Claremont Institute think tank in 2005: [1]

Sarah Scaife Foundation - $325,000

Roe Foundation - $15,000

Armstrong Foundation - $2,500

The Carthage Foundation - $75,000

Philip M. McKenna Foundation - $45,000

Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation - $110,000

Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation - $10,000

Previous years:

Castle Rock Foundation

Earhart Foundation

Gilder Foundation

Hickory Foundation

Jaquelin Hume Foundation

JM Foundation

John M. Olin Foundation

John Templeton Foundation

Randolph Foundation

William H. Donner Foundation

Claremont projects

[2]

Publius Fellowship - an intensive two week summer course in political philosophy and journalism designed for undergraduate seniors, recent graduates, and graduate students who are interested in careers in journalism, academia, or public policy.

Investment Security Program - educates citizens and state legislators about the effects of American capital investments in terrorist-sponsoring states.

Internship Opportunities with the Claremont Institute - Each year, they host a number of college students with summer internships.

Golden State Center - to draw on the Institute's scholarship and research for practical application to the policies of the California.

Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership - a group of health professionals familiar with guns and medical research, is the antidote to those who twist science to serve a misguided anti-gun ideology.

Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence - a public interest law firm, in order to further Claremont's mission through strategic litigation.

Ballistic Missile Defense Project - supporting missile defenses.

Former projects:

Americans for Victory Over Terrorism: Right-wing website propagating the "anti-terrorist"/orientalist message. Website's Reading List is primarily drawn up from writings by Bernard Lewis, Martin Kramer, Samuel Huntington, Steven Emerson, Yossef Bodansky, Benjamin Netanyahu…

Personnel

[3]

Board of Directors

Chairman: Bruce C. Sanborn — President, Upland & Marsh

Vice Chairman: Larry P. Arnn — President, Hillsdale College

Board members

Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. — Fieldstead & Co.

Edward Erler — Prof., California State University San Bernardino

Joel H. Farkas — JF Companies

Christopher Flannery — Prof., Azusa Pacific University

Thomas A. Fuentes — Senior Fellow, The Claremont Institute

James E. Higgins — New Vernon Capital, LLC

Harry V. Jaffa — Prof. Emeritus, Claremont Graduate School

Lawrence Kadish — First Fiscal Fund Co.

Brian T. Kennedy — President, the Claremont Institute

Charles R. Kesler — Prof., Claremont McKenna College

Thomas D. Klingenstein — Cohen, Klingenstein & Marks, Inc.

Edwin C. Laird — President, Coatings Resources Group

Jeffrey B. Lewis — The Claremont Institute

John Marini — Prof., University of Nevada at Reno

Kenneth Petersen — Partner, Tax and Financial Group

Peter W. Schramm — Executive Director, John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs

W. Robert Stover —Westaff, Inc

Brian F. Sullivan — Co-Chairman SimonDelivers.com

Thomas G. West — Prof., University of Dallas

Board of Advisors

Roberta Green Ahmanson — Fieldstead & Co.

Richard B. Cammack — President, Cammack and Associates

Henrietta Fankhauser — Livermore, California

Daniel J. Frederick — Wayzata, Minnesota

Michael Maibach

Donald E. Moe — Senior Vice President, The Irvine Company

Gregory R. Palen — President, Palen/Kimball Company

Thomas K. Phillips — Chairman, Phillips International, Inc.

Pat Sajak

Johnny Zamrzla

Claremont Institute Links

The Acton Institute

The American Civil Rights Institute

The American Enterprise Institute

The Ashbrook Center

Center of the American Experiment

Center for Security Policy

Council for International Security

The Discovery Institute

Empower America

Ethics and Public Policy Center

Faith and Reason

Federalist Society

Freedom House

The Heritage Foundation

The Independent Women's Forum

The Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis

Institute for Justice

Institute of the North

Institute of World Politics

Landmark Legal Foundation

The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research

MissileThreat.com

Pacific Legal Fund (maybe should be Pacific Legal Foundation ???)

Pacific Research Institute

Washington Legal Foundation

Young America's Foundation

Contact

937 West Foothill Boulevard, Suite E

Claremont, CA 91711

Phone: (909) 621-6825 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (909) 621-6825      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Fax: (909) 626-8724

Email: info AT claremont.org

Web: http://www.claremont.org

References

? Grants to Claremont Institute, Media Transparency, accessed July 2007.

? Projects, Claremont Institute, accessed July 2007.

? Board of Directors, Claremont Institute, accessed July 2007.

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legistlative orientation conflict w/ TPP

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/11/tea-party-Congress-freshmen-calls

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ROSE INST

TRIBAL MGMT

Joseph M. Bessette

Alice Tweed Tuohy Professor Government and Ethics | Government Department, CMC

jbessette@cmc.edu  | (909) 607-3989

jbessette

Dr. Joseph M. Bessette (B.S. Boston College, M.A. and Ph.D. University of Chicago) is a Alice Tweed Tuohy Professor of Government and Ethics at Claremont McKenna College. His areas of expertise include ethics and American democracy, presidency, American politics, crime and criminal justice, and American constitutionalism. His publications include American Government and Politics: Deliberation, Democracy, and Citizenship (Cengage/Wadsworth 2013), second edition; The Constitutional Presidency(Johns Hopkins University Press 2009); and The Mild Voice of Reason: Deliberative Democracy and American National Government (University of Chicago 1994).

Eric Helland

William F. Podlich Professor of Economics | Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, CMC

eric.helland@cmc.edu  | (909) 607-7275

ehelland

Dr. Eric Helland (B.A. University of Missouri, M.A. and Ph.D. Washington University) is a William F. Podlich Professor of Economics at Claremont McKenna College. Dr. Helland’s research primarily focuses on law and economics, microeconomics, business law, contract economics, and health economics. His publications include “Product Liability and Moral Hazard: Evidence from General Aviation” (Journal of Law and Economics 2012), “How Much Should Judges be Paid? An Empirical Study on the Effect of Judicial Pay on the State Appellate Bench” (Stanford Law Review 2012), and “Bargaining in the Shadow of the Website: Disclosure’s Impact on Litigation Behavior” (American Law and Economics Review 2010).

Manfred Keil

Associate Professor | Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, CMC

manfred.keil@cmc.edu  | (909) 607-3899

mkeil

Dr. Manfred Keil (Zwischenprüfung, Goethe Universität, M.A. University of Texas, M.S. and Ph.D. London School of Economics) is an Associate Professor at the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance at Claremont McKenna College. Dr. Keil’s main areas of expertise include banking, comparative economic performance, macroeconomics, and statistics. His publications include “When Does Inflation Hurt Economic Growth? Different Nonlinearities for Different Economies” (Journal of Macroeconomics 2004), “Shrunken Earnings Predictions are Better Predictions” (Applied Financial Economics 2004), and “Uncovered Interest Rate Parity and Exchange Rate Regimes: Lessons from a Sample of East Asian Countries” (National University of Singapore 2008).

Jennifer Merolla

Associate Professor | Department of Politics and Policy, Claremont Graduate University

jennifer.merolla@cgu.edu  | (909) 621-8695

Jennifer Merolla April 2009

Dr. Jennifer Merolla (B.A. Boston College, Ph.D. Duke University) is an Associate Professor at Claremont Graduate University. Her research focuses on how the political environment shapes individual attitudes and behavior. Her work includes the study of threat, voting behavior, parties, public opinion, race and ethnic politics, women and politics, and religion and politics. She is co-author of Democracy at Risk: How Terrorist Threats Affect the Public (University of Chicago Press 2009). Her work has appeared in Comparative Political Studies, Electoral Studies, the Journal of Politics, Perspectives on Politics, Political Behavior, Political Psychology, Political Research Quarterly, and Women, Politics, and Policy.

John J. Pitney, Jr.

Roy P. Crocker Professor of Politics | Government Department, CMC

jpitney@cmc.edu  | (909) 607-4224

jpitney

Dr. John Pitney (B.A. Union College; M.A., M. Phil, and Ph.D. Yale University) is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Politics at Claremont McKenna College. Dr. Pitney’s research primarily focuses on American and Californian politics, Congress, electoral politics, media politics, public policy, political advertising, and the Obama Administration. His publications include Congress’ Permanent Minority? Republics in the US House (Rowman and Littlefield 1994), The Art of Political Warfare (University of Oklahoma Press 2000), and After Home and Change: The 2012 Elections and American Politics(Rowman and Littlefield 2013). Among other honors, Dr. Pitney is a two time recipient of the Glenn R. Huntoon Teaching Award and received the Presidential Award in 2013.

Joshua Rosett

Curb Family Associate Professor of Business and Law | Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, CMC

jrosett@cmc.edu  | (909) 607-3625

jrosett

Dr. Joshua Rosett (B.A. University of Chicago, M.A. and Ph.D. Princeton University) is a Curb Family Associate Professor of Business and Law at Claremont McKenna College. Dr. Rosett’s primary area of expertise is accounting. His publications in the field include “Equity Risk and the Labor Stock: The Case of Union Contracts” (Journal of Accounting Research 2001), “What Determines the Variability of Accounting Accruals?” (Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting 2005), “Macroeconomic Variables and the E/P Ratio: Is Inflation Really Positively Associated with the E/P Ratio?” (Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting 2006).

Cameron Shelton,

Assistant Professor | Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, CMC

cameron.shelton@cmc.edu  | (909) 607-1692

cshelton

Dr. Cameron Shelton (B.S. and A.B. Stanford University, Ph.D. Stanford Graduate School of Business) is an Assistant Professor at the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance. Dr. Shelton’s research primarily focuses on political economy, public choice, and public finance. His publications include “The Size and Composition of Government Spending?” (Journal of Public Economics 2007), “Elections and Political Risk: New Evidence from Political Prediction Markets in Taiwan” (Journal of Public Economics 2011), and “The Vicious Cycle: Fundraising and Perceived Viability in the US Presidential Primaries” (Quarterly Journal of Political Science 2012).

Michael Uhlmann

Director of CGU’s Tribal Administration Program | Department of Politics and Policy, Claremont Graduate University

michael.uhlmann@cgu.edu  | (909) 621-8210

Uhlmann_c

Dr. Michael Uhlmann (B.A. Yale University, LL.B. University of Virginia Law School, Ph.D. Claremont Graduate School) has been teaching in the Department of Politics and Policy/SPE at Claremont Graduate University since 2002. His courses concentrate on the American Presidency, executive-congressional relations, and the federal judiciary, including the federal administrative process and national security decision-making. He is also an adjunct professor at Claremont McKenna College, teaching a wide variety of courses in the Department of Government. In addition to his regular coursework for the Departing of Politics and Policy, Dr. Uhlmann teaches in, and serves as the Director of CGU’s new Tribal Administration PrograM