Can any­thing be done to stop the next Repub­li­can admin­is­tra­tion from imple­ment­ing the Sched­ule F plot? It’s a ques­tion that’s become all the more acute With Trump’s 2024 announce­ment and the GOP’s recap­ture of the House. And as we’re going to see in the fol­low­ing arti­cles, it’s a ques­tion the Democ­rats have been wrest­ing with over the past cou­ple of years since Trump left office and they do have options. Option to impede the abil­i­ty of a GOP pres­i­dent to uni­lat­er­al­ly imple­ment Sched­ule F on their own. But as we’re also going to see, those options are lim­it­ed to stop­ping pres­i­dents from imple­ment­ing Sched­ule F on their own. A Repub­li­can pres­i­dent with a Repub­li­can con­trolled con­gress is anoth­er sto­ry.

So with only a few months left for the Democ­rats to pass laws, the ques­tion of what they are going to do about Sched­ule F while the oppor­tu­ni­ty is there looms large. And set to loom ever larg­er the clos­er we get to 2024 no mat­ter what the Democ­rats do because as we’re also going to see, the rest of the GOP appears to be ful­ly on board with Sched­ule F. Which means the next GOP pres­i­dent pre­sid­ing over a GOP-con­trolled con­gress isn’t going to have any trou­ble find­ing sup­port for their Sched­ule F impuls­es. And that’s why the Sched­ule F plot is going to remain a loom­ing inevitabil­i­ty no mat­ter what Democ­rats do:

Gov­ern­ment Exec­u­tive

Trump, Who Tried to Weak­en Feds’ Civ­il Ser­vice Pro­tec­tions, Announces 2024 Run
Pri­or to Tuesday’s announce­ment, the for­mer pres­i­dent endorsed plans to reim­ple­ment Sched­ule F if he returned to the White House.

Erich Wag­n­er | Novem­ber 16, 2022 04:25 PM ET

For­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump—who sup­ports a plan to make may fed­er­al work­ers at-will employ­ees and as pres­i­dent signed exec­u­tive orders to make it eas­i­er to fire them and to lim­it the reach of fed­er­al unions—on Tues­day announced that he would again seek the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion for pres­i­dent in 2024 in an hour-long speech at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Flori­da.

...

Trump’s term as pres­i­dent was a dif­fi­cult one for the fed­er­al work­force. A series of now-rescind­ed exec­u­tive orders sought to make it eas­i­er to fire fed­er­al employ­ees and reduce the role of unions at fed­er­al agen­cies, and his admin­is­tra­tion tried unsuc­cess­ful­ly to dis­band the Office of Per­son­nel Man­age­ment and send its func­tions to the Gen­er­al Ser­vices Admin­is­tra­tion and the Exec­u­tive Office of the Pres­i­dent.

Short­ly before the 2020 elec­tion, Trump estab­lished a new job clas­si­fi­ca­tion—Sched­ule F—with­in the except­ed ser­vice and tasked agen­cies with find­ing fed­er­al work­ers in “pol­i­cy-relat­ed” posi­tions to reclas­si­fy into the new cat­e­go­ry. Had Biden not tak­en office in Jan­u­ary 2021 and quick­ly axed the plan, tens of thou­sands of fed­er­al work­ers could have effec­tive­ly become at-will employ­ees.

Dur­ing the first two years of the Biden admin­is­tra­tion, many of Trump’s fed­er­al work­force poli­cies have been revoked, but con­ser­v­a­tive activists have con­tin­ued to work behind the scenes, lay­ing the ground­work to revive those plans in the event Trump or anoth­er Repub­li­can returns to the White House. Last sum­mer, Axios report­ed that some con­ser­v­a­tive groups are work­ing to have Sched­ule F ready to imple­ment imme­di­ate­ly upon a Republican’s inau­gu­ra­tion, and have iden­ti­fied 50,000 fed­er­al work­ers to reclas­si­fy and threat­en with fir­ing.

Trump him­self endorsed the plan to revive Sched­ule F and purge the civ­il ser­vice of so-called “rogue bureau­crats” at a ral­ly ear­li­er this year and began fundrais­ing on the pro­pos­al short­ly there­after.

“We need to make it much eas­i­er to fire rogue bureau­crats who are delib­er­ate­ly under­min­ing democ­ra­cy or, at a min­i­mum, just want to keep their jobs,” Trump said in July. “They want to hold onto their jobs. Con­gress should pass his­toric reforms empow­er­ing the pres­i­dent to ensure that any bureau­crat who is cor­rupt, incom­pe­tent or unnec­es­sary for the job can be told—did you ever hear this—‘You’re fired, get out, you’re fired.’ [You] have to do it. Deep state. Wash­ing­ton will be an entire­ly dif­fer­ent place.”

How­ev­er, the threat of politi­ciz­ing the fed­er­al work­force is not unique to Trump. Since the pres­i­den­tial tran­si­tion, Repub­li­can law­mak­ers have begun to embrace Sched­ule F, oppos­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic efforts to require con­gres­sion­al autho­riza­tion before a pres­i­dent insti­tutes a new job clas­si­fi­ca­tion in the except­ed ser­vice, and oth­ers have intro­duced leg­is­la­tion that would make fed­er­al work­ers at-will employ­ees.

With the House like­ly to flip to Repub­li­can con­trol in 2023, the win­dow for law­mak­ers to pass a law pre­vent­ing the return of Sched­ule F is clos­ing. But Sen­ate Democ­rats told Gov­ern­ment Exec­u­tive in recent weeks that they are opti­mistic that they will be able to include the mea­sure as part of either the annu­al Nation­al Defense Autho­riza­tion Act or an omnibus spend­ing pack­age to fund the gov­ern­ment through next Sep­tem­ber.

———–

“Trump, Who Tried to Weak­en Feds’ Civ­il Ser­vice Pro­tec­tions, Announces 2024 Run” by Erich Wag­n­er; Gov­ern­ment Exec­u­tive; 11/16/2022

“With the House like­ly to flip to Repub­li­can con­trol in 2023, the win­dow for law­mak­ers to pass a law pre­vent­ing the return of Sched­ule F is clos­ing. But Sen­ate Democ­rats told Gov­ern­ment Exec­u­tive in recent weeks that they are opti­mistic that they will be able to include the mea­sure as part of either the annu­al Nation­al Defense Autho­riza­tion Act or an omnibus spend­ing pack­age to fund the gov­ern­ment through next Sep­tem­ber.”

The win­dow is clos­ing. And as Trump made clear dur­ing a fundrais­ing ral­ly in July when he called for a purge of the civ­il ser­vice of “rogue bureau­crats”, the threat remains. Trump wants his purge and wants to con­tin­ue prepa­ra­tions for Sched­ule F’s imple­men­ta­tion as soon as he’s reelect­ed. Hence the fundrais­er in July at the Amer­i­ca First Pol­i­cy Insti­tute (AFPI), which, as we’ve seen, is one of the groups already work­ing towards that goal. Trump’s fundrais­ing pitch was effec­tive­ly a call to donate to the AFPI so in can con­tin­ue its Sched­ule F prepa­ra­tions:

...
Trump him­self endorsed the plan to revive Sched­ule F and purge the civ­il ser­vice of so-called “rogue bureau­crats” at a ral­ly ear­li­er this year and began fundrais­ing on the pro­pos­al short­ly there­after.

“We need to make it much eas­i­er to fire rogue bureau­crats who are delib­er­ate­ly under­min­ing democ­ra­cy or, at a min­i­mum, just want to keep their jobs,” Trump said in July. “They want to hold onto their jobs. Con­gress should pass his­toric reforms empow­er­ing the pres­i­dent to ensure that any bureau­crat who is cor­rupt, incom­pe­tent or unnec­es­sary for the job can be told—did you ever hear this—‘You’re fired, get out, you’re fired.’ [You] have to do it. Deep state. Wash­ing­ton will be an entire­ly dif­fer­ent place.”

How­ev­er, the threat of politi­ciz­ing the fed­er­al work­force is not unique to Trump. Since the pres­i­den­tial tran­si­tion, Repub­li­can law­mak­ers have begun to embrace Sched­ule F, oppos­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic efforts to require con­gres­sion­al autho­riza­tion before a pres­i­dent insti­tutes a new job clas­si­fi­ca­tion in the except­ed ser­vice, and oth­ers have intro­duced leg­is­la­tion that would make fed­er­al work­ers at-will employ­ees.
...

So what are the Democ­rats in con­gress going to do? For starters, the House passed a bill back in Sep­tem­ber that effec­tive forces future pres­i­dents to go to Con­gress for approval before imple­ment­ing Sched­ule F. That bill has yet to be passed by the sen­ate and signed into law but it sounds like­ly that this will hap­pen in the final months of this lame duck con­gress. So it’s some­thing, but the prob­lem is that’s more or less the only thing the Democ­rats can do to pre­vent this. As long as one of the two major par­ties is intent on imple­ment­ing Sched­ule F there isn’t a lot the Democ­rats can do oth­er than win­ning enough elec­tions to pre­vent a repeat of 2017’s com­plete GOP sweep of the White House and Con­gress. And that ‘win­ning strat­e­gy’ of block­ing Repub­li­cans from get­ting a lock on the White House and Con­gress by win­ning elec­tion has to hap­pen indef­i­nite­ly. It’s not a great long-term strat­e­gy giv­en the back-and-forth ‘throw the bums out’ reac­tionary pat­terns of US pol­i­tics:

Gov­ern­ment Exec­u­tive

The House Has Approved a Bill to Pre­vent Future Sched­ules F
Despite the sup­port of more than 30 good gov­ern­ment groups, Repub­li­cans remained large­ly opposed to the mea­sure.

Erich Wag­n­er | Sep­tem­ber 15, 2022

The House on Thurs­day vot­ed 225–204 to pass leg­is­la­tion bar­ring future pres­i­dents from uni­lat­er­al­ly strip­ping fed­er­al work­ers of their civ­il ser­vice pro­tec­tions as for­mer Pres­i­dent Trump tried to do with his abortive estab­lish­ment of Sched­ule F. Six Repub­li­can mem­bers vot­ed in favor of the bill.

...

The Pre­vent­ing a Patron­age Sys­tem Act (H.R. 302), intro­duced by Rep. Ger­ry Con­nol­ly, D‑Va., blocks the pres­i­dent from reim­ple­ment­ing Sched­ule F, or any oth­er new except­ed sched­ule cat­e­go­ry of work­ers, with­out advanced con­gres­sion­al approval. The text of the bill already passed out of the House as part of the chamber’s ver­sion of the fis­cal 2023 Nation­al Defense Autho­riza­tion Act in July, and com­pan­ion leg­is­la­tion was intro­duced in the Sen­ate last month.

The renewed focus on the issue by con­gres­sion­al Democ­rats comes after reports that con­ser­v­a­tive activists and ex-Trump admin­is­tra­tion staffers have plans to imme­di­ate­ly revive Sched­ule F under the next Repub­li­can pres­i­dent and have already iden­ti­fied 50,000 employ­ees to threat­en with ter­mi­na­tion. Trump, who is mulling anoth­er run at the White House, also explic­it­ly endorsed the idea dur­ing a polit­i­cal ral­ly last month.

The bill has the sup­port of dozens of good gov­ern­ment orga­ni­za­tions and fed­er­al employ­ee groups, includ­ing the Nation­al Active and Retired Fed­er­al Employ­ees Asso­ci­a­tion, the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Gov­ern­ment Employ­ees, the Nation­al Trea­sury Employ­ees Union, the Senior Exec­u­tives Asso­ci­a­tion, Pro­fes­sion­al Man­agers Asso­ci­a­tion, among oth­ers.

Dur­ing debate on the House floor, Con­nol­ly said the bill would pre­serve both the fed­er­al workforce’s cen­tu­ry-old mer­it sys­tem pro­tec­tions and reassert Con­gress’ author­i­ty as the mak­er of fed­er­al per­son­nel pol­i­cy.

“This bill does not pre­clude the pres­i­dent request­ing to cre­ate a new job clas­si­fi­ca­tion, but it does require [a request to Con­gress],” he said. “It restores the bal­ance . . . Chang­ing the nature of the civ­il ser­vice is rare and impor­tant, and it should require express con­gres­sion­al par­tic­i­pa­tion through leg­is­la­tion.”

Rep. James Com­er, R‑Ky., accused Democ­rats of want­i­ng to entrench “bureau­crats” who are hos­tile to Repub­li­can poli­cies and that Wash­ing­ton, D.C.-area sup­port Connolly’s leg­is­la­tion because of the large num­bers of fed­er­al employ­ees in their dis­trict.

“This bureau­cra­cy gets big­ger every Con­gress,” he said. “I’ve noticed that with the excep­tion of one speak­er, all of the speak­ers on the oth­er side of the aisle rep­re­sent the Wash­ing­ton, D.C., fed­er­al bureau­cra­cy work­force, but the major­i­ty of Con­gress, we rep­re­sent Amer­i­ca. Amer­i­cans want to hold poor per­form­ing gov­ern­ment employ­ees, the bureau­crats who are paid with our hard earned tax dol­lars, account­able.”

...

——–

“The House Has Approved a Bill to Pre­vent Future Sched­ules F” by Erich Wag­n­er; Gov­ern­ment Exec­u­tive; 09/15/2022

“The House on Thurs­day vot­ed 225–204 to pass leg­is­la­tion bar­ring future pres­i­dents from uni­lat­er­al­ly strip­ping fed­er­al work­ers of their civ­il ser­vice pro­tec­tions as for­mer Pres­i­dent Trump tried to do with his abortive estab­lish­ment of Sched­ule F. Six Repub­li­can mem­bers vot­ed in favor of the bill.”

It was­n’t a par­ty-line vote. But it almost was. A whole six Repub­li­cans vot­ed for the bill. It’s a big clue as to what to expect the next time Repub­li­cans have con­trol of con­gress. And that’s why the ques­tion of whether or not this bill pass­es in the Sen­ate and is signed into law is cer­tain­ly an impor­tant ques­tion but even if it hap­pens the the Sched­ule F threat does­n’t go away. It just requires GOP con­trols of con­gress in addi­tion to the White House. Yes, the bar­ri­er is high­er, but it’s also a bar­ri­er pret­ty rou­tine­ly over­come in US pol­i­tics as was the case in 2017 fol­low­ing Trump’s big win. As long as the GOP con­gres­sion­al cau­cus is on board with the Sched­ule F plot it’s just a mat­ter of time.

And as the fol­low­ing sto­ry from back in July about the GOP’s big plans for Sched­ule F makes clear, Sched­ule F has the back­ing of the GOP cau­cus. They’ve already pro­posed a bill to imple­ment the Sched­ule F plot. A bill with the added effect of neu­ter­ing the exist­ing fed­er­al whistle­blow­er laws:

Gov­ern­ment Exec­u­tive

‘There Needs to Be a Reck­on­ing’: Repub­li­cans Intro­duce a Bill to Make Feds At-Will Employ­ees
The leg­is­la­tion, along with recent talk of a renewed effort to imple­ment Sched­ule F, makes clear that a “major assault” on the fed­er­al civ­il ser­vice is com­ing, regard­less of who the next Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee will be.

Erich Wag­n­er
July 29, 2022

A group of five con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­cans has intro­duced leg­is­la­tion to make the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment an at-will employ­er, evis­cer­at­ing civ­il ser­vice pro­tec­tions, chill­ing whistle­blow­er activ­i­ty and abol­ish­ing the Mer­it Sys­tems Pro­tec­tion Board.

Reps. Chip Roy, R‑Texas, Mary Miller, R‑Ill., Troy Nehls, R‑Texas, Bob Good, R‑Va., and Lau­ren Boe­bert, R‑Colo., on Thurs­day intro­duced the Pub­lic Ser­vice Reform Act (H.R. 8550), which would make fed­er­al work­ers at-will employ­ees and strip them of many of the avenues cur­rent­ly at their dis­pos­al to appeal adverse per­son­nel actions. It would abol­ish the MSPB, send­ing all com­plaints of whistle­blow­er retal­i­a­tion to the Office of Spe­cial Coun­sel, albeit only for 14 days, after which all appeals would go direct­ly to fed­er­al appel­late courts.

“Most career civ­il ser­vants do their jobs faith­ful­ly day in and day out, but there are still too many fed­er­al employ­ees active­ly under­min­ing Amer­i­ca through their bla­tant con­tempt for our nation, the rule of law, and the Amer­i­can peo­ple,” Roy said in a state­ment. “That is because poli­cies meant to insu­late the gov­ern­ment from pol­i­tics have instead cre­at­ed a dense web of red tape that rewards lazi­ness and non­com­pli­ance and enables hos­tile par­ti­sans to entrench them­selves with­in fed­er­al agen­cies. For­mer Pres­i­dent Trump is absolute­ly right about this: there needs to be a reck­on­ing, and bureau­crats actu­al­ly need to be fire­able.”

Although the bill stands near­ly zero chance of pass­ing in the cur­rent Con­gress, experts say that it, com­bined with recent news that con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal oper­a­tives with Trump’s endorse­ment have devised plans to revive Sched­ule F, a pro­pos­al to strip the civ­il ser­vice pro­tec­tions from tens of thou­sands of fed­er­al employ­ees in “pol­i­cy-relat­ed” posi­tions, indi­cates the civ­il ser­vice sys­tem as we have known it for the last 150 years will be under attack under the next Repub­li­can admin­is­tra­tion.

“This is obvi­ous­ly a huge and major change, an effort to gear up a major assault on the fed­er­al employ­ment sys­tem,” said Don Ket­tl, pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus and for­mer dean of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land School of Pub­lic Pol­i­cy. “This is being helped and aid­ed unques­tion­ably by a set of groups like Amer­i­ca First Works, Her­itage Action for Amer­i­ca, Free­dom­Works and Cit­i­zens for Renew­ing Amer­i­ca, who have endorsed the bill . . . Much of the debate has large­ly been about if Trump is reelect­ed, but what this makes clear is the efforts to try to change the civ­il ser­vice aren’t just Trump nec­es­sar­i­ly, and if Repub­li­cans take con­trol of Con­gress fol­low­ing the midterms, this may very well go from idea to spe­cif­ic action.”

Under the bill, the only way a fed­er­al employ­ee would be able to fight their ter­mi­na­tion aside from through the Equal Employ­ment Oppor­tu­ni­ty Commission—in instances of discrimination—or OSC and the judi­cia­ry if they are whistle­blow­ers is by appeal­ing to the very man­ag­er who has pro­posed fir­ing them. Only an agency head has the pow­er to over­rule the offi­cial who has pro­posed fir­ing some­one.

Roy said in a state­ment that his bill pre­serves pro­tec­tions against dis­crim­i­na­tion and whistle­blow­er retal­i­a­tion. But in the case of dis­crim­i­na­tion, EEOC would be required to toss all of its poli­cies regard­ing com­plaints that orig­i­nate from fed­er­al agen­cies and apply the same stan­dards it uses in pri­vate sec­tor cas­es.

...

How­ev­er, the bill’s pur­port­ed whistle­blow­er pro­tec­tions sug­gest just the oppo­site, Ket­tl said. OSC only has a 14-day win­dow in which to make non­bind­ing rec­om­men­da­tions on whether an adverse per­son­nel action con­sti­tutes retal­i­a­tion. Anoth­er pro­vi­sion requires the deduc­tion of 25% of a fed­er­al employee’s retire­ment annu­ity if a court finds their appeal to be “in bad faith or friv­o­lous.”

“This dra­mat­i­cal­ly lim­its the amount of whistle­blow­ing activ­i­ty that’s pos­si­ble,” he said. “Going to court is extreme­ly expen­sive and time con­sum­ing. In addi­tion, it cre­ates a dis­in­cen­tive to blow the whis­tle because your retire­ment ben­e­fits could be reduced. When you put it togeth­er, it’s a very big deal. It would dra­mat­i­cal­ly change the incen­tives for indi­vid­u­als who are being dis­missed because of whistle­blow­ing.”

————-

“ ‘There Needs to Be a Reck­on­ing’: Repub­li­cans Intro­duce a Bill to Make Feds At-Will Employ­ees” by Erich Wag­n­er; Gov­ern­ment Exec­u­tive; 07/20/2022

“Although the bill stands near­ly zero chance of pass­ing in the cur­rent Con­gress, experts say that it, com­bined with recent news that con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal oper­a­tives with Trump’s endorse­ment have devised plans to revive Sched­ule F, a pro­pos­al to strip the civ­il ser­vice pro­tec­tions from tens of thou­sands of fed­er­al employ­ees in “pol­i­cy-relat­ed” posi­tions, indi­cates the civ­il ser­vice sys­tem as we have known it for the last 150 years will be under attack under the next Repub­li­can admin­is­tra­tion.”

Yes, while the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion has no chance of becom­ing law any time soon, it’s a strong indi­ca­tion of what to expect at the next oppor­tu­ni­ty. Chip Roy, one of the leg­is­la­tion’s co-spon­sors, made clear the under­ly­ing nar­ra­tive the GOP is plan­ning on using: “there are still too many fed­er­al employ­ees active­ly under­min­ing Amer­i­ca through their bla­tant con­tempt for our nation, the rule of law, and the Amer­i­can peo­ple” and “there needs to be a reck­on­ing.” That’s the nar­ra­tive they’re going with:

...
“Most career civ­il ser­vants do their jobs faith­ful­ly day in and day out, but there are still too many fed­er­al employ­ees active­ly under­min­ing Amer­i­ca through their bla­tant con­tempt for our nation, the rule of law, and the Amer­i­can peo­ple,” Roy said in a state­ment. “That is because poli­cies meant to insu­late the gov­ern­ment from pol­i­tics have instead cre­at­ed a dense web of red tape that rewards lazi­ness and non­com­pli­ance and enables hos­tile par­ti­sans to entrench them­selves with­in fed­er­al agen­cies. For­mer Pres­i­dent Trump is absolute­ly right about this: there needs to be a reck­on­ing, and bureau­crats actu­al­ly need to be fire­able.”
...

And note the now-famil­iar groups help­ing the GOP craft this leg­is­la­tion: Her­itage Action for Amer­i­ca and Cit­i­zens for Renew­ing Amer­i­ca (CRA). Along with anoth­er “Amer­i­can First” group and the Koch-backed Free­dom­Works:

...
“This is obvi­ous­ly a huge and major change, an effort to gear up a major assault on the fed­er­al employ­ment sys­tem,” said Don Ket­tl, pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus and for­mer dean of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land School of Pub­lic Pol­i­cy. “This is being helped and aid­ed unques­tion­ably by a set of groups like Amer­i­ca First Works, Her­itage Action for Amer­i­ca, Free­dom­Works and Cit­i­zens for Renew­ing Amer­i­ca, who have endorsed the bill . . . Much of the debate has large­ly been about if Trump is reelect­ed, but what this makes clear is the efforts to try to change the civ­il ser­vice aren’t just Trump nec­es­sar­i­ly, and if Repub­li­cans take con­trol of Con­gress fol­low­ing the midterms, this may very well go from idea to spe­cif­ic action.”
...

Final­ly, there’s the ero­sion of exist­ing whistle­blow­er pro­tec­tions that comes with this leg­isla­tive ‘reck­on­ing’. Because if you’re going to engage in a mass ide­o­log­i­cal purge you had bet­ter pre­pare for whistle­blow­ers:

...
Under the bill, the only way a fed­er­al employ­ee would be able to fight their ter­mi­na­tion aside from through the Equal Employ­ment Oppor­tu­ni­ty Commission—in instances of discrimination—or OSC and the judi­cia­ry if they are whistle­blow­ers is by appeal­ing to the very man­ag­er who has pro­posed fir­ing them. Only an agency head has the pow­er to over­rule the offi­cial who has pro­posed fir­ing some­one.

Roy said in a state­ment that his bill pre­serves pro­tec­tions against dis­crim­i­na­tion and whistle­blow­er retal­i­a­tion. But in the case of dis­crim­i­na­tion, EEOC would be required to toss all of its poli­cies regard­ing com­plaints that orig­i­nate from fed­er­al agen­cies and apply the same stan­dards it uses in pri­vate sec­tor cas­es.

...

How­ev­er, the bill’s pur­port­ed whistle­blow­er pro­tec­tions sug­gest just the oppo­site, Ket­tl said. OSC only has a 14-day win­dow in which to make non­bind­ing rec­om­men­da­tions on whether an adverse per­son­nel action con­sti­tutes retal­i­a­tion. Anoth­er pro­vi­sion requires the deduc­tion of 25% of a fed­er­al employee’s retire­ment annu­ity if a court finds their appeal to be “in bad faith or friv­o­lous.”

“This dra­mat­i­cal­ly lim­its the amount of whistle­blow­ing activ­i­ty that’s pos­si­ble,” he said. “Going to court is extreme­ly expen­sive and time con­sum­ing. In addi­tion, it cre­ates a dis­in­cen­tive to blow the whis­tle because your retire­ment ben­e­fits could be reduced. When you put it togeth­er, it’s a very big deal. It would dra­mat­i­cal­ly change the incen­tives for indi­vid­u­als who are being dis­missed because of whistle­blow­ing.”
...

And let’s not for­get the the whole point of the Sched­ule F plot is to get peo­ple put in place who will imple­ment the next Repub­li­can pres­i­den­t’s agen­da regard­less of the agen­da’s legal­i­ty or con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty. In oth­er words, the post-Sched­ule F plot is a a recipe for wide­spread whistle­blow­ing. Whistle­blow­ing that will come with the risk of lost retire­ment funds once the GOP purge is inevitably exe­cut­ed. It’s just more glar­ing detail warn­ing us about the obvi­ous real­i­ty that the whole Sched­ule F plot is real­ly just the open­ing act.

It looks like Don­ald Trump’s 2024 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign is get­ting off to a fit­ting start. The for­mer pres­i­dent is already hav­ing to explain away a din­ner par­ty he host­ed at Mar-a-Lago with Kanye “Ye” West and open white suprema­cist Nick Fuentes. Even Steve Ban­non is decry­ing the din­ner, call­ing it a “trolling oper­a­tion” that was intend­ed to “insult Trump,” “put Trump in his place,” and make it seem as though the for­mer pres­i­dent “lacks judg­ment.” In oth­er words, Ban­non is char­ac­ter­iz­ing Trump as the vic­tim here. A vic­tim of a far right plot to dis­cred­it Trump that through his far right asso­ci­a­tions.

What is Trump’s excuse for the meet­ing? Well, he has already attempt­ed to claim that Fuentes was just one of West­’s guests who Trump did­n’t know. Of course, as we’ve seen, this was far from the only time Nick Fuentes has popped up in Trump’s orbit. Recall how Fuentes had been pop­u­lar­iz­ing the idea dur­ing Trump’s term that if the GOP doesn’t do every­thing pos­si­ble to keep Trump in office, the pro-Trump sup­port­ers are going to “destroy the GOP”. It was at the Decem­ber 12 ral­ly, where Fuentes declared, “In the first Mil­lion MAGA march we promised that if the GOP did not do every­thing in their pow­er to keep Trump in office, then we would destroy the GOP...As we gath­er here in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. for a sec­ond Mil­lion MAGA March, we’re done mak­ing promis­es. It has to hap­pen now. We are going to destroy the GOP.” The crowd fol­lowed Fuentes’s lead and start­ed chant­i­ng: “Destroy the GOP! Destroy the GOP!” This was the same ral­ly that include mul­ti­ple fly­overs by Trump in Marine One. And in the peri­od fol­low­ing the 2020 elec­tion, Fuentes was pub­licly rumi­nat­ing about killing state leg­is­la­tors who don’t sup­port efforts to over­turn the elec­tion for Trump. Final­ly, recall how, four days before the Decem­ber 12, 2020, “Destroy the GOP!” ral­ly, Fuentes received hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars worth of Bit­coin dona­tions from a slew of far right groups dur­ing this same post-2020 elec­tion peri­od. So beyond being a major white suprema­cist online per­son­al­i­ty, Fuentes was also a key far right orga­ni­za­tion­al fig­ure in the pro-Trump move­ment that cul­mi­nat­ed in the Jan­u­ary 6 storm­ing of the Capi­tol.

And as we’re going to see in the fol­low­ing Axios arti­cle, Trump report­ed­ly “seemed very tak­en” with Fuentes, and was impressed Fuentes’s abil­i­ty to rat­tle off sta­tis­tics and recall speech­es dat­ing back to his 2016 cam­paign. Fuentes also coun­seled Trump about the impor­tance of seem­ing “authen­tic”, warn­ing Trump that his 2024 reelec­tion cam­paign speech did­n’t have the same authen­tic feel. Trump respond­ed, “You like it bet­ter when I just speak off the cuff,” accord­ing to an unnamed source. Fuentes agreed, call­ing Trump an “amaz­ing” pres­i­dent when he was unre­strained. “There was a lot of fawn­ing back and forth,” accord­ing to the source. Mutu­al fawn­ing. That’s what was actu­al­ly hap­pen­ing. So when Steve Ban­non tries to dis­miss Trump’s Mar-a-Lago din­ner par­ty with Fuentes as a “trolling oper­a­tion”, that may have been an iron­i­cal­ly accu­rate label. Hold­ing this mutu­al fawn­ing ses­sion, let­ting it come out in pub­lic, and then pass­ing it all off as an ‘oop­sy’ real­ly is an epic troll. With Trump and Fuentes as co-troll mas­ters, and Ban­non play­ing a sup­port­ing role. At least we have an answer to the ques­tion of whether or not Trump is plan­ning on run­ning as a Nazi-friend­ly can­di­date again. He’s friend­ly and fawn­ing. And already trolling the world about it.

But was mutu­al fawn­ing and trolling the only pur­pose for the din­ner par­ty? Per­haps, but with the Sched­ule F plot loom­ing large as part of Trump’s sec­ond term agen­da, it’s worth not­ing that Nick Fuentes isn’t very far removed from that exact Sched­ule F plot. As we already saw, the two key GOP Sen­ate can­di­dates heav­i­ly backed by Peter Thiel — JD Vance and Blake Mas­ters — both have a his­to­ry of talk­ing favor­ably of Cur­tis Yarvin, the pro-monar­chy chief intel­lec­tu­al archi­tect of the ‘neo­re­ac­tionary’ move­ment that blos­somed into the ‘Alt Right’. That includes talk­ing favor­ably of Yarv­in’s schemes that involve mass fir­ing all fed­er­al gov­ern­ment employ­ees. Yarvin even coined a term for his ver­sion of Sched­ule F back in 2012: Retire All Gov­ern­ment Employ­ees (RAGE). It was Step 1 in Yarv­in’s guide to over­throw­ing the gov­ern­ment and installing a monar­chy. And as Van­i­ty Fair report­ed back in April, Mas­ters made a ref­er­ence to Yarv­in’s “RAGE” acronym — when asked how he was plan­ning on ‘drain­ing the swamp’ dur­ing a cam­paign event. Vance and Mas­ters both can’t stop mak­ing ref­er­ences to Yarvin.

And Yarvin obvi­ous­ly isn’t the only far right extrem­ist these guys are acquaint­ed with. As the Van­i­ty Fair arti­cle excerpt from August describes, Blake Mas­ters has anoth­er Nazi prob­lem: they just won’t stop endors­ing him. Like Andrew Anglin, who gave Mas­ters a gush­ing endorse­ment. Or Andrew Tor­ba, the CEO of Gab who endorsed Mas­ters only to have Mas­ters claim he did­n’t know him and Tor­ba was a nobody, caus­ing Tor­ba to release an audio file of a con­ver­sa­tion between the two. Or Nick Fuentes, who declared, “Today is the big day—Vote for…Blake Mas­ters in AZ!” and implored his fol­low­ers to “turn out in large num­bers for Amer­i­ca First, Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ist can­di­dates,” on the August 2 pri­maries.

So when we see Trump play­ing foot­sie with a promi­nent Nazi social media influ­encer days after launch­ing his cam­paign that has a Sched­ule F mass purge as the already declared ‘Step 1’ for the start of his sec­ond term, it’s worth ask­ing: is Nick Fuentes — who knows A LOT of Nazis and fel­low trav­el­ers — going to be play­ing a staffing role in the next Trummp admin­is­tra­tion? Trump does­n’t just want any­one to fill all gov­ern­ment jobs. He wants loy­al­ist with no bound­aries or qualms. Tens of that that thou­sands or more.

And don’t for­get about Yarv­in’s next steps in the plan to over­throw democ­ra­cy and install a pop­u­lar dic­ta­tor: have the new president/dictator direct street mobs of fol­low­ers around with phone apps to help main­tain order. It’s hard to think of some­one more use­ful for that than Nick Fuentes, an lit­er­al neo-Nazi social media star with a dai­ly fol­low­ing. Trump is clear­ly plan­ning on once again cam­paign­ing as an out­sider ready to storm into DC again and ‘drain the swamp’ for real this time. He’ll cross lines that peo­ple say should­n’t be crossed, again. And this time he’s not going to leave any lines uncrossed. That’s what Trump appears to be plan­ning on cam­paign­ing on for the next two years. And he’s going to need a lot of mus­cle will­ing to play a Brown Shirts role. That’s part of the con­text of the high­ly con­spic­u­ous din­ner with with Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago. Sched­ule F+ needs Nazi mus­cle and Nick Fuentes can pro­vide a lot of it:

Axios

Trump talks with white nation­al­ist Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago din­ner

Jonathan Swan & Zachary Basu

Nov 25, 2022
Updat­ed Nov 26, 2022 — Pol­i­tics & Pol­i­cy

For­mer Pres­i­dent Trump dined and con­versed with white nation­al­ist Nick Fuentes and rap­per Ye, for­mer­ly known as Kanye West, at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tues­day night, accord­ing to two sources famil­iar with the mat­ter.

Why it mat­ters: Trump’s direct engage­ment with a man labeled a “white suprema­cist” by the Jus­tice Depart­ment, one week after declar­ing his 2024 can­di­da­cy, is like­ly to draw renewed out­rage over the for­mer pres­i­den­t’s embrace of extrem­ists.

* Fuentes, who fre­quent­ly pro­motes racist and anti-Semit­ic con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries, had been spot­ted with Ye at Mar-a-Lago, but reports erro­neous­ly sug­gest­ed he did not have din­ner with the for­mer pres­i­dent.

What they’re say­ing: “Kanye West very much want­ed to vis­it Mar-a-Lago. Our din­ner meet­ing was intend­ed to be Kanye and me only, but he arrived with a guest whom I had nev­er met and knew noth­ing about,” Trump said in a state­ment.

...

Behind the scenes: A source famil­iar with the din­ner con­ver­sa­tion told Axios that Trump “seemed very tak­en” with Fuentes, impressed that the 24-year-old was able to rat­tle off sta­tis­tics and recall speech­es dat­ing back to his 2016 cam­paign.

* Para­phras­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, the source said Fuentes told the pres­i­dent he pre­ferred him to be “authen­tic,” and that Trump seemed script­ed and unlike him­self dur­ing his recent 2024 cam­paign announce­ment speech.
* Trump respond­ed, “You like it bet­ter when I just speak off the cuff,” the source said. Fuentes replied that he did, call­ing Trump an “amaz­ing” pres­i­dent when he was unre­strained. “There was a lot of fawn­ing back and forth,” the source added.

Fuentes told Trump that he rep­re­sent­ed a side of Trump’s base that was dis­ap­point­ed with his new­ly cau­tious approach, espe­cial­ly with what some far-right activists view as a lack of sup­port for those charged in the Jan. 6 Capi­tol attack.

* Trump did­n’t dis­agree with Fuentes, but said he has advis­ers who want him to read off teleprompters and be more “pres­i­den­tial.” Notably, Trump referred to him­self as a politi­cian, which he has been loathe to do in the past.
* Fuentes also told Trump that he would crush poten­tial 2024 Repub­li­can rivals in a pri­ma­ry, includ­ing Flori­da Gov. Ron DeSan­tis. Trump asked for Fuentes’ opin­ion on oth­er can­di­dates as well.

Trump at one point turned to Ye and said, “I real­ly like this guy. He gets me,” accord­ing to the source.

“To be hon­est, I don’t believe the pres­i­dent knew who the hell [Fuentes] was,” the source added.

Trump asked if Fuentes was on social media such as Truth Social, the for­mer pres­i­den­t’s alter­na­tive to Twit­ter.

* Fuentes told Trump that he was on Truth Social but had been banned from the social media plat­form Get­tr because Trump advis­er Jason Miller, the CEO of the com­pa­ny, was­n’t a fan of his.
* Trump asked whether it was because Fuentes was on the “fringe” of his sup­port­er base, the source said. Fuentes acknowl­edged that he was, say­ing he’s “one of those peo­ple who got banned from every­thing.”

Dri­ving the news: Ye, whose Twit­ter account was recent­ly restored after being restrict­ed for anti-Semit­ic com­ments, post­ed a video on Thurs­day night titled “Mar-a-Lago debrief.”

* Ye claims in the video that Trump was “real­ly impressed” with Fuentes because “unlike so many of the lawyers and so many peo­ple that he was left with on his 2020 cam­paign, he’s actu­al­ly a loy­al­ist.”
* A source famil­iar with the con­ver­sa­tion told Axios Trump took a phone call dur­ing the din­ner, and his demeanor toward Ye seemed to change when he got off the call. Trump made some nasty com­ments about Ye’s ex-wife, Kim Kar­dashi­an, and told the rap­per to pass them on.
* Ye, who has lost major spon­sor­ships over his anti-Semi­tism and recent far-right asso­ci­a­tions, has said he wants to run for pres­i­dent in 2024. The rap­per claims Trump start­ed “scream­ing” at him at the din­ner and told him he would lose — “most per­turbed” by Ye ask­ing Trump to be his run­ning mate.

Between the lines: The Dai­ly Beast report­ed Wednes­day that Fuentes was not present at the Mar-a-Lago din­ner with Ye, cit­ing a source famil­iar with the mat­ter.

* Ye tweet­ed out a screen­shot of a group text with Fuentes on Thurs­day night in which a cen­sored par­tic­i­pant accus­es a Trump advis­er of being the source for the Dai­ly Beast sto­ry.
* Dis­graced far-right com­men­ta­tor Milo Yiannopou­los, who appears with Ye in his “Mar-a-Lago debrief” video, is also in the “YE24” group chat.

Flash­back: Truth Social, Trump’s social media plat­form, sparked back­lash by ver­i­fy­ing Fuentes’ account in Feb­ru­ary.

...

———

“Trump talks with white nation­al­ist Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago din­ner” by Jonathan Swan & Zachary Basu; Axios; 11/26/2022

“Fuentes told Trump that he rep­re­sent­ed a side of Trump’s base that was dis­ap­point­ed with his new­ly cau­tious approach, espe­cial­ly with what some far-right activists view as a lack of sup­port for those charged in the Jan. 6 Capi­tol attack.”

It was a one-man Nazi focus group. Nick Fuentes was there rep­re­sent­ing “a side of Trump’s base”. And it sounds like this side includes a lot of peo­ple fac­ing legal con­se­quences over Jan 6. But while it sounds like Fuentes was there deliv­er­ing crit­i­cism, it sounds like that crit­i­cism was drowned out by all the mutu­al fawn­ing:

...
Behind the scenes: A source famil­iar with the din­ner con­ver­sa­tion told Axios that Trump “seemed very tak­en” with Fuentes, impressed that the 24-year-old was able to rat­tle off sta­tis­tics and recall speech­es dat­ing back to his 2016 cam­paign.

* Para­phras­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, the source said Fuentes told the pres­i­dent he pre­ferred him to be “authen­tic,” and that Trump seemed script­ed and unlike him­self dur­ing his recent 2024 cam­paign announce­ment speech.
* Trump respond­ed, “You like it bet­ter when I just speak off the cuff,” the source said. Fuentes replied that he did, call­ing Trump an “amaz­ing” pres­i­dent when he was unre­strained. “There was a lot of fawn­ing back and forth,” the source added.
...

And note the Truth Social sto­ry from Feb­ru­ary of this year that Trump should know Fuentes from: Truth Social was get­ting slammed in the press for ver­i­fy­ing Fuentes’s account, which is still active:

...
“To be hon­est, I don’t believe the pres­i­dent knew who the hell [Fuentes] was,” the source added.

Trump asked if Fuentes was on social media such as Truth Social, the for­mer pres­i­den­t’s alter­na­tive to Twit­ter.

* Fuentes told Trump that he was on Truth Social but had been banned from the social media plat­form Get­tr because Trump advis­er Jason Miller, the CEO of the com­pa­ny, was­n’t a fan of his.
* Trump asked whether it was because Fuentes was on the “fringe” of his sup­port­er base, the source said. Fuentes acknowl­edged that he was, say­ing he’s “one of those peo­ple who got banned from every­thing.”

...

Flash­back: Truth Social, Trump’s social media plat­form, sparked back­lash by ver­i­fy­ing Fuentes’ account in Feb­ru­ary.
...

What else did they dis­cuss at that din­ner? Will there be more such semi-secret din­ners? We’ll see, maybe. But whether or not we hear about anoth­er such din­ner, we can be pret­ty con­fi­dent this chan­nel of com­mu­ni­ca­tion will remain open going into 2024. And not just open with Trump. As the fol­low­ing arti­cle about Blake Mas­ters and his die hard Alt Right fan base who claim him as one of their own, Nick Fuentes and oth­er ‘Alt Right’ fig­ures are still very keen on mak­ing fur­ther inroads into the GOP ‘main­stream’ and that impulse is only going to surge as the pri­maries play out

Van­i­ty Fair

White Extrem­ists Have Found Their Guy for the Sen­ate: Blake Mas­ters

Arizona’s Repub­li­can Sen­ate nom­i­nee, Blake Mas­ters, has been adopt­ed by far-right online cir­cles, but now that the Peter Thiel pro­tégé is in a heat­ed gen­er­al elec­tion, it looks like he’s try­ing to brush off those ties.

By Caleb Ecar­ma
August 16, 2022

In Blake Mas­ters, white extrem­ists feel that they may soon have an ally in the Sen­ate. The 36-year-old ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist, who is the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee in Arizona’s key Sen­ate race, has earned sup­port from far-right fig­ures by refus­ing to shy away from con­tro­ver­sy through­out his cam­paign. He has claimed that “Black peo­ple” are to blame for America’s “gun vio­lence prob­lem”; praised the writ­ings of Ted Kaczyn­s­ki, a domes­tic ter­ror­ist who has become a cult hero among the young and very online por­tion of the far right; and embraced the rhetoric of “the great replace­ment,” a the­o­ry cham­pi­oned by white nation­al­ists who accuse Democ­rats of replac­ing white Amer­i­cans via an “inva­sion” of immi­grants from non-white coun­tries. (Though Mas­ters did con­demn the bomb­ings car­ried out by Kaczyn­s­ki, he not­ed that he sup­ports the Unabomber’s writ­ings on the neg­a­tive social effects of mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy.)

Among the influ­en­tial white-extrem­ist fig­ures who have tak­en a lik­ing to Mas­ters is Andrew Anglin, the founder of the neo-Nazi Dai­ly Stormer blog. Anglin endorsed Mas­ters in a June post, writ­ing, “I can­not give a more force­ful endorse­ment, and I demand that any­one in Ari­zona (who is not some kind of known neo-Nazi or what­ev­er) get in con­tact with his cam­paign and see what kind of help he needs.” He added that the can­di­date was only “get­ting bet­ter and bet­ter.”

On the morn­ing of the August 2 pri­ma­ry, Nick Fuentes, a well-known white nation­al­ist livestream­er who attend­ed the dead­ly Unite the Right ral­ly in 2017, issued the fol­low­ing reminder to his Telegram fol­low­ers: “Today is the big day—Vote for…Blake Mas­ters in AZ!” Fuentes pre­vi­ous­ly endorsed Mas­ters while encour­ag­ing his fans to “turn out in large num­bers for Amer­i­ca First, Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ist can­di­dates.” Like­wise, Scott Greer, a for­mer Dai­ly Caller edi­tor who has writ­ten for a white suprema­cist web­site, sig­naled his sup­port for Mas­ters dur­ing the pri­ma­ry, tweet­ing, “blaKEYED masters”—“KEYED” being a syn­onym for “based,” the far right’s favorite term of endearment—in response to an attack ad por­tray­ing Mas­ters as anti-Semit­ic.

Jack Poso­biec, a pro­po­nent of the Piz­za­gate con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry who has a track record of mak­ing anti-Semit­ic remarks, post­ed a pho­to last year from a fundrais­er held by Mas­ters and Don­ald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. His sup­port of Mas­ters has car­ried into the gen­er­al elec­tion, as Masters’s offi­cial press account on Twit­ter retweet­ed a Poso­biec post on Sun­day pro­mot­ing the candidate’s ral­ly with Ron DeSan­tis. (The Mas­ters cam­paign did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to a request for com­ment.)

Mas­ters, for his part, has attempt­ed to dis­tance him­self from one of the more unsa­vory far-right char­ac­ters who latched on to his cam­paign dur­ing the con­tentious pri­ma­ry. Sev­er­al days after Mas­ters was endorsed by Andrew Tor­ba, the CEO of the far-right social media site Gab, he stat­ed that he was pre­vi­ous­ly unaware of Tor­ba, call­ing him a “nobody” whom “nobody cares about.” But Tor­ba, who once declared that he’d pre­fer to see Mas­ters in the White House over Trump, failed to appre­ci­ate Masters’s tac­ti­cal retreat, insist­ing that the two had com­mu­ni­cat­ed in the past. “Blake Mas­ters knows exact­ly who I am. We had a long con­ver­sa­tion on Twit­ter Spaces live a few months ago. Mega cringe cuck­ing here, but what­ev­er, I still want him to win for the great peo­ple of Ari­zona and for the right to con­trol the Sen­ate,” he wrote in a since-delet­ed Gab post ear­li­er this month. Torba’s claim was con­firmed last week after Jew­ish Insid­er pub­lished a clip of the two con­vers­ing in a Twit­ter audio chat. In the record­ing, Mas­ters can be heard telling Tor­ba that he will “check out” Gab, adding, “I mean, I’ve nev­er used [Gab]. I’m def­i­nite­ly not anti—I think I’m on Get­tr.” (A Mas­ters cam­paign advis­er reit­er­at­ed to Jew­ish Insid­er that Mas­ters “doesn’t know Tor­ba and rejects his sup­port.”)

Among the most unortho­dox Sen­ate can­di­dates run­ning this cycle, Mas­ters lacks the polit­i­cal expe­ri­ence, celebri­ty name ID, and per­son­al wealth that are typ­i­cal­ly need­ed to run a suc­cess­ful Sen­ate cam­paign. But he spent much of his adult life work­ing for tech bil­lion­aire Peter Thiel, who has spent at least $15 mil­lion to boost a pro-Mas­ters super PAC. Masters’s oth­er allies include mem­bers of the so-called New Right, a loose move­ment made up of nation­al­ists who despise big tech and free trade, includ­ing Tuck­er Carl­son, blog­ger Cur­tis Yarvin, and J.D. Vance, anoth­er Thiel-backed Sen­ate hope­ful.

...

———–

“White Extrem­ists Have Found Their Guy for the Sen­ate: Blake Mas­ters” By Caleb Ecar­ma; Van­i­ty Fair; 08/16/2022

“On the morn­ing of the August 2 pri­ma­ry, Nick Fuentes, a well-known white nation­al­ist livestream­er who attend­ed the dead­ly Unite the Right ral­ly in 2017, issued the fol­low­ing reminder to his Telegram fol­low­ers: “Today is the big day—Vote for…Blake Mas­ters in AZ!” Fuentes pre­vi­ous­ly endorsed Mas­ters while encour­ag­ing his fans to “turn out in large num­bers for Amer­i­ca First, Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ist can­di­dates.” Like­wise, Scott Greer, a for­mer Dai­ly Caller edi­tor who has writ­ten for a white suprema­cist web­site, sig­naled his sup­port for Mas­ters dur­ing the pri­ma­ry, tweet­ing, “blaKEYED masters”—“KEYED” being a syn­onym for “based,” the far right’s favorite term of endearment—in response to an attack ad por­tray­ing Mas­ters as anti-Semit­ic.”

And that, right there, is Nick Fuentes’s ‘influ­ence’ in action. A GOP pri­ma­ry-day endorse­ment. Fuentes has fol­low­ers and Nazi votes count too. Although it may not have been as help­ful to Mas­ters as Ander Anglin’s call, back in June, for his fol­low­ers to con­tact the Mas­ters cam­paign and find out what help it needs:

...
Among the influ­en­tial white-extrem­ist fig­ures who have tak­en a lik­ing to Mas­ters is Andrew Anglin, the founder of the neo-Nazi Dai­ly Stormer blog. Anglin endorsed Mas­ters in a June post, writ­ing, “I can­not give a more force­ful endorse­ment, and I demand that any­one in Ari­zona (who is not some kind of known neo-Nazi or what­ev­er) get in con­tact with his cam­paign and see what kind of help he needs.” He added that the can­di­date was only “get­ting bet­ter and bet­ter.”
...

How many Nazis did the Mas­ters cam­paign take on as a result of that call to action? We don’t know, but with Trump’s Sched­ule F plot requir­ing an army of loy­al extrem­ists right out the gates if Trump wins again, it’s not hard to imag­ine that the kind of peo­ple who answered Anglin’s call to help Mas­ter­s’s cam­paign are the kind of peo­ple Trump is going to be look­ing for in large num­bers. Nazis clean enough to join a cam­paign. And then join the gov­ern­ment and where they’ll pro­ceed to ‘drain the swamp’.

Calls to ter­mi­nate the US Con­sti­tu­tion. That’s where we are. Don­ald Trump was­n’t minc­ing words, or hid­ing his intent, when he open­ly called for the ter­mi­na­tion of the US Con­sti­tu­tion’s rules on elec­tions and his rein­stall­ment as pres­i­dent in response to the sto­ry about the ‘Hunter Biden Twit­ter Files’. It’s also the lat­est exam­ple of Trump mak­ing clear that he’s not sim­ply run­ning to be pres­i­dent again. He’s run­ning to over­throw the gov­ern­ment and become some sort of new God King. A rev­o­lu­tion that’s going to start with a mass Sched­ule F purge of gov­ern­ment employ­ees, but pre­sum­ably won’t end there. At least not if that open­ing purge is suc­cess­ful.

On one lev­el, Trump’s calls to be rein­stat­ed was anoth­er pre­dictable esca­la­tion from Trump. Provo­ca­tions like that are going be com­ing almost dai­ly from Trump for the next two years. But there’s the oth­er con­text to this: it was bare­ly a week ago that Trump had the now-noto­ri­ous Mar-a-Lago din­ner with Kanye West and neo-Nazi youth leader Nick Fuentes. As we saw, while Trump claimed to have no idea who Fuentes was dur­ing the din­ner, that’s a rather implau­si­ble claim. And either way, Trump was report­ed­ly enam­ored with Fuentes. It was the kind of report that raised the ques­tion: is Trump plan­ning the much larg­er ‘Sched­ule F+’-style soci­ety-wide purge and sus­pen­sion of democ­ra­cy that Cur­tis Yarvin has writ­ten about? And if so, is he look­ing at groups like Fuentes’s thou­sands of ‘groyper’ fol­low­ers to play a kind of Brown­shirts role in exe­cut­ing that coup? Signs keep point­ing towards some sort of giant pow­er grab right out of the gates designed to pre­emp­tive­ly squash any future oppo­si­tion to what comes next. Signs being sent by Trump him­self. Trump’s call to ter­mi­nate the Con­sti­tu­tion’s rules on elec­tions is just the lat­est of those signs.

So with Trump sound­ing increas­ing­ly fas­cist with each pass­ing week, here’s a set of arti­cles describ­ing the grow­ing alliances being formed between Fuentes’s ‘groyper’ fol­low­ing and some par­tic­u­lar­ly reac­tionary quar­ters of the Catholic com­mu­ni­ty. Specif­i­cal­ly, the St. Michael’s Media group, com­mon­ly known as “Church Mil­i­tant”. As we saw, while the phrase “church mil­i­tant” has tra­di­tion­al­ly been used to describe a benign spir­i­tu­al strug­gle with­in one’s own soul, the phrase has tak­en on a very dif­fer­ent mean­ing inside the theo­crat­ic com­mu­ni­ty found at St Michael’s ChurchMilitant.com. It was back in Decem­ber of 2016 when the NY Times report­ed on how ChurchMilitant.com, found­ed by Michael Voris, was using the term “church mil­i­tant” as a high­ly politi­cized cry for Chris­tians to rise up and wage ‘spir­i­tu­al war­fare’ against all non-Chris­tians aspects of soci­ety. It was an appli­ca­tion of the ‘church mil­i­tant’ con­cept that was aligned with Steve Ban­non’s use of the term “church mil­i­tant” to call for a glob­al war on “Islam­ic fas­cism” and inter­na­tion­al finan­cial elites. And as we also saw, Ban­non’s rela­tion­ship with Voris and the Church Mil­i­tant move­ment was on dis­play again last Novem­ber when Ban­non, Voris, and Milo Yiannopou­los held a ral­ly in Bal­it­more over the objec­tion of city offi­cials who feared the event was going to be used to pro­voke polit­i­cal vio­lence.

As we’re going to see, CNP-mem­ber Steve Ban­non is far from the only Amer­i­can fas­cist inter­est­ed in cul­ti­vat­ing a polit­i­cal­ly weaponized “church mil­i­tant” move­ment. It turns out Nick Fuentes’s groypers have become excep­tion­al­ly close to the Voris’s Church Mil­i­tant move­ment. So close that one of the ‘reporters’/producers at ChurchMilitant.com, Joseph Enders, is a him­self a full-fledged groyper. Enders is described as a fix­ture on the Church Mil­i­tant Evening News and a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor to churchmilitant.com.

Anoth­er groyper who has man­aged to get a lot of pos­i­tive Church Mil­i­tant media cov­er­age is Dal­ton Clod­fel­ter. As we’re going see, Clod­fel­ter went on the far right Stew Peters show back in August and made a dec­la­ra­tion that sound­ed was awful­ly close to the kind of full-scale purge Cur­tis Yarvin has envi­sioned. Clod­fel­ter called for the estab­lish­ment of a “far-right author­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ment” that will imprison its polit­i­cal ene­mies, estab­lish Chris­tian­i­ty as the nation­al reli­gion, and out­law all sec­u­lar edu­ca­tion. “Once we take con­trol, we will iden­ti­fy our ene­mies, and we will stomp them into the dirt. They will not be able to return to pow­er. We will rip them from their offices. We will rip them from their homes for being degen­er­ate liars, degen­er­ate trea­so­nous domes­tic ter­ror­ists because that is what they are.” That sure sounds a lot like Curts Yarv­in’s fan­ta­sy sce­nario for a pop­u­lar author­i­tar­i­an move­ment. And that’s the group Michael Voris’s Church Mil­i­tant com­mu­ni­ty of reac­tionary Catholics is now tar­get­ing for recruit­ment. Nick Fuentes already couched his Nazi move­ment in Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist terms and now Fuentes’s groypers have become the recruits-of-choice for the same group of Catholic reac­tionar­ies already aligned with Steve Ban­non.

There’s anoth­er reac­tionary Catholic who, like Ban­non, played an impor­tant role in the plan­ning that led up to the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion and who also has a close work­ing rela­tion­ship with this Church Militant/Groyper nexus of Catholic fas­cism: CNP-mem­ber Ali Alexan­der. As we’ve seen, it was Alexan­der’s planned “Stop the Steal” ral­ly out­side the Capi­tol that actu­al­ly devolved into the insur­rec­tionary mob. And that was just the last of a string of ‘wild’ “Stop the Steal” ral­lies Alexan­der held, includ­ing one in Lans­ing, Michi­gan, led by none oth­er than Fuentes. As we’re going to see, Church Mil­i­tant cel­e­brat­ed the Lans­ing ral­ly at the time and Michael Voris lat­er fond­ly recount­ed attend­ing that ral­ly dur­ing an inter­view he did with Alexan­der a week after Jan 6. Alexan­der told Voris he had come to real­ize there was a “war between the church and the peo­ple who have infil­trat­ed the church”, echo­ing the war on the Catholic Church’s pro­gres­sive wing that Ban­non has been wag­ing for years.

And that Lans­ing ral­ly was one of many ‘Stop the Steal’ ral­lies Fuentes spoke at in that post-elec­tion peri­od. There was also the Decem­ber 2020 ral­ly in DC where Fuentes led the crowd in chants of “Destroy the GOP.” As Fuentes declared, “In the first Mil­lion MAGA march we promised that if the GOP did not do every­thing in their pow­er to keep Trump in office, then we would destroy the GOP...As we gath­er here in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. for a sec­ond Mil­lion MAGA March, we’re done mak­ing promis­es. It has to hap­pen now. We are going to destroy the GOP...Destroy the GOP! Destroy the GOP!” Michael Fly­nn also spoke at the ral­ly, And at one point, then-pres­i­dent Trump did a fly­over of the crowd in the Marine One heli­copter three times. That’s part of the absur­di­ty of Trump’s claims that he did­n’t know Fuentes. Trump lit­er­al­ly did three fly­overs at the ral­ly where Fuentes led the crowd in ‘Destroy the GOP!’ chants as a show of their loy­al­ty to him. Of course Trump remem­bers him.

And if Trump some­how gen­uine­ly did­n’t remem­ber Fuentes from that triple-fly­over, sure­ly he would remem­ber Fuentes from the Feb­ru­ary 2021 “Amer­i­can First PAC” (AFPAC) con­fer­ence held by Fuentes right down the street from CPAC. As we saw, AFPAC was basi­cal­ly a super-pro-MAGA taunt against CPAC. And, again, a giant pub­lic dis­play of love and loy­al­ty for Trump. Fuentes just keeps mak­ing the news for pub­lic dis­plays of love and loy­al­ty for Trump.

That’s all part of the con­text of the Trump’s pub­lic lurch towards author­i­tar­i­an fig­ures and ideas in just the last cou­ple of weeks since announc­ing his reelec­tion bid. Din­ner with Nick Fuentes was­n’t some sil­ly slip up. It was a meet­ing between Trump and the Amer­i­can fas­cist with a huge online fol­low­ing best posi­tioned to pro­vide Trump with the street mus­cle he’s going need. Street mus­cle that will include a nation­wide net­work of rad­i­cal­ized Catholics by the time Fuentes and Voris have com­plet­ed the cre­ation of a MAGA-fied Nazi-Catholic mar­riage of move­ments made in hell.

Ok, first, here’s Part 1 of a two-part Salon series from back in May about this grow­ing alliance between Fuentes’s groypers, the ‘Alt Right’, and the ‘trad-Cath’ reac­tionar­ies at Michael Voris’s ChurchMilitant.com. An alliance forged in the shared goal of impos­ing an author­i­tar­i­an form of Chris­t­ian nation­al­ism at the ear­li­est oppor­tu­ni­ty:

Salon

White nation­al­ists get reli­gion: On the far-right fringe, Catholics and racists forge a move­ment

Nick Fuentes’ racist “groyper” move­ment is build­ing a coali­tion with far-right Catholics. They have a plan

By Kathryn Joyce — Ben Lor­ber
Pub­lished May 12, 2022 6:30AM (EDT)

This is the first arti­cle in a two-part series.

Last Sun­day, as pro-choice sup­port­ers react­ed to the leaked Supreme Court draft opin­ion that will like­ly over­turn Roe v. Wade, a series of videos shot in low­er Man­hat­tan went viral. In one, a group of young men stood before an arched wood­en door­way at the Basil­i­ca of St. Patrick­’s Old Cathe­dral, recit­ing the Rosary while pro­test­ers demon­strat­ed out­side the church gates. In their cen­ter was a young man wear­ing an Amer­i­ca First hat and an FDNY fleece, clos­ing his eyes as he prayed. By that after­noon, the video had been shared on social media by far-right Repub­li­can Reps. Paul Gosar and Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene, who praised the men as “heroes” “defend­ing their church­es against the abor­tion­ist horde.” 

In two oth­er videos tak­en the same day at the same loca­tion, the man in the Amer­i­ca First hat heck­led pro­test­ers, shout­ing from the church steps, “I am the peo­ple. The peo­ple have decid­ed, the court has decid­ed. You lose. You have no choice. Not your body, your choice. Your body is mine and you’re hav­ing my baby.”

The man was not, as the New York City Fire Depart­ment quick­ly point­ed out, a fire­fight­er. Nor was he mere­ly a devout Catholic. Rather, he was a right-wing activist affil­i­at­ed with white nation­al­ist wun­derkind Nick Fuentes’ glee­ful­ly racist and anti­se­mit­ic Amer­i­ca First/“groyper” move­ment, which at its third annu­al Amer­i­ca First Polit­i­cal Action Con­fer­ence (AFPAC) this Feb­ru­ary drew wide­spread con­dem­na­tion for its glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of Vladimir Putin’s inva­sion of Ukraine, Fuentes’ praise of Hitler and the call by one speak­er, a state sen­a­tor from Ari­zona, to build “gal­lows” to hang polit­i­cal ene­mies.

On a pop­u­lar groyper livestream show Sun­day night, host and move­ment leader Dal­ton Clod­fel­ter said he rec­og­nized the man in the videos and called him to join the show. As jour­nal­ist and West­ern States Cen­ter senior fel­low Nick Mar­tin report­ed, Clod­fel­ter said the man had made “a real­ly bold state­ment today and it’s going to be heard by a lot of peo­ple.” The man claimed that many of the oth­er pray­ing men who assem­bled that after­noon were also groypers, described the demon­stra­tors he’d been heck­ling as “demon­ic crea­tures” and “ani­mals” and said that one Black pro­test­er should be “enslaved” or “shot.” “What­ev­er church they’re going to attack next,” he pledged, “we’ll be there, and we’ll crush them.”

None of that seemed to mat­ter to the right-wing politi­cians and media who held the man up as a hero of the faith. Promi­nent among those was Church Mil­i­tant, a far-right Catholic media out­let that pro­mot­ed its Mon­day night cov­er­age of the protest with a pic­ture of the groyper­’s face. That was more than acci­dent or coin­ci­dence — Church Mil­i­tant and the groypers are increas­ing­ly col­lab­o­rat­ing to mobi­lize their respec­tive audi­ences to con­front what both are call­ing “proabor­tion­ist demons” at pro-choice ral­lies across the coun­try, and, more gen­er­al­ly, to grow their move­ments on both sides. 

All of this is part of a broad­er pat­tern of increas­ing over­lap between the far right, includ­ing overt­ly white nation­al­ist move­ments and lead­ers, with the extreme right-wing fringe of the Roman Catholic Church. This emerg­ing coali­tion includes such fig­ures as Milo Yiannopou­los, who was effec­tive­ly expelled from the MAGA move­ment in 2017 over his remarks about child sex abuse; Cana­di­an white nation­al­ist Faith Goldy, sim­i­lar­ly dis­graced after appear­ing on a pod­cast of the neo-Nazi web­site Dai­ly Stormer; one­time “Stop the Steal” orga­niz­er Ali Alexan­der; and “Kent State gun girl” Kaitlin Ben­nett. 

All four have rebrand­ed them­selves as “tra­di­tion­al” Catholics (or “trad-Caths,” in inter­net par­lance) and allied them­selves with an exist­ing net­work of far-right Catholics that includes Piz­za­gate provo­ca­teur-turned con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor Jack Poso­biec, Trump con­fi­dant and advis­er Steve Ban­non and groyper-guru Nick Fuentes him­self. 

At one point, Resis­tance, the activist wing of Church Mil­i­tant, began to mobi­lize sup­port­ers to counter-protest Planned Par­ent­hood march­es sched­uled for this Sat­ur­day in Chica­go, Nashville, Wash­ing­ton, San Anto­nio, Los Ange­les and oth­er cities. On Mon­day on the alter­na­tive social media site Telegram, Clod­fel­ter called on groypers to attend these ral­lies. By Wednes­day evening, more than five-dozen groypers on the site had eager­ly signed on. As of Fri­day, how­ev­er, Church Mil­i­tant seemed to have aban­doned this ini­tia­tive, though Clod­fel­ter still claims the groypers will ral­ly in Nashville.

As we will dis­cuss in part 2 of this inves­ti­ga­tion, at least one promi­nent staff mem­ber at Church Mil­i­tant is also a groyper, and oth­er employ­ees of the right-wing Catholic group appear eager to build a unit­ed front between the two for­ma­tions. In the larg­er polit­i­cal land­scape of Trump-era Amer­i­ca, this is more evi­dence that white nation­al­ist and Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist move­ments, despite some mean­ing­ful dif­fer­ences on prin­ci­ple, strat­e­gy and tac­tics, are work­ing side by side in the right’s broad­er push to roll back abor­tion rights and enshrine white Chris­t­ian dom­i­nance in Amer­i­ca.

“We have to push the enve­lope” 

From its begin­nings, the groyper move­ment sought to strad­dle the gap between the white and Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist move­ments. In the lat­er years of the Trump pres­i­den­cy, as the large­ly pagan or athe­ist alt-right fell into dis­ar­ray, Fuentes sought to dis­tin­guish the most­ly Gen‑Z groyper move­ment from its dis­graced pre­de­ces­sor by gar­nish­ing its core white nation­al­ist prin­ci­ples with the flag and the cross.

“[The alt-right] was a racial­ist, athe­ist, post-Amer­i­can, rev­o­lu­tion­ary and transna­tion­al move­ment,” Fuentes explained to fol­low­ers in Novem­ber 2019, attempt­ing to chart a new direc­tion for white nation­al­ism in the U.S. “Amer­i­ca First is a tra­di­tion­al­ist, Chris­t­ian, con­ser­v­a­tive, reformist, Amer­i­can nation­al­ist Move­ment.” While oth­er white nation­al­ists had giv­en up hope of trans­form­ing the con­ser­v­a­tive estab­lish­ment, the groypers, Fuentes argued, would redou­ble their efforts to influ­ence the main­stream Right. This project con­tin­ues today. “We have to push the enve­lope,” Fuentes told fol­low­ers in May 2021. “We are the right-wing flank of the Repub­li­can Party…we have got to be on the Right, drag­ging these peo­ple kick­ing and scream­ing into the future, into the right wing, into a tru­ly reac­tionary par­ty.”

In today’s groyper move­ment, clas­sic white nation­al­ist themes of “white geno­cide,” white iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics and con­spir­a­to­r­i­al anti­semitism blend seam­less­ly with fer­vent appeals to Chris­t­ian piety, slo­gans like “Christ is King” and mil­i­tant calls to enshrine Chris­t­ian fun­da­men­tal­ism as state pol­i­cy. Most groypers are young and enthu­si­as­tic adher­ents of Catholic, East­ern Ortho­dox, Lat­ter-day Saints or oth­er Chris­t­ian faith tra­di­tions, and many are first drawn into the move­ment through its ubiq­ui­tous “trad” sub­cul­ture — a large­ly online aes­thet­ic cel­e­brat­ing a rejec­tion of moder­ni­ty and embrace of patri­ar­chal, anti-LGBTQ val­ues — and become “red-pilled” on the tenets of white nation­al­ism along the way. 

For the groypers, hard-edged, tra­di­tion­al­ist oppo­si­tion to LGBTQ rights, abor­tion and fem­i­nism is root­ed in uncom­pro­mis­ing misog­y­ny and male suprema­cy, a world­view in which straight, white, Chris­t­ian Gen‑Z men are val­orized as the right­ful heirs to and guardians of the Amer­i­can nation. Today, the groypers’ strate­gic blend of white and Chris­t­ian nation­al­ism has arrived right on time, help­ing the move­ment find nat­ur­al allies among hard-right Chris­t­ian groups — par­tic­u­lar­ly Catholic right groups like Church Mil­i­tant — and, from there, to build new path­ways towards main­stream accep­tance. 

In a par­al­lel project, Church Mil­i­tant also seeks to trans­form main­stream Catholi­cism from its right­ward flank. Just two weeks ago, Church Mil­i­tant made nation­al news for its hour­long inter­view with Rep. Greene, in which the Geor­gia con­gress­woman sug­gest­ed that Satan is con­trol­ling the Catholic Church (most­ly because of Catholic sup­port for refugees at the U.S. south­ern bor­der). While it might seem odd for a Catholic media site to cel­e­brate such a charge com­ing from an evan­gel­i­cal Protes­tant — Church Mil­i­tant titled the first seg­ment of its week­long pro­mo­tion of the inter­view “Mar­jorie for Pope” — the out­let has long waged a vit­ri­olic cam­paign against the church’s cur­rent hier­ar­chy, which it derides as both mil­que­toast and lib­er­al and an “inter­na­tion­al crime syn­di­cate” run by a “laven­der mafia.” By com­par­i­son, Church Mil­i­tant presents itself as the home of authen­ti­cal­ly ortho­dox Catholi­cism (even as the Arch­dio­cese of Detroit, where Church Mil­i­tant is head­quar­tered, com­pelled the out­let more than a decade ago to stop using “Catholic” in its name and has repeat­ed­ly denounced the group). 

Last Novem­ber, the out­let host­ed a noisy, day­long ral­ly on the Bal­ti­more water­front to protest the annu­al meet­ing of the U.S. Con­fer­ence of Catholic Bish­ops next door. Church Mil­i­tan­t’s emcee for the event, fall­en “alt-lite” star turned groyper leader Yiannopou­los — who joined Church Mil­i­tant as a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor in 2021 after declar­ing him­self “ex-gay” — direct­ed the rough­ly 1,200-person audi­ence to chant “Lock them up” at the bish­ops gath­ered near­by. It was he, in fact, who report­ed­ly arranged for Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene to speak at Fuentes’ AFPAC III in Feb­ru­ary. 

... 

Many of Church Mil­i­tan­t’s tar­gets are with­in the Catholic Church itself. It has run arti­cles “expos­ing” bish­ops as reg­is­tered Democ­rats; called the first Black car­di­nal in the Amer­i­can church “African Queen”; demand­ed that Pope Fran­cis resign; and vowed to use its claimed net­work of hun­dreds of priests and church staff, as well as thou­sands of lay activists, to dig up dirt on any bish­ops who “go after a good priest.” 

But much of the site’s writ­ing and advo­ca­cy is more direct­ly polit­i­cal, as when it com­pared the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment to fas­cism, attacked the Catholic bish­ops’ sup­port for immi­grants as a num­bers game meant to “shore up” a “shrink­ing, shriv­el­ing church,” and, in 2020, declared that “every Demo­c­ra­t­ic leader in the coun­try” should be “imme­di­ate­ly arrest­ed and impris­oned” for their role in pan­dem­ic pub­lic health restric­tions. Church Mil­i­tant was such an avid sup­port­er of Trump’s reelec­tion cam­paign that it repeat­ed­ly warned read­ers that if Joe Biden were elect­ed, Catholics would be “iden­ti­fied, hunt­ed down, declared ‘ille­gal,’ ” “gun[ned] down in the streets,” or “herd­ed onto the trains head­ing for the camps.” 

Church Mil­i­tant is wide­ly con­sid­ered, even among many con­ser­v­a­tive Catholics, as so out­ra­geous and aggres­sive that it is best ignored. But as Com­mon­weal’s Paul Moses report­ed, that out­let and the fel­low-trav­el­ing Life­Site­News togeth­er “gar­nered near­ly 10 mil­lion vis­its to their alt-right ‘news’ web­sites dur­ing the last three months of 2020,” help­ing to “spread bogus elec­tion-con­spir­a­cy claims to a huge Catholic audi­ence.” On Jan. 6, 2021, both Church Mil­i­tant and its staff cel­e­brat­ed the riot at the U.S. Capi­tol, tweet­ing images of pro-Trump pro­test­ers car­ry­ing Catholic iconog­ra­phy and declar­ing the riot­ers “patri­ots.” 

The out­let has made com­mon cause with many of the most con­tro­ver­sial fig­ures on the right, pro­mot­ing inter­views with Roger Stone, Joseph Fly­nn (broth­er of QAnon hero Michael Fly­nn), Gab founder and CEO Andrew Tor­ba and Steve Ban­non, who was to be the keynote speak­er at Church Mil­i­tan­t’s Bal­ti­more ral­ly, although he ulti­mate­ly did­n’t attend — because he was arrest­ed that week and charged with con­tempt of Con­gress. Beyond its Bal­ti­more ral­ly, the orga­ni­za­tion rou­tine­ly plat­forms voic­es con­nect­ed to the groyper move­ment as well. Mul­ti­ple Church Mil­i­tant arti­cles have fea­tured Tor­ba and YouTube stream­er John Doyle, who are both long­stand­ing Fuentes allies and were fea­tured as speak­er and spe­cial guest, respec­tive­ly, at AFPAC III. Church Mil­i­tant founder Michael Voris recent­ly appeared on a show host­ed by white nation­al­ist for­mer Sen­ate can­di­date Lau­ren Witzke, anoth­er promi­nent Fuentes ally. 

Just a week after the Capi­tol insur­rec­tion, Voris inter­viewed anoth­er Fuentes acolyte, Jan. 6 plan­ner Ali Alexan­der, about his then-recent con­ver­sion to Catholi­cism as well as their shared sense — in the imme­di­ate after­math of the Capi­tol riot — that “dying an hon­or­able death is an awe­some thing.” Alexan­der said he had come to real­ize there was a “war between the church and the peo­ple who have infil­trat­ed the church,” and Voris recount­ed attend­ing sev­er­al of Alexan­der’s “Stop the Steal” protests in Michi­gan, includ­ing one at the state capi­tol in Lans­ing. That ral­ly was led by Nick Fuentes and John Doyle and cel­e­brat­ed on Church Mil­i­tan­t’s Twit­ter account.

These points of over­lap exem­pli­fy how the white nation­al­ist move­ment and the Catholic right are both draw­ing togeth­er and influ­enc­ing each oth­er. But it is in the youth move­ment, and on the streets, where the most sig­nif­i­cant col­lab­o­ra­tion is now unfold­ing. 

“We are intense­ly try­ing to cul­ti­vate the youth,” Voris said in a Feb­ru­ary 2022 video enti­tled “CM Youth Move­ment,” claim­ing that 24 of Church Mil­i­tan­t’s 63 employ­ees are under the age of 30. “As men, it’s real­ly impor­tant that we act,” pro­fessed one young Church Mil­i­tant staffer in the video. “We can’t just sit by and watch our civ­i­liza­tion and church col­lapse into a cesspool of degen­er­a­cy.”

Voris took note when Fuentes held AFPAC III, prais­ing the con­fer­ence as “where all the youth­ful (read: future) ener­gy is” in the “real strug­gle for the heart and soul of the [con­ser­v­a­tive] move­ment” — a strug­gle, Voris said, echo­ing Fuentes’ fram­ing, which “will dic­tate the future of the [Repub­li­can] par­ty and, to a large extent, the nation.” 

In a sub­se­quent video enti­tled “Young Con­ser­v­a­tive Catholics,” Voris drove the point home. Bemoan­ing the “col­lapse of the Amer­i­can empire,” Voris com­pared con­tem­po­rary young Catholics to the “first young Romans” who, in the wake of the col­lapse of the Roman Empire in the 4th cen­tu­ry AD, “con­quered the bar­bar­ians” and insti­tut­ed a new Catholic civ­i­liza­tion. 

“Just like in the days of Rome, as it col­lapsed,” Voris explained, “there was a gen­er­a­tion of 20-some­things that beheld it, so too now, here, in the U.S…in the com­ing years but begin­ning now, what must be fought for is Catholic truth. Straight up, ter­ri­ble, glo­ri­ous Catholic truth.” He went on to say that “estab­lish­ment con­ser­vatism has betrayed the cause” and “it is the young more than any­one else who must under­stand the real war here.” Fuentes and Yiannopou­los both shared Voris’ video on Telegram, with a cap­tion fram­ing it as a direct appeal to the groypers: “ ‘The cry “Christ is King” must ring loud across the land.’ Church Mil­i­tan­t’s Michael Voris on Amer­i­ca First.” 

———-

“White nation­al­ists get reli­gion: On the far-right fringe, Catholics and racists forge a movement“By Kathryn Joyce and Ben Lor­ber; Salon; 05/12/2022

“All of this is part of a broad­er pat­tern of increas­ing over­lap between the far right, includ­ing overt­ly white nation­al­ist move­ments and lead­ers, with the extreme right-wing fringe of the Roman Catholic Church. This emerg­ing coali­tion includes such fig­ures as Milo Yiannopou­los, who was effec­tive­ly expelled from the MAGA move­ment in 2017 over his remarks about child sex abuse; Cana­di­an white nation­al­ist Faith Goldy, sim­i­lar­ly dis­graced after appear­ing on a pod­cast of the neo-Nazi web­site Dai­ly Stormer; one­time “Stop the Steal” orga­niz­er Ali Alexan­der; and “Kent State gun girl” Kaitlin Ben­nett.”

A fusion of neo-Nazis and hard-right Catholics. Fig­ures includ­ing CNP-mem­ber Ali Alexan­der who played a cen­tral role in orga­niz­ing the vio­lence the unfold­ed on Jan­u­ary 6. That’s the dis­turb­ing trend we’re see­ing play out. The “trad-Cath” iden­ti­ty is becom­ing a tool for the fur­ther main­stream­ing of white nation­al­ist ideas. With main­stream Catholics being the tar­get audi­ence:

...
All four have rebrand­ed them­selves as “tra­di­tion­al” Catholics (or “trad-Caths,” in inter­net par­lance) and allied them­selves with an exist­ing net­work of far-right Catholics that includes Piz­za­gate provo­ca­teur-turned con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor Jack Poso­biec, Trump con­fi­dant and advis­er Steve Ban­non and groyper-guru Nick Fuentes him­self.
...

It was that fusion of Nazis and “Trad-Caths” the was put on dis­play fol­low­ing the ini­tial news of the impend­ing over­turn­ing of Roe, when a ‘groyper’ caught on video pub­licly taunt­ing women pass­ing by on the streets with threats that they were going to be forced to have his babies with the cel­e­bra­tion was ulti­mate­ly cel­e­brat­ed by fel­low groyper Dal­ton Clod­fel­ter on his show. As we’re going to see, Clod­fel­ter is a wel­come fig­ure inside the “Trad-Cath” move­ment, and is par­tic­u­lar­ly close to St. Michael’s Media group, aka the “Church Mil­i­tant” media out­let, which joined Clod­fel­ter in cel­e­brat­ing the mes­sage deliv­ered to the women of Amer­i­ca by the ‘groyper’ on the street cor­ner. As we saw back in Novem­ber, Church Mil­i­tant has become a lead­ing voice in artic­u­lat­ing the the­o­log­i­cal view that and CNP-mem­ber Steve Ban­non has been push­ing for years: The idea that the tra­di­tion­al Catholic con­cept of the “church mil­i­tant” wrestling against sin should be trans­lat­ed into a call for spir­i­tu­al war­fare waged as polit­i­cal war­fare and the polit­i­cal cap­ture of soci­ety by tra­di­tion­al Chris­tians for the pur­pose of impos­ing reli­gion the rest of soci­ety. A call for a polit­i­cal coup in the form of a nation­al spir­i­tu­al revival. Ban­non and Church Mil­i­tant have been devel­op­ing this for years now. That’s part of the con­text of the open alliance between Church Mil­i­tant and Fuentes’s ‘Groypers’. It’s the cul­mi­na­tion of one of Steve Ban­non’s ongo­ing polit­i­cal projects:

...
The man was not, as the New York City Fire Depart­ment quick­ly point­ed out, a fire­fight­er. Nor was he mere­ly a devout Catholic. Rather, he was a right-wing activist affil­i­at­ed with white nation­al­ist wun­derkind Nick Fuentes’ glee­ful­ly racist and anti­se­mit­ic Amer­i­ca First/“groyper” move­ment, which at its third annu­al Amer­i­ca First Polit­i­cal Action Con­fer­ence (AFPAC) this Feb­ru­ary drew wide­spread con­dem­na­tion for its glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of Vladimir Putin’s inva­sion of Ukraine, Fuentes’ praise of Hitler and the call by one speak­er, a state sen­a­tor from Ari­zona, to build “gal­lows” to hang polit­i­cal ene­mies.

On a pop­u­lar groyper livestream show Sun­day night, host and move­ment leader Dal­ton Clod­fel­ter said he rec­og­nized the man in the videos and called him to join the show. As jour­nal­ist and West­ern States Cen­ter senior fel­low Nick Mar­tin report­ed, Clod­fel­ter said the man had made “a real­ly bold state­ment today and it’s going to be heard by a lot of peo­ple.” The man claimed that many of the oth­er pray­ing men who assem­bled that after­noon were also groypers, described the demon­stra­tors he’d been heck­ling as “demon­ic crea­tures” and “ani­mals” and said that one Black pro­test­er should be “enslaved” or “shot.” “What­ev­er church they’re going to attack next,” he pledged, “we’ll be there, and we’ll crush them.”

None of that seemed to mat­ter to the right-wing politi­cians and media who held the man up as a hero of the faith. Promi­nent among those was Church Mil­i­tant, a far-right Catholic media out­let that pro­mot­ed its Mon­day night cov­er­age of the protest with a pic­ture of the groyper­’s face. That was more than acci­dent or coin­ci­dence — Church Mil­i­tant and the groypers are increas­ing­ly col­lab­o­rat­ing to mobi­lize their respec­tive audi­ences to con­front what both are call­ing “proabor­tion­ist demons” at pro-choice ral­lies across the coun­try, and, more gen­er­al­ly, to grow their move­ments on both sides. 
...

And note how the niche Nick Fuentes and his fel­low groypers are attempt­ing to fill is a kind of more pious ver­sion of the ‘Alt Right’, draped in the flag and car­ry­ing the cross. A move­ment where ‘White geno­cide’ and ‘Christ is King’ are paired slo­gans. Par­al­lel to the is the move­ment inside Catholi­cism by groups like Church Mil­i­tant to push the Catholic church in an ‘Alt Right’ direc­tion. Nick Fuente’s groypers and Church Mil­i­tan­t’s audi­ence are two sides of the same Ban­non-inspired move­ment:

 
... 
From its begin­nings, the groyper move­ment sought to strad­dle the gap between the white and Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist move­ments. In the lat­er years of the Trump pres­i­den­cy, as the large­ly pagan or athe­ist alt-right fell into dis­ar­ray, Fuentes sought to dis­tin­guish the most­ly Gen‑Z groyper move­ment from its dis­graced pre­de­ces­sor by gar­nish­ing its core white nation­al­ist prin­ci­ples with the flag and the cross.

...

In today’s groyper move­ment, clas­sic white nation­al­ist themes of “white geno­cide,” white iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics and con­spir­a­to­r­i­al anti­semitism blend seam­less­ly with fer­vent appeals to Chris­t­ian piety, slo­gans like “Christ is King” and mil­i­tant calls to enshrine Chris­t­ian fun­da­men­tal­ism as state pol­i­cy. Most groypers are young and enthu­si­as­tic adher­ents of Catholic, East­ern Ortho­dox, Lat­ter-day Saints or oth­er Chris­t­ian faith tra­di­tions, and many are first drawn into the move­ment through its ubiq­ui­tous “trad” sub­cul­ture — a large­ly online aes­thet­ic cel­e­brat­ing a rejec­tion of moder­ni­ty and embrace of patri­ar­chal, anti-LGBTQ val­ues — and become “red-pilled” on the tenets of white nation­al­ism along the way. 

...

In a par­al­lel project, Church Mil­i­tant also seeks to trans­form main­stream Catholi­cism from its right­ward flank. Just two weeks ago, Church Mil­i­tant made nation­al news for its hour­long inter­view with Rep. Greene, in which the Geor­gia con­gress­woman sug­gest­ed that Satan is con­trol­ling the Catholic Church (most­ly because of Catholic sup­port for refugees at the U.S. south­ern bor­der). While it might seem odd for a Catholic media site to cel­e­brate such a charge com­ing from an evan­gel­i­cal Protes­tant — Church Mil­i­tant titled the first seg­ment of its week­long pro­mo­tion of the inter­view “Mar­jorie for Pope” — the out­let has long waged a vit­ri­olic cam­paign against the church’s cur­rent hier­ar­chy, which it derides as both mil­que­toast and lib­er­al and an “inter­na­tion­al crime syn­di­cate” run by a “laven­der mafia.” By com­par­i­son, Church Mil­i­tant presents itself as the home of authen­ti­cal­ly ortho­dox Catholi­cism (even as the Arch­dio­cese of Detroit, where Church Mil­i­tant is head­quar­tered, com­pelled the out­let more than a decade ago to stop using “Catholic” in its name and has repeat­ed­ly denounced the group). 
...

And regard­ing Church Mil­i­tan­t’s focus on the Catholic Church itself, recall how this is also part of Steve Ban­non’s long-stand­ing push to build an inter­na­tion­al net­work of reac­tionary Catholics focused on purg­ing the Vat­i­can of any­thing resem­bling pro­gres­sive teach­ings. So when we read about how Church Mil­i­tant tar­gets fig­ures with­in the Church’s hier­ar­chy, keep in mind it’s part of that same ongo­ing effort:

 
...
Many of Church Mil­i­tan­t’s tar­gets are with­in the Catholic Church itself. It has run arti­cles “expos­ing” bish­ops as reg­is­tered Democ­rats; called the first Black car­di­nal in the Amer­i­can church “African Queen”; demand­ed that Pope Fran­cis resign; and vowed to use its claimed net­work of hun­dreds of priests and church staff, as well as thou­sands of lay activists, to dig up dirt on any bish­ops who “go after a good priest.” 
...

It’s that years-long zeal for the cap­ture of both church and state that should be kept in mind when we learn about the ties between Church Mil­i­tant, Fuentes, and fig­ures direct­ly involved in the plan­ning around Jan­u­ary 6 like recent-Catholic-con­vert, and CNP-mem­ber, Ali Alexan­der. Jan­u­ary 6 — and all of the CNP orga­niz­ing that went into it — was effec­tive­ly a man­i­fes­ta­tion of what Ban­non and Church Mil­i­tant have been cul­ti­vat­ing for years:

...
The out­let has made com­mon cause with many of the most con­tro­ver­sial fig­ures on the right, pro­mot­ing inter­views with Roger Stone, Joseph Fly­nn (broth­er of QAnon hero Michael Fly­nn), Gab founder and CEO Andrew Tor­ba and Steve Ban­non, who was to be the keynote speak­er at Church Mil­i­tan­t’s Bal­ti­more ral­ly, although he ulti­mate­ly did­n’t attend — because he was arrest­ed that week and charged with con­tempt of Con­gress. Beyond its Bal­ti­more ral­ly, the orga­ni­za­tion rou­tine­ly plat­forms voic­es con­nect­ed to the groyper move­ment as well. Mul­ti­ple Church Mil­i­tant arti­cles have fea­tured Tor­ba and YouTube stream­er John Doyle, who are both long­stand­ing Fuentes allies and were fea­tured as speak­er and spe­cial guest, respec­tive­ly, at AFPAC III. Church Mil­i­tant founder Michael Voris recent­ly appeared on a show host­ed by white nation­al­ist for­mer Sen­ate can­di­date Lau­ren Witzke, anoth­er promi­nent Fuentes ally. 

Just a week after the Capi­tol insur­rec­tion, Voris inter­viewed anoth­er Fuentes acolyte, Jan. 6 plan­ner Ali Alexan­der, about his then-recent con­ver­sion to Catholi­cism as well as their shared sense — in the imme­di­ate after­math of the Capi­tol riot — that “dying an hon­or­able death is an awe­some thing.” Alexan­der said he had come to real­ize there was a “war between the church and the peo­ple who have infil­trat­ed the church,” and Voris recount­ed attend­ing sev­er­al of Alexan­der’s “Stop the Steal” protests in Michi­gan, includ­ing one at the state capi­tol in Lans­ing. That ral­ly was led by Nick Fuentes and John Doyle and cel­e­brat­ed on Church Mil­i­tan­t’s Twit­ter account.

...

Voris took note when Fuentes held AFPAC III, prais­ing the con­fer­ence as “where all the youth­ful (read: future) ener­gy is” in the “real strug­gle for the heart and soul of the [con­ser­v­a­tive] move­ment” — a strug­gle, Voris said, echo­ing Fuentes’ fram­ing, which “will dic­tate the future of the [Repub­li­can] par­ty and, to a large extent, the nation.” 
...

And as Part 2 in that Salon series describes, Church Mil­i­tan­t’s founder, Michael Voris, isn’t just an open fan of Nick Fuentes’s “groypers”. The activist wing of Church Mil­i­tant, the Resis­tance net­work, has been rebrand­ing itself specif­i­cal­ly to attract those groypers and build a youth move­ment. That includes hir­ing a full-fledged groyper, Joseph Enders, as a reporter, senior pro­duc­er and asso­ciate pro­duc­er at Church Mil­i­tant. Enders is described as a fix­ture on Church Mil­i­tant Evening News and a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor to churchmilitant.com. As observers describe, it’s “Catholic LARP­ing”, or a way for the ‘Alt Right’ to pre­tend they’re “Knights Tem­plar fight­ing the forces of dark­ness in the deep state”:

Salon

“Tra­di­tion­al” Catholics and white nation­al­ist “groypers” forge a new far-right youth move­ment

Activist arm of right-wing Catholic out­let Church Mil­i­tant is increas­ing­ly entwined with racist “groyper” move­ment

By Kathryn Joyce — Ben Lor­ber
Pub­lished May 13, 2022 6:00AM (EDT)

This is the sec­ond in a two-part series. In our first install­ment, read about how the after­math of the leaked Supreme Court opin­ion over­turn­ing Roe v. Wade revealed exten­sive con­nec­tions between the white nation­al­ist “groyper” move­ment and the far-right Catholic net­work around the con­tro­ver­sial out­let Church Mil­i­tant.

The activist wing of Church Mil­i­tant is called the Resis­tance net­work. As of 2020 the out­let said it boast­ed more than 5,000 mem­bers, and claimed to have launched groups in almost every dio­cese in the U.S. Last June, the group claimed that its protest of a church vac­cine dri­ve in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia forced the dri­ve to end three hours ear­ly. The same month, mem­bers of the Resis­tance net­work host­ed an “affi­davit-sign­ing dri­ve at Church Mil­i­tant head­quar­ters” out­side Detroit, join­ing with oth­er right-wing Michi­gan groups in demand­ing a foren­sic audit of the 2020 elec­tion and hold­ing a protest ral­ly on the state capi­tol steps. 

More recent­ly, as Resis­tance leader Joe Gal­lagher out­lined at a Church Mil­i­tant ral­ly last Novem­ber, the group has pick­et­ed local bish­ops; brought “ex-gay” con­ser­v­a­tive fire­brand Milo Yiannopou­los to the Penn State cam­pus to advo­cate “pray­ing the gay away”; and protest­ed at a Dal­las memo­r­i­al for George Floyd to “bear wit­ness to a real racial injus­tice: the mass slaugh­ter of the unborn, which dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affects minori­ties.” 

Now the Resis­tance net­work is look­ing to recruit direct­ly from the groypers, the large­ly young far-right fol­low­ers of white nation­al­ist Nick Fuentes. On May 2, Gal­lagher inter­viewed Dal­ton Clod­fel­ter — the same groyper leader who cel­e­brat­ed the Catholic counter-pro­test­er at New York’s Basil­i­ca of St. Patrick­’s Old Cathe­dral last week­end — intro­duc­ing Resis­tance view­ers to Fuentes’ web­site, CozyTV, as a “new stream­ing plat­form for a lot of awe­some younger con­ser­v­a­tives.” Gal­lagher hyped the report­ed 1,200 atten­dees at Fuentes’ AFPAC III gath­er­ing, say­ing that “obvi­ous­ly [Amer­i­ca First] is boom­ing, you guys have got­ten huge…You guys go for the jugu­lar every sin­gle time.” He con­tin­ued, “[You go for] the truth, you’re not afraid to hide it at all, and that’s one of the most respectable aspects of Amer­i­ca First, is you guys don’t real­ly care. And that’s cool.” 

Clod­fel­ter, who told Gal­lagher it was Yiannopou­los who first intro­duced him to Church Mil­i­tant, pitched Amer­i­ca First in a lan­guage that his new audi­ence was like­ly eager to hear. “It’s not like it’s the alt-right, because that is not even cool any­more, even if you want­ed it to be. And it’s also not like normie neo­con con­ser­vatism. … it’s Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist.” He went on, “The mes­sage of Amer­i­ca First is tied direct­ly to the word of God and spread­ing Chris­tian­i­ty through our nation where it’s lack­ing … every­thing we do is [a spir­i­tu­al bat­tle], we’re fight­ing demons, we’re fight­ing Satan.” Clod­fel­ter empha­sized the need to “grow the view­er base” of CozyTV, explain­ing that “a major­i­ty of white young Zoomer men would just love CozyTV — the prob­lem is, they don’t know where to go to get it.”
 
Clod­fel­ter went on to draw a par­tic­u­lar con­nec­tion between the groyper move­ment and Catholi­cism, say­ing he’d nev­er con­sid­ered join­ing the church before get­ting involved with Amer­i­ca First. “I met peo­ple who are tru­ly devout, tru­ly liv­ing by the word and they weren’t hyp­ocrites,” he said. “They were rep­re­sent­ing Catholi­cism so well for me I was like, wow, the least I could do is go to Mass and do some research.” Now, he said, he’s study­ing for the Rite of Chris­t­ian Ini­ti­a­tion of Adults — the for­mal process by which unbap­tized adults become Catholics — and says he under­stands why Fuentes says of the groypers, “This is sort of a Catholic move­ment.”

Since then, Resis­tance has con­tin­ued to brand itself to appeal to groypers. One adver­tise­ment for Resis­tance post­ed on Gab last week fea­tured the Amer­i­ca First and CozyTV logos as well as a style of sun­glass­es pop­u­lar­ized by Fuentes as part of last year’s “White Boy Sum­mer” groyper brand­ing cam­paign. Mean­while, as report­ed in part 1 of this series, Clod­fel­ter attempt­ed to mobi­lize groypers to attend Resis­tance coun­ter­protests of pro-choice demon­stra­tions planned for week­end in cities across the coun­try. As of Fri­day, the events appear to have been removed from Resis­tance’s web­site, while on Telegram Clod­fel­ter not­ed late Wednes­day night that most of the coun­ter­protests had been post­poned, writ­ing, “Work­ing with Church Mil­i­tant on this to make sure we are doing this in the most orga­nized and safe way.” Clod­fel­ter still claims the groypers will ral­ly in Nashville.

Not every Church Mil­i­tant staffer appears thrilled with the grow­ing crossover, how­ev­er. In July 2021, Church Mil­i­tant exec­u­tive pro­duc­er Chris­tine Niles remarked on Twit­ter that “the Amer­i­ca First move­ment, which has great things to say, is ill-served” by Fuentes’ open anti­semitism. “This unfor­tu­nate obses­sion with the Jews will sink the Amer­i­ca First move­ment, and that’s tru­ly a shame.” Some audi­ence mem­bers have pushed back as well. “Was a sup­port­er of CM, but no more,” com­ment­ed one view­er in Feb­ru­ary 2020, after Voris ran an inter­view with Fuentes ally Michelle Malkin. “I’m all for bor­ders. I’m all for pre­serv­ing West­ern cul­ture … but I’m not down with Holo­caust denial.”

In emailed com­ments on Wednes­day, Voris told Salon, “Church Mil­i­tant might part­ner with any­one in a par­tic­u­lar effort to achieve a lim­it­ed and shared goal. In this par­tic­u­lar case (Roe), yes. [Church Mil­i­tant] will link arms with almost any­one who decries the hor­ror of babies being hacked to death in their moth­ers’ wombs. Isn’t ‘link­ing arms’ the very thing Antifa and BLM and the Democ­rats do?”

...

“Groypers are every­where” — includ­ing on Church Mil­i­tan­t’s staff

It is coun­ter­in­tu­itive, to say the least, that an osten­si­bly faith-based orga­ni­za­tion is embrac­ing a move­ment so explic­it­ly big­ot­ed as the groypers. Fuentes has engaged in elab­o­rate jokes deny­ing the Holo­caust, praised Hitler and told view­ers on one livestream show that “frankly, I’m get­ting pret­ty sick of world Jew­ry run­ning the show,” to name just sev­er­al exam­ples of his vir­u­lent anti­semitism. Fuentes has dis­par­aged African-Amer­i­can vot­er out­reach as attempts to “flood the zone with n****r votes,” called for “total Aryan vic­to­ry,” reject­ed “race-mix­ing” because “peo­ple should stick with their own kind,” bragged that he “made misog­y­ny cool again,” cel­e­brat­ed domes­tic vio­lence against women and much more.

On his Thurs­day night livestream show, Fuentes respond­ed to the claims made in part 1 of Salon’s inves­ti­ga­tion. “You’re damn right the groypers are form­ing an alliance with the Catholics,” he exclaimed, “and you’re right we have a plan, and we are gonna take the Repub­li­can Par­ty and we are going to drag it against its will back through the doors of the church and to the altar, and we are going to bap­tize it.” Clod­fel­ter, mean­while, extolled his audi­ence to “show our love and sup­port for Church Mil­i­tant. These guys are strong, these guys are determined…yes, we’re col­lab­o­rat­ing in this effort to com­bat Satanism in Amer­i­ca, we are. Groypers are every­where.”

While Niles appeared ambiva­lent about Amer­i­ca First, or at least its leader, her col­league, 27-year old Joseph Enders, is a full-fledged groyper. Var­i­ous­ly named as a reporter, senior pro­duc­er and asso­ciate pro­duc­er at Church Mil­i­tant, Enders is a fix­ture on Church Mil­i­tant Evening News and a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor to churchmilitant.com. 

Enders did­n’t always sup­port white nation­al­ism. In 2018, he self-iden­ti­fied as an “Augus­tin­ian nation­al­ist,” claimed affil­i­a­tion with the Proud Boys and uploaded inter­views to YouTube where he argued with white nation­al­ist lead­ers like Richard Spencer and James All­sup. “The phi­los­o­phy of the right,” he told Spencer in June 2018, should be ani­mat­ed by “a peo­ple that focus[es] inward on pre­serv­ing the tra­di­tions of West­ern cul­ture … [but] race should not be a con­sid­er­a­tion in this. I think we should only judge peo­ple based on how they exer­cise their will.” 

By late 2019, how­ev­er, when the groypers entered the nation­al spot­light with a series of pub­lic stunts chal­leng­ing con­ser­v­a­tive lead­ers on col­lege cam­pus­es, Enders had changed his tune. “I don’t think any­body is say­ing we’re pre­serv­ing our race because our race is bet­ter,” he explained when he called in to the stream­ing show of Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes on McInnes’ Censored.TV plat­form. Defend­ing the groypers’ empha­sis on white demo­graph­ic “replace­ment” — the con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry that white Amer­i­cans are being “replaced” by non­white immi­gra­tion — Enders told McInnes, “You’re into fash­ion, so you’ll under­stand this anal­o­gy: When we look at a coun­try, there are peo­ple that wear the coun­try the best, and that’s usu­al­ly the found­ing stock of the coun­try.”

Since join­ing Church Mil­i­tan­t’s staff in 2020, Enders’ embrace of the groypers has con­tin­ued apace. “Nick is a Mass-attend­ing Catholic, unheard of at his age,” Enders post­ed on Face­book in April 2021. “I can’t help but like Nick … the Right needs more of [his] troll­ish humor to root out the grifters. It’s supreme­ly enter­tain­ing.” A year lat­er, his sup­port was even more pro­nounced. “I hear this Nick Fuentes dude is pret­ty based,” he tweet­ed on April 30, 2022. “I have to say … I sup­port his efforts to put Amer­i­ca First.”

On Gab, Telegram and oth­er social media plat­forms, Enders reg­u­lar­ly cel­e­brates Amer­i­ca First and its polit­i­cal ambi­tions; shares con­tent from groyper lead­ers like Fuentes, Vince James and Anthime Gionet, (aka “Baked Alas­ka,” who on Wednes­day under­mined his own Jan. 6 plea deal, poten­tial­ly send­ing his case to tri­al); uploads pho­tos of him­self sport­ing the blue “Amer­i­ca First” hat and oth­er move­ment para­pher­na­lia; and par­tic­i­pates in debates on move­ment strat­e­gy. Like oth­ers in the groyper orbit, he reg­u­lar­ly traf­fics in anti­semitism, includ­ing using the (((echo))) sym­bol, a meme cre­at­ed by white nation­al­ists to tar­get Jew­ish peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions. In the first days of the Russ­ian inva­sion of Ukraine, Enders quot­ed, with seem­ing approval, a state­ment by Vladimir Putin decry­ing Euro­pean coun­tries’ sup­posed aban­don­ment of “Chris­t­ian val­ues” and shared an arti­cle argu­ing that Putin was seek­ing to “rebuild Chris­ten­dom.”

White nation­al­ist themes car­ry over into Enders’ work with Church Mil­i­tant, as well. On Church Mil­i­tan­t’s web­site, arti­cles writ­ten by Enders quote Fuentes, name the Jew­ish iden­ti­ty of polit­i­cal oppo­nents and claim that crit­i­cal race the­o­ry “rejects the eth­nic iden­ti­ty of White Amer­i­cans.” On the out­let’s night­ly news pro­gram, Enders has cham­pi­oned white nation­al­ist slo­gans like “it’s ok to be white,” claimed that “the Left­’s essen­tial pol­i­cy when deal­ing with race is … ‘is it going to hurt white people?’...more dead white peo­ple is the pol­i­cy of the Democ­rats,” and protest­ed the deci­sion by the flag­ship Con­ser­v­a­tive Polit­i­cal Action Con­fer­ence to bar Fuentes from atten­dance.  

When news broke last week that the Supreme Court was mov­ing to over­turn Roe v. Wade, Enders’ mes­sage was direct and dis­turb­ing. “Get ready witch­es,” he post­ed on May 3 on Gab and Twit­ter, “we’re com­ing for your birth con­trol next.”

“A soul for their pol­i­tics”

As men­tioned in our first install­ment, this is all part of a broad­er pat­tern of over­lap between the far-right, includ­ing the white nation­al­ist right, with right-wing Catholi­cism. In 2017, groyper leader Milo Yian­napou­los was drummed out of many right-wing move­ments for state­ments he made min­i­miz­ing child sex abuse, and sub­se­quent­ly used his return to Catholi­cism as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to rebrand. This March he head­lined an anti-abor­tion con­ven­tion in Ohio that was blessed by the local Catholic bish­op, and in June he will be a fea­tured speak­er at a Church Mil­i­tant Resis­tance boot­camp. Cana­di­an white nation­al­ist Faith Goldy, who was dis­graced after appear­ing on the neo-Nazi web­site Dai­ly Stormer, like­wise tout­ed her return to the church as part of her reha­bil­i­ta­tion. “Stop the Steal” orga­niz­er Ali Alexan­der found his way to a new audi­ence at the end of 2020 with a high­ly pub­lic con­ver­sion to Catholi­cism, as did “Kent State gun girl” Kaitlin Ben­nett in late 2021. They joined a core group of far-right activists who have deployed their Catholic iden­ti­ty in ser­vice of their move­ments, includ­ing Piz­za­gate provo­ca­teur-turned con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor Jack Poso­biec, for­mer Trump advis­er Steve Ban­non and Fuentes him­self. 

As the alt-right was plan­ning its 2017 march in Char­lottesville, Vir­ginia, one of the most pop­u­lar places where activists did their plan­ning was a Dis­cord chat forum called the “Nick Fuentes forum,” ded­i­cat­ed to explor­ing con­nec­tions between “Unite the Right” and the Catholic Church. With­in it, hun­dreds of posters dis­cussed tra­di­tion­al­ist Catholi­cism and post­ed memes alter­nat­ing, or com­bin­ing, Cru­sades-era imagery with neo-Nazi and anti­se­mit­ic con­tent. 

As jour­nal­ist Eric Mar­tin report­ed at the lib­er­al Chris­t­ian mag­a­zine Sojourn­ers, some posters iden­ti­fied them­selves as “Charles Cough­lin Roman Catholics,” for the 1930s pro-fas­cist priest and broad­cast­er who helped pio­neer the dem­a­gog­ic media style that is frac­tur­ing our democ­ra­cy today. Fuentes him­self has waxed nos­tal­gic about fas­cist and monar­chist regimes in Europe and Latin Amer­i­ca that were ground­ed in Catholic teach­ing, and in 2018 declared on a livestream that, “in an ide­al world,” there would be “a glob­al Catholic theoc­ra­cy” and that “the state should enforce moral­i­ty that is informed by Catholic teach­ing.” 

More broad­ly online, far-right activists online began adopt­ing phras­es like “Viva Cristo Rey” (Christ the King) or “Deus Vult” (God wills it) in their posts and tweets, and Catholic sym­bol­ism like medieval cross­es and Cru­sad­er imagery. 

Some con­ser­v­a­tive Catholics have wel­comed this devel­op­ment. In a 2019 arti­cle pub­lished by the Catholic right mag­a­zine Cri­sis, “Kids in defense of the cul­ture,” Amer­i­can Great­ness edi­tor Pedro Gon­za­lez praised Fuentes’ groypers. “They have cho­sen to be guid­ed by a Chris­tian­i­ty ham­mered free of the dross of the mod­ern world,” Gon­za­lez wrote. “In an age of com­pro­mise and pet­ty prin­ci­ples, groypers have cho­sen to stand for some­thing, armed with lit­tle more than dig­i­tal sling­shots. That alone is rea­son enough to hear them out.”

But mod­er­ate and lib­er­al Catholics were appalled. “It’s such a hor­ri­fy­ing appro­pri­a­tion of Catholi­cism,” not­ed writer and researcher D.W. Laf­fer­ty in a 2020 pod­cast episode pro­duced by Where Peter Is, a mod­er­ate Catholic web­site that tracks the Catholic right. Laf­fer­ty described the new far-right aes­thet­ic as “Pepe Catholi­cism,” while George­town Uni­ver­si­ty the­olo­gian Adam Ras­mussen called it “Catholic LARP­ing”: a way for the alt-right to pre­tend they were “Knights Tem­plar fight­ing the forces of dark­ness in the deep state.”

As Vat­i­can cor­re­spon­dent Christo­pher Lamb, author of the papal biog­ra­phy “The Out­sider: Pope Fran­cis and His Bat­tle to Reform the Church,” explained dur­ing the 2020 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, the far right’s adop­tion of Catholic sym­bol­ism was a means for the move­ment to infuse itself with deep­er spir­i­tu­al mean­ing. “The pop­ulists and nation­al­ists were look­ing for some kind of soul for their pol­i­tics. And they found it in some sym­bols of the faith,” Lamb said. “And they’re pow­er­ful sym­bols. Quite often they make the whole case that the past has been lost.” 

“In a sense, you emp­ty the con­tent of the reli­gious,” Lamb not­ed ear­li­er this year, “and use the exter­nals — the rosary beads, the cru­ci­fix, some words, per­haps some prayers — but you use it as an iden­ti­ty mark­er to give your move­ment a sense that it has a soul or deep­er inten­si­ty at a moral lev­el.” 

But that influ­ence goes both ways, and as Lamb not­ed in 2020, as more and more right-wing Catholics iden­ti­fied them­selves with Trump’s re-elec­tion cam­paign, “Trump­ism,” in turn, “got into the church.” 

As Laf­fer­ty said at the time, “What’s hap­pen­ing on the right, I think, is unprece­dent­ed,” except for the his­tor­i­cal exam­ples of ultra­na­tion­al­ist fas­cist groups before World War II, such as Action Française in France or the Falangist move­ment in Spain. “But fas­cism isn’t new and the Catholic Church was often com­plic­it in fas­cism,” he added. “So it’s not total­ly shock­ing that peo­ple can come in and do this.” 

The rev­e­la­tion that some high­ly enthu­si­as­tic and vis­i­ble ele­ments of the Catholic right are now part­ner­ing with a group whose rep­u­ta­tion is based on snarky dis­plays of over-the-top big­otry just marks an esca­la­tion of that trend. 

“This is a con­tin­u­a­tion of a pat­tern that’s been hap­pen­ing for years,” said Laf­fer­ty, “and it’s only going to become more intense now that we’re look­ing at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of Roe v. Wade being over­turned.” As a faith­ful Catholic, he agrees with the Church’s stance against abor­tion, he said, but he also sees the immi­nent SCOTUS rever­sal as one more “pil­lar of what we call ‘nor­mal’ falling.” 

I wor­ry when­ev­er you see anti-abor­tion rhetoric mixed with anti-immi­grant rhetoric or iso­la­tion­ist for­eign pol­i­cy,” said Laf­fer­ty. “It feeds into this spread­ing pan­ic that West­ern cul­ture is dis­ap­pear­ing and immi­gra­tion is killing Chris­tian­i­ty and white hege­mo­ny. Ordi­nary Catholics who may have good inten­tions need to wake up to this — the bish­ops includ­ed. Because if we look at what’s hap­pened in the Repub­li­can Par­ty, a fringe pop­ulist ele­ment even­tu­al­ly took over. We could see the same thing in the church.” 

...

———-
““Tra­di­tion­al” Catholics and white nation­al­ist “groypers” forge a new far-right youth move­ment” By Kathryn Joyce and Ben Lor­ber; Salon; 05/13/2022

“Now the Resis­tance net­work is look­ing to recruit direct­ly from the groypers, the large­ly young far-right fol­low­ers of white nation­al­ist Nick Fuentes. On May 2, Gal­lagher inter­viewed Dal­ton Clod­fel­ter — the same groyper leader who cel­e­brat­ed the Catholic counter-pro­test­er at New York’s Basil­i­ca of St. Patrick­’s Old Cathe­dral last week­end — intro­duc­ing Resis­tance view­ers to Fuentes’ web­site, CozyTV, as a “new stream­ing plat­form for a lot of awe­some younger con­ser­v­a­tives.” Gal­lagher hyped the report­ed 1,200 atten­dees at Fuentes’ AFPAC III gath­er­ing, say­ing that “obvi­ous­ly [Amer­i­ca First] is boom­ing, you guys have got­ten huge…You guys go for the jugu­lar every sin­gle time.” He con­tin­ued, “[You go for] the truth, you’re not afraid to hide it at all, and that’s one of the most respectable aspects of Amer­i­ca First, is you guys don’t real­ly care. And that’s cool.””

Church Mil­i­tan­t’s activist wing — the Resis­tance net­work — is recruit­ing. Specif­i­cal­ly, recruit­ing groypers, hence the fawn­ing inter­view of groyper fig­ures like Dal­ton Clod­fel­ter back in May. An inter­view where Clod­fel­ter pitched the mes­sage of the ‘Amer­i­ca First’ move­ment rep­re­sent­ing a spir­i­tu­al bat­tle against Satan. A spir­i­tu­al bat­tle being simul­ta­ne­ous­ly waged in both the church and the Repub­li­can Par­ty. Which, we’ll recall, is awful­ly sim­i­lar to the mes­sage Nick Fuentes claimed he deliv­ered direct­ly to Don­ald Trump dur­ing that now infa­mous din­ner at Mar-a-Lago with Kanye West. In oth­er words, Nick Fuentes was at that din­ner to sell Trump on the idea of turn­ing his reelec­tion bid and the MAGA move­ment into a holy war. The same holy war Steve Ban­non and the Church Mil­i­tant net­work have been work­ing on start­ing for years now:

...
Clod­fel­ter, who told Gal­lagher it was Yiannopou­los who first intro­duced him to Church Mil­i­tant, pitched Amer­i­ca First in a lan­guage that his new audi­ence was like­ly eager to hear. “It’s not like it’s the alt-right, because that is not even cool any­more, even if you want­ed it to be. And it’s also not like normie neo­con con­ser­vatism. … it’s Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist.” He went on, “The mes­sage of Amer­i­ca First is tied direct­ly to the word of God and spread­ing Chris­tian­i­ty through our nation where it’s lack­ing … every­thing we do is [a spir­i­tu­al bat­tle], we’re fight­ing demons, we’re fight­ing Satan.” Clod­fel­ter empha­sized the need to “grow the view­er base” of CozyTV, explain­ing that “a major­i­ty of white young Zoomer men would just love CozyTV — the prob­lem is, they don’t know where to go to get it.”
 
Clod­fel­ter went on to draw a par­tic­u­lar con­nec­tion between the groyper move­ment and Catholi­cism, say­ing he’d nev­er con­sid­ered join­ing the church before get­ting involved with Amer­i­ca First. “I met peo­ple who are tru­ly devout, tru­ly liv­ing by the word and they weren’t hyp­ocrites,” he said. “They were rep­re­sent­ing Catholi­cism so well for me I was like, wow, the least I could do is go to Mass and do some research.” Now, he said, he’s study­ing for the Rite of Chris­t­ian Ini­ti­a­tion of Adults — the for­mal process by which unbap­tized adults become Catholics — and says he under­stands why Fuentes says of the groypers, “This is sort of a Catholic move­ment.”

...

On his Thurs­day night livestream show, Fuentes respond­ed to the claims made in part 1 of Salon’s inves­ti­ga­tion. “You’re damn right the groypers are form­ing an alliance with the Catholics,” he exclaimed, “and you’re right we have a plan, and we are gonna take the Repub­li­can Par­ty and we are going to drag it against its will back through the doors of the church and to the altar, and we are going to bap­tize it.” Clod­fel­ter, mean­while, extolled his audi­ence to “show our love and sup­port for Church Mil­i­tant. These guys are strong, these guys are determined…yes, we’re col­lab­o­rat­ing in this effort to com­bat Satanism in Amer­i­ca, we are. Groypers are every­where.”

...

As the alt-right was plan­ning its 2017 march in Char­lottesville, Vir­ginia, one of the most pop­u­lar places where activists did their plan­ning was a Dis­cord chat forum called the “Nick Fuentes forum,” ded­i­cat­ed to explor­ing con­nec­tions between “Unite the Right” and the Catholic Church. With­in it, hun­dreds of posters dis­cussed tra­di­tion­al­ist Catholi­cism and post­ed memes alter­nat­ing, or com­bin­ing, Cru­sades-era imagery with neo-Nazi and anti­se­mit­ic con­tent. 

...

As jour­nal­ist Eric Mar­tin report­ed at the lib­er­al Chris­t­ian mag­a­zine Sojourn­ers, some posters iden­ti­fied them­selves as “Charles Cough­lin Roman Catholics,” for the 1930s pro-fas­cist priest and broad­cast­er who helped pio­neer the dem­a­gog­ic media style that is frac­tur­ing our democ­ra­cy today. Fuentes him­self has waxed nos­tal­gic about fas­cist and monar­chist regimes in Europe and Latin Amer­i­ca that were ground­ed in Catholic teach­ing, and in 2018 declared on a livestream that, “in an ide­al world,” there would be “a glob­al Catholic theoc­ra­cy” and that “the state should enforce moral­i­ty that is informed by Catholic teach­ing.” 

...

But mod­er­ate and lib­er­al Catholics were appalled. “It’s such a hor­ri­fy­ing appro­pri­a­tion of Catholi­cism,” not­ed writer and researcher D.W. Laf­fer­ty in a 2020 pod­cast episode pro­duced by Where Peter Is, a mod­er­ate Catholic web­site that tracks the Catholic right. Laf­fer­ty described the new far-right aes­thet­ic as “Pepe Catholi­cism,” while George­town Uni­ver­si­ty the­olo­gian Adam Ras­mussen called it “Catholic LARP­ing”: a way for the alt-right to pre­tend they were “Knights Tem­plar fight­ing the forces of dark­ness in the deep state.”
...

It’s both a move­ment-build­ing exer­cise, but also a rebrand­ing exer­cise. A rebrand­ing of the ‘Alt Right’ as a reli­gious move­ment but also a rebrand­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for fig­ures like Milo Yian­napou­los and Ali Alexan­der, who both appear to have ‘found reli­gion’ fair­ly recent­ly after spend­ing years in the pub­lic eye as far right trolls:

...
As men­tioned in our first install­ment, this is all part of a broad­er pat­tern of over­lap between the far-right, includ­ing the white nation­al­ist right, with right-wing Catholi­cism. In 2017, groyper leader Milo Yian­napou­los was drummed out of many right-wing move­ments for state­ments he made min­i­miz­ing child sex abuse, and sub­se­quent­ly used his return to Catholi­cism as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to rebrand. This March he head­lined an anti-abor­tion con­ven­tion in Ohio that was blessed by the local Catholic bish­op, and in June he will be a fea­tured speak­er at a Church Mil­i­tant Resis­tance boot­camp. Cana­di­an white nation­al­ist Faith Goldy, who was dis­graced after appear­ing on the neo-Nazi web­site Dai­ly Stormer, like­wise tout­ed her return to the church as part of her reha­bil­i­ta­tion. “Stop the Steal” orga­niz­er Ali Alexan­der found his way to a new audi­ence at the end of 2020 with a high­ly pub­lic con­ver­sion to Catholi­cism, as did “Kent State gun girl” Kaitlin Ben­nett in late 2021. They joined a core group of far-right activists who have deployed their Catholic iden­ti­ty in ser­vice of their move­ments, includ­ing Piz­za­gate provo­ca­teur-turned con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor Jack Poso­biec, for­mer Trump advis­er Steve Ban­non and Fuentes him­self. 
...

And as the arti­cle reminds us, this is a two-way street. At the same time the Amer­i­ca First move­ment is being infused with this reli­gious zeal, the church is expe­ri­enc­ing a flood of already-rad­i­cal­ized groypers and fel­low trav­el­ers:

... 
But that influ­ence goes both ways, and as Lamb not­ed in 2020, as more and more right-wing Catholics iden­ti­fied them­selves with Trump’s re-elec­tion cam­paign, “Trump­ism,” in turn, “got into the church.”

...

I wor­ry when­ev­er you see anti-abor­tion rhetoric mixed with anti-immi­grant rhetoric or iso­la­tion­ist for­eign pol­i­cy,” said Laf­fer­ty. “It feeds into this spread­ing pan­ic that West­ern cul­ture is dis­ap­pear­ing and immi­gra­tion is killing Chris­tian­i­ty and white hege­mo­ny. Ordi­nary Catholics who may have good inten­tions need to wake up to this — the bish­ops includ­ed. Because if we look at what’s hap­pened in the Repub­li­can Par­ty, a fringe pop­ulist ele­ment even­tu­al­ly took over. We could see the same thing in the church.” 
...

That’s all part of the con­text of the infa­mous ‘I did­n’t know him’ din­ner at Mar-a-Lago. Nick Fuentes arrived at that din­ner as one of the lead­ing fig­ures in a move­ment designed to turn Trump into the divine­ly ordained fig­ure who should have a reli­gious war fought to return him to pow­er. Which, of course, fits in quite nice­ly with the ongo­ing Trump/CNP Sched­ule F‑related plot­ting. Exe­cut­ing a full-scale purge of gov­ern­ment and soci­ety of all peo­ple deemed to be dis­loy­al will be a lot eas­i­er to pull off if it’s part of a broad­er Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist cap­ture of soci­ety. And as Dal­ton Clod­fel­ter made clear back in August — three months after that two-part Salon series — an imme­di­ate full-scale purge of soci­ety is exact­ly what this move­ment has in mind. In oth­er words, this theo­crat­ic move­men­t’s open goals direct­ly over­lap with the open­ing stages of the Sched­ule F plot, when the great purge across gov­ern­ment and soci­ety has to rapid­ly play out for the plot to suc­ceed:

Right Wing Watch

‘Once We Take Con­trol’: Dal­ton Clod­fel­ter Lays Out His Chris­t­ian Fas­cist Agen­da

By Kyle Manty­la | August 22, 2022 12:30 pm

Ear­li­er this year, far-right con­spir­a­cy the­o­rist Stew Peters gave white nation­al­ist, Chris­t­ian fas­cist Dal­ton Clod­fel­ter a night­ly pro­gram on his Stew Peters Net­work called “The Right Dis­si­dent.”

Peters is a white nation­al­ist-pro­mot­ing broad­cast­er who, despite using his night­ly pro­gram to spread wild con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries and calls for vio­lence, has man­aged to build close ties to var­i­ous far-right polit­i­cal can­di­dates and to inter­view sev­er­al elect­ed offi­cials, GOP can­di­dates, and for­mer mem­bers of the Trump admin­is­tra­tion. Peters clear­ly saw some­thing he liked in Clodfelter’s brand of rad­i­cal right-wing, Chris­t­ian nation­al­ism, and anti­se­mit­ic fas­cism, all of which Clod­fel­ter has open­ly pro­mot­ed five nights a week on Peters’ plat­form.

Last Thurs­day, Clod­fel­ter used his show to call for the estab­lish­ment of a “far-right author­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ment” in this nation that will imprison its polit­i­cal ene­mies, estab­lish Chris­tian­i­ty as the nation­al reli­gion, and out­law all sec­u­lar edu­ca­tion.

“Once we take our coun­try back, we will have fed­er­al agents kick­ing down the doors of every trea­so­nous Demo­c­rat, every trea­so­nous glob­al­ist, every homo­sex­u­al cou­ple that has molest­ed a child, and they will be arrest­ed, and they will be sen­tenced to prison,” Clod­fel­ter declared. “I believe in a far right-author­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ment. No, I am not a fas­cist. No, I am not a white suprema­cist. No, I am not a Nazi. But I do believe that hier­ar­chy, struc­ture, and author­i­ty are very impor­tant. I do believe that our soci­ety needs these things in order to progress and main­tain its cul­tur­al frame­work.”

“I believe that our soci­ety needs this in order to rid itself of the sex­u­al immoral­i­ty and bla­tant degen­er­a­cy run­ning ram­pant all through­out the coun­try,” he con­tin­ued. “Once we take con­trol, we will iden­ti­fy our ene­mies, and we will stomp them into the dirt. They will not be able to return to pow­er. We will rip them from their offices. We will rip them from their homes for being degen­er­ate liars, degen­er­ate trea­so­nous domes­tic ter­ror­ists because that is what they are.”

“We want to take back the coun­try and reestab­lish a Christ-like nation,” Clod­fel­ter assert­ed. “A nation where the nation­al reli­gion is Chris­t­ian. A nation where the nation­al lan­guage is Eng­lish. A nation where pornog­ra­phy is banned, homo­sex­u­al­i­ty is banned, and trans­gen­derism is banned. Where you will nev­er see a col­lege that isn’t a Chris­t­ian col­lege. The only col­lege accept­able that you are able to go to is a Chris­t­ian school because every school in these Unit­ed States should teach Chris­t­ian val­ues. Every school should teach the 10 Com­mand­ments in ele­men­tary school. Every school should pro­mote what it means to be a Chris­t­ian to the youth of Amer­i­ca. It can­not be any oth­er way. There should be no sec­u­lar teach­ing in the schools.”

...

———-

“‘Once We Take Con­trol’: Dal­ton Clod­fel­ter Lays Out His Chris­t­ian Fas­cist Agen­da” By Kyle Manty­la; Right Wing Watch; 08/22/2022

“Last Thurs­day, Clod­fel­ter used his show to call for the estab­lish­ment of a “far-right author­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ment” in this nation that will imprison its polit­i­cal ene­mies, estab­lish Chris­tian­i­ty as the nation­al reli­gion, and out­law all sec­u­lar edu­ca­tion.”

A theo­crat­ic coup and the estab­lish­ment of a “far-right author­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ment” that will imprison all of those deemed to be ‘ene­mies’ of that new state and charged with domes­tic ter­ror­ism. That was the mes­sage shared by groyper Dal­ton Clod­fel­ter back in August. Keep in mind that this was three months after Salon pub­lished the above two-part series lay­ing out the fas­cist author­i­tar­i­an ambi­tions of this groyper/Church Mil­i­tant alliance. They aren’t even try­ing to hide these goals:

...
“Once we take our coun­try back, we will have fed­er­al agents kick­ing down the doors of every trea­so­nous Demo­c­rat, every trea­so­nous glob­al­ist, every homo­sex­u­al cou­ple that has molest­ed a child, and they will be arrest­ed, and they will be sen­tenced to prison,” Clod­fel­ter declared. “I believe in a far right-author­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ment. No, I am not a fas­cist. No, I am not a white suprema­cist. No, I am not a Nazi. But I do believe that hier­ar­chy, struc­ture, and author­i­ty are very impor­tant. I do believe that our soci­ety needs these things in order to progress and main­tain its cul­tur­al frame­work.”

“I believe that our soci­ety needs this in order to rid itself of the sex­u­al immoral­i­ty and bla­tant degen­er­a­cy run­ning ram­pant all through­out the coun­try,” he con­tin­ued. “Once we take con­trol, we will iden­ti­fy our ene­mies, and we will stomp them into the dirt. They will not be able to return to pow­er. We will rip them from their offices. We will rip them from their homes for being degen­er­ate liars, degen­er­ate trea­so­nous domes­tic ter­ror­ists because that is what they are.”
...

The groyper move­ment wants the world to know what they are plan­ning. And that’s a plan to exe­cute a fas­cist coup that will install Trump as some sort of divine­ly ordained God King. What are the odds Trump was­n’t aware of these open ‘Trump as God King’ plans dur­ing that din­ner? And even if Trump was some­how actu­al­ly unaware of who Fuentes is and what he rep­re­sents dur­ing that din­ner, what are the odds Trump has­n’t sub­se­quent­ly learned about how that Nazi every­one is upset about him hav­ing din­ner with wants to impose a fas­cist author­i­tar­i­an theo­crat­ic regime with Trump as its divine­ly ordained head? Do you think maybe Trump has learned about that yet? What do you think Trump’s response was when he first learned about Fuentes’s grand vision? And that’s all why the biggest ques­tion raised by the reports about Trump’s din­ner with Fuentes isn’t whether or not Trump knew who Fuentes was dur­ing that din­ner. Trump is obvi­ous­ly a very Nazi-friend­ly fig­ure who does­n’t have a prob­lem with hav­ing din­ner with a Nazi. The major ques­tion at this point is how effec­tive­ly will Trump keep secret his future coor­di­na­tion with this loy­al army of fas­cists who will be invalu­able dur­ing any upcom­ing ‘Sched­ule F+’ mega-purges. Along with the ques­tion of whether or not they go with an on-brand MAGA-red, or stick with the tra­di­tion­al brown shirts.

Welp, they tried. Sort of: The last oppor­tu­ni­ty for the Demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly-con­trolled con­gress to add addi­tion­al pro­tec­tions against future pres­i­dents uni­lat­er­al­ly rein­sti­tut­ing the same Sched­ule F scheme ini­ti­at­ed by Don­ald Trump in the final months of his admin­is­tra­tion just came and went. With­out those pro­tec­tions.

As we saw, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic-con­trolled House passed a bill back in Sep­tem­ber that would bar future pres­i­dents from uni­lat­er­al­ly strip­ping fed­er­al work­ers of their civ­il ser­vice pro­tec­tions. Only 6 Repub­li­cans sup­port­ed the bill, which was­n’t par­tic­u­lar­ly sur­pris­ing giv­en the Repub­li­can-backed bill put for­ward in July that at would make the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment an at-will employ­er. And as the fol­low­ing arti­cle notes, Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Dianne Fein­stein and Tim Kaine filed an amend­ment to the must-pass 2023 Nation­al Defense Autho­riza­tion Act (NDAA) two weeks lat­er. As a result, all hopes for some sort of action on Sched­ule F pro­tec­tions were com­ing down to the final com­pro­mise ver­sion of the NDAA ham­mered out by the House and Sen­ate. But in the end, the Sched­ule F pro­tec­tions were appar­ent­ly com­pro­mised out of the final ver­sion of the bill. Bet­ter luck next year:

Fed­er­al Times

NDAA omits ban on Sched­ule F, rais­ing specter of its return

By Mol­ly Weis­ner
Dec 8, 2022 10:43 AM

The lat­est ver­sion of the 2023 Nation­al Defense Autho­riza­tion Act is pend­ing final approvals with­out lan­guage ban­ning future attempts at cre­at­ing Sched­ule F, an except­ed class of civ­il ser­vants who would lack cer­tain employ­ment pro­tec­tions.

For­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump made this idea infa­mous in fed­er­al gov­ern­ment cir­cles through exec­u­tive order in 2020 estab­lish­ing the Sched­ule F sys­tem, which would trans­form most wide swaths of the mer­it-based civ­il ser­vice into polit­i­cal appointees. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden can­celed the order short­ly after tak­ing office.

The cur­rent ver­sion of the NDAA con­tains no lan­guage that pre­vents the return of Sched­ule F or an equiv­a­lent to the dis­may of some fed­er­al employ­ee groups.

“The prospect of a return of Sched­ule F in a future admin­is­tra­tion remains very much alive,” said Ken Thomas, nation­al pres­i­dent of Nation­al Active and Retired Fed­er­al Employ­ees Asso­ci­a­tion, in a state­ment Thurs­day. “Reports indi­cate that pres­i­den­tial hope­fuls would rein­sti­tute it upon tak­ing office, or at least sup­port the pol­i­cy. Con­gress must act in the new year to head off this wor­ri­some poten­tial out­come.”

...

The Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Gov­ern­ment Employ­ees, one of the largest fed­er­al unions, sent a let­ter to the Sen­ate urg­ing lead­ers to sup­port an amend­ment spon­sored by Sen. Dianne Fein­stein of Cal­i­for­nia that would’ve lim­it­ed fed­er­al employ­ee reclas­si­fi­ca­tions to the five except­ed ser­vice sched­ules in use pri­or to 2021.

In Sep­tem­ber, Fein­stein, along with Sen. Tim Kaine of Vir­ginia, both Democ­rats, ini­tial­ly filed an amend­ment to the 2023 NDAA that would ban Sched­ule F.

Two weeks before, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives passed the amendment’s under­ly­ing leg­is­la­tion, Pre­vent­ing a Patron­age Sys­tem Act, spon­sored by Rep. Ger­ry Con­nol­ly, (D‑Va.).

Ulti­mate­ly, the lan­guage was includ­ed in the House-passed bill, but left out of the final final com­pro­mise Tues­day.

Crit­ics of Sched­ule F have said there are already sim­i­lar­ly pur­posed clas­si­fi­ca­tions avail­able for the gov­ern­ment to adjust rules for employ­ees who have pol­i­cy-deter­min­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties or work con­fi­den­tial­ly with an offi­cial. One such exam­ple is Sched­ule C.

In con­trast, the broad­ness of Sched­ule F con­cerned groups who said it would cov­er too much of the fed­er­al work­force.

So, what hap­pens now?

With­out for­mal laws snuff­ing out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a Sched­ule F in the future, a pres­i­dent could rein­state such an except­ed ser­vice.

...

———-

“NDAA omits ban on Sched­ule F, rais­ing specter of its return” By Mol­ly Weis­ner; Fed­er­al Times; 12/08/2022

“The cur­rent ver­sion of the NDAA con­tains no lan­guage that pre­vents the return of Sched­ule F or an equiv­a­lent to the dis­may of some fed­er­al employ­ee groups.”

This was effec­tive­ly the last chance to pro­tect against future pres­i­dents from uni­lat­er­al­ly purg­ing the fed­er­al work­force of non-loy­al­ist stooges and now it appears that chance was passed by:

...
“The prospect of a return of Sched­ule F in a future admin­is­tra­tion remains very much alive,” said Ken Thomas, nation­al pres­i­dent of Nation­al Active and Retired Fed­er­al Employ­ees Asso­ci­a­tion, in a state­ment Thurs­day. “Reports indi­cate that pres­i­den­tial hope­fuls would rein­sti­tute it upon tak­ing office, or at least sup­port the pol­i­cy. Con­gress must act in the new year to head off this wor­ri­some poten­tial out­come.”

...

Ulti­mate­ly, the lan­guage was includ­ed in the House-passed bill, but left out of the final final com­pro­mise Tues­day.

...

With­out for­mal laws snuff­ing out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a Sched­ule F in the future, a pres­i­dent could rein­state such an except­ed ser­vice.
...

At this point we don’t real­ly know which Sen­a­tors played a role in pre­vent­ing this from mak­ing it into the Sen­ate’s ver­sion of the NDAA. But the fact that it was left out is the lat­est sign of just how seri­ous the entire GOP is about even­tu­al­ly imple­ment­ing some sort of Sched­ule F purge. At least that’s what we can rea­son­ably infer. Because as the fol­low­ing arti­cle describes, 20 GOP Sen­a­tors have been threat­en­ing to hold up the bill unless there’s a full Sen­ate vote on repeal­ing the Pen­tagon’s COVID vac­cine man­dates for armed forces. It’s a reflec­tion of the fact that the pas­sage of the NDAA still requires buy in from both par­ties despite the Democ­rats con­trol­ling both cham­bers:

The Hill

GOP seeks to play hard­ball on annu­al defense bill

by Ellen Mitchell — 12/04/22 5:00 PM ET

Repub­li­cans are look­ing to play hard­ball with the annu­al defense autho­riza­tion bill to com­bat what they are call­ing “woke” mil­i­tary poli­cies, threat­en­ing to throw a wrench into efforts to pass the bill by the end of the year.  

The GOP law­mak­ers want to insert lan­guage into the Nation­al Defense Autho­riza­tion Act (NDAA) to counter poli­cies rang­ing from the military’s vac­cine man­date to efforts to bring diver­si­ty and inclu­sion to the ranks — which they argue are weak­en­ing the mil­i­tary.

But Demo­c­rat law­mak­ers see the GOP gam­bit as pos­tur­ing meant to whip up sup­port ahead of a new Con­gress, in which Repub­li­cans will hold a slim major­i­ty in the House, and say it won’t dis­rupt their efforts to advance the NDAA in the days ahead.  

What’s more, House lead­ers say the bill is mov­ing ahead and soon, with a draft of nego­ti­at­ed leg­is­la­tion expect­ed to be brought to the House floor ear­ly next week. 

“That’s been a bit overblown,” House Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee Chair­man Adam Smith (D‑Wash.), said of the NDAA dra­ma when asked by The Hill. 

He added that he and the oth­er lead­ers of the two defense com­mit­tees — includ­ing his rank­ing mem­ber Rep. Mike Rogers (R‑Ala.) and Sen­ate Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee Chair­man and rank­ing mem­ber Sen. Jack Reed (D‑R.I), and Sen. James Inhofe (R‑Okla.), respec­tive­ly — have “all been work­ing towards get­ting it done and we’re going to do it next week.” 

Rogers sep­a­rate­ly told The Hill that a draft of the nego­ti­at­ed bill should be brought to the floor by the House by Tues­day.  

Asked Thurs­day about some of his GOP col­leagues’ attempts to push the bill to next year, Rogers replied: “That’s not gonna hap­pen.” 

The NDAA, a mea­sure seen as a must-pass for Con­gress every year, lays down a wide array of spend­ing pri­or­i­ties and pol­i­cy for the Defense Depart­ment. The mam­moth leg­is­la­tion includes every­thing from the military’s annu­al pay raise to the fund­ing of tanks, planes and ships to new pro­grams and per­son­nel poli­cies, and has passed every year for six decades.  

The House and Sen­ate both passed its ver­sions of the leg­is­la­tion ear­li­er this year, and law­mak­ers from both cham­bers have since been rec­on­cil­ing the two dif­fer­ent doc­u­ments, this week strik­ing a deal to set the bud­get top line of the fis­cal 2023 NDAA at $847 bil­lion. The fig­ure jumps to $858 bil­lion when includ­ing nuclear-relat­ed pro­grams that fall under the Ener­gy Depart­ment. 

The bill is now in the hands of par­ty lead­ers, with House Major­i­ty Leader Ste­ny Hoy­er (D‑Md.), ear­li­er this week telling reporters he was “opti­mistic” the NDAA would be passed before Christ­mas. He added, how­ev­er, there are issues in the bill that are “not nec­es­sar­i­ly nation­al secu­ri­ty relat­ed,” that may hold up the process.  

On Fri­day Hoy­er said there were still some “out­stand­ing issues” in the leg­is­la­tion which pre­vent­ed it from being filed as of this week, Politi­co report­ed.  

Those issues may very well be tied to decid­ing which unre­lat­ed bills could be tacked onto the leg­is­la­tion. 

There’s also been sev­er­al, last-minute Repub­li­can efforts to stall, includ­ing a group of 20 GOP sen­a­tors who this week demand­ed a full cham­ber vote on their pro­pos­al to end the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vac­cine man­date. 

The sen­a­tors on Wednes­day threat­ened to with­hold their votes to advance the NDAA if the cham­ber doesn’t vote on whether to end the shot order for ser­vice mem­bers, rein­state troops kicked out of the mil­i­tary for refus­ing the vac­cine and award­ing back pay to those dis­missed. 

It’s unclear whether law­mak­ers oppos­ing the man­date will have enough mem­bers to effec­tive­ly block the NDAA in the Sen­ate, as no senior GOP lead­ers in the cham­ber have signed onto the idea as of Fri­day.  

In the House, mean­while, House Minor­i­ty Leader Kevin McCarthy (R‑Calif.), in late Novem­ber urged his col­leagues to delay the NDAA until next year when the GOP con­trols the House. The shift would give Repub­li­cans more lever­age to address what they say is a “woke” cul­ture with­in the Pen­ta­gon.  

“I’ve watched what the Democ­rats have done on many of these things, espe­cial­ly in the NDAA — the ‘wokeism’ that they want to bring in there,” McCarthy said at Nov. 22 press con­fer­ence. “I actu­al­ly believe the NDAA should hold up until the first of the year, and let’s get it right.” 

McCarthy didn’t spec­i­fy which pro­vi­sions in the bill he con­sid­ers to be at issue, though Repub­li­cans on sev­er­al occa­sions have promised to ban­ish mil­i­tary poli­cies decried as “woke” once their major­i­ty in Con­gress is regained.  

The areas under fire include diver­si­ty, equi­ty and inclu­sion pro­grams in the mil­i­tary ser­vices and recent pol­i­cy changes to allow dif­fer­ent uni­forms to accom­mo­date preg­nant ser­vice mem­bers or allow more hair style options for female troops and those of col­or, among oth­er changes.  

Also attacked are ini­tia­tives inac­cu­rate­ly labeled as push­ing “crit­i­cal race the­o­ry” and efforts to root out extrem­ists in the ranks.  

Democ­rats have since accused McCarthy of stir­ring the pot only as a stunt meant to win him sup­port for the Speaker’s gav­el.  

McCarthy hopes to win the House speak­er­ship in the upcom­ing Jan. 3 vote on the posi­tion and needs all but three or four mem­bers of his con­fer­ence to cast their bal­lot for him.  

...

———-

“GOP seeks to play hard­ball on annu­al defense bill” by Ellen Mitchell; The Hill; 12/04/2022

“There’s also been sev­er­al, last-minute Repub­li­can efforts to stall, includ­ing a group of 20 GOP sen­a­tors who this week demand­ed a full cham­ber vote on their pro­pos­al to end the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vac­cine man­date.”

As we can see, the GOP does has pow­er in these nego­ti­a­tions and 20 GOP Sen­a­tors had formed a nego­ti­at­ing block. And while it was­n’t clear if GOP lead­ers in either cham­ber were on board with their demands, it’s still a reflec­tion of the nego­ti­at­ing pow­er that GOP had going into this last-minute hag­gling:

...
On Fri­day Hoy­er said there were still some “out­stand­ing issues” in the leg­is­la­tion which pre­vent­ed it from being filed as of this week, Politi­co report­ed.

Those issues may very well be tied to decid­ing which unre­lat­ed bills could be tacked onto the leg­is­la­tion. 

...

The sen­a­tors on Wednes­day threat­ened to with­hold their votes to advance the NDAA if the cham­ber doesn’t vote on whether to end the shot order for ser­vice mem­bers, rein­state troops kicked out of the mil­i­tary for refus­ing the vac­cine and award­ing back pay to those dis­missed.

It’s unclear whether law­mak­ers oppos­ing the man­date will have enough mem­bers to effec­tive­ly block the NDAA in the Sen­ate, as no senior GOP lead­ers in the cham­ber have signed onto the idea as of Fri­day.
...

And as the fol­low­ing arti­cle describes, the GOP lead­ers clear­ly signed onto the idea of demand­ing a lift­ing of the Pen­ta­gon COVID vac­cine man­dates because that was one of the pro­vi­sions left out of the final com­pro­mise ver­sion. It was some­thing House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy — who is still try­ing to secure that sup­port he needs to become House Speak­er next month — was very pub­licly crow­ing about after the dust had set­tled. And while we aren’t hear­ing any pub­lic crow­ing from the GOP about the drop­ping of the Sched­ule F pro­vi­sion in the bill, the fact that it was ulti­mate­ly dropped tells us what we need to know about the pri­or­i­ty the while GOP is giv­ing to the Sched­ule F plot:

The Hill

House pass­es annu­al defense fund­ing bill

by Ellen Mitchell and Mychael Schnell — 12/08/22 1:43 PM ET

The House on Thurs­day passed the annu­al defense autho­riza­tion bill, send­ing the mam­moth, $847 bil­lion mea­sure to the Sen­ate for con­sid­er­a­tion ahead of the year-end dead­line.

The Nation­al Defense Autho­riza­tion Act (NDAA) passed in a bipar­ti­san 350–80 vote. It was approved under sus­pen­sion of the rules, an expe­dit­ed process to pass leg­is­la­tion in the House that requires a two-thirds major­i­ty.

“I can’t go through every sin­gle item that is in this bill, but I can tell you that just about every mem­ber of this House has some­thing in this bill that is impor­tant for pol­i­cy, impor­tant in their dis­trict,” House Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee Chair­man Adam Smith (D‑Wash.) said ahead of the vote. “This is impor­tant pol­i­cy that makes a huge dif­fer­ence for the peo­ple in this body and the peo­ple in this coun­try, and I’ve urged us to sup­port it.”

The NDAA, leg­is­la­tion seen as a must-pass for Con­gress annu­al­ly, includes an $817 bil­lion top line for the Defense Depart­ment and about $30 bil­lion to fund nuclear activ­i­ties in the Depart­ment of Ener­gy.

The bill lays out the blue­print for how the bil­lions of dol­lars will be allo­cat­ed at the Pen­ta­gon, includ­ing a 4.6 per­cent pay raise for both ser­vice mem­bers and the agency’s civil­ian work­force, new weapons pro­grams and equip­ment upgrades, and new pro­grams and per­son­nel poli­cies.

... 

House lead­ers decid­ed to use the fast-track process after a last-minute push from the Con­gres­sion­al Black Cau­cus (CBC) Wednes­day night to set an accom­pa­ny­ing vote on a bill bol­ster­ing the 1965 Vot­ing Rights Act, which had pre­vi­ous­ly passed through the House but stalled in the Sen­ate. The cham­ber was ini­tial­ly sched­uled to pass the defense bill on Wednes­day but punt­ed action to Thurs­day because of the CBC holdup.

The final bill came togeth­er after months of nego­ti­a­tions between law­mak­ers of both par­ties and cham­bers, which bore vic­to­ries for those on the left and right.

In a win for Repub­li­cans, the mea­sure includes lan­guage that repeals the COVID-19 vac­cine man­date for U.S. ser­vice mem­bers, which has been in place since August 2021.

The con­ces­sion was seen as a sur­prise by many. The White House and Pen­ta­gon spoke out against it and sim­i­lar mea­sures to sig­nif­i­cant­ly lim­it the vac­cine man­date were vot­ed down in the House Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee dur­ing the bill’s markup ear­li­er this year. 

But GOP law­mak­ers for months have spo­ken out against the pol­i­cy, argu­ing that it was a gov­ern­ment over­reach to force ser­vice mem­bers to receive the jab and claim­ing that the pol­i­cy was hurt­ing mil­i­tary recruit­ment and reten­tion. 

Thou­sands of active-duty troops have been dis­charged since the pol­i­cy went into effect.

House Minor­i­ty Leader Kevin McCarthy (R‑Calif.) threat­ened to hold up the leg­is­la­tion if it did not include a roll­back of the man­date. McCarthy over the week­end told “Fox News Sun­day” that “the bill will not move” if the pol­i­cy was not lift­ed. He said he relayed the same mes­sage to Pres­i­dent Biden dur­ing a meet­ing at the White House last week with the four con­gres­sion­al lead­ers.

...

———–

“House pass­es annu­al defense fund­ing bill” by Ellen Mitchell and Mychael Schnell; The Hill; 12/08/2022

“The final bill came togeth­er after months of nego­ti­a­tions between law­mak­ers of both par­ties and cham­bers, which bore vic­to­ries for those on the left and right.”

Yes, the NDAA was a thor­ough­ly bipar­ti­san affair. Each side had lever­age. And as we can see, the GOP man­aged to extract a num­ber of last-minute con­ces­sions, includ­ing the repeal of the Pen­ta­gon COVID-vac­cine man­date:

...
The Nation­al Defense Autho­riza­tion Act (NDAA) passed in a bipar­ti­san 350–80 vote. It was approved under sus­pen­sion of the rules, an expe­dit­ed process to pass leg­is­la­tion in the House that requires a two-thirds major­i­ty.

... 

In a win for Repub­li­cans, the mea­sure includes lan­guage that repeals the COVID-19 vac­cine man­date for U.S. ser­vice mem­bers, which has been in place since August 2021.

The con­ces­sion was seen as a sur­prise by many. The White House and Pen­ta­gon spoke out against it and sim­i­lar mea­sures to sig­nif­i­cant­ly lim­it the vac­cine man­date were vot­ed down in the House Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee dur­ing the bill’s markup ear­li­er this year. 

...

House Minor­i­ty Leader Kevin McCarthy (R‑Calif.) threat­ened to hold up the leg­is­la­tion if it did not include a roll­back of the man­date. McCarthy over the week­end told “Fox News Sun­day” that “the bill will not move” if the pol­i­cy was not lift­ed. He said he relayed the same mes­sage to Pres­i­dent Biden dur­ing a meet­ing at the White House last week with the four con­gres­sion­al lead­ers.
...

The repeal of the Pen­ta­gon COVID vac­cine man­date was a high-pro­file win for Kevin McCarthy. But it obvi­ous­ly was­n’t the GOP’s only win. It’s hard to imag­ine the dis­ap­pear­ance of Sched­ule F at the end of these nego­ti­a­tions was­n’t being qui­et­ly cel­e­brat­ed too. Includ­ing qui­et cel­e­bra­tions from the entire CNP net­work active­ly work­ing on this grow­ing ongo­ing plot. And pre­sum­ably Nick Fuente’s ‘Groyper’ army and the thou­sands of the oth­er aspir­ing fas­cists who are get­ting ready to goos­es­tep into the gov­ern­ment on a Sched­ule F red car­pet one of these years.

The warn­ings keep com­ing. They aren’t hid­ing it. Well, ok, in this case they’re kind of hid­ing it: Axios just pub­lished anoth­er piece describ­ing the ongo­ing Sched­ule F efforts in antic­i­pa­tion of 2025 and a new Repub­li­can admin­is­tra­tion. And yet, curi­ous­ly, there’s no actu­al men­tion of the term “Sched­ule F” any­where in the piece. It’s com­plete­ly obvi­ous that it’s the Sched­ule F plot that the arti­cle is describ­ing, but the term “Sched­ule F” is com­plete­ly absent. Instead, their goals are described more vague­ly as sim­ply ‘being pre­pared this time’ and avoid­ing the dis­or­ga­ni­za­tion and par­ty divi­sions that shaped the ear­ly months of Trump’s pres­i­den­cy in 2017.

That’s what makes this arti­cle so inter­est­ing. It’s the lat­est arti­cle to make clear that the Sched­ule F plot is going to be part of the next 2024 GOP pres­i­den­t’s ear­ly agen­da whether that’s Don­ald Trump, Ron Desan­tis, or some­one else. Sched­ule F is the par­ty estab­lish­men­t’s plan now. And yet the arti­cle simul­ta­ne­ous­ly feels like a fog­gy rebrand­ing of the Sched­ule F plot as sim­ply ‘prepa­ra­tions to avoid the chaos and par­ty dis­uni­ty of 2017.’ So it’s worth not­ing that at the same time the GOP appears to be dou­bling and tripling down on the Sched­ule F plot, it’s also build­ing up a Sched­ule F cov­er sto­ry:

Axios

D.C.‘s emerg­ing MAGA machine

Lach­lan Markay
Dec 21, 2022 — Pol­i­tics & Pol­i­cy

If Don­ald Trump is once again elect­ed pres­i­dent, he will enjoy a key asset absent from his 2017 White House tran­si­tion: a sprawl­ing infra­struc­ture already prepar­ing to staff a new admin­is­tra­tion and imme­di­ate­ly enact major poli­cies.

Why it mat­ters: No such appa­ra­tus devot­ed to Trump’s polit­i­cal brand exist­ed in 2017. The frac­tious con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment of the time — split among Trump loy­al­ists, reluc­tant hang­ers-on and out­spo­ken oppo­nents — fueled the inter­nal dys­func­tion that plagued his ear­ly admin­is­tra­tion.

* Few such divi­sions would exist in a sec­ond Trump term — or a first for a like-mind­ed Repub­li­can such as Flori­da Gov. Ron DeSan­tis.

* If an “Amer­i­ca First” can­di­date pre­vails in 2024, a con­stel­la­tion of con­ser­v­a­tive groups — many cre­at­ed since Trump left office — hopes to cement that ide­o­log­i­cal brand in the pol­i­cy and per­son­nel make­up of the new admin­is­tra­tion.

What they’re say­ing: “There was none of that [in 2017]. None of it,” says Brooke Rollins, Trump’s for­mer Domes­tic Pol­i­cy Coun­cil chief and the pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­ca First Pol­i­cy Insti­tute. “The next time around ... there will be a whole new game in town that will be pre­pared for that pres­i­den­cy.”

* “A big part of that is hav­ing the per­son­nel ready, the pol­i­cy ready and the process under­stood so that on Day 1 of a new admin­is­tra­tion, no mat­ter who the pres­i­dent is, we will have 2,500 peo­ple ready to report to work to begin to imple­ment that agen­da,” Rollins told Axios in an inter­view.

What’s hap­pen­ing: Annu­al tax fil­ings for AFPI and oth­er groups in the net­work have trick­led in since last month, pro­vid­ing the first glimpses at the struc­tures and finances of D.C.‘s MAGA infra­struc­ture.

* Togeth­er, the groups are pour­ing tens of mil­lions of dol­lars into what effec­tive­ly amounts to an admin­is­tra­tion-in-wait­ing.

* Many of the groups are inte­gral to bur­geon­ing efforts by Trump allies to remake the fed­er­al civ­il ser­vice to align with an “Amer­i­ca First” pol­i­cy agen­da — includ­ing by purg­ing thou­sands of bureau­crats and replac­ing them with loy­al­ists

The big pic­ture: The orga­ni­za­tions gen­er­al­ly fall into three camps. Some sprout­ed from the rem­nants of an explic­it­ly pro-Trump appa­ra­tus cre­at­ed dur­ing his term.

* AFPI is the new non­prof­it pol­i­cy arm of Amer­i­ca First Works, an advo­ca­cy group that pre­vi­ous­ly backed Trump under the moniker Amer­i­ca First Poli­cies. It’s staffed by dozens of his for­mer Cab­i­net sec­re­taries and senior aides.

* In June, AFPI unveiled an effort, the Amer­i­can Lead­er­ship Ini­tia­tive, to devel­op strate­gies for a future pres­i­den­tial tran­si­tion. It’s led by Michael Rigas, the for­mer act­ing head of Trump’s Office of Per­son­nel Man­age­ment.

* AFPI brought in near­ly $15 mil­lion in 2021, tax fil­ings show. Rollins told Axios that the group now employs about 160 peo­ple and is oper­at­ing on a $27 mil­lion bud­get this year.

Oth­ers are pur­su­ing a broad­er ide­o­log­i­cal but also have deep ties to Trump­world and are aligned with his polit­i­cal brand.

* The Con­ser­v­a­tive Part­ner­ship Insti­tute, led by for­mer Sen. Jim DeMint (R‑S.C.) and ex-Trump chief of staff Mark Mead­ows, has incu­bat­ed and finan­cial­ly sup­port­ed a net­work of allied groups.

* They include orga­ni­za­tions found­ed by for­mer Trump bud­get chief Russ Vought, for­mer top pol­i­cy aide Stephen Miller and for­mer Hous­ing and Urban Devel­op­ment sec­re­tary Ben Car­son.

* Amer­i­can Moment, a new CPI-backed non­prof­it, is explic­it­ly devot­ed to cul­ti­vat­ing “Amer­i­ca First” tal­ent, in part to staff a future admin­is­tra­tion.

* CPI’s bud­get grew sub­stan­tial­ly in 2021, tax fil­ings show: Dona­tions to the group shot up from $7.1 mil­lion in 2020 to more than $45 mil­lion last year — boost­ed by a $1 mil­lion con­tri­bu­tion from Trump’s lead­er­ship PAC.

Lega­cy con­ser­v­a­tive orga­ni­za­tions such as the Her­itage Foun­da­tion are also seen as key to a future GOP pres­i­den­tial tran­si­tion.

* Her­itage heav­i­ly influ­enced the ear­ly Trump admin­is­tra­tion, and Trump allies say they expect the group, led by new pres­i­dent Kevin Roberts, to play a larg­er role in a sec­ond Trump term — or that of anoth­er “Amer­i­ca First” Repub­li­can.

* Her­itage is lead­ing the new 2025 Pres­i­den­tial Tran­si­tion Project, an effort, orga­nized with dozens of oth­er con­ser­v­a­tive groups, “to ensure a suc­cess­ful admin­is­tra­tion begins in Jan­u­ary 2025 ... [w]ith the right con­ser­v­a­tive pol­i­cy rec­om­men­da­tions and prop­er­ly vet­ted and trained per­son­nel to imple­ment them.”

* Her­itage plans to pub­lish the ninth edi­tion of its “Man­date for Lead­er­ship” series next spring, geared not just toward influ­enc­ing the pol­i­cy tenor of the GOP pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry, but also sketch­ing out a mod­el for an effec­tive tran­si­tion.

Between the lines: Under­gird­ing the larg­er con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment prepa­ra­tions for 2025 is a recog­ni­tion that the lack of this sort of infra­struc­ture sub­stan­tial­ly hob­bled the Trump admin­is­tra­tion from the start.

...

————

“D.C.‘s emerg­ing MAGA machine” by Lach­lan Markay; Axios; 12/21/2022

“Togeth­er, the groups are pour­ing tens of mil­lions of dol­lars into what effec­tive­ly amounts to an admin­is­tra­tion-in-wait­ing”

An admin­is­tra­tion-in-wait­ing. That’s what’s being built in antic­i­pa­tion of 2025. The lessons of Trump’s tumul­tuous 2017 open­ing year have been learned.

And while the term “Sched­ule F” nev­er appears in this piece, the fact that it’s the same fig­ures talk­ing about the same enti­ties, like AFPI pres­i­dent Brooke Rollins and Michael Rigas — who Rollins brought in to run AFPI’s “2025 per­son­nel project” - that makes it abun­dant­ly clear that the Sched­ule F plot is at the cen­ter of this elab­o­rate orga­niz­ing effort all those peo­ple are talk­ing about in this piece. And all of those key fig­ures are will­ing to talk about it to the press. But for what­ev­er rea­son, they are avoid­ing any direct ref­er­ence to “Sched­ule F”. It’s not a par­tic­u­lar­ly sur­pris­ing from of appar­ent self-cen­sor­ship. Every­thing we’ve learned about the Sched­ule F plot so far indi­cate a vast­ly ambi­tious plan to purge the fed­er­al work­force of any non-MAGA loy­al­ists. That may not be some­thing this group wants the pub­lic to be ful­ly aware of head­ing into the 2024 elec­tion:

...
What they’re say­ing: “There was none of that [in 2017]. None of it,” says Brooke Rollins, Trump’s for­mer Domes­tic Pol­i­cy Coun­cil chief and the pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­ca First Pol­i­cy Insti­tute. “The next time around ... there will be a whole new game in town that will be pre­pared for that pres­i­den­cy.”

* “A big part of that is hav­ing the per­son­nel ready, the pol­i­cy ready and the process under­stood so that on Day 1 of a new admin­is­tra­tion, no mat­ter who the pres­i­dent is, we will have 2,500 peo­ple ready to report to work to begin to imple­ment that agen­da,” Rollins told Axios in an inter­view.

What’s hap­pen­ing: Annu­al tax fil­ings for AFPI and oth­er groups in the net­work have trick­led in since last month, pro­vid­ing the first glimpses at the struc­tures and finances of D.C.‘s MAGA infra­struc­ture.

...

* AFPI is the new non­prof­it pol­i­cy arm of Amer­i­ca First Works, an advo­ca­cy group that pre­vi­ous­ly backed Trump under the moniker Amer­i­ca First Poli­cies. It’s staffed by dozens of his for­mer Cab­i­net sec­re­taries and senior aides.

* In June, AFPI unveiled an effort, the Amer­i­can Lead­er­ship Ini­tia­tive, to devel­op strate­gies for a future pres­i­den­tial tran­si­tion. It’s led by Michael Rigas, the for­mer act­ing head of Trump’s Office of Per­son­nel Man­age­ment.

* AFPI brought in near­ly $15 mil­lion in 2021, tax fil­ings show. Rollins told Axios that the group now employs about 160 peo­ple and is oper­at­ing on a $27 mil­lion bud­get this year.

...

Between the lines: Under­gird­ing the larg­er con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment prepa­ra­tions for 2025 is a recog­ni­tion that the lack of this sort of infra­struc­ture sub­stan­tial­ly hob­bled the Trump admin­is­tra­tion from the start.
...

And then the arti­cle goes on to list the same group of CPI spin­offs involved with this like Amer­i­can Moment and ‘lega­cy’ groups like the Her­itage Foun­da­tion. This arti­cle is describ­ing the same over­all Sched­ule F effort. just with­out any ref­er­ences to Sched­ule F for some rea­son:

...
Oth­ers are pur­su­ing a broad­er ide­o­log­i­cal but also have deep ties to Trump­world and are aligned with his polit­i­cal brand.

* The Con­ser­v­a­tive Part­ner­ship Insti­tute, led by for­mer Sen. Jim DeMint (R‑S.C.) and ex-Trump chief of staff Mark Mead­ows, has incu­bat­ed and finan­cial­ly sup­port­ed a net­work of allied groups.

* They include orga­ni­za­tions found­ed by for­mer Trump bud­get chief Russ Vought, for­mer top pol­i­cy aide Stephen Miller and for­mer Hous­ing and Urban Devel­op­ment sec­re­tary Ben Car­son.

* Amer­i­can Moment, a new CPI-backed non­prof­it, is explic­it­ly devot­ed to cul­ti­vat­ing “Amer­i­ca First” tal­ent, in part to staff a future admin­is­tra­tion.

...

Lega­cy con­ser­v­a­tive orga­ni­za­tions such as the Her­itage Foun­da­tion are also seen as key to a future GOP pres­i­den­tial tran­si­tion.

* Her­itage heav­i­ly influ­enced the ear­ly Trump admin­is­tra­tion, and Trump allies say they expect the group, led by new pres­i­dent Kevin Roberts, to play a larg­er role in a sec­ond Trump term — or that of anoth­er “Amer­i­ca First” Repub­li­can.

* Her­itage is lead­ing the new 2025 Pres­i­den­tial Tran­si­tion Project, an effort, orga­nized with dozens of oth­er con­ser­v­a­tive groups, “to ensure a suc­cess­ful admin­is­tra­tion begins in Jan­u­ary 2025 ... [w]ith the right con­ser­v­a­tive pol­i­cy rec­om­men­da­tions and prop­er­ly vet­ted and trained per­son­nel to imple­ment them.”
...

An “admin­is­tra­tion-in-wait­ing” staffed with “prop­er­ly vet­ted and trained per­son­nel to imple­ment them.” That’s the new spin we’re get­ting. Sched­ule F isn’t a plan to chaot­i­cal­ly purge of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment of its pro­fes­sion­al work­force and replace them with loy­al­ist cronies who will imple­ment any pol­i­cy no mat­ter how ille­gal or uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. No, no, it’s a plan to avoid chaos. Which, in fair­ness, is at least part­ly true. When you’re over­all plan involves imple­ment­ing a gov­ern­ment purge in antic­i­pa­tion of imple­ment­ing a rad­i­cal agen­da with min­i­mal bureau­crat­ic resis­tance, purg­ing the gov­ern­ment of non-loy­al­ist who might stand in the way of that rad­i­cal agen­da will indeed avoid some chaos. At least help avoid the bureau­crat­ic chaos we can oth­er­wise expect from this rad­i­cal agen­da. Not so much the socioe­co­nom­ic chaot­ic fall­out part of the agen­da.

He did it: Kevin McCarthy has achieved his long-held ambi­tion. He final­ly man­aged to live the dream late Fri­day night and become the new­ly elect­ed Speak­er of the House. All it took was 14 failed votes. Along with all the con­ces­sions McCarthy had to make to the ‘Free­dom Cau­cus’ group of GOP hold­outs. Con­ces­sions that, as the fol­low­ing arti­cle describes, could end up mak­ing a default on the US debt a near inevitabil­i­ty when the debt ceil­ing comes up for renew­al lat­er this year. Or hand­ing the Free­dom Cau­cus the pow­er to trig­ger a new speak­er­ship vote, leav­ing McCarthy with a per­pet­u­al ‘Nev­er Kevin’ Sword of Damacles hang­ing over his every deci­sion as speak­er.

Kevin won his speak­er­ship, but it’s obvi­ous to all observers who actu­al­ly won the great Nev­er Kevin intra-GOP show­down of the last week and it was­n’t Kevin McCarthy. At this point the Free­dom Cau­cus is being treat­ed less like a seg­ment of the GOP House cau­cus and more like a Euro­pean-style par­lia­men­tary coali­tion part­ner. Which, as we’ll see, was exact­ly the plan. The CNP’s plan.

Yep, as we should now expect, the CNP’s hands were all over the events that played out last week and left the US House cap­tive in the hands of a rad­i­cal cau­cus that is demand­ing a ‘default before more debt’ stance on the nation­al debt. As we’re going to see, not only was the ‘Nev­er Kevin’ group of House Repub­li­cans spot­ted meet­ing at the CNP’s Con­ser­v­a­tive Part­ner­ship Insti­tute (CPI) DC head­quar­ters on Fri­day morn­ing — the day when the ‘Nev­er Kevin’ cau­cus effec­tive­ly won show­down — but this same group has been reg­u­lar­ly hold­ing meet­ings there for months.

And it turns out this same ‘Nev­er Kevin’ group of House Repub­li­cans held a meet­ing with a four-per­son pan­el just one week after the elec­tion where they were effec­tive­ly told to pur­sue this exact strat­e­gy of forc­ing McCarthy to grant them enor­mous con­ces­sions for their sup­port. That pan­el, orga­nized by Rep. Andy Big­gs, con­sist­ed of Paul Teller, Ed Cor­ri­g­an, Rachel Bovard, and Mark Mead­ows.

Beyond being a co-founder of the House Free­dom Cau­cus in 2015, Mark Mead­ows infa­mous­ly went on to join the CPI as a senior fel­low almost imme­di­ate­ly after leav­ing the Trump admin­is­tra­tion in 2021. And as we saw with the release of a trove of Jan 6 text-mes­sages, Mead­ows had help with his pre-insur­rec­tion coor­di­nat­ing. CPI help, which was serv­ing as some­thing of a head­quar­ters for mem­bers of con­gress who were try­ing to over­turn the elec­tion results.

Ed Cor­ri­g­an worked at the Her­itage Foun­da­tion and was a mem­ber of Trump’s 2016 tran­si­tion team before becom­ing the CPI’s CEO. As we’ve seen, Cor­ri­g­an’s expe­ri­ence work­ing on staffing the Trump White House is now get­ting applied to the CPI’s ongo­ing Sched­ule F schemes. Cor­ri­g­an also report­ed­ly held 5‑week-long leg­isla­tive boot camps in 2021, co-taught with CPI Senior Pol­i­cy Direc­tor Rachel Bovard. So Mead­ows, Cor­ri­g­an, and Bovard are all CPI senior offi­cers.

Paul Tellers does­n’t appear to be CPI senior offi­cer, but he’s a fan. The for­mer direc­tor of the influ­en­tial Repub­li­can Study Com­mit­tee and the exec­u­tive direc­tor of an advo­ca­cy group that serves as Mike Pence’s polit­i­cal oper­a­tion “Amer­i­cans Advanc­ing Free­dom” (AAF), Teller has pub­licly gushed about anoth­er ‘AAF’ enti­ty, the Amer­i­can Account­abil­i­ty Foun­da­tion, which hap­pens to be anoth­er CPI off­shoot. And here Teller was as the only non-CPI mem­ber of four-per­son pan­el advis­ing the House Free­dom cau­cus ‘Nev­er Kevin’ hold­outs to do exact­ly what they just did.

And as we should expect, at least three of those four pan­elists at that Novem­ber 14 event are CNP mem­bers: Teller, Bovard, and Cor­ri­g­an.

But these weren’t the only senior CNP/CPI fig­ures push­ing this same ‘Nev­er Kevin’ strat­e­gy last week. As the Yahoo News arti­cle excerpt below notes, a let­ter pub­lished on Jan 4 last week with 72 sig­na­tures call­ing on House Repub­li­cans to join the ‘Nev­er Kevin’ cau­cus was co-signed by CPI-cofounder Jim DeMint, Cle­ta Mitchell, Russ Vought, and Gin­ni Thomas. Mitchell heads the CPI’s ‘elec­tion integri­ty’ efforts to jus­ti­fy over­turn­ing elec­tions while Vought is lead­ing the CPI ongo­ing Sched­ule F work through the Cen­ter for Renew­ing Amer­i­ca (CRA) CPI spin­off. And Gin­ni Thomas, as a mem­ber of the board of CNP Action, the CNP’s lob­by­ing arm, remains a key orga­niz­er in DC for CNP pri­or­i­ties. And, of course, Mitchell, Thomas, and DeMint are on the leaked CNP mem­ber­ship list, along with Vought’s wife Mary Vought. And that’s just a sam­ple of the CNP/CPI fig­ures who signed the let­ter. Rough­ly 50 CNP/CPI sig­na­tures in all. That’s who was telling the House Repub­li­cans to hold out and refuse to stand with Kevin McCarthy, at the same time their fel­low CPI mem­bers were advis­ing them to hold out for spe­cial pow­ers.

And it worked. The CNP/CPI strat­e­gy laid out at that Novem­ber 14 pan­el dis­cus­sion worked. They got the pow­er to trig­ger a debt default if they don’t get what they want in the upcom­ing debt ceil­ing nego­ti­a­tions. They have the pow­er to hold the econ­o­my hostage. It’s either going to be mas­sive cuts to gov­ern­ment pro­grams they hate or they’ll blow it all up. That’s what the future promis­es. And if you don’t think this group is insane enough to blow it all up, think about Jan 6 and ask if they were crazy enough to do that. Because it’s the same group:

The New York Times

Speak­er Dra­ma Rais­es New Fears on Debt Lim­it

An embold­ened con­ser­v­a­tive flank and con­ces­sions made to win votes could lead to a pro­tract­ed stand­off on crit­i­cal fis­cal issues, risk­ing eco­nom­ic pain.

By Jim Tanker­s­ley
Jan. 7, 2023 Updat­ed 2:56 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kevin McCarthy of Cal­i­for­nia final­ly secured the House speak­er­ship in a dra­mat­ic vote end­ing around 12:30 a.m. Sat­ur­day, but the dys­func­tion in his par­ty and the deal he struck to win over hold­out Repub­li­cans also raised the risks of per­sis­tent polit­i­cal grid­lock that could desta­bi­lize the Amer­i­can finan­cial sys­tem.

Econ­o­mists, Wall Street ana­lysts and polit­i­cal observers are warn­ing that the con­ces­sions he made to fis­cal con­ser­v­a­tives could make it very dif­fi­cult for Mr. McCarthy to muster the votes to raise the debt lim­it — or even put such a mea­sure to a vote. That could pre­vent Con­gress from doing the basic tasks of keep­ing the gov­ern­ment open, pay­ing the country’s bills and avoid­ing default on America’s tril­lions of dol­lars in debt.

The speak­er­ship bat­tle that spanned more than four days and 15 rounds of votes sug­gest­ed Pres­i­dent Biden and Con­gress could be on track lat­er this year for the most per­ilous debt-lim­it debate since 2011, when for­mer Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma and a new Repub­li­can major­i­ty in the House near­ly default­ed on the nation’s debt before cut­ting an 11th-hour deal.

“If every­thing we’re see­ing is a symp­tom of a total­ly splin­tered House Repub­li­can con­fer­ence that is going to be unable to come togeth­er with 218 votes on vir­tu­al­ly any issue, it tells you that the odds of get­ting to the 11th hour or the last minute or what­ev­er are very high,” Alec Phillips, the chief polit­i­cal econ­o­mist for Gold­man Sachs Research, said in an inter­view Fri­day.

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment spends far more mon­ey each year than it receives in rev­enues, pro­duc­ing a bud­get deficit that is pro­ject­ed to aver­age in excess of $1 tril­lion a year for the next decade. Those deficits will add to a nation­al debt that topped $31 tril­lion last year.

Fed­er­al law puts a lim­it on how much the gov­ern­ment can bor­row. But it does not require the gov­ern­ment to bal­ance its bud­get. That means law­mak­ers must peri­od­i­cal­ly pass laws to raise the bor­row­ing lim­it to avoid a sit­u­a­tion in which the gov­ern­ment is unable to pay all of its bills, jeop­ar­diz­ing pay­ments includ­ing mil­i­tary salaries, Social Secu­ri­ty ben­e­fits and debts to hold­ers of gov­ern­ment bonds. Gold­man Sachs researchers esti­mate Con­gress will like­ly need to raise the debt lim­it some­time around August to stave off such a sce­nario.

Rais­ing the lim­it was once rou­tine but has become become increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult over the past few decades, with Repub­li­cans using the cap as a cud­gel to force spend­ing reduc­tions. Their lever­age stems from the poten­tial dam­age to the econ­o­my if the lim­it is not increased. Lift­ing the debt lim­it does not autho­rize any new spend­ing; it just allows the Unit­ed States to finance exist­ing oblig­a­tions. If that cap is not lift­ed, the gov­ern­ment would be unable to pay all of its bills, which include salaries for mil­i­tary mem­bers and Social Secu­ri­ty pay­ments.

The excep­tion to the debt-lim­it dra­ma was the four years of Don­ald J. Trump’s pres­i­den­cy, when Repub­li­cans large­ly aban­doned their push to tie increas­es in the lim­it to cuts in fed­er­al spend­ing. In 2021, Sen­ate Repub­li­cans clashed with Mr. Biden as the dead­line for rais­ing the lim­it approached, but those law­mak­ers ulti­mate­ly helped Democ­rats pass a law increas­ing the cap.

Some Democ­rats pushed to avoid this sce­nario last year, when it became clear that their par­ty would like­ly lose at least one cham­ber of Con­gress. They hoped to raise the lim­it again in the lame-duck ses­sion of Con­gress after the Novem­ber elec­tions that deliv­ered House con­trol to Repub­li­cans, to avoid any chance of a default before the 2024 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. But the effort nev­er gained trac­tion.

As a result, the next round of debt-lim­it brinkman­ship could be the most fraught on record — as evi­denced by the bat­tle over the speak­er­ship. Con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­cans have already made clear that they would not pass a debt-lim­it increase with­out sig­nif­i­cant spend­ing curbs, like­ly includ­ing cuts to both spend­ing on the mil­i­tary and on domes­tic issues not relat­ed to nation­al defense.

Their pow­er stems from the fact that Repub­li­cans hold a more nar­row major­i­ty than they did fol­low­ing the 2010 midterms, which empow­ered the con­ser­v­a­tive hold­outs who opposed Mr. McCarthy. Among that group’s demands were a push for steep cuts in fed­er­al spend­ing and a bal­anc­ing of the fed­er­al bud­get with­in a decade with­out rais­ing tax­es.

“Is he will­ing to shut the gov­ern­ment down rather than raise the debt ceil­ing?” Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ralph Nor­man of South Car­oli­na, who was one of 20 Repub­li­cans to ini­tial­ly vote against Mr. McCarthy on the House floor, recent­ly told reporters. “That’s a non-nego­tiable item.”

Mr. McCarthy appeared to agree to those demands, pledg­ing to allow open debate on spend­ing bills and to not raise the debt lim­it with­out major cuts — includ­ing efforts to reduce spend­ing on so-called manda­to­ry pro­grams, which include Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare — in a deal that brought many hold­outs, includ­ing Mr. Nor­man, into his camp.

If the speak­er vio­lat­ed that deal, he could risk being over­thrown by his cau­cus — a sin­gle law­mak­er could force a vote to oust Mr. McCarthy, under the terms of the agree­ment. But Mr. Biden and his party’s lead­ers in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic-con­trolled Sen­ate have vowed to fight those cuts, par­tic­u­lar­ly to social safe­ty net pro­grams. That could mean a stand­off that goes on until the gov­ern­ment runs out of mon­ey to pay its bills.

Staunch bud­get hawks in Wash­ing­ton have long argued that the Unit­ed States needs to stop spend­ing — and bor­row­ing — so much mon­ey and that the nation can­not afford its long-term debt. They have pushed for a vari­ety of ways to reduce the growth in long-term spend­ing, includ­ing cuts to health care for the poor and for old­er Amer­i­cans. And many have called for end­ing some tax breaks while ensur­ing that the wealth­i­est and cor­po­ra­tions pay more.

Yet many of those fis­cal hawks have called the Repub­li­can spend­ing demands reck­less and like­ly to pro­duce stale­mates on key fis­cal issues.

“Their spe­cif­ic ask of bal­anc­ing the bud­get in 10 years is just total­ly unre­al­is­tic. It would take $11 tril­lion in sav­ings,” said Maya MacGuineas, pres­i­dent of the Com­mit­tee for a Respon­si­ble Fed­er­al Bud­get in Wash­ing­ton, which has long pushed law­mak­ers to reduce future deficits through spend­ing cuts and tax increas­es.

“I want to save more mon­ey than a lot of peo­ple,” Ms. MacGuineas said. “But what they’re demand­ing is just not achiev­able.”

Hurtling toward a dead­line for rais­ing the debt lim­it would sow chaos in finan­cial mar­kets, includ­ing for stocks and Trea­sury bonds, Mr. Phillips said. If Con­gress failed to raise the debt lim­it and the gov­ern­ment became unable to bor­row more mon­ey, Mr. Phillips said, Amer­i­ca would suf­fer a sud­den decrease in fed­er­al spend­ing equiv­a­lent to as much as one-tenth of all dai­ly eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty.

“This does not feel like a false alarm,” he said.

In 2011, Repub­li­cans and Mr. Oba­ma agreed on a deal to raise the debt lim­it that also imposed future lim­its on domes­tic spend­ing increas­es. Ms. MacGuineas, Mr. Phillips and oth­er ana­lysts expressed skep­ti­cism that nego­ti­a­tions between Mr. Biden and House Repub­li­cans would do the same this time, in part because the fac­tion that had blocked Mr. McCarthy’s ascent appeared unwill­ing to com­pro­mise for sig­nif­i­cant­ly more mod­est con­ces­sions from Democ­rats.

Admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials have giv­en no indi­ca­tion that they would nego­ti­ate with Repub­li­cans over a debt-lim­it increase at all — nor that they were prepar­ing to act uni­lat­er­al­ly to bypass the debt ceil­ing, as some pro­gres­sives have pushed for, in the event of a House speak­er refus­ing to put a debt-lim­it increase to a vote with­out steep spend­ing cuts.

...

Mod­er­ate law­mak­ers have already begun float­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties for how the House might raise the lim­it. One long-shot idea: a so-called dis­charge peti­tion signed by a major­i­ty of the House to force a vote on a bill. A move of that kind would pre­sum­ably rely almost entire­ly on Demo­c­ra­t­ic votes with a few Repub­li­cans join­ing in. But that out­come is far from guar­an­teed; it would require exten­sive coor­di­na­tion by both sides and expose defect­ing Repub­li­cans to pun­ish­ment and pri­ma­ry chal­lenges.

Still, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bri­an Fitz­patrick, Repub­li­can of Penn­syl­va­nia, embraced the pos­si­bil­i­ty of such a com­pro­mise this past week in an inter­view with CNN. “There is a num­ber of options to cir­cum­vent lead­er­ship,” he said. “There is not a ton. But there are options at our dis­pos­al.”

———-

“Speak­er Dra­ma Rais­es New Fears on Debt Lim­it” by Jim Tanker­s­ley; The New York Times; 01/07/2023

“Econ­o­mists, Wall Street ana­lysts and polit­i­cal observers are warn­ing that the con­ces­sions he made to fis­cal con­ser­v­a­tives could make it very dif­fi­cult for Mr. McCarthy to muster the votes to raise the debt lim­it — or even put such a mea­sure to a vote. That could pre­vent Con­gress from doing the basic tasks of keep­ing the gov­ern­ment open, pay­ing the country’s bills and avoid­ing default on America’s tril­lions of dol­lars in debt.”

Oh are we ever f#$%ed this time: Kevin McCarthy made so many promis­es to the rad­i­cals in the ‘Free­dom Cau­cus’ that there’s a good chance he’s may even going to have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to bring the annu­al debt ceil­ing leg­is­la­tion to the House floor. That’s how much he had to give up. Unless he wants to court an ouster vote. In oth­er words, the full faith and cred­it of the US gov­ern­ment is kind of up to Kevin McCarthy’s will­ing­ness to get oust­ed:

...
Rais­ing the lim­it was once rou­tine but has become become increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult over the past few decades, with Repub­li­cans using the cap as a cud­gel to force spend­ing reduc­tions. Their lever­age stems from the poten­tial dam­age to the econ­o­my if the lim­it is not increased. Lift­ing the debt lim­it does not autho­rize any new spend­ing; it just allows the Unit­ed States to finance exist­ing oblig­a­tions. If that cap is not lift­ed, the gov­ern­ment would be unable to pay all of its bills, which include salaries for mil­i­tary mem­bers and Social Secu­ri­ty pay­ments.

...

As a result, the next round of debt-lim­it brinkman­ship could be the most fraught on record — as evi­denced by the bat­tle over the speak­er­ship. Con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­cans have already made clear that they would not pass a debt-lim­it increase with­out sig­nif­i­cant spend­ing curbs, like­ly includ­ing cuts to both spend­ing on the mil­i­tary and on domes­tic issues not relat­ed to nation­al defense.

Their pow­er stems from the fact that Repub­li­cans hold a more nar­row major­i­ty than they did fol­low­ing the 2010 midterms, which empow­ered the con­ser­v­a­tive hold­outs who opposed Mr. McCarthy. Among that group’s demands were a push for steep cuts in fed­er­al spend­ing and a bal­anc­ing of the fed­er­al bud­get with­in a decade with­out rais­ing tax­es.

“Is he will­ing to shut the gov­ern­ment down rather than raise the debt ceil­ing?” Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ralph Nor­man of South Car­oli­na, who was one of 20 Repub­li­cans to ini­tial­ly vote against Mr. McCarthy on the House floor, recent­ly told reporters. “That’s a non-nego­tiable item.”

Mr. McCarthy appeared to agree to those demands, pledg­ing to allow open debate on spend­ing bills and to not raise the debt lim­it with­out major cuts — includ­ing efforts to reduce spend­ing on so-called manda­to­ry pro­grams, which include Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare — in a deal that brought many hold­outs, includ­ing Mr. Nor­man, into his camp.

If the speak­er vio­lat­ed that deal, he could risk being over­thrown by his cau­cus — a sin­gle law­mak­er could force a vote to oust Mr. McCarthy, under the terms of the agree­ment. But Mr. Biden and his party’s lead­ers in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic-con­trolled Sen­ate have vowed to fight those cuts, par­tic­u­lar­ly to social safe­ty net pro­grams. That could mean a stand­off that goes on until the gov­ern­ment runs out of mon­ey to pay its bills.
...

Also, when you see Ralph Nor­man list­ed among those demand­ing that McCarthy show a will­ing­ness to “shut the gov­ern­ment down rather than raise the debt ceil­ing”, recall how we learned last month that Nor­man was tex­ting Mark Mead­ows on Jan­u­ary 17, 2021 implor­ing then-Pres­i­dent Trump to declare mar­tial law. Flash for­ward two years and we find Nor­man among the big win­ners in the ‘pro-default’ cau­cus that just won the show­down over the House speak­er­ship. It’s a reminder that we’re like­ly going to find heavy over­lap between the pro-insur­rec­tion crowd and the pro-debt-default crowd. It’s the same crowd, out to break the sys­tem one way or anoth­er.

So as the US careens toward a debt default cri­sis lat­er this year, it’s going to be impor­tant to keep in mind that what just tran­spired was­n’t sim­ply a pro­duc­tion of that small group of GOP hold-outs. It was a CNP pro­duc­tion chan­neled through the CPI. Yep, the enti­ties that played a still-under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed role in foment­ing the events of Jan­u­ary 6 are behind the ‘Nev­er Kevin’ show­down.

That’s the pic­ture laid out in the fol­low­ing Grid News arti­cle describ­ing a Novem­ber 14, 2022, meet­ing orga­nized by Rep. Andy Big­gs and attend­ed by a num­ber of the same House Free­dom Cau­cus mem­bers who joined Big­gs in form­ing the ‘Nev­er Kevin’ cau­cus last week. They were there to here the advice of a four-per­son pan­el con­sist­ing of three senior CPI fig­ures — Ed Cor­ri­g­an, Mark Mead­ows, and Rachel Bovard — along with Paul Teller, the for­mer direc­tor of the Repub­li­can Study Com­mit­tee.

As we should expect, three out of the four pan­elists show up on the leaked CNP mem­ber­ship lists: Teller, Cor­ri­g­an, and Bovard. If Mead­ows isn’t a CNP mem­ber by now he’s effec­tive­ly one in spir­it. And while Teller may not be an offi­cial CPI mem­ber, he’s cer­tain­ly a close affil­i­ate with an inter­est­ing back­ground as the exec­u­tive direc­tor of an advo­ca­cy group that serves as Mike Pence’s polit­i­cal oper­a­tion “Amer­i­cans Advanc­ing Free­dom” (AAF). As we’ve seen, Teller has pub­licly gushed about anoth­er ‘AAF’ enti­ty, the Amer­i­can Account­abil­i­ty Foun­da­tion, which hap­pens to be anoth­er CPI off­shoot.

And as we’ll see, this pan­el basi­cal­ly told this group of Free­dom Cau­cus to treat the House like a ‘Euro­pean-style par­lia­ment’, with three par­ties: the Democ­rats, Repub­li­cans, and Free­dom Cau­cus, with the lat­ter two par­ties form­ing the coali­tion government...but only after the Free­dom Cau­cus is grant­ed a num­ber of spe­cial pow­ers. Like the pow­er to call for a new speak­er­ship vote.

There’s one more CNP/CPI fig­ure worth men­tion­ing here: CPI co-founder, and CNP-mem­ber, Jim DeMint. DeMint was one of sev­er­al Repub­li­can fig­ure to sign a let­ter last week call­ing on oth­er House Repub­li­cans to join the anti-McCarthy effort. An effort that was lit­er­al­ly being orga­nized out of the CPI’s DC office, which hap­pens to be the loca­tion of reg­u­lar House Free­dom Cau­cus meet­ings. Don’t for­get that the House Free­dom Cau­cus was co-found­ed by Mark Mead­ows in 2015.

That’s all part of the sig­nif­i­cance of that Novem­ber 14, 2022, meet­ing: it was basi­cal­ly the House Free­dom Cau­cus’s pri­ma­ry spon­sors at the CPI telling them how to pro­ceed. Which is exact­ly what they did, to great effect. And now the US is poised for a debt cri­sis. A planned debt cri­sis orches­trat­ed by the CNP’s oper­a­tives at the CPI:

Grid

‘The Democ­rats, the Repub­li­cans and the Free­dom Cau­cus’: Inside the right’s plans to seize pow­er in the new Con­gress

Con­ser­v­a­tives want the House to act like “a de fac­to Euro­pean-style coali­tion gov­ern­ment.”

Steve Reil­ly, Inves­tiga­tive Reporter, and Mag­gie Sev­erns, Domes­tic Pol­i­cy Reporter
Jan­u­ary 6, 2023

A week after the midterm elec­tions in Novem­ber, a small group of far-right GOP law­mak­ers and activists gath­ered on K Street in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., to dis­cuss strate­gies to use their nar­row major­i­ty to extract pow­er in the House. The next Con­gress, influ­en­tial activist Ed Cor­ri­g­an said, could be a “Euro­pean-style coali­tion gov­ern­ment” run by three groups: “The Democ­rats, the Repub­li­cans and the Free­dom Cau­cus.”

The forum was con­vened by Rep. Andy Big­gs, R‑Ariz., and attend­ed by sev­er­al oth­er law­mak­ers, includ­ing two oth­ers who helped block Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R‑Calif.) this week from becom­ing House speak­er: Reps. Matt Gaetz, R‑Fla., and Vic­to­ria Spartz, R‑Ind.

The strat­e­gy out­lined by Cor­ri­g­an went beyond just extract­ing con­ces­sions from House lead­ers — it amount­ed to a game plan for the House Free­dom Cau­cus to oper­ate as a third par­ty in a de fac­to par­lia­men­tary sys­tem, essen­tial­ly co-gov­ern­ing the cham­ber with main­stream Repub­li­cans. As law­mak­ers pre­pared for a sev­enth round of vot­ing on Thurs­day, House Repub­li­cans appeared to be on the precipice of allow­ing that to hap­pen.

“What would coali­tion gov­ern­ment look like in prac­tice?” Cor­ri­g­an asked the group, which was filmed and livestreamed but has attract­ed lit­tle notice beyond con­ser­v­a­tive media. “I would rec­om­mend the Free­dom Cau­cus would be grant­ed a spe­cif­ic num­ber of com­mit­tee assign­ments, and com­mit­tee and sub­com­mit­tee chair­man­ships,” as well as a vari­ety of oth­er new pow­ers, includ­ing putting a Free­dom Cau­cus mem­ber as chair­man of the pow­er­ful House Rules Com­mit­tee.

This week, McCarthy has report­ed­ly been con­ced­ing to a litany of demands from the Free­dom Cau­cus — includ­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of plac­ing mem­bers of the cau­cus as chairs of com­mit­tees and adding mem­bers to the House Rules Com­mit­tee, a move that would help Free­dom Cau­cus mem­bers steer how many and which amend­ments are offered for bills on the House floor, a cru­cial func­tion.

Address­ing the law­mak­ers at the Novem­ber forum was a four-per­son pan­el includ­ing for­mer Repub­li­can Study Com­mit­tee direc­tor Paul Teller and three lead­ers of the influ­en­tial far-right non­prof­it Con­ser­v­a­tive Part­ner­ship Insti­tute (CPI): Cor­ri­g­an, pres­i­dent of CPI and a for­mer mem­ber of Don­ald Trump’s tran­si­tion team; CPI senior part­ner Mark Mead­ows, a for­mer law­mak­er who in 2015 filed the “motion to vacate” that led to John Boehner’s removal as speak­er of the House; and CPI senior pol­i­cy direc­tor Rachel Bovard, a for­mer long­time Capi­tol Hill aide.

The episode sug­gests that the endgame for the approx­i­mate­ly 20 hard-right House mem­bers who have vot­ed against McCarthy for speak­er of the House is more ambi­tious than mere­ly boost­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the House for Free­dom Cau­cus mem­bers — it is about secur­ing the Free­dom Cau­cus a say in all deci­sion-mak­ing made by the new Repub­li­can major­i­ty.

Rather than extract­ing con­ces­sions from McCarthy, the actions this week by the small group of break­away Repub­li­cans appear to be fol­low­ing Corrigan’s game plan to essen­tial­ly co-gov­ern the low­er cham­ber of the leg­isla­tive branch.

Tues­day marked the first time in more than 100 years that the House failed to elect a speak­er on the first bal­lot. Because the House can­not func­tion with­out a speak­er in place, its busi­ness has essen­tial­ly been ground to a halt: pre­vent­ing the swear­ing-in of mem­bers-elect, stalling con­gres­sion­al over­sight efforts, scut­tling clas­si­fied intel­li­gence brief­in­gs and bar­ring the con­sid­er­a­tion of leg­is­la­tion.

After the midterms, Cor­ri­g­an advised the law­mak­ers to lever­age House Repub­li­cans’ nar­row­er-than-expect­ed major­i­ty as a nego­ti­at­ing tool.

The House Free­dom Cau­cus, Cor­ri­g­an said at the Nov. 14, 2022, meet­ing, “has extra­or­di­nary pow­er to nego­ti­ate a lead­er­ship arrange­ment” and urged them to try to extract a litany of con­ces­sions from McCarthy, some of which had been float­ed pre­vi­ous­ly by Free­dom Cau­cus mem­bers as they pre­pared for Repub­li­cans to retake the House. Free­dom Cau­cus mem­bers should “nego­ti­ate direct­ly with the speak­er for com­mit­tee posi­tions for Free­dom Cau­cus mem­bers,” as well as “a spe­cif­ic num­ber of com­mit­tee assign­ments and full com­mit­tee and sub­com­mit­tee chair­man­ships,” he said.

Cor­ri­g­an sug­gest­ed the Free­dom Cau­cus ask for changes to the “motion to vacate” rule, which allows mem­bers to call a vote over the speak­er­ship. As of Thurs­day, McCarthy appeared pre­pared to restore the motion to vacate in accor­dance with con­ser­v­a­tives’ demands.

Cor­ri­g­an also made a case that the Free­dom Cau­cus should nego­ti­ate for the chair­man­ship of the pow­er­ful House Rules Com­mit­tee, “or at least three of the four mem­bers.”

The House Rules Com­mit­tee deter­mines how many amend­ments and which amend­ments are offered on the House floor, grant­i­ng its mem­bers extra­or­di­nary pow­er to guide the busi­ness of Con­gress. The rules com­mit­tee is usu­al­ly made up of tenured law­mak­ers and allies of the speak­er.

In recent days, McCarthy has acqui­esced to a num­ber of the Free­dom Cau­cus’ demands — and he may be pre­pared to go even fur­ther as he tries to win the speaker’s gav­el. Accord­ing to report­ing from Politi­co, he has agreed to con­ces­sions that include plac­ing more Free­dom Cau­cus mem­bers on the House Rules Com­mit­tee. Free­dom Cau­cus mem­bers con­tin­ue to push for seats on pow­er­ful com­mit­tee and sub­com­mit­tee chair­man­ships, which would fur­ther help them guide the direc­tion of the next Con­gress.

At one point, Mead­ows sug­gest­ed what he admit­ted was a “rad­i­cal idea”: Law­mak­ers should “quit appro­pri­at­ing for things that are not autho­rized,” mean­ing that any gov­ern­ment pro­gram that had not been reau­tho­rized by Con­gress on time shouldn’t get fund­ing until Con­gress reap­proves it. Mead­ows cit­ed the State Depart­ment as an exam­ple: Con­gress has not updat­ed the laws gov­ern­ing the depart­ment since 2002.

Rep. Pete Ses­sions (R‑Texas), a for­mer chair­man of the Rules Com­mit­tee who has vot­ed for McCarthy in the fight over House speak­er, was also among the law­mak­ers in atten­dance. He seemed to sug­gest at one point that some ideas being float­ed dur­ing the meet­ing would make it hard­er for the Repub­li­can major­i­ty to func­tion.

“In going through this process, we need to make sure the sta­bil­i­ty of the major­i­ty is still there, while some­how hold­ing the lead­er­ship account­able,” Ses­sions said.

In prac­tice, how­ev­er, “it would be implau­si­ble” for the House Free­dom Cau­cus to con­trol the House through its Rules Com­mit­tee, said Tim LaPi­ra, pro­fes­sor of polit­i­cal sci­ence at James Madi­son Uni­ver­si­ty. The Rules Com­mit­tee rep­re­sents one small minor­i­ty fac­tion with­in the Repub­li­can Par­ty, and enact­ment of rules requires a major­i­ty vote in the House. Any oth­er small group of Repub­li­cans could join with Democ­rats to defeat a hypo­thet­i­cal Free­dom Cau­cus-led rules pack­age.

...

The House Free­dom Cau­cus — an influ­en­tial, invi­ta­tion-only group of about three dozen of the most right-lean­ing mem­bers of the House, which does not make its mem­ber list pub­lic — has close ties to CPI.

The two fundrais­ing arms of the Free­dom Cau­cus — House Free­dom Fund and House Free­dom Action — are based out of the CPI office, mak­ing month­ly office rent pay­ments total­ing $8,000 to an LLC tied to the insti­tute, accord­ing to Fed­er­al Elec­tion Com­mis­sion data, and the Free­dom Cau­cus holds its week­ly meet­ings at CPI’s Capi­tol Hill head­quar­ters.

Mem­bers who have vot­ed against McCarthy this week are almost all Free­dom Cau­cus mem­bers or were endorsed by the Free­dom Cau­cus’ cam­paign arm, and many have close ties to CPI. The break­away group’s choice for speak­er on Wednes­day, Rep. Byron Don­alds, R‑Fla., appeared last year in a tes­ti­mo­ni­al video for CPI along with Gaetz and Reps. Lau­ren Boe­bert, R‑Colo., and Chip Roy, R‑Texas, each of whom have sup­port­ed Don­alds’ bid for speak­er.

Oth­er mem­bers who vot­ed against McCarthy this week include Reps. Matt Rosendale, R‑Mont., and Paul Gosar, R‑Ariz., who have paid mem­ber­ship dues to CPI, accord­ing to FEC records.

...

Trump has endorsed McCarthy’s bid for speak­er, yet his polit­i­cal action com­mit­tee donat­ed $1 mil­lion last year to CPI, and the non­prof­it is led in part by Mead­ows, his for­mer chief of staff.

On Wednes­day, anoth­er CPI leader — its chair­man, Jim DeMint — signed on to a state­ment with oth­er con­ser­v­a­tive lead­ers for­mal­ly call­ing on the House to pick a speak­er oth­er than McCarthy.

...

———-

“‘The Democ­rats, the Repub­li­cans and the Free­dom Cau­cus’: Inside the right’s plans to seize pow­er in the new Con­gress” by Steve Reil­ly and Mag­gie Sev­erns; Grid; 01/06/2023

“The strat­e­gy out­lined by Cor­ri­g­an went beyond just extract­ing con­ces­sions from House lead­ers — it amount­ed to a game plan for the House Free­dom Cau­cus to oper­ate as a third par­ty in a de fac­to par­lia­men­tary sys­tem, essen­tial­ly co-gov­ern­ing the cham­ber with main­stream Repub­li­cans. As law­mak­ers pre­pared for a sev­enth round of vot­ing on Thurs­day, House Repub­li­cans appeared to be on the precipice of allow­ing that to hap­pen.”

This was­n’t just plan for extract­ing con­ces­sions. It was a plan for turn­ing the ‘Free­dom Cau­cus’ into a kind of sep­a­rate par­ty enti­tle to a slew of spe­cial pow­ers and priv­i­leges that we might expect for par­lia­men­tary coali­tion gov­ern­ment. Ed Cor­ri­g­an did­n’t mince words at the Novem­ber 14, 2022, forum held a week after the elec­tion. He told the Free­dom Cau­cus to strive to set up a “Euro­pean-style coali­tion gov­ern­ment”, with the Free­dom Cau­cus as a kind of third par­ty. One of two par­ties that com­prise the gov­ern­ing coali­tion. Not a cau­cus of the GOP but a sep­a­rate par­ty. That’s what the CPI’s pres­i­dent Ed Cor­ri­g­an advised for the Free­dom Cau­cus at that meet­ing: oper­ate like a third par­ty that needs to be court­ed and won over with sub­stan­tial pow­er-shar­ing offers. Pow­ers like changes to the “motion to vacate” rule that would empow­er the Free­dom Cau­cus to force a new speak­er­ship vote at any moment. Pow­ers that effec­tive­ly give the Free­dom Cau­cus pow­er to tell Kevin McCarthy what to do. That was the advice deliv­ered by CPI Pres­i­dent Ed Cor­ri­g­an to the House Free­dom Cau­cus a week after the elec­tions and it’s pret­ty obvi­ous at this point that they took his advice:

...
A week after the midterm elec­tions in Novem­ber, a small group of far-right GOP law­mak­ers and activists gath­ered on K Street in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., to dis­cuss strate­gies to use their nar­row major­i­ty to extract pow­er in the House. The next Con­gress, influ­en­tial activist Ed Cor­ri­g­an said, could be a “Euro­pean-style coali­tion gov­ern­ment” run by three groups: “The Democ­rats, the Repub­li­cans and the Free­dom Cau­cus.”

...

The forum was con­vened by Rep. Andy Big­gs, R‑Ariz., and attend­ed by sev­er­al oth­er law­mak­ers, includ­ing two oth­ers who helped block Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R‑Calif.) this week from becom­ing House speak­er: Reps. Matt Gaetz, R‑Fla., and Vic­to­ria Spartz, R‑Ind.

...

“What would coali­tion gov­ern­ment look like in prac­tice?” Cor­ri­g­an asked the group, which was filmed and livestreamed but has attract­ed lit­tle notice beyond con­ser­v­a­tive media. “I would rec­om­mend the Free­dom Cau­cus would be grant­ed a spe­cif­ic num­ber of com­mit­tee assign­ments, and com­mit­tee and sub­com­mit­tee chair­man­ships,” as well as a vari­ety of oth­er new pow­ers, includ­ing putting a Free­dom Cau­cus mem­ber as chair­man of the pow­er­ful House Rules Com­mit­tee.

...

The episode sug­gests that the endgame for the approx­i­mate­ly 20 hard-right House mem­bers who have vot­ed against McCarthy for speak­er of the House is more ambi­tious than mere­ly boost­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the House for Free­dom Cau­cus mem­bers — it is about secur­ing the Free­dom Cau­cus a say in all deci­sion-mak­ing made by the new Repub­li­can major­i­ty.

Rather than extract­ing con­ces­sions from McCarthy, the actions this week by the small group of break­away Repub­li­cans appear to be fol­low­ing Corrigan’s game plan to essen­tial­ly co-gov­ern the low­er cham­ber of the leg­isla­tive branch.

...

After the midterms, Cor­ri­g­an advised the law­mak­ers to lever­age House Repub­li­cans’ nar­row­er-than-expect­ed major­i­ty as a nego­ti­at­ing tool.

The House Free­dom Cau­cus, Cor­ri­g­an said at the Nov. 14, 2022, meet­ing, “has extra­or­di­nary pow­er to nego­ti­ate a lead­er­ship arrange­ment” and urged them to try to extract a litany of con­ces­sions from McCarthy, some of which had been float­ed pre­vi­ous­ly by Free­dom Cau­cus mem­bers as they pre­pared for Repub­li­cans to retake the House. Free­dom Cau­cus mem­bers should “nego­ti­ate direct­ly with the speak­er for com­mit­tee posi­tions for Free­dom Cau­cus mem­bers,” as well as “a spe­cif­ic num­ber of com­mit­tee assign­ments and full com­mit­tee and sub­com­mit­tee chair­man­ships,” he said.

Cor­ri­g­an sug­gest­ed the Free­dom Cau­cus ask for changes to the “motion to vacate” rule, which allows mem­bers to call a vote over the speak­er­ship. As of Thurs­day, McCarthy appeared pre­pared to restore the motion to vacate in accor­dance with con­ser­v­a­tives’ demands.

Cor­ri­g­an also made a case that the Free­dom Cau­cus should nego­ti­ate for the chair­man­ship of the pow­er­ful House Rules Com­mit­tee, “or at least three of the four mem­bers.”

The House Rules Com­mit­tee deter­mines how many amend­ments and which amend­ments are offered on the House floor, grant­i­ng its mem­bers extra­or­di­nary pow­er to guide the busi­ness of Con­gress. The rules com­mit­tee is usu­al­ly made up of tenured law­mak­ers and allies of the speak­er.
...

And note how Cor­ri­g­an was­n’t the only senior CPI fig­ure to encour­age the House Free­dom Cau­cus to take a hard line on McCarthy’s speak­er­ship. CPI chair­man Jim DeMint signed a state­ment for­mal­ly call­ing on the House to pick some­one oth­er than McCarthy. The whole fias­co we just wit­nessed was a CPI-orches­trat­ed event:

...
On Wednes­day, anoth­er CPI leader — its chair­man, Jim DeMint — signed on to a state­ment with oth­er con­ser­v­a­tive lead­ers for­mal­ly call­ing on the House to pick a speak­er oth­er than McCarthy.
...

Nor is it sur­pris­ing to see the key fig­ures lead­ing the ‘nev­er-Kevin’ fac­tion last week — Gaetz, Boe­bert, Roy, and Don­alds — were all fea­tured in a CPI tes­ti­mo­ni­al video last year. The CPI is like a fusion cen­ter for the ‘anti-estab­lish­ment’ fac­tions of the con­ser­v­a­tive estab­lish­ment, where MAGA fer­vor meets mega-donor dol­lars and the House Free­dom Cau­cus is effec­tive­ly a CPI sub­sidiary in con­gress. That’s a key part of the sto­ry here: when Ed Cor­ri­g­an was advo­cat­ing for the cre­ation of a Euro­pean-style par­lia­men­tary coali­tion-style gov­ern­ment where the Free­dom Cau­cus is giv­en a range of spe­cial coali­tion-part­ner pow­ers, those would effec­tive­ly be the CPI’s pow­ers too:

...
The House Free­dom Cau­cus — an influ­en­tial, invi­ta­tion-only group of about three dozen of the most right-lean­ing mem­bers of the House, which does not make its mem­ber list pub­lic — has close ties to CPI.

The two fundrais­ing arms of the Free­dom Cau­cus — House Free­dom Fund and House Free­dom Action — are based out of the CPI office, mak­ing month­ly office rent pay­ments total­ing $8,000 to an LLC tied to the insti­tute, accord­ing to Fed­er­al Elec­tion Com­mis­sion data, and the Free­dom Cau­cus holds its week­ly meet­ings at CPI’s Capi­tol Hill head­quar­ters.

Mem­bers who have vot­ed against McCarthy this week are almost all Free­dom Cau­cus mem­bers or were endorsed by the Free­dom Cau­cus’ cam­paign arm, and many have close ties to CPI. The break­away group’s choice for speak­er on Wednes­day, Rep. Byron Don­alds, R‑Fla., appeared last year in a tes­ti­mo­ni­al video for CPI along with Gaetz and Reps. Lau­ren Boe­bert, R‑Colo., and Chip Roy, R‑Texas, each of whom have sup­port­ed Don­alds’ bid for speak­er.

Oth­er mem­bers who vot­ed against McCarthy this week include Reps. Matt Rosendale, R‑Mont., and Paul Gosar, R‑Ariz., who have paid mem­ber­ship dues to CPI, accord­ing to FEC records.
...

And, of course, we can’t for­get the CNP angle to this sto­ry. Because it was­n’t just Ed Cor­ri­g­an push­ing this strat­e­gy at that Novem­ber 14 meet­ing. It was a four-per­son pan­el con­sist­ing of for­mer Repub­li­can Study Com­mit­tee direc­tor Paul Teller and senior CPI offi­cials, Cor­ri­g­an, Mark Mead­ows and Rachel Bovard. And while it’s unclear at this point whether or not Mead­ows — who co-found­ed House Free­dom Cau­cus in 2015 — is a for­mal mem­ber of the CNP, it should come as no sur­prise to find Teller, Bovard, and Cor­ri­g­an on the leaked CNP mem­ber­ship lists. Along with Jim DeMint. This behind-the-scenes push to get the House Free­dom Cau­cus to do exact­ly what it did last week was­n’t just a CPI ini­tia­tive. It was a CNP pow­er-play. That worked:

...
Address­ing the law­mak­ers at the Novem­ber forum was a four-per­son pan­el includ­ing for­mer Repub­li­can Study Com­mit­tee direc­tor Paul Teller and three lead­ers of the influ­en­tial far-right non­prof­it Con­ser­v­a­tive Part­ner­ship Insti­tute (CPI): Cor­ri­g­an, pres­i­dent of CPI and a for­mer mem­ber of Don­ald Trump’s tran­si­tion team; CPI senior part­ner Mark Mead­ows, a for­mer law­mak­er who in 2015 filed the “motion to vacate” that led to John Boehner’s removal as speak­er of the House; and CPI senior pol­i­cy direc­tor Rachel Bovard, a for­mer long­time Capi­tol Hill aide.
...

And as the fol­low­ing Yahoo News arti­cle from Fri­day morn­ing points out, the let­ter signed by Jim DeMint call­ing for House Repub­li­cans to join the ‘Nev­er Kevin’ cau­cus had some co-sign­ers who should sound famil­iar at this point: Cle­ta Mitchell, Russ Vought, and Gin­ni Thomas. Three of the most promi­nent con­ser­v­a­tive activists in DC. This was their ‘Nev­er Kevin’ pow­er grab too:

Yahoo News

House mem­bers block­ing McCarthy speak­er bid meet at offices of ex-Trump chief Mark Mead­ows

Jon Ward·Chief Nation­al Cor­re­spon­dent
Fri, Jan­u­ary 6, 2023 at 10:22 AM CST

Sev­er­al Repub­li­can House mem­bers fight­ing to stop Rep. Kevin McCarthy from becom­ing speak­er met Fri­day morn­ing at the offices of the Con­ser­v­a­tive Part­ner­ship Insti­tute, an orga­ni­za­tion run by Mark Mead­ows and Jim DeMint.

Mead­ows, a for­mer Repub­li­can con­gress­man from North Car­oli­na, was chief of staff to for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and played a cen­tral role in efforts to over­turn the 2020 elec­tion. He joined CPI as senior part­ner in Jan­u­ary 2021, a few weeks after Trump sup­port­ers stormed the U.S. Capi­tol on Jan. 6.

DeMint, a for­mer Repub­li­can sen­a­tor from South Car­oli­na, launched CPI in 2017. Since Trump left office in 2021, it has become a con­nec­tive hub for a host of for­mer Trump advis­ers, includ­ing Mead­ows, bud­get chief Russ Vought and advis­er Stephen Miller.

A lit­tle before 8:30 a.m. on Fri­day, Yahoo News observed sev­er­al House Repub­li­cans who are lead­ing the effort to block McCarthy, a Cal­i­for­nia Repub­li­can, walk­ing into the CPI offices a few blocks from the Capi­tol.

Rep. Andy Big­gs, R‑Ariz., a leader of the anti-McCarthy dri­ve who was also deeply involved in the Trump 2020 effort, did not answer ques­tions from Yahoo News on why he was going to the CPI offices as he walked in the front door.

Oth­er Repub­li­can mem­bers observed walk­ing into CPI includ­ed Byron Don­alds of Flori­da, Paul Gosar of Ari­zona, Ralph Nor­man of South Car­oli­na, Scott Per­ry of Penn­syl­va­nia and Matt Gaetz of Flori­da. Chip Roy of Texas was seen in the pas­sen­ger seat of a car sit­ting out­side the CPI offices and appeared ready to go in.

...

Mead­ows did not respond to a text mes­sage seek­ing com­ment about the meet­ing and how per­son­al­ly involved he is in the anti-McCarthy effort. But mul­ti­ple Repub­li­can sources on Capi­tol Hill had men­tioned that Mead­ows is involved in the attempt to stop McCarthy from becom­ing speak­er — even as his for­mer boss, Trump, has endorsed McCarthy and giv­en him his sup­port.

Most of the Repub­li­can con­gress­men at CPI on Fri­day morn­ing have been gath­er­ing there for months. CPI’s social media accounts include many pic­tures and videos show­ing these Repub­li­cans talk­ing about meet­ing there and using the organization’s facil­i­ties to do inter­views with right-wing media.

DeMint said in a pro­mo­tion­al video that CPI is “pro­vid­ing resources, facil­i­ties and staff” to mem­bers of Con­gress whom it sup­ports.

“When you take a stand here, you have to know some­one has your back,” Rep. Lau­ren Boe­bert, R‑Colo., says in a CPI video, strid­ing briskly out of a House office build­ing while dra­mat­ic music plays in the back­ground.

Mead­ows is the first per­son to appear in that video. He slams “polit­i­cal horse trad­ing, par­ti­san pow­er shifts and back­door pol­i­tick­ing” and says that these things “have result­ed in grid­lock that is crush­ing the Amer­i­can peo­ple.”

...

On Wednes­day, DeMint was one of sev­er­al Repub­li­can fig­ures to sign a let­ter call­ing on oth­er House Repub­li­cans to join the anti-McCarthy effort.

Vought, who is a close ally of Mead­ows, also signed the let­ter, as did Cle­ta Mitchell and Gin­ni Thomas. Mitchell is an attor­ney who was deeply involved in Trump’s attempts to stay in pow­er, and who now works at CPI as a senior legal fel­low. Thomas, who cor­re­spond­ed with Mead­ows about efforts to over­turn the 2020 elec­tion in the days lead­ing up to the Jan. 6 riot, is the wife of Supreme Court Jus­tice Clarence Thomas.

Mead­ows did not sign the let­ter.

———–

“House mem­bers block­ing McCarthy speak­er bid meet at offices of ex-Trump chief Mark Mead­ows” by Jon Ward; Yahoo News; 01/06/2023

“A lit­tle before 8:30 a.m. on Fri­day, Yahoo News observed sev­er­al House Repub­li­cans who are lead­ing the effort to block McCarthy, a Cal­i­for­nia Repub­li­can, walk­ing into the CPI offices a few blocks from the Capi­tol.”

A morn­ing hud­dle at the CPI’s offices. That’s how the group of ‘Nev­er Kevin’ hold outs start­ed the day on Fri­day. Andy Big­gs, Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz, Ralph Nor­man, Scott Per­ry, and Chip Roy were all spot­ted by Yahoo News at the CPI office Fri­day morn­ing. And most of them have been gath­er­ing there for months:

Rep. Andy Big­gs, R‑Ariz., a leader of the anti-McCarthy dri­ve who was also deeply involved in the Trump 2020 effort, did not answer ques­tions from Yahoo News on why he was going to the CPI offices as he walked in the front door.

Oth­er Repub­li­can mem­bers observed walk­ing into CPI includ­ed Byron Don­alds of Flori­da, Paul Gosar of Ari­zona, Ralph Nor­man of South Car­oli­na, Scott Per­ry of Penn­syl­va­nia and Matt Gaetz of Flori­da. Chip Roy of Texas was seen in the pas­sen­ger seat of a car sit­ting out­side the CPI offices and appeared ready to go in.

...

Mead­ows did not respond to a text mes­sage seek­ing com­ment about the meet­ing and how per­son­al­ly involved he is in the anti-McCarthy effort. But mul­ti­ple Repub­li­can sources on Capi­tol Hill had men­tioned that Mead­ows is involved in the attempt to stop McCarthy from becom­ing speak­er — even as his for­mer boss, Trump, has endorsed McCarthy and giv­en him his sup­port.

Most of the Repub­li­can con­gress­men at CPI on Fri­day morn­ing have been gath­er­ing there for months. CPI’s social media accounts include many pic­tures and videos show­ing these Repub­li­cans talk­ing about meet­ing there and using the organization’s facil­i­ties to do inter­views with right-wing media.

...

“When you take a stand here, you have to know some­one has your back,” Rep. Lau­ren Boe­bert, R‑Colo., says in a CPI video, strid­ing briskly out of a House office build­ing while dra­mat­ic music plays in the back­ground.

Mead­ows is the first per­son to appear in that video. He slams “polit­i­cal horse trad­ing, par­ti­san pow­er shifts and back­door pol­i­tick­ing” and says that these things “have result­ed in grid­lock that is crush­ing the Amer­i­can peo­ple.”
...

And it’s not like the CNP and CPI are hid­ing their roles in lead­ing the ‘Nev­er Kevin’ show­down. Join­ing Jim DeMint in sign­ing the let­ter call­ing on oth­er House Repub­li­cans to join that in oppos­ing McCarthy was none oth­er than Cle­ta Mitchell, Russ Vought, and Gin­ni Thomas. As we’ve seen, Mitchell and Thomas are both promi­nent CNP mem­bers with Thomas sit­ting on the board of CNP Action, the CNP’s lob­by­ing arm. And while Vought him­self does­n’t show up on the leaked CNP mem­ber­ship lists, his wife Mary does. With Vought and Mitchell lead­ing the CPI’s ongo­ing ‘Sched­ule F’ and ‘Elec­tion Integri­ty’ efforts, respec­tive­ly, that was effec­tive­ly a let­ter from the CPI lead­er­ship to the Repub­li­can House cau­cus, with Gin­ni Thomas there to remind every­one that the CPI is just an exten­sion of the CNP:

...
On Wednes­day, DeMint was one of sev­er­al Repub­li­can fig­ures to sign a let­ter call­ing on oth­er House Repub­li­cans to join the anti-McCarthy effort.

Vought, who is a close ally of Mead­ows, also signed the let­ter, as did Cle­ta Mitchell and Gin­ni Thomas. Mitchell is an attor­ney who was deeply involved in Trump’s attempts to stay in pow­er, and who now works at CPI as a senior legal fel­low. Thomas, who cor­re­spond­ed with Mead­ows about efforts to over­turn the 2020 elec­tion in the days lead­ing up to the Jan. 6 riot, is the wife of Supreme Court Jus­tice Clarence Thomas.
...

These weren’t just ran­dom con­ser­v­a­tive activists. The guid­ance of the peo­ple who signed that let­ter car­ries enor­mous weight in Repub­li­can DC cir­cles.

But it’s also impor­tant to note that it was­n’t just DeMint, Vought, Mead­ows, and Thomas who signed that let­ter last week call­ing on House Repub­li­cans to stand with the ‘Nev­er Kevins’. Over two dozen con­ser­v­a­tive lead­ers signed the opin­ion. With just one CNP mem­ber after anoth­er. Let’s see...when we look at that list of 72 sig­na­tures that was pub­licly sent out in that at Jan 4 let­ter to the House Repub­li­cans, we find near­ly 50 sig­na­tures for CNP mem­bers or peo­ple involved with the CPI or CPI spin­offs. This was a mes­sage from the CNP

* (CNP mem­ber) The Hon­or­able J. Ken­neth Black­well
Chair­man, Con­ser­v­a­tive Action Project
Chair­man, CNP Action, Inc.

* (CNP mem­ber) Jen­ny Beth Mar­tin
Chair­man
Tea Par­ty Patri­ots Cit­i­zen Fund

* (CNP mem­ber) L. Brent Bozell III
Founder and Pres­i­dent
Media Research Cen­ter

* (CNP mem­ber) The Hon­or­able Jim DeMint
Chair­man, Con­ser­v­a­tive Part­ner­ship Insti­tute
Mem­ber, US Sen­ate (SC 2005–2013)

* (CNP mem­ber) David N. Bossie
Pres­i­dent
Cit­i­zens Unit­ed

* (CNP mem­ber) Lori Roman
Pres­i­dent
ACRU Action Fund

* (CNP mem­ber) Kel­ly J. Shack­elford, Esq.
Pres­i­dent and CEO
First Lib­er­ty Insti­tute

* Andrew Roth
Pres­i­dent
State Free­dom Cau­cus Net­work

* (CNP mem­ber) Ed Cor­ri­g­an
Vice Chair­man, Con­ser­v­a­tive Action Project
Pres­i­dent & CEO, Con­ser­v­a­tive Part­ner­ship Insti­tute

* (CNP mem­ber) Cle­ta Mitchell, Esq.
Senior Legal Fel­low
Con­ser­v­a­tive Part­ner­ship Insti­tute

* (CNP mem­ber) The Hon­or­able Becky Nor­ton Dun­lop
White House Advi­sor
Pres­i­dent Ronald Rea­gan (1981–1985)

* (co-found­ed the CPI spin­off the Amer­i­ca Account­abil­i­ty Foun­da­tion and a for­mer staffer for Jim DeMint) Tom Jones
Co-Founder
Amer­i­can Account­abil­i­ty Foun­da­tion

* (CNP mem­ber) The Hon­or­able Edwin Meese III
Attor­ney Gen­er­al
Pres­i­dent Ronald Rea­gan (1985–1988)

* (CNP exec­u­tive direc­tor and pres­i­dent of CNP Action) The Hon­or­able Bob McEwen
U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives
For­mer Mem­ber, Ohio

* Thomas E. McClusky
Prin­ci­pal
Green­light Strate­gies, LLC

* (CNP mem­ber) The Hon­or­able Mor­ton C. Black­well
Pres­i­dent
The Lead­er­ship Insti­tute

* (wife Mary is a CNP mem­ber)The Hon­or­able Russ Vought
Direc­tor
Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get (2020–2021)

* Noah Wall
Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent
Free­dom­Works

* (CNP mem­ber) William L. Wal­ton
The Bill Wal­ton Show
Res­olute Pro­tec­tor Foun­da­tion

* Myron Ebell

* (CNP mem­ber) David Bozell
Pres­i­dent
ForAmer­i­ca

* (CNP mem­ber) Gin­ni Thomas
Pres­i­dent
Lib­er­ty Con­sult­ing

* Ter­ry Schilling
Pres­i­dent
Amer­i­can Prin­ci­ples Project

* (CNP mem­ber) Alfred S. Reg­n­ery
Pres­i­dent
Repub­lic Book Pub­lish­ers

* (CNP mem­ber) Chad Con­nel­ly
Founder and Pres­i­dent
Faith Wins

* (CNP mem­ber) Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
Exec­u­tive Chair­man
Cen­ter for Secu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy

* (CNP mem­ber) The Hon­or­able David McIn­tosh
Pres­i­dent
Club for Growth

* (CNP mem­ber) Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin (Ret.)
Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent
Fam­i­ly Research Coun­cil

* Scott T. Parkin­son
Vice Pres­i­dent for Gov­ern­ment Affairs
Club for Growth

* (the CPI’s COO) Wes­ley Den­ton
Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer
Con­ser­v­a­tive Part­ner­ship Insti­tute (CPI)

* (assumed CNP mem­ber) Seton Mot­ley
Pres­i­dent
Less Gov­ern­ment

* (CNP mem­ber) Kha­dine Rit­ter
Chair
Eagle Forum of Ohio

* Kris­ten A. Ull­man
Pres­i­dent
Eagle Forum

* Dr. Vir­ginia Arm­strong
Nat’l. Chrm., Law & World­view Pro­gram
Eagle Forum

* (CNP mem­ber) Karen Eng­land
Pres­i­dent
Capi­tol Resource Insti­tute

* (CNP mem­ber) The Hon­or­able Gary L. Bauer
Pres­i­dent
Amer­i­can Val­ues

* (CNP mem­ber) The Hon­or­able George K. Rasley Jr.
Man­ag­ing Edi­tor
ConservativeHQ.com

* Mike Davis
Founder and Pres­i­dent
Arti­cle III Project (A3P) and Inter­net Account­abil­i­ty Project (IAP)

* (CNP mem­ber) Allen J. Hebert
Chair­man
Amer­i­can-Chi­nese Fel­low­ship of Hous­ton

* Ralph Rebandt
For­mer 2022 Guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date
Ralph Rebandt for Michi­gan Gov­er­nor

* The Hon­or­able Louis F. Ter­har
Ohio State Sen­a­tor (Ret.)
CNP, Board of Gov­er­nors

* (CNP mem­ber) C. Pre­ston Noell III
Pres­i­dent
Tra­di­tion, Fam­i­ly, Prop­er­ty, Inc.

* Melvin Adams
Pres­i­dent
Noah Web­ster Edu­ca­tion­al Foun­da­tion

* Car­ol Rebandt
Chief of Staff
2022 Cam­paign to elect Ralph Rebandt for Michi­gan Gov­er­nor

* (CNP mem­ber) Floyd Brown
Founder
The West­ern Jour­nal

* (CNP mem­ber) Deb­bie Geor­gatos
Host, Amer­i­ca Can We Talk?
CWT Pub­li­ca­tions, LLC

* (CNP mem­ber) Rob Gluskin
Man­ag­ing Part­ner
Gluskin Invest­ment Part­ners

* (CNP mem­ber) Richard Roun­savelle
Trustee
MRC

* (CNP mem­ber) The Hon­or­able Mike Hill
For­mer Mem­ber
Flori­da State House

* (CNP mem­ber) Robert K. Fis­ch­er
Meet­ing Coor­di­na­tor
Con­ser­v­a­tives of Faith

* (key archi­tect of the insur­rec­tion) Dr. John C. East­man
Part­ner
Con­sti­tu­tion­al Coun­sel Group

* (CNP mem­ber) Deb­bie Wuth­now
Pres­i­dent
IVoter­Guide

* (wife Becky is a CNP mem­ber) The Hon­or­able George Dun­lop
Senior Pol­i­cy Advi­sor Trump Tran­si­tion 2017
Trump Tran­si­tion 2017

* Sheryl Kauf­man
Board Mem­ber
Amer­i­cans for Lim­it­ed Gov­ern­ment

* Ron Arm­strong
Pres­i­dent
Stand Up Michi­gan Inc

* Ned Jones
Deputy Direc­tor
Elec­tion Integri­ty Net­work

* The Hon­or­able Steve King
Mem­ber, U.S. Con­gress (Ret.)

* (CNP mem­ber) The Hon­or­able Jake Hoff­man
Pres­i­dent & CEO
1TEN | A Cre­ative Agency

* The Hon­or­able Lau­rin Hen­drix
Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Elect
AZ Leg­is­la­ture

* The Hon­or­able Antho­ny Kern
Mem­ber
Ari­zona State Sen­ate

* (CNP mem­ber) Brigitte Gabriel
CEO, ACT For Amer­i­ca
ACT For Amer­i­ca

* The Hon­or­able Jacque­line Park­er
Mem­ber
AZ State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives

* Jessie Jane Duff
Gun­nery Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps (ret)
2020 Cam­paign Co-Chair Vet­er­ans for Trump

* (CNP mem­ber) Dr. Jerome R. Cor­si, Ph.D.
Founders and CEO
Corstet LLC

* (CNP mem­ber) E.C. Sykes
Gen­er­al Part­ner
Aslan Ven­tures

* The Hon­or­able Joseph Chap­lik
Ari­zona State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive
Ari­zona House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives

* (assumed CNP mem­ber) Eunie Smith
Pres­i­dent Emer­i­tus
Eagle Forum

* (CNP mem­ber) Amy Kre­mer
Chair­woman
Women for Amer­i­ca First

* (CNP mem­ber) John Stem­berg­er
Pres­i­dent
Flori­da Fam­i­ly Action

* (CNP mem­ber) Tim Macy
Chair­man
Gun Own­ers of Amer­i­ca

* (CNP mem­ber) The Hon­or­able T. Ken­neth Cribb, Jr.
Chief Domes­tic Advi­sor
Pres­i­dent Ronald Rea­gan (1987–1988)

* Jim Hoft
Founder Edi­tor
The Gate­way Pun­dit

———-
They weren’t all CNP mem­bers. But the vast major­i­ty sure were. Because that’s who sent this mes­sage. A net­work inside in US con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment so pow­er­ful that elect­ed Repub­li­cans can’t pos­si­bly ignore them. And that mes­sage was indeed received. The hold­outs got their spe­cial pow­ers to blow up the gov­ern­ment and econ­o­my. Pre­sum­ably along with spe­cial orders for how to use those pow­ers at the right oppor­tu­ni­ty. The CNP’s insur­rec­tion on Jan 6 may not have suc­ceed­ed but its hos­tile takeover of the GOP appears to have worked.

It’s pret­ty clear that Ron DeSan­tis is run­ning for the White House in 2024. And it’s abun­dant­ly clear that ‘anti-wokeism’ will be a cen­tral theme for any future DeSan­tis cam­paigns. And as we learned last week, Ron DeSan­tis is plan­ning on build­ing a very real sym­bol for his anti-woke cru­sade. Specif­i­cal­ly, a “Hills­dale Col­lege for the south,” as Flori­da Edu­ca­tion Com­mis­sion­er Man­ny Diaz put it. Yep, Ron DeSan­tis is plan­ning on build­ing an ide­o­log­i­cal­ly cleansed col­lege as part of Flori­da’s pub­lic uni­ver­si­ty sys­tem. It’s “Project Blitz” for Flori­da pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties. Sur­prise.

But Ron DeSan­tis isn’t plan­ning on build­ing this new Hills­dale from scratch. No, DeSan­tis just enact­ed a hos­tile takeover of the small New Col­lege of Flori­da pub­lic uni­ver­si­ty, known for its aca­d­e­m­ic excel­lence and large­ly pro­gres­sive stu­dent body. New Col­lege is going to be turned into Hills­dale, with none oth­er than Christo­pher Rufo — the archi­tect of the cyn­i­cal anti-Crit­i­cal Race The­o­ry man­u­fac­tured hys­te­ria — lead­ing the way as one of the new mem­bers of the New Col­lege board. A new con­ser­v­a­tive ‘clas­si­cal’ cur­ricu­lum is to be craft­ed with new con­ser­v­a­tive fac­ul­ty slat­ed to be brought on board to teach it. That’s the plan and Flori­da’s GOP appears to be ful­ly on board.

New Col­lege of Flori­da is going to become a show­case for DeSan­tis’s anti-woke polit­i­cal cru­sade and this is going to be play­ing out dur­ing his 2024 run. So while the ‘new’ New Col­lege may not be ready to show­case to the nation in 2024, the ide­o­log­i­cal ‘anti-woke’ purge that has to hap­pen firest will be in full swing. And the purge is the point, at least polit­i­cal­ly speak­ing.

Yes, roil­ing New Col­lege and trolling the lib­er­al stu­dent body with anti-wokeism is part of Ron DeSan­tis’s planned 2024 cam­paign strat­e­gy. Keep in mind that this is the same man who played with the lives of migrant refugees for poli­ical fun. What kind of sadis­tic haz­ing does he have in mind for the LGBTQ-friend­ly New Col­lege stu­dent body? We’ll find out. They are indeed ‘woke’. All of the ingre­di­ents for epic trolling by DeSan­tis is there. It’s hard to see how he’ll be able to resist.

But as we also have to keep in mind, when we’re talk­ing about the ide­o­log­i­cal purge of aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions that’s not just an exam­ple of the ongo­ing Sched­ule F plot in action, but also an exam­ple of the broad­er insti­tu­tion­al purge called for by in Cur­tis Yarv­in’s vision for a right-wing cap­ture of Amer­i­ca’s insti­tu­tions. A cap­ture that goes beyond the purge of gov­ern­ment work­forces and includes a mass purge of the media and acad­e­mia. As we’ve seen, it’s a vision that’s been get­ting awful­ly pop­u­lar in right-wing cir­cles in recent years with fol­low­ers that include Steve Ban­non and JD Vance. And now it’s look­ing like Ron DeSan­tis is prepar­ing to make Cur­tis Yarv­in’s mass purge vision part of his 2024 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. DeSan­tis and the GOP won’t admit this is pure Yarvin, but we’re look­ing at Yarv­in’s vision come alive in Flori­da, as a tem­plate for the nation.

It should also come as no sur­prise that Flori­da’s GOP is open­ing talk­ing about turn­ing New Col­lege specif­i­cal­ly into a “Hills­dale of the south”. As we’ve seen, Hills­dale Col­lege is effec­tive­ly the tem­plate insti­tu­tion for the CNP’s “Project Blitz” Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist agen­da. In par­tic­u­lar, the “Civic Alliance” project push­ing the “Amer­i­can Birthright” cur­ricu­lum ‘tem­plate’ on state leg­is­la­tures and gov­er­nors. As we saw, the “Amer­i­can Birthright” cur­ricu­lum was launched by the CNP-affil­i­at­ed Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Schol­ars (NAS) and assem­bled by a kind of insti­tu­tion­al who’s-who of the right-wing US think-tanks, includ­ing the Clare­mont Insti­tute, the Fam­i­ly Research Coun­cil (FRC) and the Dis­cov­ery Insti­tute (all with CNP mem­bers in their lead­er­ship), along with a num­ber of oth­er CNP mem­bers like CNP co-founder Richard Viguerie. Oth­er coau­thors, con­sul­tants, and board mem­bers involved with the cre­ation of the “Amer­i­can Birthright” cur­ricu­lum include mul­ti­ple staffers asso­ci­at­ed with Hills­dale and Mari Barke, whose hus­band runs one of Hills­dale Col­lege’s char­ter school. The “Amer­i­can Birthright” cur­ricu­lum cites Hills­dale’s “1776 Cur­ricu­lum.” And when Flori­da gov­er­nor Ron DeSan­tis unveiled the new Flori­da edu­ca­tion­al stan­dards focused on fight­ing ‘wok­e­ness’ in pub­lic schools, it was none oth­er than Hills­dale Col­lege that his admin­is­tra­tion con­sult­ed with in cre­at­ing the new stan­dards. Hills­dale’s “1776 Cur­ricu­lum” is the tem­plate for the impo­si­tion of a strict Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist world­view on every pub­lic school stu­dent in Amer­i­ca.

We got anoth­er exam­ple of the role the Hills­dale 1776 Cur­ricu­lum is play­ing in this effort back in 2021 when a cabal of CNP mem­bers took over the school board of Wood­land Park, Col­orado, back in 2021, it was the “1776 Cur­ricu­lum” craft­ed by Hills­dale for use in pub­lic schools they end­ed up forc­ing onto the dis­tric­t’s schools. Sim­i­lar­ly, when Ten­nessee gov­er­nor Bill Lee attempt­ed to set up a net­work of 50 pri­vate­ly oper­at­ed pub­licly fund­ed char­ter schools, it was Hills­dale’s 1776 Cur­ricu­lum that we was intend­ing they teach. Hills­dale’s 1776 Cur­ricu­lum is the CNP’s tem­plate for the Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist cap­ture of the US pub­lic schools.

Or “recap­ture” of pub­lic edu­ca­tion, as Christo­pher Rufo recent­ly put it in an opin­ion piece we’re going to exam­ine below. Rufo cel­e­brates the mis­sion he’s been giv­en to trans­form New Col­lege as DeSan­tis ini­ti­at­ing the first push­back against a decades long march across the insti­tu­tions by a New Left cabal intent on destroy­ing soci­ety. And as Rufo put it in his piece, “Gov­er­nor DeSan­tis has tasked us with some­thing that has nev­er been done: insti­tu­tion­al recap­ture. If we are suc­cess­ful, the effort can serve as a mod­el for oth­er states.” A “recap­ture” of the US’s pub­lic insti­tu­tions from the forces of ‘wok­e­ness’. Those are the ambi­tions Rufo is describ­ing and they aren’t just his own. This is Project Blitz — the Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist takeover of pub­lic edu­ca­tion in Amer­i­can — in action. Hills­dale is the tem­plate for that “recap­ture”. A tem­plate they want to take nation­wide.

Join­ing Rufo is five oth­er con­ser­v­a­tives tasked with the same “recap­ture” mis­sion. In addi­tion, the state Board of Gov­er­nors — which over­sees the uni­ver­si­ty sys­tem and is filled with DeSan­tis allies — gets five more appointees to the board, mean­ing the New Col­lege board is poised to become major­i­ty-ruled by a cabal tasked with turn­ing it into the ‘Hills­dale of the South’. It’s hap­pen­ing.

Oth­er DeSan­tis appointees join­ing Rufo include Matthew Spald­ing and Charles Kesler. Spald­ing is a pro­fes­sor of con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­ern­ment at Hills­dale Col­lege and the dean of Hills­dale’s grad­u­ate school of gov­ern­ment in DC. Spald­ing also pre­vi­ous­ly served as vice pres­i­dent of Amer­i­can stud­ies at the Her­itage Foun­da­tion. Kesler is a pro­fes­sor of gov­ern­ment at Clare­mont McKen­na Col­lege and a senior fel­low at The Clare­mont Insti­tute. This is a good time to recall how Dr. Lar­ry P. Arnn — the Pres­i­dent of Hills­dale Col­lege, Her­itage Foun­da­tion trustee, and co-founder of the Clare­mont Insti­tute — is on the CNP mem­ber­ship list. In addi­tion, Dou­glas A. Jef­frey — VP for Exter­nal Affairs and Hills­dale Col­lege, and for­mer exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent of the Clare­mont Insti­tute — is also on the CNP mem­ber­ship list.

It’s also worth recall­ing how it was the Clare­mont Insti­tute’s John East­man who played a key role in for­mu­lat­ing a num­ber of dif­fer­ent legal jus­ti­fi­ca­tions for over­turn­ing the 2020 elec­tion results. And CNP-mem­ber Gin­ni Thomas — who played a sig­nif­i­cant role of her own in the post-2020 elec­tion schem­ing that led up to the Jan 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion includ­ing arrang­ing meet­ings between East­man and con­ser­v­a­tive activists — ran a DC-based con­sti­tu­tion­al stud­ies cen­ter at Hills­dale fol­low­ing her five year stint at the Her­itage Foun­da­tion. It’s the same over­ar­ch­ing net­work of peo­ple and move­ment pop­u­lat­ing all and these insti­tu­tions. That’s why we keep see­ing them work­ing hand-in-hand on one major project after anoth­er. This is ‘the vast right-wing con­spir­a­cy’ in action.

And as we’ve also seen, that broad­er ‘vast right-wing con­spir­a­cy’ agen­da now includes the ongo­ing Sched­ule F plot, in which Hills­dale plays a role. Recall how the CPI-spin­off, Amer­i­can Moment — found­ed by CNP-mem­ber Saurabh Shar­ma — is focused on recruit­ing from the cam­pus­es of con­ser­v­a­tive reli­gious col­leges in their hunt for poten­tial can­di­dates to fill all the gov­ern­ment posi­tions that will have to be filled after mass fir­ings, with Shar­ma specif­i­cal­ly nam­ing Hills­dale as the type of school his group is tar­get­ing. As we should expect, Rufo is promis­ing to hire a slew of new pro­fes­sors for New Col­lege. It’s going to be inter­est­ing to see how many Hills­dale pro­fes­sors, or new grad­u­ates, the new board ulti­mate­ly impos­es on New Col­lege.

It appears to be a very seri­ous plan, which is why this is going to be grim­ly fas­ci­nat­ing to watch play out. Because while they do appear to be very seri­ous about impos­ing a top-down ide­o­log­i­cal flip on New Col­lege’s cur­ricu­lum and fac­ul­ty, it does­n’t actu­al­ly appear to be seri­ous in terms of the like­li­hood of suc­cess. At least if suc­cess is defined as cre­at­ing a col­lege that stu­dents want to attend and degrees peo­ple respect. After all, New Col­lege is slat­ed to get “DeSan­tis U” as its new pub­lic brand. What is that kind of aca­d­e­m­ic rep­u­ta­tion going to be worth out­side of con­ser­v­a­tive activist cir­cles?

That chal­lenge in real­is­ti­cal­ly trans­form­ing New Col­lege under a hyper-polit­i­cal agen­da with­out destroy­ing gets at one of the meta-angles to this sto­ry: the far right is real­ly good at destroy­ing things, but not so great at build­ing. ‘Burn­ing it all down’ is the easy part. It’s what comes next where right-wing regimes con­sis­tent­ly fail unless the only thing the pop­u­lace is seek­ing is some sort of author­i­tar­i­an law and order, which is why whip­ping up a state of pub­lic hys­te­ria is always such an impor­tant part of far right pol­i­tics. Pub­lic hys­te­ria that trig­gers a hunger for a strong-man as a replace­ment for effec­tive poli­cies. What DeSan­tis and his CNP allies are try­ing to do here in build­ing a cred­i­ble right-wing aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tion real­ly isn’t in their wheel­house. Yes, destroy­ing New Col­lege as a cen­ter for edu­ca­tion­al excel­lence is some­thing they can do. But reshap­ing it into a respect­ed con­ser­v­a­tive ver­sion of itself is a far greater chal­lenge. A chal­lenge with­out an exist­ing tem­plate. Sure, Hills­dale Col­lege is being treat­ed as the tem­plate, but there’s no tem­plate for trans­form­ing a respect­ed lib­er­al arts pub­lic uni­ver­si­ty into a respect­ed right-wing ‘col­lege of the clas­sics’. This is a new project for the polit­i­cal right, and it’s the same crew that brought us the cur­rent freak­out over ‘crit­i­cal race the­o­ry’ and ‘trans­gen­dered kids’ who are going to be lead­ing this polit­i­cal effort.

We’ll see how much suc­cess they have but, again, this is just the start. The start of the full spec­trum insti­tu­tion­al purge envi­sioned by Cur­tis Yarvin, some­one who just keeps grow­ing in pop­u­lar­i­ty on right. That’s part of what makes Ron DeSan­tis’s ide­o­log­i­cal purge of New Col­lege such a big deal: it’s the tri­al run for a much, much big­ger, prob­a­bly com­ing in 2024:

Sara­so­ta Her­ald-Tri­bune

DeSan­tis seeks to trans­form Sara­so­ta’s New Col­lege with con­ser­v­a­tive board takeover

Zac Ander­son
Pub­lished 1:29 p.m. ET | Updat­ed 11:37 a.m. ET Jan. 7, 2023

Gov. Ron DeSan­tis began the process Fri­day of trans­form­ing Sara­so­ta’s New Col­lege of Flori­da into a more con­ser­v­a­tive insti­tu­tion, appoint­ing six new board mem­bers, includ­ing con­ser­v­a­tive activist Christo­pher Rufo, a dean at con­ser­v­a­tive Hills­dale Col­lege and a senior fel­low at The Clare­mont Insti­tute, a right-wing think tank.

“It is our hope that New Col­lege of Flori­da will become Flori­da’s clas­si­cal col­lege, more along the lines of a Hills­dale of the south,” Flori­da Edu­ca­tion Com­mis­sion­er Man­ny Diaz said in a state­ment.

The shake­up of the 13-mem­ber board is cer­tain to cre­ate major ten­sions at New Col­lege, an insti­tu­tion that start­ed as a pro­gres­sive pri­vate school before becom­ing the state’s lib­er­al arts hon­ors col­lege. The small school’s stu­dent body and fac­ul­ty have a rep­u­ta­tion for lean­ing left polit­i­cal­ly.

Turn­ing New Col­lege into a Flori­da ver­sion of Hills­dale would amount to flip­ping it upside down, a whole­sale rein­ven­tion akin to a hos­tile takeover, and one that many cur­rent stu­dents and fac­ul­ty are like­ly to resist.

DeSan­tis aides blast­ed the school Fri­day and said an over­haul is need­ed.

“Unfor­tu­nate­ly, like so many col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties in Amer­i­ca, this insti­tu­tion has been com­plete­ly cap­tured by a polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy that puts trendy, truth-rel­a­tive con­cepts above learn­ing,” said DeSan­tis Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor Taryn Fenske.

Rufo is known for his activism on trans­gen­der and racial issues, mak­ing him a leader in the new wave of con­ser­v­a­tive cul­ture wars. He joined DeSan­tis when the gov­er­nor signed HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Edu­ca­tion Act, which is derid­ed by crit­ics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Rufo said in a series of Twit­ter posts Fri­day that pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties have “been cor­rupt­ed by woke nihilism” and he is “ready to trans­form high­er edu­ca­tion from with­in.” He said he plans to recruit new fac­ul­ty to New Col­lege to “cre­ate an insti­tu­tion where aca­d­e­mics can thrive, with­out self-cen­sor­ship.”

“My ambi­tion is to help the new board major­i­ty trans­form New Col­lege into a clas­si­cal lib­er­al arts insti­tu­tion. We are recap­tur­ing high­er edu­ca­tion.” Rufo said.

Rufo recent­ly applaud­ed DeSan­tis on Twit­ter for request­ing infor­ma­tion on diver­si­ty, equi­ty and inclu­sion and crit­i­cal race the­o­ry at all Flori­da col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties.

“Gov. DeSan­tis is going to lay siege to uni­ver­si­ty ‘diver­si­ty, equi­ty, and inclu­sion’ pro­grams,” Rufo wrote.

Among Rufo’s goals for New Col­lege that he laid out in a tweet: Restruc­tur­ing the admin­is­tra­tion, devel­op­ing “a new core cur­ricu­lum,” elim­i­nat­ing diver­si­ty, equi­ty and inclu­sion poli­cies and restruc­tur­ing aca­d­e­m­ic depart­ments.

...

Gov. DeSan­tis is going to lay siege to uni­ver­si­ty “diver­si­ty, equi­ty, and inclu­sion” pro­grams. https://t.co/cD1PdiY2Js— Christo­pher F. Rufo ?? (@realchrisrufo) Jan­u­ary 4, 2023

Join­ing Rufo on the New Col­lege board is Matthew Spald­ing, a pro­fes­sor of con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­ern­ment at Hills­dale Col­lege and the dean of the col­lege’s grad­u­ate school of gov­ern­ment in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. Spald­ing pre­vi­ous­ly was vice pres­i­dent of Amer­i­can stud­ies at the con­ser­v­a­tive Her­itage Foun­da­tion.

Hills­dale is a small Chris­t­ian col­lege in Michi­gan that has been active in con­ser­v­a­tive edu­ca­tion pol­i­tics. DeSan­tis spoke at Hills­dale’s Nation­al Lead­er­ship Sem­i­nar last year and has tapped the school to help reshape Flori­da’s edu­ca­tion sys­tem.

Charles Kesler, a pro­fes­sor of gov­ern­ment at Clere­mont McKen­na Col­lege and a senior fel­low at The Clere­mont Insti­tute, also is join­ing the New Col­lege board. Among the books writ­ten by Kesler: “I Am the Change: Barack Oba­ma and the Cri­sis of Lib­er­al­ism.”

The Clere­mont Insti­tute has gained promi­nence in the Trump era.

“Clare­mont schol­ars have col­lab­o­rat­ed with Ron DeSan­tis and helped 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,” the New York Times wrote last year..

Trump lawyer John East­man, anoth­er senior fel­low at The Clare­mont Insti­tute, recent­ly was referred to the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice for inves­ti­ga­tion and poten­tial pros­e­cu­tion by the con­gres­sion­al com­mit­tee inves­ti­gat­ing the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capi­tol. East­man wrote a memo detail­ing strate­gies for over­turn­ing the 2020 elec­tion results.

Appoint­ing promi­nent con­ser­v­a­tives and indi­vid­u­als asso­ci­at­ed with high-pro­file right-wing insti­tu­tions to New Col­lege is an effort by DeSan­tis to com­plete­ly reori­ent the school.

DeSan­tis touched on his goals for high­er edu­ca­tion this month in his sec­ond inau­gu­ra­tion speech.

“We must ensure that our insti­tu­tions of high­er learn­ing are focused on aca­d­e­m­ic excel­lence and the pur­suit of truth, not the impo­si­tion of trendy ide­ol­o­gy,” he said.

DeSan­tis spokesman Bryan Grif­fin high­light­ed the gov­er­nor’s com­ments in a state­ment that declared: “Start­ing today, the ship is turn­ing around. New Col­lege of Flori­da, under the gov­er­nor’s new appointees, will be refo­cused on its found­ing mis­sion of pro­vid­ing a world-class qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion with an excep­tion­al focus on the clas­sics.”

The oth­er new board mem­bers are Mark Bauer­lein, who teach­es at Emory Uni­ver­si­ty, Debra Jenks, a New Col­lege alum and attor­ney, and Jason “Eddie” Speir, the co-founder, chair­man and super­in­ten­dent of Inspi­ra­tion Acad­e­my, a Chris­t­ian school in Braden­ton.

The gov­er­nor gets six appoint­ments to each uni­ver­si­ty board, while the state Board of Gov­er­nors — which over­sees the uni­ver­si­ty sys­tem — gets five. The fac­ul­ty chair and stu­dent body pres­i­dent also serve on the board. The Board of Gov­er­nors, which is loaded with DeSan­tis allies, is poised to appoint a New Col­lege board mem­ber for a seat vacant on Jan. 7, mean­ing a major­i­ty of the board soon will con­sist of new appointees who can con­trol the direc­tion of the school.

New Col­lege Pres­i­dent Patri­cia Okker thanked DeSan­tis “for today’s announce­ment and for the slate of new board mem­bers.”

“I look for­ward to get­ting to know them and work­ing with them to ensure New Col­lege con­tin­ues to serve our stu­dents, com­mu­ni­ty, and state in the years to come,” Okker said in the brief state­ment.

The gov­er­nor’s appoint­ments “fill posi­tions that were pre­vi­ous­ly vacant or expired, and I am grate­ful that New Col­lege will now have a full board,” Okker added. The board mem­bers serve five-year terms.

Efforts to reach New Col­lege alum­ni for com­ment, as well as a foun­da­tion that sup­ports the col­lege, were unsuc­cess­ful Fri­day, and some pro­fes­sors said they did not want to com­ment.

New Col­lege rou­tine­ly ranks well on high­er edu­ca­tion “best of” lists, hav­ing been sin­gled out as a good val­ue and among the best pub­lic lib­er­al arts col­leges. It is known for attract­ing accom­plished stu­dents to an inti­mate set­ting that blends aca­d­e­m­ic rig­or and quirky exper­i­men­tal­ism.

How­ev­er, the school has strug­gled in recent years with low enroll­ment, low scores on a state sys­tem for rank­ing uni­ver­si­ties, con­cerns raised by state law­mak­ers about whether the col­lege is an effi­cient use of pub­lic mon­ey because of the high cost of each degree and ques­tions about the sta­bil­i­ty of its fund­ing.

There was a push by Repub­li­can law­mak­ers in 2020 to merge New Col­lege with anoth­er high­er edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tion. It was blocked by for­mer state Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Bill Gal­vano of Braden­ton.

Gal­vano said at the time that he under­stood the con­cerns about New Col­lege’s cost-per-degree but argued the school “pro­vides a unique bal­ance between a tra­di­tion­al lib­er­al arts expe­ri­ence and a mod­ern, inno­v­a­tive cur­ricu­lum.”

Gal­vano said Fri­day in a text mes­sage that he is “very sup­port­ive of these efforts and think this cre­ates a lot of pos­i­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties for the uni­ver­si­ty.”

Oth­er Repub­li­can lead­ers in Sara­so­ta and Man­a­tee coun­ties also expressed sup­port for the gov­er­nor’s New Col­lege over­haul.

...

The changes at New Col­lege come amid oth­er efforts by DeSan­tis to put his imprint on var­i­ous gov­ern­ment bod­ies, includ­ing the Palm Beach Coun­ty Com­mis­sion and Dis­ney’s Reedy Creek Improve­ment Dis­trict. Demo­c­ra­t­ic state Sen. Lori Berman said the com­bined actions make DeSan­tis look like an “auto­crat.”

“Recent­ly, DeSan­tis installed a Repub­li­can to the PBC Com­mis­sion, announced plans to take over Dis­ney with a state-run board, and flood­ed New Col­lege’s board with con­ser­v­a­tives,” Berman wrote on Twit­ter. “There is no room for dis­sent. Not in local gov­ern­ments, not in busi­ness­es, not in schools. Auto­crat.”

The choic­es for the New Col­lege board drew crit­i­cism from Andrew Gothard, pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed Fac­ul­ty of Flori­da union.

“Like many Florid­i­ans who have ties to the New Col­lege com­mu­ni­ty, UFF (the Unit­ed Fac­ul­ty of Flori­da) was sur­prised and dis­turbed today to see the appoint­ment of six trustees whose only appar­ent inter­est in the insti­tu­tion is polit­i­cal­ly and ide­o­log­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed,” Gothard said in a state­ment to the News Ser­vice.

Gothard said trustees have a “solemn duty” to act in the best inter­est of every­one on cam­pus­es.

“Promis­es to upend pro­grams with ide­o­log­i­cal­ly dri­ven claims that could not be far­ther from the truth of what actu­al­ly occurs in a high­er edu­ca­tion class­room — these do noth­ing to improve New Col­lege, nor will they draw inter­est­ed stu­dents to a cam­pus where trustees are so at odds with the fac­ul­ty, the local admin­is­tra­tion and the truth,” Gothard said.

———–

“DeSan­tis seeks to trans­form Sara­so­ta’s New Col­lege with con­ser­v­a­tive board takeover” by Zac Ander­son; Sara­so­ta Her­ald-Tri­bune; 01/07/2023

““It is our hope that New Col­lege of Flori­da will become Flori­da’s clas­si­cal col­lege, more along the lines of a Hills­dale of the south,” Flori­da Edu­ca­tion Com­mis­sion­er Man­ny Diaz said in a state­ment.”

They aren’t hid­ing it. Flori­da’s GOP wants to turn this high­ly regard­ed left-lean­ing col­lege into a “Hills­dale of the south.” It’s effec­tive­ly an insti­tu­tion­al hos­tile takeover:

...
The shake­up of the 13-mem­ber board is cer­tain to cre­ate major ten­sions at New Col­lege, an insti­tu­tion that start­ed as a pro­gres­sive pri­vate school before becom­ing the state’s lib­er­al arts hon­ors col­lege. The small school’s stu­dent body and fac­ul­ty have a rep­u­ta­tion for lean­ing left polit­i­cal­ly.

Turn­ing New Col­lege into a Flori­da ver­sion of Hills­dale would amount to flip­ping it upside down, a whole­sale rein­ven­tion akin to a hos­tile takeover, and one that many cur­rent stu­dents and fac­ul­ty are like­ly to resist.

...

Appoint­ing promi­nent con­ser­v­a­tives and indi­vid­u­als asso­ci­at­ed with high-pro­file right-wing insti­tu­tions to New Col­lege is an effort by DeSan­tis to com­plete­ly reori­ent the school.
...

And as we should expect, Christo­pher Rufo — the per­son who has for­mu­lat­ed the man­u­fac­tured out­rage cam­paigns for every­thing from ‘CRT’ to ‘trans kids’ in recent years — was cho­sen by DeSan­tis to lead this effort as a new mem­ber of New Col­lege board. One of six cho­sen by DeSan­tis. As Rufo wrote, “Gov. DeSan­tis is going to lay siege to uni­ver­si­ty ‘diver­si­ty, equi­ty, and inclu­sion’ pro­grams.” Omi­nous words from the per­son DeSan­tis chose to car­ry out this insti­tu­tion­al “siege”:

...
“Unfor­tu­nate­ly, like so many col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties in Amer­i­ca, this insti­tu­tion has been com­plete­ly cap­tured by a polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy that puts trendy, truth-rel­a­tive con­cepts above learn­ing,” said DeSan­tis Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor Taryn Fenske.

Rufo is known for his activism on trans­gen­der and racial issues, mak­ing him a leader in the new wave of con­ser­v­a­tive cul­ture wars. He joined DeSan­tis when the gov­er­nor signed HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Edu­ca­tion Act, which is derid­ed by crit­ics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Rufo said in a series of Twit­ter posts Fri­day that pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties have “been cor­rupt­ed by woke nihilism” and he is “ready to trans­form high­er edu­ca­tion from with­in.” He said he plans to recruit new fac­ul­ty to New Col­lege to “cre­ate an insti­tu­tion where aca­d­e­mics can thrive, with­out self-cen­sor­ship.”

“My ambi­tion is to help the new board major­i­ty trans­form New Col­lege into a clas­si­cal lib­er­al arts insti­tu­tion. We are recap­tur­ing high­er edu­ca­tion.” Rufo said.

Rufo recent­ly applaud­ed DeSan­tis on Twit­ter for request­ing infor­ma­tion on diver­si­ty, equi­ty and inclu­sion and crit­i­cal race the­o­ry at all Flori­da col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties.

“Gov. DeSan­tis is going to lay siege to uni­ver­si­ty ‘diver­si­ty, equi­ty, and inclu­sion’ pro­grams,” Rufo wrote.

Among Rufo’s goals for New Col­lege that he laid out in a tweet: Restruc­tur­ing the admin­is­tra­tion, devel­op­ing “a new core cur­ricu­lum,” elim­i­nat­ing diver­si­ty, equi­ty and inclu­sion poli­cies and restruc­tur­ing aca­d­e­m­ic depart­ments.
...

And of course we find a pro­fes­sor of con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­ern­ment at Hills­dale Col­lege and the dean of Hills­dale’s grad­u­ate school of gov­ern­ment in DC, Math­ew Spald­ing, also join­ing the board. It was an expect­ed choice giv­en the ‘con­sul­tant’ role Hills­dale played in craft­ing DeSan­tis’s new ‘anti-woke’ edu­ca­tion law:

...
Join­ing Rufo on the New Col­lege board is Matthew Spald­ing, a pro­fes­sor of con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­ern­ment at Hills­dale Col­lege and the dean of the col­lege’s grad­u­ate school of gov­ern­ment in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. Spald­ing pre­vi­ous­ly was vice pres­i­dent of Amer­i­can stud­ies at the con­ser­v­a­tive Her­itage Foun­da­tion.

Hills­dale is a small Chris­t­ian col­lege in Michi­gan that has been active in con­ser­v­a­tive edu­ca­tion pol­i­tics. DeSan­tis spoke at Hills­dale’s Nation­al Lead­er­ship Sem­i­nar last year and has tapped the school to help reshape Flori­da’s edu­ca­tion sys­tem.
...

Then there’s Charles Kesler, a pro­fes­sor of gov­ern­ment at Clare­mont McKen­na Col­lege and a senior fel­low at The Clare­mont Insti­tute. Recall how Dr. Lar­ry P. Arnn — the Pres­i­dent of Hills­dale Col­lege, Her­itage Foun­da­tion trustee, and co-founder of the Clare­mont Insti­tute — is on the CNP mem­ber­ship list. In addi­tion, Dou­glas A. Jef­frey — VP for Exter­nal Affairs and Hills­dale Col­lege, and for­mer exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent of the Clare­mont Insti­tute — is also on the CNP mem­ber­ship list. Also recall how it was the Clare­mont Insti­tute’s John East­man who played a key role in for­mu­lat­ing a num­ber of dif­fer­ent legal jus­ti­fi­ca­tions for over­turn­ing the 2020 elec­tion results. And CNP-mem­ber Gin­ni Thomas — who played a sig­nif­i­cant role of her own in the post-2020 elec­tion schem­ing that led up to the Jan 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion includ­ing arrang­ing meet­ings between East­man and con­ser­v­a­tive activists — ran a DC-based con­sti­tu­tion­al stud­ies cen­ter at Hills­dale fol­low­ing her five year stint at the Her­itage Foun­da­tion. So when we see a Clare­mont Insti­tute senior fel­low involved with the New Col­lege purge it’s impor­tant to keep in mind how deeply inter­twined the Clare­mont Insti­tute is with this broad­er CNP-direct­ed net­work that includes Hills­dale Col­lege:

...
Charles Kesler, a pro­fes­sor of gov­ern­ment at Clere­mont McKen­na Col­lege and a senior fel­low at The Clere­mont Insti­tute, also is join­ing the New Col­lege board. Among the books writ­ten by Kesler: “I Am the Change: Barack Oba­ma and the Cri­sis of Lib­er­al­ism.”

The Clere­mont Insti­tute has gained promi­nence in the Trump era.

“Clare­mont schol­ars have col­lab­o­rat­ed with Ron DeSan­tis and helped 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,” the New York Times wrote last year..

Trump lawyer John East­man, anoth­er senior fel­low at The Clare­mont Insti­tute, recent­ly was referred to the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice for inves­ti­ga­tion and poten­tial pros­e­cu­tion by the con­gres­sion­al com­mit­tee inves­ti­gat­ing the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capi­tol. East­man wrote a memo detail­ing strate­gies for over­turn­ing the 2020 elec­tion results.
...

It’s not just the six new board mem­bers DeSan­tis gets to appoint. There’s also the five seats select­ed by DeSan­tis’s allies at the state Board of Gov­er­nors. New Col­lege’s lead­er­ship is slat­ed to become a col­lec­tion of polit­i­cal cronies:

...
The oth­er new board mem­bers are Mark Bauer­lein, who teach­es at Emory Uni­ver­si­ty, Debra Jenks, a New Col­lege alum and attor­ney, and Jason “Eddie” Speir, the co-founder, chair­man and super­in­ten­dent of Inspi­ra­tion Acad­e­my, a Chris­t­ian school in Braden­ton.

The gov­er­nor gets six appoint­ments to each uni­ver­si­ty board, while the state Board of Gov­er­nors — which over­sees the uni­ver­si­ty sys­tem — gets five. The fac­ul­ty chair and stu­dent body pres­i­dent also serve on the board. The Board of Gov­er­nors, which is loaded with DeSan­tis allies, is poised to appoint a New Col­lege board mem­ber for a seat vacant on Jan. 7, mean­ing a major­i­ty of the board soon will con­sist of new appointees who can con­trol the direc­tion of the school.
...

And that brings us to the obser­va­tions from Andrew Gothard, pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed Fac­ul­ty of Flori­da union: it’s hard to see who is going to want to enroll in a school where the board has decid­ed to turn the school into a right-wing polit­i­cal project. Who wants that as a lead­ing force in their col­lege expe­ri­ence? Up and com­ing right-wing polit­i­cal oper­a­tives, maybe, but that’s about it. New Col­lege is known for being a some­what selec­tive school that attracts tal­ent­ed stu­dents. What are the odds that’s going to be main­tained after the school switch­es over to some sort of Hills­dale tem­plate? Again, this is the test case for a much big­ger agen­da. That’s part of what makes the ques­tions about the via­bil­i­ty of this plot so grim­ly fas­ci­nat­ing: they need this to work because they have very big plans:

...
The choic­es for the New Col­lege board drew crit­i­cism from Andrew Gothard, pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed Fac­ul­ty of Flori­da union.

“Like many Florid­i­ans who have ties to the New Col­lege com­mu­ni­ty, UFF (the Unit­ed Fac­ul­ty of Flori­da) was sur­prised and dis­turbed today to see the appoint­ment of six trustees whose only appar­ent inter­est in the insti­tu­tion is polit­i­cal­ly and ide­o­log­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed,” Gothard said in a state­ment to the News Ser­vice.

Gothard said trustees have a “solemn duty” to act in the best inter­est of every­one on cam­pus­es.

“Promis­es to upend pro­grams with ide­o­log­i­cal­ly dri­ven claims that could not be far­ther from the truth of what actu­al­ly occurs in a high­er edu­ca­tion class­room — these do noth­ing to improve New Col­lege, nor will they draw inter­est­ed stu­dents to a cam­pus where trustees are so at odds with the fac­ul­ty, the local admin­is­tra­tion and the truth,” Gothard said.
...

If you’re a high school senior look­ing for a future as a con­ser­v­a­tive oper­a­tive, a four stint as a stu­dent rab­ble rouser at New Col­lege could be an effec­tive way to punch your right-wing loy­al­ty card. But if you’re just a reg­u­lar stu­dent look­ing for a qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion, why would you want to go to ‘DeSan­tis U’ and get a politi­cized edu­ca­tion? Or if you’re just a reg­u­lar Chris­t­ian con­ser­v­a­tive stu­dent look­ing for a Chris­t­ian con­ser­v­a­tive col­lege edu­ca­tion. Why choose New Col­lege based sole­ly on the gov­er­nor’s pledge to turn it into a new Hills­dale? It’s quite a gam­ble with your edu­ca­tion. This whole ‘flip the insti­tu­tion’ seems like a crazy gam­bit. Then again, with a stu­dent body of just around 700, it may not be that dif­fi­cult to find enough bud­ding con­ser­v­a­tive oper­a­tives to fill in the gap. Either way, as Christo­pher Rufo makes clear in the fol­low­ing piece cel­e­brat­ing his new role at New Col­lege, he is going there with the inten­tion of exe­cut­ing noth­ing less than a com­plete ide­o­log­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion. Or, rather, a counter-rev­o­lu­tion against the New Left forces intent on tear­ing down soci­ety:

City Jour­nal

Recap­tur­ing High­er Edu­ca­tion

On the plan to trans­form New Col­lege of Flori­da into a clas­si­cal lib­er­al arts insti­tu­tion

Christo­pher F. Rufo
Jan­u­ary 12, 2023

The most sig­nif­i­cant polit­i­cal sto­ry of the past half-cen­tu­ry is the activist Left’s “long march through the insti­tu­tions.” Begin­ning in the 1960s, left-wing activists and intel­lec­tu­als, inspired by the­o­rists such as Ital­ian Com­mu­nist Anto­nio Gram­sci and New Left philoso­pher Her­bert Mar­cuse, made a con­cert­ed effort to embed their ideas in edu­ca­tion, gov­ern­ment, phil­an­thropy, media, and oth­er impor­tant sec­tors.

This process came to spec­tac­u­lar fruition fol­low­ing the 2020 death of George Floyd, when it seemed that every pres­tige insti­tu­tion in the Unit­ed States got busy advanc­ing the same ide­o­log­i­cal line on race, gen­der, and culture—which, whether they knew it or not, mim­ic­ked the pre­cise themes that the old rad­i­cals had orig­i­nal­ly pro­posed.

The long march through the insti­tu­tions, in oth­er words, was com­plete.

But con­ser­v­a­tives, too, have updat­ed their play­book. They have read their Gram­sci and have begun to under­stand that ide­o­log­i­cal cap­ture pos­es a grave threat to the Amer­i­can sys­tem. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump shook con­ser­v­a­tives out of their com­pla­cen­cy with instinc­tu­al, if some­times crude, cul­tur­al coun­ter­mea­sures. Flori­da gov­er­nor Ron DeSan­tis has built on this approach, offer­ing a sophis­ti­cat­ed pol­i­cy agen­da for pro­tect­ing fam­i­lies against cap­tured bureau­cra­cies.

Last week, DeSan­tis raised the stakes and pro­posed, for the first time, a strat­e­gy for revers­ing the long march through the insti­tu­tions, begin­ning with what Mar­cuse believed was the ini­tial rev­o­lu­tion­ary insti­tu­tion: the uni­ver­si­ty. The gov­er­nor appoint­ed a slate of new trustees to the board of the New Col­lege of Flori­da, a noto­ri­ous­ly left-wing cam­pus, sim­i­lar to that of Ever­green State in Olympia, Wash­ing­ton. DeSan­tis tasked the new board with trans­form­ing it into, to quote the governor’s chief of staff, the “Hills­dale of the South”—in oth­er words, a clas­si­cal lib­er­al arts col­lege that pro­vides a dis­tinct­ly tra­di­tion­al brand of edu­ca­tion and schol­ar­ship.

...

I was hon­ored to be appoint­ed to this board, along with friends and col­leagues from the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment, includ­ing Clare­mont Insti­tute schol­ar Charles Kesler, Hills­dale Col­lege vice pres­i­dent Matthew Spald­ing, for­mer Emory Uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor Mark Bauer­lein, and oth­ers. Gov­er­nor DeSan­tis has tasked us with some­thing that has nev­er been done: insti­tu­tion­al recap­ture. If we are suc­cess­ful, the effort can serve as a mod­el for oth­er states.

The premise of this reform is sim­ple. Vot­ers in Flori­da, who char­ter and fund the pub­lic-uni­ver­si­ty sys­tem through their leg­isla­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tives, deserve to have their val­ues reflect­ed and trans­mit­ted in their pub­lic insti­tu­tions. Left-wing hege­mo­ny over pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties, in aca­d­e­m­ic depart­ments and admin­is­tra­tions, is anti­thet­i­cal to free inquiry and civ­il debate. With the New Col­lege of Flori­da trans­formed into a clas­si­cal insti­tu­tion, vot­ers will have access to a wider range of voic­es, schol­ars, and oppor­tu­ni­ties for their chil­dren. At a moment when uni­ver­si­ties are merg­ing into a homoge­nous, “diver­si­ty, equi­ty, and inclusion”-style morass, it is essen­tial that the people’s elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives cre­ate mean­ing­ful alter­na­tives.

This task won’t be easy. The lega­cy media has already sought to por­tray this effort as one of “bar­bar­ians at the gates of the uni­ver­si­ty.” But the truth points in the oth­er direc­tion. As esteemed his­to­ri­an Daniel Boorstin observed in 1968, the activists of the New Left—that is, the prog­en­i­tors of the “woke” ide­olo­gies that have now seized America’s institutions—were “the new bar­bar­ians” who reject­ed the ideals of the Amer­i­can Found­ing and sought to tear down soci­ety. “We must not be deceived by our own hyper­sen­si­tive lib­er­al con­sciences, nor by the famil­iar, respect­ed labels under which the New Bar­bar­ians like to trav­el,” Boorstin wrote. “If Amer­i­can civ­i­liza­tion is to sur­vive, if we are to resist and defeat the New Bar­barism, we must see it for what it is.”

Con­ser­v­a­tives and old-line lib­er­als, how­ev­er, did not heed Boorstin’s warn­ing. Decade after decade, they ced­ed insti­tu­tion­al ter­ri­to­ry to the rad­i­cal Left until, a half-cen­tu­ry lat­er, the basic nar­ra­tives of the Weath­er Under­ground and the Black Pan­ther Par­ty, trans­lat­ed into the lan­guage of crit­i­cal race the­o­ry and “diver­si­ty, equi­ty, and inclu­sion,” had pre­vailed almost every­where.

We hope to reverse this process, begin­ning on the Sara­so­ta cam­pus of New Col­lege. The board of trustees will assem­ble in the com­ing months, but in the inter­im, I have pro­posed var­i­ous pol­i­cy changes that will help the col­lege to begin the rein­ven­tion. My pro­pos­als include redesign­ing the cur­ricu­lum to align with the clas­si­cal mod­el; abol­ish­ing DEI pro­grams and replac­ing them with “equal­i­ty, mer­it, and col­or­blind­ness” prin­ci­ples; adopt­ing the Kal­ven state­ment on insti­tu­tion­al neu­tral­i­ty; restruc­tur­ing the admin­is­tra­tion and aca­d­e­m­ic depart­ments; recruit­ing new fac­ul­ty with exper­tise in the clas­si­cal lib­er­al arts tra­di­tion; and estab­lish­ing a grad­u­ate school for train­ing teach­ers in clas­si­cal edu­ca­tion.

Ours is a project of recap­ture and rein­ven­tion. Con­ser­v­a­tives have the oppor­tu­ni­ty final­ly to demon­strate an effec­tive coun­ter­mea­sure against the long march through the insti­tu­tions. The Left’s per­ma­nent bureau­cra­cy will be dead-set against this gam­bit, but if it suc­ceeds, a new era for high­er education—and for the country—is pos­si­ble.

———-

“Recap­tur­ing High­er Edu­ca­tion” by Christo­pher F. Rufo; City Jour­nal; 01/12/2023

“Ours is a project of recap­ture and rein­ven­tion. Con­ser­v­a­tives have the oppor­tu­ni­ty final­ly to demon­strate an effec­tive coun­ter­mea­sure against the long march through the insti­tu­tions. The Left’s per­ma­nent bureau­cra­cy will be dead-set against this gam­bit, but if it suc­ceeds, a new era for high­er education—and for the country—is pos­si­ble.”

A project of recap­ture and rein­ven­tion. Christo­pher Rufo sure has a knack for say­ing the qui­et part out loud. In fact, that’s his core fram­ing of the whole project. He’s putting the right-wing fan­tasies about a vast left-wing dom­i­na­tion of soci­ety via the cap­ture of uni­ver­si­ties front and cen­ter in his descrip­tion of the agen­da he’s going to impose on behalf of DeSan­tis. They are going to reverse the left­’s “long march through the insti­tu­tions, begin­ning with what Mar­cuse believed was the ini­tial rev­o­lu­tion­ary insti­tu­tion: the uni­ver­si­ty.” Rufo is fram­ing this is counter-rev­o­lu­tion­ary terms:

...
But con­ser­v­a­tives, too, have updat­ed their play­book. They have read their Gram­sci and have begun to under­stand that ide­o­log­i­cal cap­ture pos­es a grave threat to the Amer­i­can sys­tem. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump shook con­ser­v­a­tives out of their com­pla­cen­cy with instinc­tu­al, if some­times crude, cul­tur­al coun­ter­mea­sures. Flori­da gov­er­nor Ron DeSan­tis has built on this approach, offer­ing a sophis­ti­cat­ed pol­i­cy agen­da for pro­tect­ing fam­i­lies against cap­tured bureau­cra­cies.

Last week, DeSan­tis raised the stakes and pro­posed, for the first time, a strat­e­gy for revers­ing the long march through the insti­tu­tions, begin­ning with what Mar­cuse believed was the ini­tial rev­o­lu­tion­ary insti­tu­tion: the uni­ver­si­ty. The gov­er­nor appoint­ed a slate of new trustees to the board of the New Col­lege of Flori­da, a noto­ri­ous­ly left-wing cam­pus, sim­i­lar to that of Ever­green State in Olympia, Wash­ing­ton. DeSan­tis tasked the new board with trans­form­ing it into, to quote the governor’s chief of staff, the “Hills­dale of the South”—in oth­er words, a clas­si­cal lib­er­al arts col­lege that pro­vides a dis­tinct­ly tra­di­tion­al brand of edu­ca­tion and schol­ar­ship.

...

I was hon­ored to be appoint­ed to this board, along with friends and col­leagues from the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment, includ­ing Clare­mont Insti­tute schol­ar Charles Kesler, Hills­dale Col­lege vice pres­i­dent Matthew Spald­ing, for­mer Emory Uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor Mark Bauer­lein, and oth­ers. Gov­er­nor DeSan­tis has tasked us with some­thing that has nev­er been done: insti­tu­tion­al recap­ture. If we are suc­cess­ful, the effort can serve as a mod­el for oth­er states.
...

Also note the apoc­a­lyp­tic lan­guage used to describe what they are dis­man­tling: a New Left “who reject­ed the ideals of the Amer­i­can Found­ing and sought to tear down soci­ety.” It’s a warn­ing to any aspir­ing New Col­lege his­to­ry major that the Amer­i­can his­to­ry com­po­nent of their upcom­ing cur­ricu­lum is like­ly going to be tak­en from David Bar­ton’s warped Chris­t­ian fun­da­men­tal­ist ver­sion of Amer­i­can his­to­ry. Or what­ev­er Hills­dale is teach­ing, which is pre­sum­ably based on Bar­ton’s ‘teach­ings’ any­way:

...
The premise of this reform is sim­ple. Vot­ers in Flori­da, who char­ter and fund the pub­lic-uni­ver­si­ty sys­tem through their leg­isla­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tives, deserve to have their val­ues reflect­ed and trans­mit­ted in their pub­lic insti­tu­tions. Left-wing hege­mo­ny over pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties, in aca­d­e­m­ic depart­ments and admin­is­tra­tions, is anti­thet­i­cal to free inquiry and civ­il debate. With the New Col­lege of Flori­da trans­formed into a clas­si­cal insti­tu­tion, vot­ers will have access to a wider range of voic­es, schol­ars, and oppor­tu­ni­ties for their chil­dren. At a moment when uni­ver­si­ties are merg­ing into a homoge­nous, “diver­si­ty, equi­ty, and inclusion”-style morass, it is essen­tial that the people’s elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives cre­ate mean­ing­ful alter­na­tives.

This task won’t be easy. The lega­cy media has already sought to por­tray this effort as one of “bar­bar­ians at the gates of the uni­ver­si­ty.” But the truth points in the oth­er direc­tion. As esteemed his­to­ri­an Daniel Boorstin observed in 1968, the activists of the New Left—that is, the prog­en­i­tors of the “woke” ide­olo­gies that have now seized America’s institutions—were “the new bar­bar­ians” who reject­ed the ideals of the Amer­i­can Found­ing and sought to tear down soci­ety. “We must not be deceived by our own hyper­sen­si­tive lib­er­al con­sciences, nor by the famil­iar, respect­ed labels under which the New Bar­bar­ians like to trav­el,” Boorstin wrote. “If Amer­i­can civ­i­liza­tion is to sur­vive, if we are to resist and defeat the New Bar­barism, we must see it for what it is.”
...

Christo­pher Rufo’s anti-woke cru­sade just keeps pick­ing up steam. But as Rufo’s apoc­a­lyp­tic lan­guage — the recap­ture of insti­tu­tions from the forced of soci­etal destruc­tion — reminds us, there’s a dif­fer­ent indi­vid­ual who should real­ly be seen as the orig­i­nal author of the polit­i­cal script we’re watch­ing play out right now: Cur­tis “Men­cious Mold­bug” Yarvin. As author Eliz­a­beth San­difer describes in the fol­low­ing Cur­rent Affairs inter­view from back in May, what Ron DeSan­tis has been doing to Flori­da’s edu­ca­tion sys­tem and his larg­er attack on ‘wokeism’ is like the chan­nel­ing of Mold­bug. A fix­a­tion on the ‘lib­er­al media’ and ‘woke acad­e­mia’ has been at the core of Mold­bug’s writ­ings for years. Along with a long for sweep­ing insti­tu­tion­al purges. Purges that, as Rufo point­ed out above, are final­ly hap­pen­ing in Flori­da. And that’s the big­ger sto­ry here: Ron DeSan­tis is get­ting the Mold­bug mass purge ball rolling with big plans for much big­ger purges nation­al­ly:

Cur­rent Affairs

The Strange and Ter­ri­fy­ing Ideas of Neo­re­ac­tionar­ies

Author Eliz­a­beth San­difer explains the dan­ger­ous ideas of the far-right neo­re­ac­tionar­ies, who have ties to Sil­i­con Val­ley and a hos­til­i­ty toward democ­ra­cy.

Nathan J. Robin­son
filed 30 May 2022 in Inter­views

Eliz­a­beth San­difer is the author of Neo­re­ac­tion a Basilisk: Essays On and Around the Alt-Right. She has tak­en a deep dive into the thoughts and writ­ings of the so-called neo­re­ac­tionary move­ment, or the “new right,” a ten­den­cy high­light­ed in a recent Van­i­ty Fair arti­cle by James Pogue, who report­ed from the Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Con­fer­ence. Pogue argues that there is a new ten­den­cy in right-wing thought that is influ­enc­ing some promi­nent Repub­li­can can­di­dates for office, includ­ing J.D. Vance of Ohio and Blake Mas­ters of Ari­zona, both of whom have close ties to Peter Thiel, the Pay­Pal bil­lion­aire, and also to a rather mys­te­ri­ous and less­er-known pub­lic intel­lec­tu­al by the name of Cur­tis Yarvin, a.k.a. Men­cius Mold­bug. Is this a fringe intel­lec­tu­al ten­den­cy that can be ignored, or a bud­ding move­ment? San­difer spoke with edi­tor-in-chief Nathan J. Robin­son on the Cur­rent Affairs pod­cast to sort things out. This inter­view has been edit­ed and con­densed for gram­mar and clar­i­ty.

* Robin­son

Eliz­a­beth San­difer, I need you to help us under­stand this neo­re­ac­tionary ten­den­cy. Can you dis­cuss what it is?

* San­difer

Neo­re­ac­tion is one attempt of mod­ern far right philosophy—we can just go ahead and call it fascism—to cre­ate an intel­lec­tu­al basis. It was for­mu­lat­ed by Cur­tis Yarvin, who writes under the pen name Men­cius Mold­bug, or for­mer­ly wrote.

* Robin­son

The artist for­mer­ly known as Mold­bug?

* San­difer

These days he uses his real name Cur­tis Yarvin, but I still think of him as Mold­bug because that’s what he was going by when I wrote about him. Yarvin has been quite influ­en­tial on a num­ber of key peo­ple. He has a demon­stra­bly huge influ­ence on Peter Thiel. We know he’s got influ­ence on Blake Mas­ters and J.D. Vance, as that Van­i­ty Fair arti­cle makes clear. We have very strong evi­dence that he’s had influ­ence on Steve Ban­non. He’s just a guy a lot of these peo­ple look to as kind of an intel­lec­tu­al light. He’s been on the Tuck­er Carl­son show, which did a fair bit to main­stream him. So a lot of peo­ple look up to him as some­thing of an intel­lec­tu­al light, which is inter­est­ing if you actu­al­ly read any of his work, because, well… I call him out­right stu­pid in my book, and I’m gonna large­ly stand by that.

I think that there is a long tra­di­tion of right-wing “phi­los­o­phy” that’s real­ly pop­u­lar among right-wing nut­ters and as soon as it gets out­side that lit­tle bub­ble, it gets absolute­ly shot to hell by oth­er philoso­phers. And I think to describe Yarvin in terms he would prob­a­bly take as a compliment—and I very much mean as an insult—he’s kind of a mod­ern day Ayn Rand.

So his broad philo­soph­i­cal idea is he’s just real­ly obsessed with order. He thinks that order is the absolute best thing that can hap­pen. Chaos, unruli­ness, rebelliousness—all these things are inher­ent­ly very, very bad.

And so his belief, as he expressed back in his Mold­bug days—and he’s not real­ly backed down off of it in any sub­stan­tive way—is that basi­cal­ly, Cal­i­for­nia should secede, become its own nation, and sim­ply impose a CEO with monar­chic, god­like pow­ers. At the time, he sug­gest­ed Steve Jobs would be a par­tic­u­lar­ly good pick for the absolute monarch of Cal­i­for­nia and that the pur­pose of own­ing Cal­i­for­nia and run­ning it as a cor­po­rate monar­chy is explic­it­ly for prof­it. That was also a part of Yarvin’s philo­soph­i­cal vision for what the world should do.

I don’t want to pin him too much with the slight­ly satir­i­cal and delib­er­ate­ly over-the-top clickbait‑y idea of mak­ing Steve Jobs king of California—that is him using a rhetor­i­cal device to get atten­tion. But he does very, very much believe that rich elites should be in absolute con­trol of every­thing, and peo­ple who are not landown­ers and do not have a ton of mon­ey should basi­cal­ly be thought of as the equiv­a­lent of slaves.

* Robin­son

The phi­los­o­phy here is explic­it­ly monar­chist, right? He open­ly believes that one per­son should have almost absolute pow­er.

* San­difer

The per­son should be account­able to a board of direc­tors, per­haps. But no more than that, and the board of direc­tors should just be able to fire him and replace him with a new absolute monar­chy if they feel the need. He’s very clear on that. Again, back in his more satir­i­cal Mold­bug days, he actu­al­ly advo­cat­ed for Stu­art restora­tion in the UK, the rolling back of the Glo­ri­ous Rev­o­lu­tion, and undo­ing William of Orange’s takeover and the reign of William and Mary to put it back in the hands of the Stu­art kings. He thought that the Whig­gish demo­c­ra­t­ic turn was a fun­da­men­tal mis­take of his­to­ry that should be undone. Again, this is him in his old­er satir­i­cal mode.

* Robin­son

Was he being satir­i­cal when he endorsed or appeared to endorse human slav­ery?

* San­difer

This is the prob­lem with his semi-satir­i­cal, clickbait‑y mode of writ­ing. He doesn’t seem to make a huge dis­tinc­tion between employ­ees and slaves in his philo­soph­i­cal sys­tem. He cer­tain­ly seems to believe that out­right inden­tured servi­tude and own­er­ship is an accept­able arrange­ment. And he sure did overt­ly say that Black peo­ple are genet­i­cal­ly pre­dis­posed to make good slaves. These are all things he def­i­nite­ly, lit­er­al­ly says. Was he per­haps being satir­i­cal? I guess my response to that is: do you real­ly care if he’s being satir­i­cal when he says Black peo­ple are genet­i­cal­ly pre­dis­posed to mak­ing good slaves? Per­son­al­ly, I don’t.

* Robin­son

I am torn as to how valu­able it is to go into the phi­los­o­phy because, as you say, it is, in many ways, extreme­ly stu­pid. I was read­ing it. This guy has a Sub­stack and it is, to me, unread­able.

* San­difer

He is fright­en­ing­ly ver­bose. I’ve heard peo­ple say he’s a good writer. I don’t see it at all.

* Robin­son

Oh, my God. I’ve nev­er read any­thing worse.

* San­difer

Right. As some­one who has writ­ten a num­ber of books and at least has a mod­est amount of pop­u­lar acclaim, inas­much as I am an expert on prose writ­ing, his prose is absolute­ly unread­able. It’s shit. I’m allowed to swear here, right?

* Robin­son

Yes.

* San­difer

It’s com­plete fes­ter­ing dogshit. It’s hor­ri­ble. It is ver­bose. It makes a painful lack of effort to get to the point on the occa­sion when it actu­al­ly makes a point. His argu­men­ta­tion aspires to shod­di­ness, because that would at least imply that there’s a degree of con­struc­tion there. It’s absolute­ly awful. I take it apart in some metic­u­lous detail in Neo­re­ac­tion a Basilisk because in that book, I thought it was impor­tant to pay it as much intel­lec­tu­al respect as I could before I took it out back and shot it. But it was not hard to argue against and to find the flaws. You’re real­ly play­ing on easy mode there.

* Robin­son

Your book does a pub­lic ser­vice. Peo­ple don’t have to comb through thou­sands of pages to try to under­stand the things you’ve read. You’ve laid it out.

* San­difer

I’ll make this ful­ly explic­it. I can­not encour­age you enough not to both­er read­ing this. You have some­thing bet­ter to do with your life—clipping your toe­nails, per­haps. Star­ing at a wall. Many small crimes that only do a lit­tle bit of harm. Avoid read­ing him. Lit­er­al­ly almost any­thing you can think of to do right now is a bet­ter idea than read­ing Cur­tis Yarvin.

...

* Robin­son

It was kind of shock­ing to me when I start­ed a dive into the col­lect­ed works of Mold­bug. It doesn’t real­ly make many attempts to be con­vinc­ing in a very log­i­cal way. I mean, let’s say you were to try to per­suade me that it’s a good idea to have a dic­ta­tor, which is what he believes. He believes that we should have a dic­ta­tor. He believes in a hier­ar­chy. He believes in abol­ish­ing democ­ra­cy and elec­tions and the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the gov­erned in gov­er­nance. If you were to try to con­vince me of those incred­i­bly rad­i­cal propo­si­tions that instinc­tive­ly hor­ri­fy me, you would have a pret­ty high bur­den. And he doesn’t even real­ly seem to make much of an attempt to show why this wouldn’t be hor­ri­fy­ing and dystopi­an.

* San­difer

It reads hell­ish­ly dystopi­an. You could write a real­ly good cyber­punk dystopia off of the ideas espoused by Cur­tis Yarvin. I may or may not be work­ing on that. There’s a pas­sage in his Men­cius Mold­bug days when he very ardent­ly and pas­sion­ate­ly describes basi­cal­ly the entire Whig­gish movement—a lot of old British rad­i­cal groups like the Lev­ellers and more broad­ly the entire kind of roman­tic, rebel­lious artis­tic tra­di­tion of British lit­er­a­ture, peo­ple like William Blake—as a bunch of freaks who he despis­es and thinks the world is worse off for exist­ing. I am some­one who is very pas­sion­ate about William Blake in par­tic­u­lar. A lot of these peo­ple that he dis­miss­es as evil freaks, I look to as out­right role mod­els.

I have a very, very strong and basic dis­agree­ment with Yarvin/Moldbug… I’m going to be doing this [with his name] the whole pod­cast. I apol­o­gize.

...

* Robin­son

What’s inter­est­ing about read­ing far right phi­los­o­phy is that they’re very open about their attempt to make a world that would not be worth liv­ing in. I have read Mein Kampf, and every­thing Hitler lays out is a pro­gram for killing every­one I love and every­thing that I love.

* San­difer

I sup­pose in defense of their log­i­cal con­sis­ten­cy and intel­lec­tu­al hon­esty, I wouldn’t want to be alive in their world, but they don’t want me to be alive in their world, either.

* Robin­son

It’s true. They’re pret­ty clear about it. The word fas­cism is tossed about a lot. But I think one of the things that is valu­able about the works of Yarvin is that he’s very open about it. He real­ly does say: We need a dic­ta­tor­ship, and it needs to be pret­ty absolute. And I hate all of the freaks. And I believe in a world of order, and I’m not going to try to jus­ti­fy why that order is good. But I think that I, and peo­ple like me, should be at the top of the social hier­ar­chy, and every­one else should be bru­tal­ly oppressed.

* San­difer

He’s not a ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist bil­lion­aire or any­thing. But I think he real­ly thinks peo­ple like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk should be run­ning the world. There is some­thing of a cult around these peo­ple, and Yarvin believes in it whole­heart­ed­ly. Yarvin absolute­ly believes that peo­ple who are good at mak­ing mon­ey are prob­a­bly good at every­thing else.

* Robin­son

So the way that we’ve talked about it so far makes it seem like it could appeal to almost nobody who wasn’t extreme­ly rich them­selves. Musk obvi­ous­ly has his cult. But there’s some­thing that you dis­cuss in the book that seems to be part of the source of the appeal of these ideas. Anti-semi­tism is often called the social­ism of fools, right? Because it uses some of the oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal­ists and bankers, but it mis­places the vil­lain. Yarvin’s diag­no­sis of society—the things that he points out, that he’s try­ing to rec­ti­fy, he actu­al­ly match­es about 30 per­cent of things that I hear Noam Chom­sky say about the dys­func­tions of lib­er­al­ism. That gives a cer­tain truth to some of what he says in terms of his diag­no­sis, even though his pre­scrip­tion is fas­cism.

* San­difer

My dear friend, Jack Gra­ham, who co-wrote one of the chap­ters of Neo­re­ac­tion a Basilisk with me, gave me a phrase that I hap­pi­ly stole with­in the book, where he says that Yarvin is a failed Marx­ist in the same way that Jupiter is a failed star. Yarvin starts down this analy­sis, and if you fol­low it rea­son­ably rig­or­ous­ly, you get to a fair­ly accu­rate and use­ful diag­no­sis of every­thing that is wrong with the world. And then some­where on the way, before he gets to any of those actu­al good points, he makes just an apoc­a­lyp­tic wrong turn, and con­cludes that Steve Jobs should become king of Cal­i­for­nia.

* Robin­son

So per­haps you could describe the start­ing point of his analy­sis of what is wrong with soci­ety.

* San­difer

His start­ing point is the extreme­ly self-evi­dent asser­tion that there is an over­all con­sen­sus. He rein­vents the Over­ton win­dow from scratch. He rein­vents the idea that there is a dic­tat­ed set of opin­ions which are accept­able and pos­si­ble to dis­cuss and to take seri­ous­ly. There is this polit­i­cal cen­ter around which noth­ing can orbit too far away from with­out freez­ing to death. It’s fun­da­men­tal­ly dic­tat­ed by a num­ber of elite and pow­er­ful insti­tu­tions. So the New York Times does a whole lot to dic­tate what the polit­i­cal cen­ter is. There are many oth­er exam­ples. The ones that Yarvin is most obsessed with are basi­cal­ly the media, acad­e­mia, and the civ­il ser­vice end of gov­ern­ment. He views those as the big three insti­tu­tions that are impos­ing a kind of absolute con­sen­sus that he says is drift­ing in an ever left­ward lib­er­al direc­tion. He points to the progress of civ­il rights, takes Mar­tin Luther King, Jr.’s obser­va­tion about the arc of the moral uni­verse bend­ing toward jus­tice over the long run and ren­ders it a hor­ror sto­ry, actu­al­ly refer­ring to this cen­trist con­sen­sus as Cthul­hu and say­ing that “Cthul­hu always swims left.”

The sen­si­ble thing to do is prob­a­bly to look at the role of mon­ey in this.

* Robin­son

Yes. I was going to point out that there’s a notable absence from that list, which is big busi­ness.

* San­difer

Nowhere on Yarvin’s list of things that are con­trol­ling the world and set­ting up a polit­i­cal cen­ter is finance. Where­as, in real­i­ty, finance turns out to do an awful lot, as evi­denced by the fact that, for instance, if you hap­pen to be one of the rich­est peo­ple in the world, you can meet your girl­friend on a web site, have a bit of a falling out with her, get made fun of, and decide you’re going to sud­den­ly now own one of the largest social media plat­forms in the world. That’s a thing that can hap­pen if you are a bil­lion­aire. It is not a thing that can hap­pen to most peo­ple. And so sud­den­ly, Twitter—one of these huge social media sites, some­thing that is quite cen­tral to media discourse—is get­ting tak­en over by some­one who is spout­ing a lot of far-right ideas, who ini­tial­ly made his mon­ey work­ing with Peter Thiel, who is the per­son whose is bankrolling Cur­tis Yarvin’s bull­shit, who is very clear­ly influ­enced by this orbit. I know that the Wall Street Jour­nal report­ed that Thiel was advis­ing Musk on his Twit­ter takeover. And sud­den­ly they own this mas­sive media plat­form, and the only rea­son that’s hap­pen­ing is mon­ey. There is no aca­d­e­m­ic, no civ­il ser­vice, no main­stream media com­po­nent to why Twit­ter is about to take a right-wing plunge. It is entire­ly because mon­ey has a shit­load of pow­er. To give a very, very basic analy­sis that prob­a­bly, you know, is down­right obvi­ous to a num­ber of your lis­ten­ers, but it’s some­thing that nev­er occurs to Yarvin.

* Robin­son

Mold­bug talks about a small class of elites con­trol­ling the dis­course, and he talks about, as you say, the bound­aries of accept­able opinion—and when he says that, he’s almost 100 per­cent over­lap­ping with Chom­sky. But as you point out, there’s this absence of Marx in his work, where Mold­bug doesn’t seem to have read or under­stood the left analy­sis of these things.

* San­difer

In his last big essay under the Mold­bug pen name, he cre­ates this acronym/mantra, “Amer­i­ca is a com­mu­nist coun­try,” and claims that it is true in all sorts of dif­fer­ent ways that you can inter­pret it. And one thing that lit­er­al­ly nev­er comes up any­where in that essay is whether Amer­i­ca is actu­al­ly run on com­mu­nist prin­ci­ples sim­i­lar to those explained by Karl Marx. That lit­er­al­ly nev­er occurs to Moldbug—in the course of lit­er­al­ly thou­sands of words about how Amer­i­ca is sup­pos­ed­ly a com­mu­nist country—which is some­thing of an intel­lec­tu­al over­sight, I think. I feel like there is a fail­ure of due dili­gence that went on in this essay.

* Robin­son

We have dwelled on the work of a some­what obscure and stu­pid per­son who’s a bad writer. But when I read that Van­i­ty Fair arti­cle, I got chills. J.D. Vance is explic­it­ly say­ing that Yarvin has a bunch of great ideas. J.D. Vance could be in the Sen­ate.

* San­difer

Look at the U.S. Sen­ate. You don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly see that a U.S. sen­a­tor is a lot bet­ter than a bil­lion­aire as evi­dence of intel­li­gence.

* Robin­son

It’s true.

* San­difer

There are, in fact, a lot of stu­pid peo­ple in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate. And I’m will­ing to say that as a bipar­ti­san cri­tique.

* Robin­son

But there are not nec­es­sar­i­ly that many peo­ple who explic­it­ly espouse a desire for a dic­ta­tor­ship. And there are some quotes from J.D. Vance in that arti­cle, where the writer says Vance sounds like he’s talk­ing about a coup. Vance says that the next pres­i­dent should fire every­one in the gov­ern­ment, replace them with ide­o­logues, and ignore the courts if they try to stop him.

* San­difer

Right. The flip side of that is we shouldn’t delude our­selves about the fact that there are mul­ti­ple fascists—in the U.S. gov­ern­ment right now—who want to over­throw the U.S. gov­ern­ment. Vance is com­ing in. Look at Joshua Haw­ley out of Mis­souri. He’s just as fuck­ing bad. He’s espous­ing the same lev­el of fas­cist takeover shit. And those are the more intel­lec­tu­al ones. Go into the House and sud­den­ly you get Madi­son Cawthorn and Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene and that clan of nut jobs. (I do mean clan.) There are peo­ple who are in the U.S. Con­gress who are ful­ly endors­ing these fas­cist monar­chic ideas. The Vance idea is inter­est­ing to me because the spe­cif­ic fas­cist ideas he’s espous­ing are ones I wrote a book on six years ago. But at the end of the day, we shouldn’t treat Vance as an out­lier at this point. The real­ly scary thing is, he’s not.

* Robin­son

Yes. Even if there aren’t that many who are tied to this weird spe­cif­ic neo­re­ac­tion thing, this neo­re­ac­tionary ide­ol­o­gy is kind of, as you say, a more explic­it and upfront state­ment of the basic right-wing world­view, which is in favor of real­ly strict social hier­ar­chies enforced by vio­lence and keep­ing down any­one who would dare to chal­lenge those hier­ar­chies.

* San­difer

Along with strong pop­ulist and, inevitably, in prac­tice, white dude dic­ta­tors who run this jack­boot and pony show.

* Robin­son

We should talk about a cou­ple of the oth­er fig­ures in your book besides Yarvin. But the book is called Neo­re­ac­tion a Basilisk. Explain what the Basilisk in the title is.

* San­difer

Oh, God. Okay. So, Cur­tis Yarvin came to present prominence—got his ini­tial read­er­ship before he spun off to his own blog—on a web­site called Over­com­ing Bias, a web­site loose­ly orga­nized around a com­mu­ni­ty that called them­selves “the ratio­nal­ists.” The main fig­ure in that is a guy named Eliez­er Yud­kowsky, who would describe him­self as an AI researcher. It’s impor­tant to note that he has lit­er­al­ly no com­put­er sci­ence qual­i­fi­ca­tions; cannot—to the best of my knowledge—code; has nev­er built an AI; and does not actu­al­ly under­stand any­thing about how AI works on a tech­ni­cal lev­el. But he is an AI researcher, which real­ly means he writes sci­ence fic­tion. He writes sci­ence fic­tion nov­els that he pass­es off as phi­los­o­phy and schol­ar­ship. He is hor­ri­bly obsessed with the idea that some­day an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence is going to wake up, achieve sen­tience, take over the world, and destroy human­i­ty because it sees no point in human­i­ty. He writes great sci­ence fic­tion phras­es. He’s got a phrase: “The AI does not love you. The AI does not hate you. But you are made out of atoms which the AI can use for some­thing else.” That’s charm­ing and chill­ing, and throw that into a sci­ence fic­tion hor­ror book about an evil AI and you’re going to get a Hugo nom­i­na­tion for that stuff. As an analy­sis of com­put­er sci­ence and the state of play of cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy, it has noth­ing to do with any­thing that is actu­al­ly hap­pen­ing in AI research, nan­otech­nol­o­gy, or any­thing else. It’s pure­ly sci­ence fic­tion. But it’s pret­ty good sci­ence fic­tion.

And so a lot of tech bro peo­ple are real­ly, real­ly into him because he makes them feel good. He says that they’re all super log­i­cal, ratio­nal peo­ple, and they can learn to make no mis­takes if they just use his one weird trick for think­ing ratio­nal­ly. He’s just had a lot of influ­ence despite being frankly a kind of weirdo cult leader.

But the Basilisk. What you actu­al­ly asked about. The Basilisk comes from an inci­dent that arose in Yudkowsky’s com­mu­ni­ty where this guy named Roko, who went on to be a fas­cist, came up with a thought exper­i­ment imag­in­ing a futur­is­tic, god­like AI. As I said, they’re ter­ri­fied of an evil AI. They also want to cre­ate a god AI that will rein­car­nate them on a hard dri­ve so they can live for­ev­er. And so this guy Roko imag­ined the god AI and said: Wait a minute, what if when the god AI exists, he looks back at every­one who failed to help bring him about and declares they’re evil, and should be rein­car­nat­ed on a com­put­er and tor­tured for all eter­ni­ty? He made this argu­ment that was entire­ly con­sis­tent with the many weird cult-like premis­es of Yud­kowsky and his ratio­nal­ists and cre­at­ed this idea of this god­like AI that would tor­ture them all if they didn’t give all their mon­ey to AI research to try to bring him about—which, if you look at it from a per­spec­tive of not being a weirdo AI cult mem­ber, is basi­cal­ly just rein­vent­ing Pascal’s Wager.

* Robin­son

Pascal’s wager being that it pays to believe in God because if you don’t, God will pun­ish you—if he exists.

* San­difer

Yes, good expla­na­tion. And so all of these AI cultists, broad­ly speak­ing, absolute­ly lost their shit. They had an epic melt­down-pan­ic attack. Yud­kowsky was, at one point, scream­ing in all caps about how the worst thing you can pos­si­bly do is talk about the evil god­like AI in the future that does this, because talk­ing about it brings it into exis­tence. Every­one is hav­ing a com­plete emo­tion­al melt­down over hav­ing acci­den­tal­ly invent­ed Pascal’s Wager. And the whole inci­dent even­tu­al­ly becomes a bit of pop­u­lar lore that peo­ple who are the right kind of nerd know about. Jokes about Roko’s Basilisk, which is what this whole affair became known as, were actu­al­ly what got Elon Musk and Grimes togeth­er. They both made the same pun about Roko’s Basilisk inde­pen­dent­ly and found each oth­er through it.

* Robin­son

Wow. I nev­er knew that.

* San­difer

My friend, David Ger­ard, who was the ini­tial read­er and edi­tor of Neo­re­ac­tion a Basilisk, was the one who pre­served all the tran­scripts of the melt­down and put them on Ratio­nal­Wi­ki. That’s why any­one knows about this. So he is ulti­mate­ly sin­gle-hand­ed­ly respon­si­ble for Elon Musk tak­ing over Twit­ter just by pop­u­lar­iz­ing Roko’s Basilisk. It’s hor­ri­ble. He feels ter­ri­ble about it.

* Robin­son

I fear that some of our lis­ten­ers, hear­ing your expla­na­tion, may have thought to them­selves at some point dur­ing…

* San­difer

What the fuck is going on here?

* Robin­son

“I don’t under­stand this. It’s bizarre.”

* San­difer

I should have pref­aced this with: What I am about to say is going to sound com­plete­ly insane, and that’s because it is.

* Robin­son

I’m glad you explained it because I think that it’s impor­tant to under­stand that even if you don’t grasp this whole thing about a god­like arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence in the future and what­ev­er…

* San­difer

And you should feel bet­ter about your­self if you don’t. If it did make any sense, you should real­ly be wor­ried.

* Robin­son

First, the peo­ple who believe in this very bizarre thing con­sid­er them­selves to be extreme­ly logical—more log­i­cal than any­one else, right?

* San­difer

Yes. Func­tion­al­ly, they believe them­selves to be, if not infal­li­ble on an indi­vid­ual lev­el, at least infal­li­ble on a col­lec­tive lev­el.

* Robin­son

Sec­ond­ly, this ratio­nal­ist com­mu­ni­ty that you’re talk­ing about that drifts into extreme­ly bizarre and some­times fas­cist beliefs is quite influ­en­tial in Sil­i­con Val­ley.

* San­difer

Huge­ly so. If you talk not just to man­age­ment, but even many of the front­line soft­ware engineer/coder nerds, they all know who Eliez­er Yud­kowsky is. This is absolute­ly a house­hold name with­in the spe­cif­ic bub­ble and enclave of Sil­i­con Val­ley tech.

* Robin­son

And there’s an entire intel­lec­tu­al ecosys­tem here. You’ve writ­ten about the Slate Star Codex blog.

* San­difer

Ah, yes, Mr. Siskind.

* Robin­son

He’s this ratio­nal­ist who’s very opposed to social jus­tice pol­i­tics and is, per­haps, a lit­tle too open-mind­ed about Charles Mur­ray and…

* San­difer

He’s a gate­way to out­right fas­cist ideas. He has open­ly said that he is a race eugeni­cist who believes that IQ is her­i­ta­ble. He def­i­nite­ly believes this to be true. He has said as much. He plays a lit­tle coy in pub­lic, but in his per­son­al beliefs, he is a racist author­i­tar­i­an. I absolute­ly believe this.

* Robin­son

And he is extreme­ly pop­u­lar among some peo­ple. He has a big fol­low­ing among a lot of these Sil­i­con Val­ley types.

* San­difer

Absolute­ly. His blog was wide­ly con­sid­ered essen­tial read­ing among the Sil­i­con Val­ley types. And then you go to the sub­red­dit for his blog, and peo­ple are lit­er­al­ly post­ing the 14 words, which are a huge white nation­al­ist slo­gan and just not even a dog whis­tle, just a whis­tle.

* Robin­son

One of the rea­sons I want­ed to speak to you is that it does seem as if the things that you’ve been writ­ing about for years were curiosi­ties when you start­ed writ­ing about them, or had a cult fol­low­ing. It seems to be inch­ing clos­er and clos­er to the main­stream, both through J.D. Vance and through Elon Musk. Musk talks about the AI that’s going to destroy us all, and I’m sure is inspired by a lot of these peo­ple.

* San­difer

The impor­tant take­away here is that all of the peo­ple I’ve been describ­ing are very, very stu­pid. Their ideas make no sense if you look at them under any scruti­ny what­so­ev­er. And they are active­ly tak­ing over the world right now. And they are going to kill mil­lions of peo­ple. It’s fun­ny on the one hand, but on the oth­er hand, they are active­ly tak­ing over the world, and they are lit­er­al­ly going to kill peo­ple like me. I want to be dead­ly seri­ous here. These peo­ple are very, very evil, and they are active­ly gain­ing pow­er.

* Robin­son

I think that’s incred­i­bly impor­tant. It’s so easy—especially if you look at the writ­ings of Moldbug—to just look at it and go, this is a bunch of garbage. Who could be per­suad­ed by this?

* San­difer

And the answer is: lit­er­al­ly the top advis­er [Steve Ban­non] of our last pres­i­dent. That is who can be per­suad­ed.

* Robin­son

To hear the sto­ry of this weird Basilisk and that all these peo­ple think the Basilisk from the future is com­ing … and then to real­ize that these are peo­ple who are in posi­tions of quite high sta­tus and who have the dan­ger­ous fal­la­cious belief that they are as close to per­fect­ly log­i­cal as one can be.

* San­difer

I don’t want to sug­gest that Elon Musk lit­er­al­ly believes in Roko’s Basilisk, but the new own­er of one of the largest social media sites in the world def­i­nite­ly takes Roko’s Basilisk a lot more seri­ous­ly than it deserves to be tak­en. And that should def­i­nite­ly raise some red flags, espe­cial­ly when you get into the fact that he made his mon­ey with Peter Thiel and Thiel bankrolled Yarvin and bankrolled Yud­kowsky. There’s a net­work of peo­ple here who are increas­ing­ly pow­er­ful, and they are very, very scary.

* Robin­son

We talked about the dic­ta­to­r­i­al ten­den­cies, but we haven’t dis­cussed the extent to which a lot of this is found­ed on “anti-wok­e­ness” and the hatred of Black Lives Mat­ter and oth­er move­ments for lib­er­a­tion.

* San­difer

When you describe this stuff, it doesn’t sound very appeal­ing. And so, to most of the peo­ple upon whose elec­toral sup­port this move­ment relies, these aren’t the bits they describe. What they describe is: Black peo­ple are all get­ting free crack pipes from Oba­ma. What they describe is, trans peo­ple are groom­ing your kids and are going to take them away from you. What they describe is the entire pro-life argu­ment: pro life, anti-abor­tion, anti-choice, what is about to win in the U.S. Supreme Court and out­law abor­tion for more than half of the coun­try. These are the argu­ments they use to win elec­toral pow­er. But behind the scenes, when you trace the intel­lec­tu­al roots of the argu­ments of the peo­ple who are in prac­tice run­ning a site like Bre­it­bart, these are the things you find.

Yarvin open­ly talked about how polit­i­cal alliances with white nation­al­ist are some­times odi­ous because they’re stu­pid, nasty peo­ple but prob­a­bly use­ful for achiev­ing the polit­i­cal goals he wants. Most of them are racist, trans­pho­bic, misog­y­nis­tic ass­holes them­selves. I don’t want to sug­gest that these aspects of their argu­ments are pure­ly iron­ic affec­ta­tion. Fun­da­men­tal­ly, if you give even the remotest shit about Black peo­ple, you don’t ally with white nation­al­ists. The very fact that you ally with white nation­al­ists speaks vol­umes about your racism. The active spear tip of this move­ment is anti-wokeism and fears about can­cel cul­ture and crit­i­cal race the­o­ry and all that.

When you look at what actu­al­ly happens—you look at the way in which the edu­ca­tion sys­tem is of para­mount impor­tance in Yarvin’s con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry, there is a direct line from that to using groomer pan­ic and crit­i­cal race the­o­ry to stage a fas­cist takeover of the entire Flori­da edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem, which just hap­pened. It just hap­pened. Florida’s edu­ca­tion sys­tem has lit­er­al­ly banned most of the stuff that Cur­tis Yarvin thinks is secret­ly run­ning the world. So these ideas are hav­ing a huge impact. There were many, many steps between Cur­tis Yarvin and Flori­da Gov­er­nor Ron DeSan­tis. But those steps exist­ed and can be lin­ear­ly traced.

* Robin­son

I watched the full Yarvin inter­view with Tuck­er Carl­son. Tuck­er Carl­son was total­ly fas­ci­nat­ed.

* San­difer

Of course he was.

* Robin­son

Carl­son pre­sent­ed Yarvin as this fas­ci­nat­ing intel­lec­tu­al who is silenced by the main­stream but who has real­ly, real­ly valu­able and inter­est­ing ideas. The whole hour they spent was Yarvin expound­ing this the­o­ry that there is this kind of con­spir­a­cy of elites that he calls “the cathe­dral” that con­sists of Har­vard and the New York Times and the gov­ern­ment and all that. And he was explain­ing to Tuck­er how peo­ple who put Black Lives Mat­ter signs in their yard, that the sign real­ly says, “I love pow­er and con­for­mi­ty.”

He talked about the red pill. He said, you’re going to take the red pill, you’re gonna see things for how they real­ly are. And Tuck­er Carl­son has his mind blown by Cur­tis. But, impor­tant­ly, all of it is about the big woke con­spir­a­cy that rules the coun­try. None of it is about the solu­tion being fas­cism, even though that’s what Yarvin believes.

* San­difer

Right. You don’t say the fas­cism on prime­time on Fox News. You say that at your lit­tle con­ser­v­a­tive con­fer­ence where you’ve got the true believ­ers. There is very much the pro­pa­gan­da front. And if you look at the overt polit­i­cal goals of these people—which is absolute­ly monar­chic, or, at least oli­garchic dic­ta­tor­ship of the very, very rich—you can absolute­ly see why Fox News is mak­ing the polit­i­cal moves in this.

* Robin­son

I want to just read a lit­tle pas­sage from the end of your book that made me laugh. You write: To engage in Alt-Right think­ing is to turn one­self into a vac­u­ous skin­suit ani­mat­ed by raw stu­pid­i­ty. There is lit­er­al­ly not a sin­gle shred of non-stu­pid­i­ty in the entire thing. Men­cius Mold­bug, stu­pid. Milo Yiannopou­los, stu­pid. Don­ald Trump, Vox Day, stu­pid, stu­pid, stu­pid. MAGA and The Dai­ly Stormer are stu­pid. Every sin­gle detail of every sin­gle aspect of this entire cra­ter­ing shit­storm in which the human race seems hell bent on going extinct is absolute­ly fuck­ing stu­pid.

* San­difer

I stand by every word of that.

...

———–

“The Strange and Ter­ri­fy­ing Ideas of Neo­re­ac­tionar­ies” by Nathan J. Robin­son; Cur­rent Affairs; 05/30/2022

“When you look at what actu­al­ly happens—you look at the way in which the edu­ca­tion sys­tem is of para­mount impor­tance in Yarvin’s con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry, there is a direct line from that to using groomer pan­ic and crit­i­cal race the­o­ry to stage a fas­cist takeover of the entire Flori­da edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem, which just hap­pened. It just hap­pened. Florida’s edu­ca­tion sys­tem has lit­er­al­ly banned most of the stuff that Cur­tis Yarvin thinks is secret­ly run­ning the world. So these ideas are hav­ing a huge impact. There were many, many steps between Cur­tis Yarvin and Flori­da Gov­er­nor Ron DeSan­tis. But those steps exist­ed and can be lin­ear­ly traced.”

It just hap­pened. Cur­tis Yarv­in’s vision of an ide­o­log­i­cal insti­tu­tion­al purge of ‘the left’ already hap­pened in Flori­da ear­li­er this year with DeSan­tis’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. At the K‑12 lev­el at least. And now it’s hap­pen­ing at Flori­da’s col­leges, with plans on tak­ing it nation­wide. This is Cur­tis Yarv­in’s purge, play­ing out as Ron DeSan­tis’s right-wing ‘pop­ulism’. Media, acad­e­mia, and the civ­il ser­vice end of gov­ern­ment are the big three all-pow­er­ful insti­tu­tions and com­plete­ly dom­i­nat­ed by the left in Yarv­in’s ver­sion of real­i­ty, with anti-wokeism and fears about can­cel cul­ture and crit­i­cal race the­o­ry oper­at­ing as the tip of the spear. A tip of a spear intend­ed to whip the pub­lic into the kind of fren­zy that will have them call­ing for Rufo’s ‘counter-rev­o­lu­tion­ary’ mea­sures across the nation:

...
* Robin­son

So per­haps you could describe the start­ing point of his analy­sis of what is wrong with soci­ety.

* San­difer

His start­ing point is the extreme­ly self-evi­dent asser­tion that there is an over­all con­sen­sus. He rein­vents the Over­ton win­dow from scratch. He rein­vents the idea that there is a dic­tat­ed set of opin­ions which are accept­able and pos­si­ble to dis­cuss and to take seri­ous­ly. There is this polit­i­cal cen­ter around which noth­ing can orbit too far away from with­out freez­ing to death. It’s fun­da­men­tal­ly dic­tat­ed by a num­ber of elite and pow­er­ful insti­tu­tions. So the New York Times does a whole lot to dic­tate what the polit­i­cal cen­ter is. There are many oth­er exam­ples. The ones that Yarvin is most obsessed with are basi­cal­ly the media, acad­e­mia, and the civ­il ser­vice end of gov­ern­ment. He views those as the big three insti­tu­tions that are impos­ing a kind of absolute con­sen­sus that he says is drift­ing in an ever left­ward lib­er­al direc­tion. He points to the progress of civ­il rights, takes Mar­tin Luther King, Jr.’s obser­va­tion about the arc of the moral uni­verse bend­ing toward jus­tice over the long run and ren­ders it a hor­ror sto­ry, actu­al­ly refer­ring to this cen­trist con­sen­sus as Cthul­hu and say­ing that “Cthul­hu always swims left.”

The sen­si­ble thing to do is prob­a­bly to look at the role of mon­ey in this.

...

* Robin­son

We talked about the dic­ta­to­r­i­al ten­den­cies, but we haven’t dis­cussed the extent to which a lot of this is found­ed on “anti-wok­e­ness” and the hatred of Black Lives Mat­ter and oth­er move­ments for lib­er­a­tion.

* San­difer

When you describe this stuff, it doesn’t sound very appeal­ing. And so, to most of the peo­ple upon whose elec­toral sup­port this move­ment relies, these aren’t the bits they describe. What they describe is: Black peo­ple are all get­ting free crack pipes from Oba­ma. What they describe is, trans peo­ple are groom­ing your kids and are going to take them away from you. What they describe is the entire pro-life argu­ment: pro life, anti-abor­tion, anti-choice, what is about to win in the U.S. Supreme Court and out­law abor­tion for more than half of the coun­try. These are the argu­ments they use to win elec­toral pow­er. But behind the scenes, when you trace the intel­lec­tu­al roots of the argu­ments of the peo­ple who are in prac­tice run­ning a site like Bre­it­bart, these are the things you find.

Yarvin open­ly talked about how polit­i­cal alliances with white nation­al­ist are some­times odi­ous because they’re stu­pid, nasty peo­ple but prob­a­bly use­ful for achiev­ing the polit­i­cal goals he wants. Most of them are racist, trans­pho­bic, misog­y­nis­tic ass­holes them­selves. I don’t want to sug­gest that these aspects of their argu­ments are pure­ly iron­ic affec­ta­tion. Fun­da­men­tal­ly, if you give even the remotest shit about Black peo­ple, you don’t ally with white nation­al­ists. The very fact that you ally with white nation­al­ists speaks vol­umes about your racism. The active spear tip of this move­ment is anti-wokeism and fears about can­cel cul­ture and crit­i­cal race the­o­ry and all that.
...

That’s the omi­nous con­text of Chris­t­ian Rufo’s declared plans to ‘recap­ture’ New Col­lege. It’s a show­case ini­tia­tive intend­ed to nor­mal­ize Cur­tis Yarv­in’s dream of the right-wing ‘recap­ture’ of Amer­i­can’s insti­tu­tions. Or at least what used to be Cur­tis Yarv­in’s dream. It’s a much more wide­ly shared dream by now. And pre­sum­ably even more wide­ly shared after Ron DeSan­tis makes insti­tu­tion­al purges a cen­ter­piece of his 2024.

In the mean time, if you’re in high school and are con­sid­er­ing a major in jour­nal­ism with an inter­est­ing in in-depth inves­ti­ga­tions intothe hijack­ing of insti­tu­tions by pow­er­ful sub­ver­sive forces, New Col­lege could be a very inter­est­ing choice.

With the US once again forced to face the real­i­ties of pol­i­cy bru­tal­i­ty and the broad­er issues of sys­temic racism still haunt­ing US insti­tu­tions fol­low­ing the release a video footage of the lethal beat­ing of Tyre Nichols by an elite Mem­phis police unit, it’s worth not­ing an oth­er sto­ry from this week relat­ed to the ongo­ing ‘Sched­ule F’ agen­da of prepar­ing of a mass purge of all left-wing thought or indi­vid­u­als from US soci­ety. A purge car­ried out under the pre­text of deal­ing with a declared emer­gency threat posed by ‘the com­mu­nist woke Democ­rats and antifa and Black Lives Mat­ter.’

The brand­ing of ‘the Left’ in the US as a bunch of sub­ver­sive com­mu­nists of an ‘ene­my with­in’ is a long-stand­ing right-wing trope in Amer­i­ca pol­i­tics. But as we’ve seen, it’s a trope that’s been ‘fleshed out’ quite a bit in recent years with the con­ser­v­a­tive estab­lish­men­t’s ded­i­ca­tion to the Sched­ule F project. Mass ide­o­log­i­cal purges are the plan. A plan already put in motion with Ron DeSan­tis’s ide­o­log­i­cal purge of New Col­lege, which sure looks a lot like the kind of pass purges of high­er edu­ca­tion long advo­cat­ed by Cur­tis Yarvin. Put in motion but still just begin­ning. It’s the kind of sit­u­a­tion that screams to ask the ques­tion of “what’s next?”

And that brings us to the the rant­i­ngs of nation­al­ly syn­di­cat­ed right-wing talk radio host Jesse Kel­ly. Rant­i­ngs that, as we’ll see, are being rou­tine­ly ampli­fied by none oth­er than Tuck­er Carl­son, host of the high­est rat­ed show on Fox News. It turns out Kel­ly is a pret­ty reg­u­lar guest on Carl­son’s var­i­ous Fox shows, whether it’s his top rat­ed “Tuck­er Carl­son Tonight” show on Fox New or the new­er “Tuck­er Carl­son Today” stream­ing show which tends to veer even fur­ther into the realm of fas­cist thought.

It was just last week in response to the sug­ges­tion by Sen­a­tor Rand Paul that the top 10% of the FBI should be fired and replaced in response to the alleged per­se­cu­tion of con­ser­v­a­tives by the FBI. As Kel­ly saw it, 10% was­n’t enough. 100% of FBI employ­ees need to be fired. And then sent to camps in the desert where they’ll be inves­ti­gat­ed for any instances of politi­ciz­ing the FBI on behalf of Democ­rats. Those found guilty will be giv­en life sen­tences at a fed­er­al prison.

That was the “rea­son­able out­come”, as Kel­ly put it. But he was also sure to empha­size how he did­n’t want this to hap­pen. It sim­ply has to hap­pen as the only “real­is­tic” option con­ser­v­a­tives have left to deal with a gov­ern­ment that has become cap­ture by the sub­ver­sive com­mu­nist forces inside the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty that rep­re­sent an exis­ten­tial threat to Amer­i­ca. Or as Kel­ly put it, “We don’t want to be rad­i­cal. We don’t want to be. We real­ly don’t want to be. I don’t want to be an extrem­ist, okay? Because I’m not an extrem­ist. I won’t say all the things that should be done.”

In oth­er words, the ‘com­mu­nist Left’ is forc­ing the fas­cism. That’s not just a rea­son­able inter­pre­ta­tion of Kel­ly’s com­ments. As we’re going to see in the first arti­cle below, Kel­ly made made that exact same argu­ment back in March of 2021, just two months after the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion. As Kel­ly put it at the time, “I’ve said this before and I’m telling you, I’m wor­ried that I’m right: The right is going to pick a fas­cist with­in 10 to 20… years because they’re not going to be the only ones on the outs...There’s 60, 70 mil­lion of us. We’re not a tiny minor­i­ty, and if we’re going to be all treat­ed like crim­i­nals and all sub­ject to every sin­gle law, while antifa Black Lives Mat­ter guys go free and Hunter Biden goes free, then the right’s going to take dras­tic mea­sures.” That was Kel­ly’s ‘warn­ing’, deliv­ered on Tuck­er Carl­son’s top rat­ed Fox News shows, with Carl­son whole­heart­ed­ly agree­ing. They both agreed that ‘the woke Left’ was going to force con­ser­v­a­tives into embrac­ing a fas­cist response.

A few months lat­er, Carl­son invit­ed Kel­ly for an inter­view on his “Tuck­er Carl­son Today” streamed show on Fox Nation, where Kel­ly lament­ed the lack of patri­o­tism in Amer­i­ca’s chil­dren which he blamed in woke edu­ca­tion. As Kel­ly saw it, the only solu­tion left was to raise the pub­lic edu­ca­tion sys­tem and rebuild it anew. And Kel­ly appar­ent­ly was­n’t being the metaphor­i­cal when he sug­gest­ed the raz­ing of the US edu­ca­tion sys­tem. He went on to sug­gest that, “There would be noth­ing bet­ter you could do to help the advance­ment of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca than take the top 10 uni­ver­si­ties in this coun­try and fire every employ­ee and raze the build­ings to the ground and pee on the ash­es when you’re done..” Book burn­ing is so yes­ter­day. Real con­ser­v­a­tives burn down entire uni­ver­si­ties. But don’t call them fas­cist. Or at least don’t blame them for their fas­cism. Blame ‘the com­mu­nist Left’ and antifa and Black Lives Mat­ters. That’s who will ulti­mate­ly be at fault. That’s the mes­sage Jesse Kel­ly trot­ted out this week on his nation­al­ly syn­di­cat­ed radio show. And same mes­sage he’s been pro­mot­ing for the past two years. Pro­mot­ing and ampli­fy­ing on the most pop­u­lar pro­gram on cable news. We can’t say we weren’t warned:

The Dai­ly Beast

The Right Says Sor­ry In Advance for Going Fas­cist

And, absurd­ly, some con­ser­v­a­tives who’ve replaced opti­mism with despair are try­ing to blame Hunter Biden for “mak­ing” them to do it.

Matt Lewis
Senior Colum­nist
Updat­ed Mar. 30, 2021 10:59AM ET
Pub­lished Mar. 30, 2021 4:56AM ET

I became a con­ser­v­a­tive because I believed the con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues I grew up with were the best way to bring about human flour­ish­ing for the most Amer­i­cans. I still do. But in recent years it has become clear that sig­nif­i­cant parts of the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment no longer share this belief (if they ever did). There is a pal­pa­ble sense that not only are our val­ues inca­pable of per­suad­ing a major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans to sup­port Repub­li­can politi­cians at the bal­lot box, but that the whole project of lib­er­al democ­ra­cy is doomed.

What had been (in the days of Ronald Rea­gan and Jack Kemp) an opti­mistic phi­los­o­phy has metas­ta­sized. We are left with a right wing that is ani­mat­ed by despair, des­per­a­tion, and an inevitable belief in Amer­i­can decline. We have been hear­ing this sort of clam­or­ing since 2016, cul­mi­nat­ing with the Capi­tol insur­rec­tion on Jan. 6. But there was always the hope it would dis­si­pate if or when Don­ald Trump left the White House.

But sad­ly, Trump’s exit has done lit­tle to quell the incip­i­ent thirst for author­i­tar­i­an­ism from many on the right. Indeed, the fever seems to be get­ting worse.

One such exam­ple comes to us from The Amer­i­can Mind, a pub­li­ca­tion of the once-main­stream con­ser­v­a­tive Clare­mont Insti­tute. In a recent piece that gar­nered some buzz, senior fel­low Glenn Ellmers argues that “most peo­ple liv­ing in the Unit­ed States today—certainly more than half—are not Amer­i­cans in any mean­ing­ful sense of the term.” His lev­el of despair can be felt when he writes that, “Prac­ti­cal­ly speak­ing, there is almost noth­ing left to con­serve” and con­cludes that we should “give up on the idea that ‘con­ser­v­a­tives’ have any­thing use­ful to say. Accept the fact that what we need is a counter-rev­o­lu­tion.” Oh yeah, he also takes a shot at Joe Biden’s Inau­gur­al poet, say­ing, “If you are a zom­bie or a human rodent who wants a shad­ow-life of timid con­for­mi­ty, then put away this essay and go mem­o­rize the poet­ry of Aman­da Gor­man.”

Human rodent? Sick stuff. But pos­si­bly less dan­ger­ous than my oth­er exam­ple, which is Jesse Kelly’s com­ments days ago on Fox News ’ “Tuck­er Carl­son Tonight.”

“I’ve said this before and I’m telling you, I’m wor­ried that I’m right: The right is going to pick a fas­cist with­in 10 to 20… years because they’re not going to be the only ones on the outs,” Kel­ly said. “There’s 60, 70 mil­lion of us. We’re not a tiny minor­i­ty, and if we’re going to be all treat­ed like crim­i­nals and all sub­ject to every sin­gle law, while antifa Black Lives Mat­ter guys go free and Hunter Biden goes free, then the right’s going to take dras­tic mea­sures.”.

Kel­ly wasn’t lying when he said he’s said this before. “The inevitable counter to com­mu­nism is fas­cism,” he tweet­ed in Feb­ru­ary. “We will see a mon­ster rise on the Right in response to the Left’s vio­lence and cen­sor­ship. It will be awful. But it is com­ing. I promise you that.” Left unsaid are the illu­sions to Weimar Ger­many and the Weima­riza­tion of Amer­i­ca. In the 1930s, many Ger­mans were will­ing to give Hitler a try because they great­ly feared Com­mu­nism, saw their predica­ment as a bina­ry choice, and chose (what they thought would be) the less­er of two evils. Kel­ly seems to be warn­ing us that Amer­i­ca (which is quite dif­fer­ent from the Weimar Repub­lic) is head­ed toward a sim­i­lar fate.

Now, respon­si­ble con­ser­v­a­tives do some­times warn the left against pur­su­ing rad­i­cal ideas about iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics, can­cel cul­ture, street vio­lence, icon­o­clasm, etc., but our warn­ings are more sin­cere and less grandiose. If you’ve seen the “This is how you get Trump” tweets, you’re famil­iar with the genre.

Kelly’s play­book is much dif­fer­ent. When he says “the right is going to pick a fas­cist,” you have to won­der if that’s a warn­ing or a threat. And when he says he’s “wor­ried,” you have to won­der if he’s just con­cern trolling, or if he’s actu­al­ly lay­ing the ground­work for the ulti­mate “SEE WHAT YOU MADE ME DO” excuse.

Carl­son con­clud­ed the seg­ment by say­ing, “That’s so well put and you’re absolute­ly right. We are mov­ing toward actu­al extrem­ism because they’re under­min­ing the sys­tem that kept extrem­ism at bay. I don’t think we can say that enough. I’m so glad that you just said it. Jesse Kel­ly, thank you.”

Just as Don­ald Trump recent­ly told Lau­ra Ingra­ham that the Capi­tol insur­rec­tion­ists are now being “per­se­cut­ed,” these com­ments feed the right’s vic­tim men­tal­i­ty, mak­ing a wild jump from the com­plaint that one priv­i­leged, but trou­bled, politician’s son might have got­ten away with some­thing ille­gal to the view that Amer­i­can fas­cism is inevitable and (maybe even) excus­able.

As was the case with the “Flight-93 elec­tion” (also pub­lished by Clare­mont), the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion requires accept­ing the premise that things are so doomed that rush­ing the cock­pit is your only alter­na­tive. From where I sit, that is a fan­tas­ti­cal and dark premise that only works if peo­ple like Kel­ly con­stant­ly stoke pes­simism and hope­less­ness.

...

Instead of serv­ing as a warn­ing to con­ser­v­a­tives and pro­gres­sives to come togeth­er as a nation and avoid this fate, Kelly’s con­fi­dent pre­dic­tion seems more like­ly to serve as a self-fulling prophe­cy: he is intro­duc­ing us to a for­eign con­cept (the fas­cist leader in Amer­i­ca) and then cre­at­ing a per­mis­sion struc­ture to sup­port it. He’s not doing this on some fringe media out­let either. He’s spout­ing his views on a main­stream con­ser­v­a­tive network—on what hap­pens to be the most-watched cable news chan­nel in the nation.

...

————

“The Right Says Sor­ry In Advance for Going Fas­cist by Matt Lewis; The Dai­ly Beast; 03/30/2021

“One such exam­ple comes to us from The Amer­i­can Mind, a pub­li­ca­tion of the once-main­stream con­ser­v­a­tive Clare­mont Insti­tute. In a recent piece that gar­nered some buzz, senior fel­low Glenn Ellmers argues that “most peo­ple liv­ing in the Unit­ed States today—certainly more than half—are not Amer­i­cans in any mean­ing­ful sense of the term.” His lev­el of despair can be felt when he writes that, “Prac­ti­cal­ly speak­ing, there is almost noth­ing left to con­serve” and con­cludes that we should “give up on the idea that ‘con­ser­v­a­tives’ have any­thing use­ful to say. Accept the fact that what we need is a counter-rev­o­lu­tion.” Oh yeah, he also takes a shot at Joe Biden’s Inau­gur­al poet, say­ing, “If you are a zom­bie or a human rodent who wants a shad­ow-life of timid con­for­mi­ty, then put away this essay and go mem­o­rize the poet­ry of Aman­da Gor­man.””

The major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans aren’t real Amer­i­cans at this point, leav­ing counter-rev­o­lu­tion as the only remain­ing option for con­ser­v­a­tives. That was the argu­ment put for­ward in a piece pub­lished in the Clare­mont Insti­tute’s The Amer­i­can Mind, back in March of 2021, just two months after the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion. An event that came about in no small part thanks to the ‘legal rea­son­ing’ pushed by the Clare­mont Insti­tute’s John East­man (who is cur­rent­ly fac­ing dis­bar­ment in the state of Cal­i­for­nia over that role). Senior fel­low Glenn Ellmers did­n’t see any oth­er way. The minor­i­ty of real Amer­i­cans are going to have to ‘do some­thing’ about the un-Amer­i­can major­i­ty.

So what exact­ly will that “counter-rev­o­lu­tion” involve? Well, we got a clue a around that same time from right-wing talk radio host Jesse Kel­ly, who got an oppor­tu­ni­ty to share his counter-rev­o­lu­tion ideas on Tuck­er Carl­son’s Fox News show, the most pop­u­lar show on cable news. As Kel­ly put it, “I’ve said this before and I’m telling you, I’m wor­ried that I’m right: The right is going to pick a fas­cist with­in 10 to 20… years because they’re not going to be the only ones on the outs...There’s 60, 70 mil­lion of us. We’re not a tiny minor­i­ty, and if we’re going to be all treat­ed like crim­i­nals and all sub­ject to every sin­gle law, while antifa Black Lives Mat­ter guys go free and Hunter Biden goes free, then the right’s going to take dras­tic mea­sures.” Yep, the “right is going to pick a fas­cist with­in 10 to 20” as a con­se­quence of all the per­se­cu­tion of con­ser­v­a­tives and the lack of a crack­down on antifa, Black Lives Mat­ter, and oth­er ‘com­mu­nists’ who pose a mor­tal threat to the nation. It was a reit­er­a­tion of a mes­sage he tweet­ed out a month ear­li­er about how, “We will see a mon­ster rise on the Right in response to the Left’s vio­lence and cen­sor­ship. It will be awful. But it is com­ing. I promise you that.” He was­n’t not minc­ing words:

...
Human rodent? Sick stuff. But pos­si­bly less dan­ger­ous than my oth­er exam­ple, which is Jesse Kelly’s com­ments days ago on Fox News ’ “Tuck­er Carl­son Tonight.”

“I’ve said this before and I’m telling you, I’m wor­ried that I’m right: The right is going to pick a fas­cist with­in 10 to 20… years because they’re not going to be the only ones on the outs,” Kel­ly said. “There’s 60, 70 mil­lion of us. We’re not a tiny minor­i­ty, and if we’re going to be all treat­ed like crim­i­nals and all sub­ject to every sin­gle law, while antifa Black Lives Mat­ter guys go free and Hunter Biden goes free, then the right’s going to take dras­tic mea­sures.”.

Kel­ly wasn’t lying when he said he’s said this before. “The inevitable counter to com­mu­nism is fas­cism,” he tweet­ed in Feb­ru­ary. “We will see a mon­ster rise on the Right in response to the Left’s vio­lence and cen­sor­ship. It will be awful. But it is com­ing. I promise you that.” Left unsaid are the illu­sions to Weimar Ger­many and the Weima­riza­tion of Amer­i­ca. In the 1930s, many Ger­mans were will­ing to give Hitler a try because they great­ly feared Com­mu­nism, saw their predica­ment as a bina­ry choice, and chose (what they thought would be) the less­er of two evils. Kel­ly seems to be warn­ing us that Amer­i­ca (which is quite dif­fer­ent from the Weimar Repub­lic) is head­ed toward a sim­i­lar fate.

...

Kelly’s play­book is much dif­fer­ent. When he says “the right is going to pick a fas­cist,” you have to won­der if that’s a warn­ing or a threat. And when he says he’s “wor­ried,” you have to won­der if he’s just con­cern trolling, or if he’s actu­al­ly lay­ing the ground­work for the ulti­mate “SEE WHAT YOU MADE ME DO” excuse.
...

That was the kind of idea that was get­ting main­streamed on Tuck­er Carl­son’s show in the months fol­low­ing the insur­rec­tion. Ideas that Carl­son ful­ly endorsed on his. The left is going to force the com­ing right-wing fas­cist “counter-rev­o­lu­tion”. The ground is being laid:

...
Carl­son con­clud­ed the seg­ment by say­ing, “That’s so well put and you’re absolute­ly right. We are mov­ing toward actu­al extrem­ism because they’re under­min­ing the sys­tem that kept extrem­ism at bay. I don’t think we can say that enough. I’m so glad that you just said it. Jesse Kel­ly, thank you.”

...

Instead of serv­ing as a warn­ing to con­ser­v­a­tives and pro­gres­sives to come togeth­er as a nation and avoid this fate, Kelly’s con­fi­dent pre­dic­tion seems more like­ly to serve as a self-fulling prophe­cy: he is intro­duc­ing us to a for­eign con­cept (the fas­cist leader in Amer­i­ca) and then cre­at­ing a per­mis­sion struc­ture to sup­port it. He’s not doing this on some fringe media out­let either. He’s spout­ing his views on a main­stream con­ser­v­a­tive network—on what hap­pens to be the most-watched cable news chan­nel in the nation.
...

But Tuck­er Carl­son was­n’t done pro­mot­ing Kel­ly’s post-insur­rec­tion mes­sage of ‘counter-rev­o­lu­tion’ to deal with the major­i­ty of non-‘real Amer­i­cans’ that inhab­it the coun­try. As the fol­low­ing Fox News piece from June, 2021, makes clear, Jesse Kel­ly’s mes­sage of counter-rev­o­lu­tion is a mes­sage Fox News wants to go main­stream. It was that month that Carl­son invit­ed Kel­ly back onto his “Tuck­er Carl­son Today” show on the Fox Nation stream­ing ser­vice where Kel­ly made the case that the lack of patri­o­tism could be traced back to the schools. There­fore, the solu­tion is “com­plete­ly car­pet-bomb­ing the Amer­i­can edu­ca­tion sys­tem and remak­ing it from the bot­tom up.” Not just metaphor­i­cal­ly. Kel­ly went on to sug­gest the actu­al raz­ing the top 10 uni­ver­si­ties in the US. It’s Cur­tis Yarv­in’s mass insti­tu­tion­al purge, get­ting main­streamed by Jesse Kel­ly and Tuck­er Carl­son:

Fox News

Jesse Kel­ly calls for ‘raz­ing’ the US pub­lic edu­ca­tion sys­tem, as nation suf­fer­ing from ‘patri­o­tism prob­lem’

‘If 85 out of 100 peo­ple wake up every day and think this place sucks, well, then you’re in a lot of trou­ble and we’re in a lot of trou­ble’

By Charles Cre­itz
Pub­lished June 23, 2021 6:59pm EDT

Radio host and for­mer Ari­zona con­gres­sion­al can­di­date Jesse Kel­ly sound­ed off Wednes­day on the “patri­o­tism prob­lem” in the Unit­ed States, telling Fox Nation’s “Tuck­er Carl­son Today” the ris­ing anti-Amer­i­can­ism can be in part attrib­uted to what the pub­lic edu­ca­tion sys­tem is teach­ing the next gen­er­a­tion.

Kel­ly told host Tuck­er Carl­son that Amer­i­ca as-found­ed is dete­ri­o­rat­ing due to the ongo­ing attack on its insti­tu­tions and the coun­try itself.

“It sounds hokey, but the rea­son we are in this predica­ment in this coun­try is sim­ply patri­o­tism. We have a patri­o­tism prob­lem. If you have enough a high enough per­cent­age of your pop­u­la­tion that loves their coun­try, you’re going to have a good coun­try,” said Kel­ly, a retired Marine.

“Why? Because if you have so many peo­ple, if there are 100 peo­ple in the coun­try, and 85 of them wake up every day say­ing this is a great place. Well, why do I feed my kids? Because I love my kids. There­fore, I feel like I have a duty to do right by my kids. Same way works in a coun­try you wake up in every sin­gle day.”

...

Kel­ly also took on the indoc­tri­na­tion of crit­i­cal race the­o­ry and oth­er left-wing ide­olo­gies being applied in pub­lic schools and uni­ver­si­ties across the coun­try, char­ac­ter­iz­ing them as incon­gru­ous to the skills our chil­dren should be learn­ing and that past gen­er­a­tions have.

“There is no oth­er argu­ment to be had right now oth­er than com­plete­ly car­pet-bomb­ing the Amer­i­can edu­ca­tion sys­tem and remak­ing it from the bot­tom up,” he said, adding that doing so would go a long way to fix the afore­men­tioned “patri­o­tism prob­lem.”

“That’s where they’re learn­ing the anti-patri­o­tism. That’s where they’re learn­ing the anti-Amer­i­can­ism… What do you learn in grade school? Well, slav­ery and, of course, we slaugh­tered the Native Amer­i­cans whole­sale, and that was pret­ty much Amer­i­ca,” Kel­ly said of the his­tor­i­cal dis­tor­tions taught by some in civics edu­ca­tion.

“There would be noth­ing bet­ter you could do to help the advance­ment of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca than take the top 10 uni­ver­si­ties in this coun­try and fire every employ­ee and raze the build­ings to the ground and pee on the ash­es when you’re done.”

———-

“Jesse Kel­ly calls for ‘raz­ing’ the US pub­lic edu­ca­tion sys­tem, as nation suf­fer­ing from ‘patri­o­tism prob­lem’ ” By Charles Cre­itz; Fox News; 06/23/2021

“Kel­ly told host Tuck­er Carl­son that Amer­i­ca as-found­ed is dete­ri­o­rat­ing due to the ongo­ing attack on its insti­tu­tions and the coun­try itself.”

When Jesse Kel­ly warned about the com­ing right-wing fas­cism, he was­n’t giv­ing specifics. But we got those specifics from Kel­ly just a few months lat­er. Spe­cif­ic plans with a dis­tinct Sched­ule F echo. Cur­tis Yarv­in’s expand­ed Sched­ule F plan that includ­ed a mass purge of all insti­tu­tions in Amer­i­ca, pub­lic and pri­vate: in order to deal with the lack of patri­o­tism in the major­i­ty of non-‘real Amer­i­cans’, the solu­tion is to raze the US edu­ca­tion sys­tem, includ­ing lit­er­al­ly burn­ing the top 10 US uni­ver­si­ties to the ground:

...
Kel­ly also took on the indoc­tri­na­tion of crit­i­cal race the­o­ry and oth­er left-wing ide­olo­gies being applied in pub­lic schools and uni­ver­si­ties across the coun­try, char­ac­ter­iz­ing them as incon­gru­ous to the skills our chil­dren should be learn­ing and that past gen­er­a­tions have.

“There is no oth­er argu­ment to be had right now oth­er than com­plete­ly car­pet-bomb­ing the Amer­i­can edu­ca­tion sys­tem and remak­ing it from the bot­tom up,” he said, adding that doing so would go a long way to fix the afore­men­tioned “patri­o­tism prob­lem.”

“That’s where they’re learn­ing the anti-patri­o­tism. That’s where they’re learn­ing the anti-Amer­i­can­ism… What do you learn in grade school? Well, slav­ery and, of course, we slaugh­tered the Native Amer­i­cans whole­sale, and that was pret­ty much Amer­i­ca,” Kel­ly said of the his­tor­i­cal dis­tor­tions taught by some in civics edu­ca­tion.

“There would be noth­ing bet­ter you could do to help the advance­ment of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca than take the top 10 uni­ver­si­ties in this coun­try and fire every employ­ee and raze the build­ings to the ground and pee on the ash­es when you’re done.”
...

Now, it would be tempt­ing to assume that this was all just hyper­bole and that Jesse Kel­ly was­n’t being lit­er­al­ly seri­ous when he called for the raz­ing of Amer­i­can uni­ver­si­ties as part of an ‘anti-com­mu­nist’ patri­ot­ic purge. And that brings us to the fol­low­ing Jesse Kel­ly rant deliv­ered on his nation­al­ly syn­di­cat­ed radio show just last week. A rant in response to calls from Sen­a­tor Rand Paul to replace the top 10% of the agency. As Kel­ly put it, 10% is 10-times too lit­tle. The fig­ure should be 100% of FBI agents.

But they should­n’t just fired. No, all of the FBI’s employ­ees should be tak­en to a camp in the desert where they will face an exten­sive inves­ti­ga­tion into whether or not they’ve ever done any­thing on behalf of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. Those found guilty should be giv­en life sen­tences in fed­er­al prison.

And, echo­ing his warn­ings about how right-wing fas­cism will come only as a response to ‘all the com­mu­nism on the Left’, Kel­ly starts of the rant with assur­ances about how, “We don’t want to be rad­i­cal. We don’t want to be. We real­ly don’t want to be. I don’t want to be an extrem­ist, okay? Because I’m not an extrem­ist. I won’t say all the things that should be done.” It’s the same under­ly­ing mes­sage hearti­ly endorsed by Tuck­er Carl­son back in March of 2021: fas­cism is the only response remain­ing. They don’t want to be fas­cists but ‘the com­mu­nist Left’ forced them to do it:

Media Mat­ters

iHeartRa­dio host Jesse Kel­ly says all FBI employ­ees should be fired and put into a camp “out in the desert”

Kel­ly: “Let the gang­bangers out. Put the FBI agents in. I’m not even jok­ing.”

Writ­ten by Media Mat­ters Staff
Pub­lished 01/26/23 5:22 PM EST

JESSE KELLY (HOST): Rand Paul says the FBI will only be reformed if we remove and replace the top 10% of the agency. Now, I should clar­i­fy that I’m actu­al­ly a Rand Paul fan. I wish we had a hun­dred of them. My good­ness, would this coun­try look dif­fer­ent­ly if we had a hun­dred Rand Pauls in the Sen­ate.

That being said. Ten per­cent? We need to remove and replace ten per­cent of the FBI? Feel like we missed a zero in there.

Let’s begin at 100%. I tell you what, let’s do this. Let’s – look. We don’t want to be rad­i­cal. We don’t want to be. We real­ly don’t want to be. I don’t want to be an extrem­ist, okay? Because I’m not an extrem­ist. I won’t say all the things that should be done.

I will sim­ply say the real­is­tic, frankly, the only accept­able out­come for all this is we take 100% of the employ­ees at the FBI. We fire every sin­gle one of them. Then we take them all and we put them in a camp, a large camp we have set up out in the desert. All the for­mer FBI employ­ees will be removed and sent to this camp. We’ll get back to the camp in a moment.

The FBI build­ing itself, once it’s been emp­tied out, because we don’t want any­one to get hurt. We will not just do a con­trolled demo­li­tion on the Hoover Build­ing. We will insist that it be broad­cast nation­al­ly. Every sin­gle TV sta­tion will car­ry this live as a mes­sage to the Amer­i­can peo­ple of what hap­pens to tyrants, espe­cial­ly peo­ple who think they’re above the law in the coun­try.

Then we go back to the camp where they’re at. Now, this is not some evil camp. We are giv­ing every­body three meals a day. They’re going to be well-treat­ed. They’re going to be fed.

But that’s when we will begin our exten­sive inves­ti­ga­tion and inter­view process. And as we inves­ti­gate, as we inter­view these for­mer FBI per­son­nel from top to bot­tom, I mean, top to bot­tom, when­ev­er we find some­body who used his posi­tion of pow­er and influ­ence at the FBI to politi­cize in any way on behalf of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, that per­son will be removed from the camp in hand­cuffs and leg irons and moved to a jail where he will await tri­al for a life sen­tence.

Once con­vict­ed, he will be placed in Fort Leav­en­worth or some kind of fed­er­al prison for the rest of his life. That is the rea­son­able out­come.

Once you’ve devel­oped a secret state police agency that attacks Repub­li­cans on behalf of Democ­rats. You don’t need ten per­cent. You need a hun­dred. They all have to go. And I don’t just mean fir­ings, Like I said, not just resign­ing. It’s not just that they have to go. Peo­ple have to go to prison. Peo­ple with­in the FBI have to go to prison. Oh, Jesse, we don’t have enough pris­ons. I don’t care. Let the gang­bangers out. Put the FBI agents in. I’m not even jok­ing. They’re much more dan­ger­ous to the coun­try. Put the FBI agents in prison where they belong.

————-

“iHeartRa­dio host Jesse Kel­ly says all FBI employ­ees should be fired and put into a camp “out in the desert”” by Media Mat­ters Staff; Media Mat­ters; 01/26/2023

“I will sim­ply say the real­is­tic, frankly, the only accept­able out­come for all this is we take 100% of the employ­ees at the FBI. We fire every sin­gle one of them. Then we take them all and we put them in a camp, a large camp we have set up out in the desert. All the for­mer FBI employ­ees will be removed and sent to this camp. We’ll get back to the camp in a moment.”

Send every sin­gle FBI employ­ee to a camp in the desert where they were face exten­sive inves­ti­ga­tions to deter­mine whether or not they act­ed in any way seen as ‘on behalf of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty’. Those found guilty will be giv­en life sen­tences at fed­er­al pris­ons. That is the only “real­is­tic” and “rea­son­able” out­come accord­ing to Jesse Kel­ly on his radio show last week. Again, it’s basi­cal­ly echo­ing Cur­tis Yarv­in’s calls for an insti­tu­tion mass purge. A purge guid­ed by the con­vic­tion that Democ­rats, and lib­er­als in gen­er­al, are non-Amer­i­cans who must be expelled from soci­ety all togeth­er:

...
The FBI build­ing itself, once it’s been emp­tied out, because we don’t want any­one to get hurt. We will not just do a con­trolled demo­li­tion on the Hoover Build­ing. We will insist that it be broad­cast nation­al­ly. Every sin­gle TV sta­tion will car­ry this live as a mes­sage to the Amer­i­can peo­ple of what hap­pens to tyrants, espe­cial­ly peo­ple who think they’re above the law in the coun­try.

Then we go back to the camp where they’re at. Now, this is not some evil camp. We are giv­ing every­body three meals a day. They’re going to be well-treat­ed. They’re going to be fed.

But that’s when we will begin our exten­sive inves­ti­ga­tion and inter­view process. And as we inves­ti­gate, as we inter­view these for­mer FBI per­son­nel from top to bot­tom, I mean, top to bot­tom, when­ev­er we find some­body who used his posi­tion of pow­er and influ­ence at the FBI to politi­cize in any way on behalf of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, that per­son will be removed from the camp in hand­cuffs and leg irons and moved to a jail where he will await tri­al for a life sen­tence.

Once con­vict­ed, he will be placed in Fort Leav­en­worth or some kind of fed­er­al prison for the rest of his life. That is the rea­son­able out­come.
...

So what’s going to hap­pen to the FBI employ­ees who com­mit­ted the car­di­nal sin of reg­is­ter­ing as Democ­rats or, even worse, donat­ing to Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates? Leav­en­worth? We’ll see, but it’s hard to imag­ine all reg­is­tered Democ­rats won’t be ulti­mate­ly fired for one excuse or anoth­er when this gets under­way.

Not if this gets under­way. When this gets under­way. And that’s real­ly the larg­er sto­ry here. Jesse Kel­ly is just a ran­dom right-wing talk radio host. But he’s not rant­i­ng in a vac­u­um push­ing a ran­dom mes­sage. He’s push­ing a mes­sage that is main­stream­ing the idea of mass ide­o­log­i­cal purges of all insti­tu­tions in the US as a kind of emer­gency response to the declared exis­ten­tial threat from the ‘com­mu­nist Left’. A mes­sage that serves as both a warn­ing and a next step in the ongo­ing purge prepa­ra­tions. Again, we can’t say we weren’t warned. The warn­ings are part of the plan.

Stat­ue con­tro­ver­sies are noth­ing new for the US. Espe­cial­ly in recent years. But that does­n’t mean there’s no room for inno­va­tion. There’s a new kind of stat­ue con­tro­ver­sy in town. Maybe, assum­ing the Geor­gia GOP suc­ceeds in its push to place a stat­ue of Supreme Court Jus­tice, and Geor­gia native, Clarence Thomas at the state capi­tol. The move, which has been opposed by Geor­gia’s black law­mak­ers since it was first pushed by Geor­gia’s Repub­li­cans a year ago, was reignit­ed this week by a group of pow­er­ful Repub­li­cans in the Geor­gia Sen­ate.

It remains to be seen if Geor­gia’s GOP will suc­ceed this time in enshrin­ing Jus­tice Thomas’s irrefutable lega­cy of accom­plish­ment for the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment. But it’s still a good time to note anoth­er of Jus­tice Thomas’s major accom­plish­ments that also has yet to receive the for­mal recog­ni­tion they deserves. An accom­plish­ments that can be shared with his wife Gin­ni: the Thomases were basi­cal­ly left out of the Jan­u­ary 6 con­gres­sion­al report released back in Decem­ber, days before Christ­mas. No men­tion of Clarence Thomas’s refusal to recuse him­self from Jan 6 cas­es that could poten­tial­ly involve Gin­ni in the report. In fact, Gin­ni isn’t men­tioned in the report at all. Noth­ing at all.

As Dahlia Lith­wick not­ed at the time, it’s part of a broad­er pat­tern we’ve seen emerge dur­ing the Trump years when it comes to DC’s response to the extrem­ism nor­mal­ized by Trump’s MAGA move­ment: it’s fine for even ‘estab­lish­ment’ Repub­li­cans to crit­i­cize Trump. But no one dares men­tion the rogue actions of the Thomases. Even when it comes to Jan 6. Or the Sched­ule F plot. As we’ve seen, Gin­ni Thomas and her CNP-dom­i­nat­ed Groundswell net­work played an impor­tant role in cre­at­ing lists of ‘dis­loy­al’ gov­ern­ment employ­ees. Lists hand­ed by Thomas per­son­al­ly to Trump back in Jan­u­ary of 2019. And as we’ve also seen, a close fam­i­ly friend of the Thomases — Mark Pao­let­ta — remains involved with the ongo­ing Sched­ule F schem­ing by inform­ing con­ser­v­a­tive audi­ences of the need to imple­ment the Sched­ule F purge as soon as pos­si­ble.

And then there’s the gen­er­al fact that Gin­ni Thomas is seen as the ‘not-so-secret-weapon’ of the Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy (CNP) and the Sched­ule F effort is com­plete­ly infused with CNP fig­ures, and the evi­dence is clear that we should view Gin­ni Thomas as a cen­tral Sched­ule F plot orga­niz­er. It’s a fun fact gen­er­al­ly worth recall, but now seems like a par­tic­u­lar­ly good time.

And that brings us to anoth­er fun fact about the con­gres­sion­al Jan 6 report: no men­tion of the CNP at all. None. That’s part of this sto­ry. It’s not just the Thomas get­ting expunged from Jan 6 his­to­ry. The absolute­ly cen­tral role played by a large net­work of CNP mem­bers was­n’t men­tioned at all. Just as we should have expect­ed. Because that part of the broad­er sto­ry about the CNP: we can’t talk about it. It’s not clear why, but the CNP is almost nev­er talked about despite slews of CNP mem­bers show­ing up play­ing orga­niz­ing roles in one sto­ry about right-wing schemes after anoth­er. And so we have to ask: is the extreme hes­i­tan­cy in ever address­ing the wild and grow­ing con­flicts of inter­est posed by Gin­ni Thomas’s role as a lead­ing con­ser­v­a­tive orga­niz­er and Jus­tice Thomas’s role on the court pri­mar­i­ly due to a def­er­ence to the Thomases? Or a def­er­ence to the CNP? Who knows, but it’s hard not to view Gin­ni Thomas as one of the most pow­er­ful and untouch­able fig­ures in the US at that is point.

Ok, first, here’s a look at the lack of any offi­cial scruti­ny of the Thomases at all in the Jan 6 con­gres­sion­al report. It does­n’t look great for Clarence. Worse for Gin­ni. And yet the inves­ti­ga­tion offi­cial­ly looked the oth­er way:

Slate

Why the Jan. 6 Com­mit­tee Let Gin­ni and Clarence Thomas Off the Hook

When you’re a jus­tice, they let you do it.

By Dahlia Lith­wick
Dec 22, 2022 5:40 AM

In think­ing about the vast eth­i­cal suck­ing noise that’s con­sumed vir­tu­al­ly all of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, it’s easy to feel hope­less as 2022 grinds to an end. Don­ald Trump’s tax­es, years ahead ded­i­cat­ed to Beng­hazi-style hear­ings, Supreme Court jus­tices par­ty­ing with elec­tion deniers—bah, hum­bug, rinse, repeat.

That’s why the crim­i­nal refer­rals lobbed at Trump this week from the Jan. 6 com­mit­tee are heart­en­ing and tan­gi­ble. The committee’s deci­sion to state that Trump and his most law­less sup­port­ers have com­mit­ted actu­al crimes laid down a pow­er­ful his­tor­i­cal mark­er and put impor­tant pres­sure on the Jus­tice Depart­ment for future account­abil­i­ty.

And yet there is some­thing that feels entire­ly unsat­is­fy­ing about cel­e­brat­ing this as a land­mark win. Two years after we watched the crime hap­pen in plain sight, and the crim­i­nals fêt­ed and enriched, we now see crim­i­nal charges humbly sug­gest­ed, for a hand­ful of peo­ple?

It’s OK to be frus­trat­ed at the lim­its of the exec­u­tive sum­ma­ry of the committee’s final report. The report itself remains forth­com­ing. But just for starters, Monday’s release failed to take seri­ous­ly the spec­tac­u­lar fail­ures of law enforce­ment and intel­li­gence agen­cies; the lim­it­ed effi­ca­cy of ethics refer­rals for GOP House mem­bers who failed to com­ply with sub­poe­nas; and the cul­pa­bil­i­ty of so very many Repub­li­cans who have aid­ed and abet­ted Trump’s big lie for two straight years.

For its own obvi­ous rea­sons, the com­mit­tee opt­ed to focus its gaze on Don­ald Trump and the weird­est weirdos in his orbit, thus spar­ing some of the worst denial­ists, liars, and insur­rec­tion­ists in the GOP from the prospect of seri­ous account­abil­i­ty. But Trump him­self was already slip­ping from “hot” to “not” at mete­oric speeds, which is per­haps why the focus on the for­mer (or—as the pan­el sor­did­ly referred to him Monday—the “ex”) pres­i­dent seems so painful­ly nar­row.

It’s at least pos­si­ble to sur­mise that the biggest win­ners after the com­mit­tee fin­ished its superb work would be Ron DeSan­tis, the Mur­dochs, Liz Cheney, and all those advo­cat­ing that the GOP dump Don­ald in favor of lit­er­al­ly any­one who can push wild­ly con­ser­v­a­tive out­comes with­out the added per­il of his bot­tom­less unhinged-ness. By that token, Mon­day was a very good day for the GOP, as mea­sured by the open­ing of yet anoth­er offramp for any­one still in search of an offramp.

Con­sid­er that Gin­ni Thomas was nowhere men­tioned in the exec­u­tive sum­ma­ry—nor, aside from an opin­ion cita­tion, was her hus­band, the sit­ting Supreme Court jus­tice who will not recuse him­self from cas­es that involve the Jan. 6 attempt­ed insur­rec­tion in which his wife had both par­tic­i­pat­ed in the efforts and a vest­ed inter­est in the out­come. Giv­en the committee’s def­er­ence to the Thomases through­out its hear­ings, no sur­pris­es there. But it is still dis­ap­point­ing, for those of us who bought into the idea that the com­mit­tee could restore some real idea of jus­tice across gov­ern­ment.

Instead, no mat­ter what they may tell you about the rule of law and the need for con­se­quences and account­abil­i­ty, absolute­ly nobody in the GOP as it is cur­rent­ly con­sti­tut­ed has any inter­est in stop­ping the goose that has laid the con­ser­v­a­tive legal establishment’s gold­en egg. Love him or hate him, Thomas has been the sin­gle most effec­tive jurist in mod­ern his­to­ry, and even those con­ser­v­a­tives who deplore Trump’s incite­ment and vio­lence and threats will glee­ful­ly turn a blind eye to Thomas’ eth­i­cal laps­es if it means secur­ing endur­ing wins on abor­tion, guns, mas­sive dereg­u­la­tion, and ascen­dant cor­po­rate pow­er. Vir­tu­al­ly nobody who is win­ning at the Supreme Court in a decades-long con­ser­v­a­tive legal project aimed at dis­man­tling envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tions, sub­vert­ing minor­i­ty vot­ing rights, and impos­ing theo­crat­ic suprema­cy is going to take seri­ous­ly the myr­i­ad eth­i­cal con­flicts and struc­tur­al fail­ings that plague the cur­rent court. Bet­ter to keep pre­tend­ing that Don­ald Trump is the prob­lem than con­cede that the prob­lem is actu­al­ly that both Trump and the Thomases oper­ate as if the law is for the lit­tle peo­ple, and the law lets them..

Clarence and Gin­ni Thomas were ulti­mate­ly untouch­able for the Jan. 6 inves­ti­ga­tors for the same rea­son they are untouch­able for pur­pos­es of Supreme Court ethics reform: When you’re a jus­tice, they let you do it. And when you are deliv­er­ing long-sought vic­to­ries, even eth­i­cal Nev­er Trumpers like Liz Cheney will let you do what­ev­er it takes to deliv­er the goods.

I’ve been struck that in recent report­ing on eth­i­cal laps­es at the high court, con­ser­v­a­tive legal enthu­si­asts have begun to advance the claim that there is no need for bind­ing ethics rules because con­ser­v­a­tive tri­umphs are so plain­ly and self-evi­dent­ly cor­rect that there can be no oth­er out­come. Here’s a ver­sion of that argu­ment applied to Leonard Leo of the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety assist­ing Kellyanne Con­way in sell­ing her polling busi­ness while she was lob­by­ing the Trump White House in its judi­cial selec­tions: “It seems bizarre to think that any pos­si­ble lob­by­ing by Kellyanne Con­way would have added to the force of [the court’s] com­mit­ment or to the influ­ence that Mitch McConnell and Don McGahn had already wield­ed,” said Ed Whe­lan, a for­mer clerk to Antonin Scalia. And here’s Mark Pao­let­ta, the for­mer Clarence Thomas clerk who worked on Thomas’ Sen­ate con­fir­ma­tion and who now rep­re­sents Gin­ni Thomas in Jan. 6 mat­ters tes­ti­fy­ing in oppo­si­tion to Supreme Court ethics reform ear­li­er this month: His argu­ment was that a cam­paign in which big donors forked over cash to the Supreme Court His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety in order to put pres­sure on jus­tices to over­turn Roe v. Wade was not an ethics prob­lem at all. Why was that? Because push­ing Ali­to, Thomas, or Scalia right­ward was laugh­able, you see, since their oppo­si­tion to Roe was already known. They’re so con­ser­v­a­tive, it’s not pos­si­ble to cor­rupt them with mon­ey.

Wait. So the jus­tices who swore at their con­fir­ma­tion hear­ings that Roe was bind­ing prece­dent were in truth so in the tank for over­turn­ing Roe that no amount of pres­sure to do so would have made a dif­fer­ence? Since every­one knew that over­turn­ing Roe was why they were appoint­ed? Got it. No won­der Supreme Court ethics reform is a dumb idea. If a code of eth­i­cal con­duct isn’t nec­es­sary because con­ser­v­a­tive legal thinkers are imper­vi­ous to influ­ence and bribes from those with whom they are in lock­step, there’s no need for any lim­its on who they par­ty with or trav­el with or accept gifts from. Of course at that point, we should prob­a­bly stop char­ac­ter­iz­ing the place as a “court.”

...

Repub­li­cans, for all their past sins, did in rel­a­tive­ly recent his­to­ry say that there were lines that peo­ple in pow­er could not cross. As a result of the con­duct of Ford’s imme­di­ate White House pre­de­ces­sor, many vot­ed to say that orches­trat­ing and cov­er­ing up the Water­gate break-in crossed a line. With Ford’s cru­sade against Dou­glas, a justice’s alleged sex­u­al impro­pri­ety had crossed a line. Today’s GOP—be it at the Supreme Court or in Con­gress or in the White House—proved once again this week (and in the months and years pre­ced­ing it) that there are no real lines between its dreams and its vic­to­ries. Judi­cial cor­rup­tion, a vio­lent coup attempt—whatever. For every work­ing Repub­li­can pow­er play­er, includ­ing the two Repub­li­can mem­bers of the Jan. 6 Com­mit­tee, account­abil­i­ty stops at the cour­t­house door.

Pay very close atten­tion, as you read the final report, to where the bipar­ti­san­ship around the Jan. 6 Com­mit­tee rec­om­men­da­tion begins and ends. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have done yeoman’s work to shore up the rule of law and account­abil­i­ty for Don­ald Trump and the worst of his con­fed­er­ates. But the work will also pro­vide a pret­ty flaw­less map to which legal and eth­i­cal laps­es are dis­qual­i­fy­ing and which are tac­it­ly encour­aged. One branch of gov­ern­ment is checked and the oth­er is giv­en a pass. It’s clear that what­ev­er part law enforce­ment, House Repub­li­cans, MAGA elec­tion deniers still in office, and par­tic­u­lar­ly any Supreme Court jus­tice or their spouse may have played in an attack on the repub­lic in 2021 will be for­giv­en and for­got­ten. They’re still all on one team, and—law and ethics notwithstanding—that team is all in on win­ning the fights that real­ly mat­ter.

———–

“Why the Jan. 6 Com­mit­tee Let Gin­ni and Clarence Thomas Off the Hook” By Dahlia Lith­wick; Slate; 12/22/2022

“Clarence and Gin­ni Thomas were ulti­mate­ly untouch­able for the Jan. 6 inves­ti­ga­tors for the same rea­son they are untouch­able for pur­pos­es of Supreme Court ethics reform: When you’re a jus­tice, they let you do it. And when you are deliv­er­ing long-sought vic­to­ries, even eth­i­cal Nev­er Trumpers like Liz Cheney will let you do what­ev­er it takes to deliv­er the goods.”

It’s the Teflon Thomases. As long as Clarence Thomas con­tin­ues to play a key role in deliv­er­ing one his­toric con­ser­v­a­tive judi­cial vic­to­ry after anoth­er, the law is for the lit­tle peo­ple. As we’ve seen, Gin­ni Thomas was a piv­otal behind-the-scenes play­er in the right-wing orga­niz­ing efforts to over­turn the 2020 elec­tion results that cul­mi­nat­ed in the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion. And yet some­how she escaped even a men­tion in the con­gres­sion­al Jan 6 report released back on Decem­ber 22, 2022. It was, in all like­li­hood, the price of mak­ing that report bipar­ti­san.

But Gin­ni was­n’t the only theo­crat to escape any men­tion in the report. The CNP isn’t men­tioned at all in the report. No men­tion of the pro­found­ly impor­tant role CNP mem­bers — like Gin­ni — played in orga­niz­ing the efforts that led up to the insur­rec­tion. None. For what­ev­er rea­son, the CNP’s invis­i­bil­i­ty cloak remains intact. Even after the insur­rec­tion. That’s part of the sto­ry here. This isn’t just about the untouch­a­bil­i­ty of the Thomases. It’s anoth­er sto­ry about the untouch­a­bil­i­ty of the broad­er CNP. Untouch­a­bil­i­ty root­ed in unmen­tion­able­ness:

...
Con­sid­er that Gin­ni Thomas was nowhere men­tioned in the exec­u­tive sum­ma­ry—nor, aside from an opin­ion cita­tion, was her hus­band, the sit­ting Supreme Court jus­tice who will not recuse him­self from cas­es that involve the Jan. 6 attempt­ed insur­rec­tion in which his wife had both par­tic­i­pat­ed in the efforts and a vest­ed inter­est in the out­come. Giv­en the committee’s def­er­ence to the Thomases through­out its hear­ings, no sur­pris­es there. But it is still dis­ap­point­ing, for those of us who bought into the idea that the com­mit­tee could restore some real idea of jus­tice across gov­ern­ment.

Instead, no mat­ter what they may tell you about the rule of law and the need for con­se­quences and account­abil­i­ty, absolute­ly nobody in the GOP as it is cur­rent­ly con­sti­tut­ed has any inter­est in stop­ping the goose that has laid the con­ser­v­a­tive legal establishment’s gold­en egg. Love him or hate him, Thomas has been the sin­gle most effec­tive jurist in mod­ern his­to­ry, and even those con­ser­v­a­tives who deplore Trump’s incite­ment and vio­lence and threats will glee­ful­ly turn a blind eye to Thomas’ eth­i­cal laps­es if it means secur­ing endur­ing wins on abor­tion, guns, mas­sive dereg­u­la­tion, and ascen­dant cor­po­rate pow­er. Vir­tu­al­ly nobody who is win­ning at the Supreme Court in a decades-long con­ser­v­a­tive legal project aimed at dis­man­tling envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tions, sub­vert­ing minor­i­ty vot­ing rights, and impos­ing theo­crat­ic suprema­cy is going to take seri­ous­ly the myr­i­ad eth­i­cal con­flicts and struc­tur­al fail­ings that plague the cur­rent court. Bet­ter to keep pre­tend­ing that Don­ald Trump is the prob­lem than con­cede that the prob­lem is actu­al­ly that both Trump and the Thomases oper­ate as if the law is for the lit­tle peo­ple, and the law lets them..
...

So this the untouch­a­bil­i­ty of the Thomases set to become enshrined with a stat­ue in Geor­gia, it’s worth recall­ing one of the oth­er extreme orga­niz­ing efforts Gin­ni was involved with dur­ing the Trump years: Sched­ule F. A key orga­niz­ing role, it turns out. As we’ve seen, not only was the CNP-dom­i­nat­ed Groundswell group — found­ed by Thomas and Steve Ban­non in 2013 — feed­ing the Trump White House lists of ‘dis­loy­al’ employ­ees back in Jan­u­ary of 2019, but Gin­ni her­self was feed­ing these lists direct­ly to Trump. And as the fol­low­ing Axios from Feb 2020 reminds us, those ear­ly ’ ”Deep State” hit lists’ being fed to the Trump White House has an ear­ly major tar­get: Sean Doocey, then the head of pres­i­den­tial per­son­nel. Sure enough, Doocey was replaced with John McEn­tee, who helped ini­ti­ate the Sched­ule F plot and con­tin­ues to work on it to this day. That was all part of who Gin­ni Thomas was putting into place all the way beck in Jan­u­ary of 2019, the same month James Sherk dis­cov­ered the Sched­ule F loop­hole in the fed­er­al laws. Just as you can’t real­ly talk about the orga­niz­ing that went into the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion with­out men­tion­ing Gin­ni Thomas’s key behind-the-scenes role, there’s a key behind-the-scenes Sched­ule F role for Gin­ni Thomas too:

Axios

Exclu­sive: Trump’s “Deep State” hit list

Jonathan Swan
Feb 23, 2020 — Pol­i­tics & Pol­i­cy

The Trump White House and its allies, over the past 18 months, assem­bled detailed lists of dis­loy­al gov­ern­ment offi­cials to oust — and trust­ed pro-Trump peo­ple to replace them — accord­ing to more than a dozen sources famil­iar with the effort who spoke to Axios.

Dri­ving the news: By the time Pres­i­dent Trump instruct­ed his 29-year-old for­mer body man and new head of pres­i­den­tial per­son­nel to rid his rid his gov­ern­ment of anti-Trump offi­cials, he’d gath­ered reams of mate­r­i­al to sup­port his sus­pi­cions.

* While Trump’s dis­trust has only inten­si­fied since his impeach­ment and acquit­tal, he has long been on the hunt for “bad peo­ple” inside the White House and U.S. gov­ern­ment, and fresh “pro-Trump” options. Out­side advis­ers have been hap­py to oblige.

...

The big pic­ture: Since Trump’s Sen­ate acquit­tal, aides say the pres­i­dent has crossed a psy­cho­log­i­cal line regard­ing what he calls the “Deep State.” He feels his gov­ern­ment — from Jus­tice to State to Defense to Home­land Secu­ri­ty — is filled with “snakes.” He wants them fired and replaced ASAP.

* “I think it’s a very pos­i­tive devel­op­ment,” said Rich Hig­gins, who served on Trump’s Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil in 2017. H.R. McMas­ter removed Hig­gins after he wrote a memo spec­u­lat­ing that Trump’s pres­i­den­cy faced threats from Marx­ists, the “Deep State,” so-called glob­al­ists, bankers, Islamists, and estab­lish­ment Repub­li­cans. (This was long before the full scope of the FBI’s Rus­sia inves­ti­ga­tion was known to Trump and his aides.)

* Hig­gins told me on Sun­day he stands by every­thing he wrote in his memo, but “I would prob­a­bly remove ‘bankers’ if I had to do it over and I would play up the intel com­mu­ni­ty role — which I neglect­ed.”

Let’s get to the mem­os.

1. The Jessie Liu memo: Short­ly before with­draw­ing the nom­i­na­tion of the for­mer D.C. U.S. attor­ney for a top Trea­sury role, the pres­i­dent reviewed a memo on Liu’s alleged mis­deeds, accord­ing to a source with direct knowl­edge.

* Ledeen wrote the memo, and its find­ings left a strik­ing impres­sion on Trump, per sources with direct knowl­edge. Ledeen declined to com­ment.

* A source with direct knowl­edge of the mem­o­’s con­tents said it con­tained 14 sec­tions build­ing a case for why Liu was unfit for the job for which Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Steven Mnuchin select­ed her, includ­ing:
— Not act­ing on crim­i­nal refer­rals of some of Jus­tice Brett Kavanaugh­’s accusers.
— Sign­ing “the sen­tenc­ing fil­ing ask­ing for jail time” for Gen. Michael Fly­nn (a friend of Ledeen’s).
— Hold­ing a lead­er­ship role in a wom­en’s lawyers net­work­ing group that Ledeen crit­i­cized as “pro-choice and anti-Ali­to.”
— Not indict­ing for­mer deputy direc­tor of the FBI Andrew McCabe.
— Dis­miss­ing charges against “vio­lent inau­gu­ra­tion pro­test­ers who plot­ted to dis­rupt the inau­gu­ra­tion.”

* Nei­ther Liu nor the White House respond­ed to requests for com­ment.

Between the lines: The Liu memo is not the first such memo to reach the pres­i­den­t’s desk — and there’s a com­mon thread in Groundswell, a con­ser­v­a­tive activist net­work that’s head­ed by Thomas and whose mem­bers include Ledeen.

* Sources leaked me details of two oth­er mem­os from peo­ple asso­ci­at­ed with the Groundswell net­work that also caused a stir inside the White House over the past year.

Thomas has spent a sig­nif­i­cant amount of time and ener­gy urg­ing Trump admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials to change the per­son­nel inside his gov­ern­ment. This came to a head ear­ly last year.

* Mem­bers of Groundswell, whose mem­bers ear­li­er led the suc­cess­ful cam­paign to remove McMas­ter as nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er, meet on Wednes­days in the D.C. offices of Judi­cial Watch, a con­ser­v­a­tive legal group that has led the fight against the Mueller probe.

* Judi­cial Watch’s pres­i­dent is Tom Fit­ton. He’s a reg­u­lar on Fox News, and Trump reg­u­lar­ly retweets his com­men­tary on the “Deep State.”

* Con­ser­v­a­tive activists who attend Groundswell meet­ings fun­neled names to Thomas, and she com­piled those rec­om­men­da­tions and passed them along to the pres­i­dent, accord­ing to a source close to her.

* She hand­ed a memo of names direct­ly to the pres­i­dent in ear­ly 2019. (The New York Times report­ed on her group’s meet­ing with Trump at the time.)

2. The Groundswell memo: The pres­i­den­tial per­son­nel office reviewed Thomas’ memo and deter­mined that some names she passed along for jobs were not appro­pri­ate can­di­dates. Trump may revis­it some giv­en his cur­rent mood.

Poten­tial hires she offered to Trump, per sources with direct knowl­edge:

* Sher­iff David Clarke for a senior Home­land Secu­ri­ty role.
* Fox News reg­u­lar and for­mer Secret Ser­vice agent Dan Bongi­no for a Home­land Secu­ri­ty or coun­tert­er­ror­ism advis­er role.
* Devin Nunes aide Derek Har­vey for the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil (where he served before McMas­ter pushed him out).
* Radio talk show host Chris Plante for press sec­re­tary.
* Fed­er­al­ist con­trib­u­tor Ben Wein­garten for the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

What we’re hear­ing: These mem­os cre­at­ed ten­sion inside the White House, as peo­ple close to the pres­i­dent con­stant­ly told him his own staff, espe­cial­ly those run­ning per­son­nel, were under­min­ing him — and White House staff coun­tered they were being smeared.

3. The State Depart­ment memo: In one extra­or­di­nary inci­dent last year, Pres­i­dent Trump passed along anoth­er action memo to his then-head of pres­i­den­tial per­son­nel, Sean Doocey (since pushed to State and replaced with for­mer body man John McEn­tee). Peo­ple famil­iar with the Jan­u­ary 2019 memo say it came from con­ser­v­a­tives asso­ci­at­ed with Groundswell. Though nobody I’ve spo­ken to has claimed cred­it for it.

* Accord­ing to sources briefed on the inci­dent, the memo was, in large part, an attack against Doocey. The memo accused him and a col­league in the State Depart­ment of obstruc­tion­ism and named sev­er­al State Depart­ment offi­cials who need­ed to be fired.
* This list named for­mer deputy sec­re­tary John Sul­li­van, deputy under­sec­re­tary for man­age­ment Bill Todd, and under­sec­re­tary for polit­i­cal affairs David Hale, who lat­er tes­ti­fied in the impeach­ment hear­ings. (Todd and Hale are career for­eign ser­vice offi­cers, serv­ing in posi­tions typ­i­cal­ly reserved for career offi­cials.) Sul­li­van is now the U.S. Ambas­sador to Rus­sia.
* The memo end­ed with an alle­ga­tion that Doocey had sneak­i­ly changed the name of an appoint­ment Trump had already agreed on, swap­ping out Mira Ricardel for Sean Cairn­cross to run the Mil­len­ni­um Chal­lenge Cor­po­ra­tion.
* Sources briefed on the mat­ter say this par­tic­u­lar charge was false on its face because Cairn­cross was nom­i­nat­ed in Jan­u­ary 2018, months before Ricardel was briefly dis­cussed as an alter­na­tive, per sources with direct knowl­edge.

The bot­tom line: As the New York Times’ Peter Bak­er wrote on Sat­ur­day, “in some of the most crit­i­cal cor­ners of the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, offi­cials show up for work now nev­er entire­ly sure who will be there by the end of the evening — them­selves includ­ed.”

* Groundswell is an influ­en­tial dri­ver of that uncer­tain­ty. Its mem­bers have been work­ing toward this moment for three years. They have lists. They have mem­os. And they have the pres­i­den­t’s ear.

———–

“Exclu­sive: Trump’s “Deep State” hit list” by Jonathan Swan; Axios; 02/23/2020

“What we’re hear­ing: These mem­os cre­at­ed ten­sion inside the White House, as peo­ple close to the pres­i­dent con­stant­ly told him his own staff, espe­cial­ly those run­ning per­son­nel, were under­min­ing him — and White House staff coun­tered they were being smeared.”

On one lev­el, this sto­ry from Jonathan Swan about chaos in the White House was bare­ly news. Chaos and staff infight­ing had been a fea­ture of the Trump White House from the begin­ning. But as we can see in this Feb­ru­ary 2020 report, we’re basi­cal­ly see­ing the ear­ly con­tours of what became the Sched­ule F plot. And at the heart of this ear­ly effort to orga­nize a mass purge of non-loy­al­ists we find the CNP-dom­i­nat­ed Groundswell net­work, found­ed by Gin­ni Thomas and Steve Ban­non in 2013 and which proved high­ly influ­en­tial in the Trump admin­is­tra­tion in influ­enc­ing staffing deci­sions. Yep, Gin­ni Thomas and her fel­low Groundswell mem­bers were appar­ent­ly the orig­i­nal fig­ures whis­per­ing in Trump’s ears about the treach­ery around him and the need for mass fir­ings. Because of course. The Sched­ule F plot is a CNP plot as much as it’s a MAGA plot. And as we’ve also, seen Mark Pao­let­ta, a close friend of the Thomases, remains involved with the ongo­ing Sched­ule F schem­ing by inform­ing con­ser­v­a­tive audi­ences of the need to imple­ment the Sched­ule F purge as soon as pos­si­ble. Sched­ule F is very much a Thomas-endorsed plot. And was so from the begin­ning, when it was Gin­ni and fel­low Groundswell-mem­ber Bar­bara Ledeen who were deliv­er­ing the Trump White House lists of dis­loy­al staff back in Jan­u­ary of 2019. Recall how it was Jan­u­ary of 2019 when James Sherk — an ide­o­logue work­ing on Trump’s Domes­tic Pol­i­cy Coun­cil — dis­cov­ered the appar­ent Sched­ule F loop­hole that might allow for the mass resched­ul­ing of large swathes of the fed­er­al work­force. So it’s quite inter­est­ing to learn that the Groundswell lists of ‘dis­loy­al’ employ­ees first start­ed get­ting deliv­ered to the Trump White House that same month. And it was Gin­ni who hand­ed the list of employ­ees to fire, com­piled by Groundswell, direct­ly to Trump:

...
Thomas has spent a sig­nif­i­cant amount of time and ener­gy urg­ing Trump admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials to change the per­son­nel inside his gov­ern­ment. This came to a head ear­ly last year.

* Mem­bers of Groundswell, whose mem­bers ear­li­er led the suc­cess­ful cam­paign to remove McMas­ter as nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er, meet on Wednes­days in the D.C. offices of Judi­cial Watch, a con­ser­v­a­tive legal group that has led the fight against the Mueller probe.
* Judi­cial Watch’s pres­i­dent is Tom Fit­ton. He’s a reg­u­lar on Fox News, and Trump reg­u­lar­ly retweets his com­men­tary on the “Deep State.”
* Con­ser­v­a­tive activists who attend Groundswell meet­ings fun­neled names to Thomas, and she com­piled those rec­om­men­da­tions and passed them along to the pres­i­dent, accord­ing to a source close to her.
* She hand­ed a memo of names direct­ly to the pres­i­dent in ear­ly 2019. (The New York Times report­ed on her group’s meet­ing with Trump at the time.)

2. The Groundswell memo: The pres­i­den­tial per­son­nel office reviewed Thomas’ memo and deter­mined that some names she passed along for jobs were not appro­pri­ate can­di­dates. Trump may revis­it some giv­en his cur­rent mood.

Poten­tial hires she offered to Trump, per sources with direct knowl­edge:

* Sher­iff David Clarke for a senior Home­land Secu­ri­ty role.
* Fox News reg­u­lar and for­mer Secret Ser­vice agent Dan Bongi­no for a Home­land Secu­ri­ty or coun­tert­er­ror­ism advis­er role.
* Devin Nunes aide Derek Har­vey for the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil (where he served before McMas­ter pushed him out).
* Radio talk show host Chris Plante for press sec­re­tary.
* Fed­er­al­ist con­trib­u­tor Ben Wein­garten for the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil.
...

Also, regard­ing the inter­est­ing fact that the Groundswell group that was putting togeth­er these lists of dis­loy­al employ­ees were meet­ing reg­u­lar­ly at the DC offices of Judi­cial Watch, don’t for­get that Judi­cial Watch pres­i­dent Thomas Fit­ton is not just a CNP mem­ber but also a mem­ber of the CNP’s Con­ser­v­a­tive Action Project. Again, all signs point towards Sched­ule F hav­ing the full back­ing of the CNP net­work. Along with Jan 6.

And then there’s the inter­est­ing ties between Groundswell become er Bar­bara Ledeen and Tom Fit­ton: Recall how one of the most mys­te­ri­ous ‘oppo­si­tion research’ activ­i­ties dur­ing 2015–2016 was all the dif­fer­ent GOP-affil­i­at­ed teams search­ing for Hillary Clinton’s hacked emails. We were told they believed the emails had already been hacked and were float­ing around on the dark web, although it was nev­er clear if that was just a pre­text for hir­ing some­one to do the hack­ing. It turns out one of those teams search­ing for Hillary’s emails includ­ed Bar­bara Ledeen, Newt Gin­grich, and Judi­cial Watch. That still-unex­plored dark web adven­ture from the 2016 cam­paign is worth keep­ing in mind when we see Bar­bara Ledeen play­ing an ear­ly role along­side Gin­ni Thomas in get­ting the staff purges under­way in ear­ly 2019, lay­ing the ground­work for the Sched­ule F plot still under­way:

...
1. The Jessie Liu memo: Short­ly before with­draw­ing the nom­i­na­tion of the for­mer D.C. U.S. attor­ney for a top Trea­sury role, the pres­i­dent reviewed a memo on Liu’s alleged mis­deeds, accord­ing to a source with direct knowl­edge.

* Ledeen wrote the memo, and its find­ings left a strik­ing impres­sion on Trump, per sources with direct knowl­edge. Ledeen declined to com­ment.
* A source with direct knowl­edge of the mem­o­’s con­tents said it con­tained 14 sec­tions build­ing a case for why Liu was unfit for the job for which Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Steven Mnuchin select­ed her, includ­ing:
— Not act­ing on crim­i­nal refer­rals of some of Jus­tice Brett Kavanaugh­’s accusers.
— Sign­ing “the sen­tenc­ing fil­ing ask­ing for jail time” for Gen. Michael Fly­nn (a friend of Ledeen’s).
— Hold­ing a lead­er­ship role in a wom­en’s lawyers net­work­ing group that Ledeen crit­i­cized as “pro-choice and anti-Ali­to.”
— Not indict­ing for­mer deputy direc­tor of the FBI Andrew McCabe.
— Dis­miss­ing charges against “vio­lent inau­gu­ra­tion pro­test­ers who plot­ted to dis­rupt the inau­gu­ra­tion.”
* Nei­ther Liu nor the White House respond­ed to requests for com­ment.

Between the lines: The Liu memo is not the first such memo to reach the pres­i­den­t’s desk — and there’s a com­mon thread in Groundswell, a con­ser­v­a­tive activist net­work that’s head­ed by Thomas and whose mem­bers include Ledeen.

* Sources leaked me details of two oth­er mem­os from peo­ple asso­ci­at­ed with the Groundswell net­work that also caused a stir inside the White House over the past year.

...

The bot­tom line: As the New York Times’ Peter Bak­er wrote on Sat­ur­day, “in some of the most crit­i­cal cor­ners of the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, offi­cials show up for work now nev­er entire­ly sure who will be there by the end of the evening — them­selves includ­ed.”

* Groundswell is an influ­en­tial dri­ver of that uncer­tain­ty. Its mem­bers have been work­ing toward this moment for three years. They have lists. They have mem­os. And they have the pres­i­den­t’s ear.
...

And when we see how one of these mem­os sent in ear­ly 2019 cast­ing doubt on the loy­al­ty of var­i­ous staffers was appar­ent­ly done as a kind of attack on Sean Doocey, then the head of pres­i­den­tial per­son­nel who was replaced by Trump’s for­mer body man John McEn­tee, don’t for­get how McEn­tee was the fig­ure Trump tapped to ini­tia­tive the Sched­ule F plot in 2020 and is con­tin­u­ing to play a key role in the ongo­ing work of vet­ting future hires in antic­i­pa­tion of a future Sched­ule F purge. So that Groundswell memo back in Jan­u­ary 2019 seem­ing­ly designed to under­mine Doocey appears to be an ear­ly effort to put McEn­tee in place with Sched­ule F in mind. In oth­er words, Gin­ni Thomas and the CNP’s Groundswell net­work already had some sort of mass purge in mind back in 2019 when they were putting those lists togeth­er and they knew they need­ed some­one more pli­able as the head of pres­i­den­tial per­son­nel to car­ry it out:

...
3. The State Depart­ment memo: In one extra­or­di­nary inci­dent last year, Pres­i­dent Trump passed along anoth­er action memo to his then-head of pres­i­den­tial per­son­nel, Sean Doocey (since pushed to State and replaced with for­mer body man John McEn­tee). Peo­ple famil­iar with the Jan­u­ary 2019 memo say it came from con­ser­v­a­tives asso­ci­at­ed with Groundswell. Though nobody I’ve spo­ken to has claimed cred­it for it.

* Accord­ing to sources briefed on the inci­dent, the memo was, in large part, an attack against Doocey. The memo accused him and a col­league in the State Depart­ment of obstruc­tion­ism and named sev­er­al State Depart­ment offi­cials who need­ed to be fired.
...

Final­ly, regard­ing the state­ments by Rich Hig­gins prais­ing the then-ongo­ing ear­ly-2020 efforts to purge the Trump admin­is­tra­tion of non-loy­al­ists, recall how Hig­gins was appar­ent­ly exact­ly the kind of arch-loy­al­ist Trump was repeat­ed­ly try­ing to get installed into top posi­tions in places like the Pen­ta­gon along with Antho­ny Tata. Hig­gins — the ‘Alt Right’ author of the 2017 ‘Hig­gins Memo’ dur­ing his time on the NSC that warned Trump that his admin­is­tra­tion was under siege by the forces of “cul­tur­al Marx­ism” that aim to dri­ve him from office and who appears to see Chi­nese com­mu­nist spies wher­ev­er he looks — is exact­ly the kind of loy­al­ist Trump want­ed to fill the gov­ern­ment with. Keep that in mind when you read his com­ments at the time about the White House staff infight­ing being a “pos­i­tive devel­op­ment”. It most cer­tain­ly was a pos­i­tive devel­op­ment for Hig­gins and any oth­er far right extrem­ists look­ing for a gov­ern­ment job:

...
The big pic­ture: Since Trump’s Sen­ate acquit­tal, aides say the pres­i­dent has crossed a psy­cho­log­i­cal line regard­ing what he calls the “Deep State.” He feels his gov­ern­ment — from Jus­tice to State to Defense to Home­land Secu­ri­ty — is filled with “snakes.” He wants them fired and replaced ASAP.

* “I think it’s a very pos­i­tive devel­op­ment,” said Rich Hig­gins, who served on Trump’s Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil in 2017. H.R. McMas­ter removed Hig­gins after he wrote a memo spec­u­lat­ing that Trump’s pres­i­den­cy faced threats from Marx­ists, the “Deep State,” so-called glob­al­ists, bankers, Islamists, and estab­lish­ment Repub­li­cans. (This was long before the full scope of the FBI’s Rus­sia inves­ti­ga­tion was known to Trump and his aides.)

* Hig­gins told me on Sun­day he stands by every­thing he wrote in his memo, but “I would prob­a­bly remove ‘bankers’ if I had to do it over and I would play up the intel com­mu­ni­ty role — which I neglect­ed.”
...

Will Rich Hig­gins return to DC for a role in a future Repub­li­can admin­is­tra­tion? Time will tell. But if he does, odds are it will be due in no small part to the effort of the net­work of CNP oper­a­tives with Gin­ni Thomas play­ing a lead­ing role.

So if you thought the idea of a stat­ue of Clarence Thomas was an out­rage, don’t be shocked to one day year about the con­tro­ver­sies over a mon­u­ment to Gin­ni and the remark­able behind-the-scenes orga­niz­ing roles she’s played in advanc­ing the far right’s cap­ture of Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment and soci­ety. She’s earned it. Along with earn­ing a num­ber of major crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions. We’ll see which comes first.

Is it news when Steve Ban­non sounds like a fas­cist? That’s one of the ques­tions raised the recent com­ments by Ban­non on his War Room pod­cast extolling the virtues of Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare. As Ban­non sees it, McCarthy was­n’t only right but he’s been proven cor­rect and should have gone fur­ther.

So is that news? Well, on one lev­el, that’s just Ban­non being Ban­non. The guy is a fas­cist. But, of course, Ban­non’s not just a fas­cist. He’s a con­ser­v­a­tive thought leader. And he made those com­ments at a time when some sort of ‘Sched­ule F+’ fueled mass gov­ern­ment purge remains one of the GOP’s biggest ongo­ing plots. That was­n’t just idle fas­cist chit chat.

Now, as we’re also going to see, the par­tic­u­lar ahis­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tive Ban­non was bas­ing his com­ments on — the notion that the Venona files released back in 1995 about the US’s VENONA post-war counter-intel­li­gence pro­gram some­how vin­di­cat­ed McCarthy’s Red Scare — appears to have its ori­gins not in his­tor­i­cal schol­ar­ship but instead in the 2003 Ann Coul­ter book Trea­son: Lib­er­al Treach­ery from the Cold War to the War on Ter­ror­ism. In fact, none oth­er than David Bar­ton, the key ‘his­to­ri­an’ behind must of the con­tem­po­rary right-wing cul­ture war over edu­ca­tion, was pro­mot­ing this idea back in 2009 dur­ing a push by Texas state Repub­li­cans to get ‘McCarthy was right’ con­tent insert­ed into Tex­as­’s pub­lic school cur­ricu­lum.

From Ann’s lips in 2003 to Steve’s ears. And then the ears of all his War Room pod­cast lis­ten­ers 20 years lat­er. “McCarthy was Right!” is back. Because it ever real­ly left. But now it’s poised to get big­ger than ever as claims of ‘com­mu­nist infil­tra­tion’ become cen­tral to the upcom­ing purges. It’s as reminder that the planned mass Sched­ule F fir­ings aren’t just a dia­bol­i­cal far right plot. It’s Joe McCarthy’s revenge too:

MSNBC

Some on the right still see McCarthy­ism as worth cel­e­brat­ing

Steve Ban­non believes Joe McCarthy and his pan­el on “un-Amer­i­can activ­i­ties” were “extreme­ly, extreme­ly help­ful.” On the right, he’s not alone.

By Steve Benen
Feb. 14, 2023, 10:18 AM CST

It’s not uncom­mon for Don­ald Trump to com­plain about his per­ceived foes engag­ing in “McCarthy­ism.” As the for­mer pres­i­dent sees it, to emu­late the late Sen. Joe McCarthy and his dem­a­gog­ic tac­tics is to engage in obvi­ous wrong­do­ing.

Occa­sion­al­ly, how­ev­er, Trump’s allies have a very dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive on the Wis­con­sin Repub­li­can and his scan­dalous meth­ods. Con­sid­er Steve Bannon’s on-air com­men­tary from late last week:

“What peo­ple for­get is that the McCarthy hear­ings and the House Un-Amer­i­can Activ­i­ties [Com­mit­tee] were quite pro­duc­tive in turf­ing out com­mu­nists, right? KGB com­mu­nists that were deeply embed­ded in the State Depart­ment and oth­er ele­ments of the gov­ern­ment, it should have gone fur­ther. ... The McCarthy hear­ings were extreme­ly, extreme­ly help­ful.”

It was near­ly a decade ago when Ban­non com­plained about “pop cul­ture” con­tribut­ing to the idea that McCarthy was some kind of “vil­lain.” Evi­dent­ly, 10 years lat­er, he hasn’t changed his mind.

Let’s not for­get that Ban­non isn’t alone on this. Revis­it­ing our ear­li­er cov­er­age, it was short­ly after Sen. Ted Cruz began his con­gres­sion­al career when a Dal­las Morn­ing News reporter told the Texas Repub­li­can that he’d been com­pared at times to Joe McCarthy. Cruz said that crit­i­cism “may be a sign that per­haps we’re doing some­thing right,” which seemed like a curi­ous response giv­en the con­text.

Asked specif­i­cal­ly, “Is McCarthy some­one you admire?” Cruz wouldn’t answer. A few years lat­er, a Cruz nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er said McCarthy was “spot on” about com­mu­nists infil­trat­ing the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment in the 1950s.

In 2014, after his failed Repub­li­can Sen­ate cam­paign in Mis­souri, then-Rep. Todd Akin com­pared him­self to McCarthy — and he meant it in a good way.

As the House Repub­li­cans’ Select Sub­com­mit­tee on the Weaponiza­tion of the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment moves for­ward, plen­ty of polit­i­cal observers are com­par­ing the par­ti­san effort to McCarthy and his pan­el on “un-Amer­i­can activ­i­ties.”

...

———-

“Some on the right still see McCarthy­ism as worth cel­e­brat­ing” By Steve Benen; MSNBC; 02/14/2023

“As the House Repub­li­cans’ Select Sub­com­mit­tee on the Weaponiza­tion of the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment moves for­ward, plen­ty of polit­i­cal observers are com­par­ing the par­ti­san effort to McCarthy and his pan­el on “un-Amer­i­can activ­i­ties.””

Yes, this was­n’t just a ran­dom com­men­tary from Steve Ban­non about the virtues of Joseph McCarthy’s ‘Red Scare’. These com­ments were made as the House GOP ramps up its “Weaponiza­tion of the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment” sub­com­mit­tee. A sub­com­mit­tee that clear­ly has enor­mous poten­tial syn­er­gy with the ongo­ing Sched­ule F plot prepar­ing for future mass purges of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. That’s a big part of the con­text here: Ban­non is lay­ing the ground­work of ‘Red Scare 2.0’. Poten­tial­ly a much larg­er and more con­se­quen­tial Red Scare than the orig­i­nal:

...
Occa­sion­al­ly, how­ev­er, Trump’s allies have a very dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive on the Wis­con­sin Repub­li­can and his scan­dalous meth­ods. Con­sid­er Steve Bannon’s on-air com­men­tary from late last week:

“What peo­ple for­get is that the McCarthy hear­ings and the House Un-Amer­i­can Activ­i­ties [Com­mit­tee] were quite pro­duc­tive in turf­ing out com­mu­nists, right? KGB com­mu­nists that were deeply embed­ded in the State Depart­ment and oth­er ele­ments of the gov­ern­ment, it should have gone fur­ther. ... The McCarthy hear­ings were extreme­ly, extreme­ly help­ful.”

It was near­ly a decade ago when Ban­non com­plained about “pop cul­ture” con­tribut­ing to the idea that McCarthy was some kind of “vil­lain.” Evi­dent­ly, 10 years lat­er, he hasn’t changed his mind.

Let’s not for­get that Ban­non isn’t alone on this. Revis­it­ing our ear­li­er cov­er­age, it was short­ly after Sen. Ted Cruz began his con­gres­sion­al career when a Dal­las Morn­ing News reporter told the Texas Repub­li­can that he’d been com­pared at times to Joe McCarthy. Cruz said that crit­i­cism “may be a sign that per­haps we’re doing some­thing right,” which seemed like a curi­ous response giv­en the con­text.
...

And as the fol­low­ing Media Mat­ters report points out, Ban­non made a spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence when mak­ing these pro-McCarthy com­ments: the Venona Papers, pub­licly released in 1995, describ­ing a US post-WAR anti-com­mu­nist coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence pro­gram. Papers that vin­di­cat­ed the Red Scare. At least that’s the sto­ry Ban­non was ped­dling a cou­ple of weeks ago:

Media Mat­ters

Steve Ban­non says the House Un-Amer­i­can Activ­i­ties Com­mit­tee hear­ings “should have gone fur­ther” and “were extreme­ly, extreme­ly help­ful”

Ban­non was defend­ing the com­par­i­son with the new “Weaponiza­tion of the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment” com­mit­tee

Writ­ten by Media Mat­ters Staff
Pub­lished 02/10/23 10:49 AM EST

Cita­tion From the Feb­ru­ary 10, 2023, edi­tion of Real Amer­i­ca’s Voice’s War Room

STEVE BANNON (HOST): What peo­ple for­get is that the McCarthy hear­ings and the House Un-Amer­i­can Activ­i­ties were quite pro­duc­tive in turf­ing out com­mu­nists, right? KGB com­mu­nists that were deeply embed­ded in the State Depart­ment and oth­er ele­ments of the gov­ern­ment, it should have gone fur­ther. If it had gone fur­ther, right, we would not have law – although it came after the, the big part of it after we lost Chi­na to Mao Zedong and the com­mu­nists because of infil­tra­tion into the State Depart­ment. The McCarthy hear­ings were extreme­ly, extreme­ly help­ful, as we now know from the Venona, what is it, doc­u­ments and tapes, that came out in the 1990s.

———–

“Steve Ban­non says the House Un-Amer­i­can Activ­i­ties Com­mit­tee hear­ings “should have gone fur­ther” and “were extreme­ly, extreme­ly help­ful”” by Media Mat­ters Staff; Media Mat­ters; 02/10/2023

“...The McCarthy hear­ings were extreme­ly, extreme­ly help­ful, as we now know from the Venona, what is it, doc­u­ments and tapes, that came out in the 1990s”

So did the Venona papers actu­al­ly val­i­date McCarthy’s gross vio­la­tions of civ­il lib­er­ties? Was there actu­al­ly a vast com­mu­nist infil­tra­tion of of the US gov­ern­ment that McCarthy was expos­ing? Of course not. But that did­n’t stop Steven Ban­non from mak­ing those claims, just as it did­n’t stop con­ser­v­a­tives from mak­ing those claims back in 2009 when Texas state law­mak­er Don McLeroy tried to con­vince the Texas State Board of Edu­ca­tion to “Read the lat­est on McCarthy.” The “lat­est” update was an appar­ent ref­er­ence to the Venona Papers. An ahis­tor­i­cal ref­er­ence that, as Har­vey Klehr, a pro­fes­sor of pol­i­tics and his­to­ry at Emory Uni­ver­si­ty who is con­sid­ered one of the top experts on the papers, describes, ignores the real­i­ty that none of the peo­ple fin­gered as com­mu­nist agents by McCarthy were actu­al­ly iden­ti­fied as com­mu­nists in the Venona Papers.

Yep, the Venona Papers are in real­i­ty a val­i­da­tion of how wrong McCarthy was. But that did­n’t stop Rep McLeroy. Or the oth­er con­ser­v­a­tives mak­ing the same claim at the time, includ­ing con­ser­v­a­tive ‘his­to­ri­an’ David Bar­ton. Recall how Bar­ton has played a cen­tral role in the devel­op­ment of ‘patri­ot­ic’ ahis­tor­i­cal school cur­ricu­lum that has been sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly thrust on US school as part of the ‘Project Blitz’ effort to hyper-politi­cize school cur­ricu­lum. Sur­prise.

Nor should we be sur­prised to learn that the claims about the Venona Papers some­how vin­di­cat­ing McCarthy were like­ly per­co­lat­ing through con­ser­v­a­tive echo-cham­bers thanks to Ann Coul­ter’s 2003 book Trea­son: Lib­er­al Treach­ery from the Cold War to the War on Ter­ror­ism. Claims that are now per­co­lat­ing on Steve Ban­non’s War Room pod­cast. And that’s part of the rel­e­vance of this sto­ry from 2009: that the ‘Venona vin­di­ca­tion’ claims are bogus is beside the point. Which is why we are still hear­ing these claims today and why we should expect to hear a lot more calls for a Red Scare 2.0 at the next avail­able oppor­tu­ni­ty:

Texas Free­dom Net­work
Blog

Reha­bil­i­tat­ing Joseph McCarthy?

Octo­ber 29, 2009

To the abun­dant evi­dence show­ing that ide­o­logues and non-his­to­ri­ans shouldn’t be decid­ing what stu­dents learn in their his­to­ry class­rooms, add anoth­er exhib­it: far-right efforts to use our kids’ class­rooms to reha­bil­i­tate the image of Joseph McCarthy and turn him into an Amer­i­can hero. Sad­ly, that’s what some mem­bers of the Texas State Board of Edu­ca­tion and peo­ple they have appoint­ed to help revise pub­lic school social stud­ies cur­ricu­lum stan­dards are now try­ing to do.

...

As we report­ed last week, board mem­ber Don McLeroy, R‑College Sta­tion, ear­li­er this month told cur­ricu­lum writ­ers in a memo: “Read the lat­est on McCarthy — He was basi­cal­ly vin­di­cat­ed.” One of the high school U.S. his­to­ry cur­ricu­lum writ­ers — a polit­i­cal activist and non-edu­ca­tor appoint­ed to the writ­ing team by McLeroy — has also insist­ed that the stan­dards point out that McCarthy was “exon­er­at­ed” by rev­e­la­tions in the “Venona papers.” Peter Mar­shall, a con­ser­v­a­tive evan­gel­i­cal preach­er appoint­ed by the state board to a pan­el of social stud­ies “experts,” backed that per­spec­tive in his review of the writ­ing team’s first drafts of the pro­posed new stan­dards. Mar­shall wrote that he “emphat­i­cal­ly agrees” that the “Verona Papers … con­firm as truth many of Sen­a­tor McCarthy’s accu­sa­tions about Sovi­et spy­ing in the U.S.” David Bar­ton, a Repub­li­can Par­ty activist and anoth­er sup­posed “expert,” also agrees. Bar­ton wrote in his review (same link as for Marshall’s) that the cur­ricu­lum writer’s insis­tence about McCarthy “is quite prop­er and reflects a com­mit­ment to accu­ra­cy and truth in his­to­ry.” State board chair Gail Lowe, R‑Lampasas, and board mem­ber Bar­bara Cargill, R‑The Wood­lands, have also asked the cur­ricu­lum writ­ers to include infor­ma­tion about the “Verona papers” in the stan­dards.

Once again, how­ev­er, these ama­teur “his­to­ri­ans” sim­ply don’t know what they’re talk­ing about.

First, the word is “Venona,” not the Ital­ian city of Verona. “Venona” was the name giv­en a U.S. coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence project that decod­ed thou­sands of inter­cept­ed cables between spies in the Unit­ed States and the Sovi­et Union. U.S. author­i­ties were able, over sev­er­al decades, to decode and read about 2,900 of the cabled mes­sages (a frac­tion of the total) sent between 1941 and 1946.

Sec­ond, the claims by McLeroy, Bar­ton, Mar­shall and the oth­ers about what the Venona project actu­al­ly revealed about McCarthy’s smear cam­paign are mis­lead­ing (at best). Cur­ricu­lum writ­ers will craft bet­ter stan­dards if they lis­ten to real his­to­ri­ans instead of far-right ide­o­logues push­ing an agen­da.

Among the most knowl­edgable experts on the Venona project is Har­vey Klehr, a pro­fes­sor of pol­i­tics and his­to­ry at Emory Uni­ver­si­ty. Prof. Klehr trav­eled in 1992 to the for­mer Sovi­et Union, where he got access to Sovi­et spy archives. He also stud­ied the Venona cables after the U.S. gov­ern­ment declas­si­fied them in the 1990s. With John Earl Haynes, Prof. Klehr co-authored Venona: Decod­ing Sovi­et Espi­onage in Amer­i­ca, pub­lished in 1999 by Yale Uni­ver­si­ty.

In short, when it comes to Sovi­et espi­onage in Amer­i­ca, the Venona project and Joseph McCarthy, Prof. Klehr has the cre­den­tials to show that he knows what he’s talk­ing about. In fact, he is very crit­i­cal of those who still deny the extent of that espi­onage or down­play its sig­nif­i­cance.

But he isn’t buy­ing efforts to reha­bil­i­tate McCarthy’s image. Prof. Klehr told an audi­ence at a 2005 con­fer­ence that McCarthy may have been right about “some of the larg­er issues” — such as, that there actu­al­ly were com­mu­nist spies in Amer­i­ca — but that he was reck­less­ly wrong on much else, espe­cial­ly the details:

[V]irtually none of the peo­ple that McCarthy claimed or alleged were Sovi­et agents turn up in Venona. He did iden­ti­fy a few small fry who we now know were spies but only a few. And there is lit­tle evi­dence that those he fin­gered were among the uniden­ti­fied spies of Venona. Many of his claims were wild­ly inac­cu­rate; his charges filled with errors of fact, mis­judg­ments of orga­ni­za­tions and innu­en­does dis­guised as evi­dence. He failed to rec­og­nize or under­stand the dif­fer­ences among gen­uine lib­er­als, fel­low-trav­el­ing lib­er­als, Com­mu­nist dupes, Com­mu­nists and spies — dis­tinc­tions that were impor­tant to make. The new infor­ma­tion from Russ­ian and Amer­i­can archives does not vin­di­cate McCarthy. He remains a dem­a­gogue, whose wild charges actu­al­ly made the fight against Com­mu­nist sub­ver­sion more dif­fi­cult. Like Gresham’s Law, McCarthy’s alle­ga­tions mar­gin­al­ized the accu­rate claims. Because his facts were so often wrong, real spies were able to hide behind the cov­er of being one of his vic­tims and even per­suade well-mean­ing but naïve peo­ple that the who le anti-com­mu­nist cause was based on inac­cu­ra­cies and hys­te­ria. [Empha­sis added.]

So where are McLeroy and his fel­low ide­o­logues get­ting their infor­ma­tion? Clear­ly, it’s not from real his­to­ri­ans. Their like­ly source is a favorite of far-right ide­o­logues today: fringe right-wing writ­ers and com­men­ta­tors like Ann Coul­ter. In her 2003 book Trea­son: Lib­er­al Treach­ery from the Cold War to the War on Ter­ror­ism, for exam­ple, Coul­ter insist­ed that the Venona Papers exon­er­at­ed McCarthy. She charges that lib­er­als don’t love their coun­try and have under­mined its secu­ri­ty, and she points to con­ser­v­a­tives like McCarthy as the true defend­ers of Amer­i­ca and Amer­i­can val­ues.

Prof. Klehr com­pares Coul­ter to those who excuse com­mu­nist spies for doing what they may have thought was “patri­ot­ic” because they believed their loy­al­ties were to the “mass­es” of the larg­er world rather than sim­ply to their coun­try:

“If espi­onage on behalf of Joseph Stalin’s Rus­sia is sim­ply an untra­di­tion­al form of patri­o­tism, then words like loy­al­ty and patri­o­tism have lost any mean­ing. It is only a short step to pro­claim­ing that Joseph McCarthy’s dis­re­gard for due process and reck­less smear­ing of inno­cent peo­ple is a non-tra­di­tion­al way of affirm­ing basic Amer­i­can val­ues. Which is exact­ly the argu­ment that Ann Coul­ter makes in her unfor­tu­nate recent book, Trea­son, which seeks to reha­bil­i­tate Sen­a­tor McCarthy as a great truth-teller. Her only excuse is that she is not a his­to­ri­an but a pun­dit and there­fore can claim indif­fer­ence to fac­tu­al evi­dence.”

But Coulter’s argu­ments are the kind of non­sense peo­ple like McLeroy, Mar­shall and Bar­ton want pub­lic schools to teach Texas stu­dents. Their inter­est is not in teach­ing real, fac­tu­al his­to­ry. They want to rewrite his­to­ry so that it aligns with their own per­son­al and polit­i­cal beliefs. (Remem­ber that Bar­ton want­ed to cen­sor dis­cus­sions of César Chavez in social stud­ies class­es because the late labor leader’s polit­i­cal asso­ci­a­tions alleged­ly made him a poor role mod­el for stu­dents: “His open affil­i­a­tion with Saul Alinsky’s move­ments cer­tain­ly makes dubi­ous that he is a praise­wor­thy to be her­ald­ed to stu­dents as some­one ‘who mod­eled active par­tic­i­pa­tion in the demo­c­ra­t­ic process.’”)

As we have said, it would be far bet­ter if real his­to­ri­ans and social stud­ies experts were mak­ing these cur­ricu­lum deci­sions. But that’s not going to hap­pen — state law­mak­ers refused to act this spring on leg­is­la­tion requir­ing such a change in the cur­ricu­lum devel­op­ment process. So we’re stuck with deci­sion-mak­ers like McLeroy. Recall what he has said in the past: “I dis­agree with these experts! Somebody’s got­ta stand up to experts!” And facts be damned.

————

“Reha­bil­i­tat­ing Joseph McCarthy?”; Texas Free­dom Net­work; 10/29/2009

“As we report­ed last week, board mem­ber Don McLeroy, R‑College Sta­tion, ear­li­er this month told cur­ricu­lum writ­ers in a memo: “Read the lat­est on McCarthy — He was basi­cal­ly vin­di­cat­ed.” One of the high school U.S. his­to­ry cur­ricu­lum writ­ers — a polit­i­cal activist and non-edu­ca­tor appoint­ed to the writ­ing team by McLeroy — has also insist­ed that the stan­dards point out that McCarthy was “exon­er­at­ed” by rev­e­la­tions in the “Venona papers.” Peter Mar­shall, a con­ser­v­a­tive evan­gel­i­cal preach­er appoint­ed by the state board to a pan­el of social stud­ies “experts,” backed that per­spec­tive in his review of the writ­ing team’s first drafts of the pro­posed new stan­dards. Mar­shall wrote that he “emphat­i­cal­ly agrees” that the “Verona Papers … con­firm as truth many of Sen­a­tor McCarthy’s accu­sa­tions about Sovi­et spy­ing in the U.S.” David Bar­ton, a Repub­li­can Par­ty activist and anoth­er sup­posed “expert,” also agrees. Bar­ton wrote in his review (same link as for Marshall’s) that the cur­ricu­lum writer’s insis­tence about McCarthy “is quite prop­er and reflects a com­mit­ment to accu­ra­cy and truth in his­to­ry.” State board chair Gail Lowe, R‑Lampasas, and board mem­ber Bar­bara Cargill, R‑The Wood­lands, have also asked the cur­ricu­lum writ­ers to include infor­ma­tion about the “Verona papers” in the stan­dards.”

Don McLeroy and David Bar­ton both had a bee in their bon­nets back in 2009. The same bee about Joseph McCarthy’s his­tor­i­cal vin­di­ca­tion. Or ashis­tor­i­cal fan­ta­sy vin­di­ca­tion as the case may be:

...
Sec­ond, the claims by McLeroy, Bar­ton, Mar­shall and the oth­ers about what the Venona project actu­al­ly revealed about McCarthy’s smear cam­paign are mis­lead­ing (at best). Cur­ricu­lum writ­ers will craft bet­ter stan­dards if they lis­ten to real his­to­ri­ans instead of far-right ide­o­logues push­ing an agen­da.

Among the most knowl­edgable experts on the Venona project is Har­vey Klehr, a pro­fes­sor of pol­i­tics and his­to­ry at Emory Uni­ver­si­ty. Prof. Klehr trav­eled in 1992 to the for­mer Sovi­et Union, where he got access to Sovi­et spy archives. He also stud­ied the Venona cables after the U.S. gov­ern­ment declas­si­fied them in the 1990s. With John Earl Haynes, Prof. Klehr co-authored Venona: Decod­ing Sovi­et Espi­onage in Amer­i­ca, pub­lished in 1999 by Yale Uni­ver­si­ty.

...

But he isn’t buy­ing efforts to reha­bil­i­tate McCarthy’s image. Prof. Klehr told an audi­ence at a 2005 con­fer­ence that McCarthy may have been right about “some of the larg­er issues” — such as, that there actu­al­ly were com­mu­nist spies in Amer­i­ca — but that he was reck­less­ly wrong on much else, espe­cial­ly the details:

[V]irtually none of the peo­ple that McCarthy claimed or alleged were Sovi­et agents turn up in Venona. He did iden­ti­fy a few small fry who we now know were spies but only a few. And there is lit­tle evi­dence that those he fin­gered were among the uniden­ti­fied spies of Venona. Many of his claims were wild­ly inac­cu­rate; his charges filled with errors of fact, mis­judg­ments of orga­ni­za­tions and innu­en­does dis­guised as evi­dence. He failed to rec­og­nize or under­stand the dif­fer­ences among gen­uine lib­er­als, fel­low-trav­el­ing lib­er­als, Com­mu­nist dupes, Com­mu­nists and spies — dis­tinc­tions that were impor­tant to make. The new infor­ma­tion from Russ­ian and Amer­i­can archives does not vin­di­cate McCarthy. He remains a dem­a­gogue, whose wild charges actu­al­ly made the fight against Com­mu­nist sub­ver­sion more dif­fi­cult. Like Gresham’s Law, McCarthy’s alle­ga­tions mar­gin­al­ized the accu­rate claims. Because his facts were so often wrong, real spies were able to hide behind the cov­er of being one of his vic­tims and even per­suade well-mean­ing but naïve peo­ple that the who le anti-com­mu­nist cause was based on inac­cu­ra­cies and hys­te­ria. [Empha­sis added.]

...

And that ahis­tor­i­cal fan­ta­sy vin­di­ca­tion of Joseph McCarthy came from none oth­er then Ann Coul­ter in her 2003 book decry­ing ‘lib­er­al trea­son’. Yes, it was non­sense. Exact­ly the kind of non­sense tak­en very seri­ous­ly by con­ser­v­a­tive lead­ers:

...
So where are McLeroy and his fel­low ide­o­logues get­ting their infor­ma­tion? Clear­ly, it’s not from real his­to­ri­ans. Their like­ly source is a favorite of far-right ide­o­logues today: fringe right-wing writ­ers and com­men­ta­tors like Ann Coul­ter. In her 2003 book Trea­son: Lib­er­al Treach­ery from the Cold War to the War on Ter­ror­ism, for exam­ple, Coul­ter insist­ed that the Venona Papers exon­er­at­ed McCarthy. She charges that lib­er­als don’t love their coun­try and have under­mined its secu­ri­ty, and she points to con­ser­v­a­tives like McCarthy as the true defend­ers of Amer­i­ca and Amer­i­can val­ues.

Prof. Klehr com­pares Coul­ter to those who excuse com­mu­nist spies for doing what they may have thought was “patri­ot­ic” because they believed their loy­al­ties were to the “mass­es” of the larg­er world rather than sim­ply to their coun­try:

“If espi­onage on behalf of Joseph Stalin’s Rus­sia is sim­ply an untra­di­tion­al form of patri­o­tism, then words like loy­al­ty and patri­o­tism have lost any mean­ing. It is only a short step to pro­claim­ing that Joseph McCarthy’s dis­re­gard for due process and reck­less smear­ing of inno­cent peo­ple is a non-tra­di­tion­al way of affirm­ing basic Amer­i­can val­ues. Which is exact­ly the argu­ment that Ann Coul­ter makes in her unfor­tu­nate recent book, Trea­son, which seeks to reha­bil­i­tate Sen­a­tor McCarthy as a great truth-teller. Her only excuse is that she is not a his­to­ri­an but a pun­dit and there­fore can claim indif­fer­ence to fac­tu­al evi­dence.”

But Coulter’s argu­ments are the kind of non­sense peo­ple like McLeroy, Mar­shall and Bar­ton want pub­lic schools to teach Texas stu­dents. Their inter­est is not in teach­ing real, fac­tu­al his­to­ry. They want to rewrite his­to­ry so that it aligns with their own per­son­al and polit­i­cal beliefs. (Remem­ber that Bar­ton want­ed to cen­sor dis­cus­sions of César Chavez in social stud­ies class­es because the late labor leader’s polit­i­cal asso­ci­a­tions alleged­ly made him a poor role mod­el for stu­dents: “His open affil­i­a­tion with Saul Alinsky’s move­ments cer­tain­ly makes dubi­ous that he is a praise­wor­thy to be her­ald­ed to stu­dents as some­one ‘who mod­eled active par­tic­i­pa­tion in the demo­c­ra­t­ic process.’”)
...

Get­ting Ann Coul­ter’s ahis­tor­i­cal non­sense put into the pub­lic schools was the ulti­mate goal dur­ing this 2009 ‘McCarthy was right!’ episode. Which rais­es the ques­tion of how long before we start hear­ing the same calls today. Over­haul­ing his­to­ry cur­ricu­lum is one of the Right’s biggest fetish­es right now, after all. Ron DeSan­tis is effec­tive­ly defin­ing his polit­i­cal future on this col­lec­tion of wedge issues.

And that’s all why we should prob­a­bly expect to hear a lot more voic­es echo­ing Steve Ban­non’s ‘McCarthy was right!’ sen­ti­ments. Those sen­ti­ments nev­er left and are only going to get loud­er the clos­er they get to the big ‘Sched­ule F+’ Red Scare 2.0.

Cred­it where cred­it’s due: ‘Meat­ball Ron’ was a pret­ty good nick­name. But, alas, Don­ald Trump has report­ed­ly moved on from meat­ball ref­er­ences. He’s got a new line of attack planned for his pre­sum­ably pri­ma­ry threat: ‘Ron the Granny Starv­er.’

Yep, in a clas­sic faux-pop­ulist man­ner, Trump has adopt­ed a line of attack that one nor­mal­ly expects to come from a Demo­c­rat. A line of attack that por­trays Ron DeSan­tis as the evil clas­sic Repub­li­can — a Repub­li­can in the mold of Paul Ryan or Karl Rove — who only wants to cut your Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare. Trump is effec­tive­ly argu­ing that the nom­i­na­tion of DeSan­tis a recipe for a 2012 do-over.

As observers not, Trump isn’t just try­ing to frame DeSan­tis as a weak can­di­date. He’s effec­tive­ly por­tray­ing all oth­er Repub­li­cans are mor­tal­ly wound­ed due to the par­ty’s long-stand­ing rep­u­ta­tion for try­ing to cut enti­tle­ments at every oppor­tu­ni­ty. Only Trump can with­stand in inevitable ‘granny starv­er’ Demo­c­ra­t­ic attacks. It’s an intrigu­ing devel­op­ment in evolv­ing 2024 Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry dynam­ics: Trump is going to run against the clas­sic unpop­u­lar Repub­li­can agen­da in order to win the pri­ma­ry. How’s that going to play out?

But as we’re going to see, there’s anoth­er twist afoot. A twist with a Sched­ule F angle:. It turns out Trump isn’t the only Repub­li­can who appears to have learned the lessons of 2012 and 2016. Lessons that demon­strat­ed just how fun­da­men­tal­ly unpop­u­lar Repub­li­can poli­cies ulti­mate­ly are with the gen­er­al elec­torate. There’s anoth­er fig­ure qui­et­ly push­ing a ‘stop cut­ting Social Secu­ri­ty & Medicare’ mes­sage to the House Repub­li­can. A rather sur­pris­ing mes­sen­ger, all things con­sid­ered: Russ Vought.

As we’ve seen, Vought isn’t a for­mer bud­get direc­tor for Trump. He’s a long-stand­ing con­ser­v­a­tive ide­o­logue who is con­tin­u­ing to play a major role in the ongo­ing Sched­ule F schem­ing. Recall how it was Vought — hus­band of ‘assumed CNP mem­ber’ Mary Vought’ — who actu­al­ly attempt­ed to imple­ment Trump’s Sched­ule F direc­tive issued weeks before the 2020 elec­tion. Vought went on to found the Cen­ter for Renew­ing Amer­i­ca (CRA) think tank, one of the many spin­offs cre­at­ed in 2021 by the CNP’s Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy (CPI). It’s at the CRA where Vought’s ongo­ing Sched­ule F plan­ning is being chan­neled, thanks to gen­er­ous dona­tions from Trump’s PAC and Repub­li­can mega-donors.

That’s all part of what makes Vought’s advice so iron­ic: he’s telling Repub­li­cans to ignore cuts to Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare entire­ly when issu­ing their demands to Democ­rats in the upcom­ing bud­get shut­down show­down ‘nego­ti­a­tions’ fias­co. Instead, Vought advis­es the GOP demand cuts to vir­tu­al­ly every­thing oth­er than Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare. That’s the plan. It’s scorched earth, with a pair of excep­tions.

That’s the strat­e­gy Vought is report­ed­ly advis­ing direct­ly to House Speak­er Kevin McCarthy in week­ly meet­ings. Keep in mind part of the con­text here: McCarthy’s Speak­er­ship only hap­pened after a stand­off with the House Free­dom Cau­cus that result­ed in a num­ber of major con­ces­sions includ­ing a pledge to engage in some sort of major shut­down show­down lat­er this year. And as we also saw, that stand­off with McCarthy was heav­i­ly backed and orches­trat­ed by the CNP. So first the CNP orches­trates a stand­off that forced McCarthy to basi­cal­ly agree to engage in a new round of shut­down show­down stand­offs, and then we get reports that key CNP oper­a­tive Russ Vought is advis­ing McCarthy to demand mas­sive cuts to every­thing but Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare.

So has the GOP final­ly aban­doned its decades-long quest to undo Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare? Of course not. It’s just giv­en up on pri­or­i­tiz­ing the cut­ting Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare first. The gut­ting of the rest of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is sim­ply seen as more polit­i­cal­ly viable. We’re told that Vought is con­vinced that cut­ting ‘Wash­ing­ton’ first will be pow­er­ful sym­bol­ism that will make the even­tu­al cut­ting of Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare more palat­able. As they put it, “He’s tak­en this very inter­est­ing posi­tion that: Yeah, we need to get enti­tle­ment spend­ing under con­trol. But Wash­ing­ton — the agen­cies — need to take a hair­cut first...The agen­cies are a fair­ly small amount of mon­ey, but the sym­bol­ism of it — I think he’ll be suc­cess­ful with that mes­sage. He and Trump have tapped into that it’s offen­sive to most of Amer­i­ca that Wash­ing­ton would be immune to cuts.”

Of course, what Vought is demand­ing isn’t real­ly all that new. In fact, it sounds like a rehash­ing of the 2011 ‘Sequester’ con­ces­sions the GOP won from the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion in 2011, ham­string­ing Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s options for the rest of time in office. But, pre­sum­ably, a sequester on a much larg­er scale this time. And that’s all why we should prob­a­bly expect the GOP’s upcom­ing bud­get extor­tion comes in the form of some sort of new some mega-sequester. An ‘anti-woke’ sequester this time. Demands that hap­pen to be espe­cial­ly con­ve­nient for any 2024 Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nees who won’t have to explain whether or not they agree with the House GOP’s demand­ed enti­tle­ment cuts.

And that brings us to the anoth­er angle at work here: demands for some sort of super-sequester and large cuts to every­thing oth­er than Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare dou­bles as a recipe for mass fed­er­al fir­ings. In oth­er words, Sched­ule F. Or at least part of Sched­ule F. The mass fir­ings part. And here was have Russ Vought — one of the cen­tral fig­ures behind the ongo­ing Sched­ule F schem­ing — whis­per­ing in Kevin McCarthy’s ear about the need to demand a plan that, if imple­ment­ed, would result in mass fed­er­al fir­ings. That some awful syn­er­gy at work right there.

Will gut­ting every­thing but Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare be a polit­i­cal win­ner? That remains to be seen. But that’s the pitch the CNP appears to be coun­sel­ing Kevin McCarthy and the House GOP to use in the lead up to 2024. Deep cuts will be demand­ed. But hope­ful­ly, for the GOP, not deeply unpop­u­lar cuts. Does the US actu­al­ly pub­lic care about cuts to fed­er­al pro­grams like Med­ic­aid or fed­er­al stu­dent aid? We’ll find out.

That’s part of what makes Don­ald Trump’s ‘Ron the Granny Starv­er’ attacks so grim­ly fas­ci­nat­ing: Trump has­n’t been hid­ing his plans to imple­ment a new round of Sched­ule F if reelec­tion. Mass fir­ings of fed­er­al work­ers as part of his ‘war on the Deep State’ are going to a major ele­ment of his reelec­tion pitch. And at the same time he’s plan­ning a mass fed­er­al purge, Trump is attack­ing his pri­ma­ry oppo­nents as ‘Granny Starvers’ push­ing a clas­sic Repub­li­can agen­da of just shrink­ing gov­ern­ment for the rich. It points to the cen­tral role ‘attack­ing the Deep State’ is going to play in Trump’s reelec­tion bid. It’s not a clas­sic Repub­li­can agen­da of slash­ing the gov­ern­ment to cut tax­es on the rich. No, no, it’s an attack on the Deep State. Yeah, that’s the tick­et. You can see the fram­ing at work here. In oth­er words, the more we hear Trump attack his rivals as ‘Granny Starvers’, the more mass fir­ings we should prob­a­bly expect. There’s strate­gic pro­jec­tion at work here. The kind of strate­gic pro­jec­tion that makes ‘Ron the Granny Starv­er’ even more appe­tiz­ing than ‘Meat­ball Ron’:

New York Mag­a­zine

Trump to Seniors: DeSan­tis Is Your Mor­tal Ene­my
Por­trait of Ed Kil­go­re By Ed Kil­go­re, polit­i­cal colum­nist for Intel­li­gencer since 2015

By Ed Kil­go­re
Feb. 28, 2023

Ear­li­er this year as Repub­li­can and con­ser­v­a­tive-media excite­ment over a prospec­tive Ron DeSan­tis 2024 pres­i­den­tial bid was grow­ing dai­ly, there were reports that Don­ald Trump and his advis­ers were plot­ting to go medieval on the Flori­da gov­er­nor for his past sup­port of ben­e­fit and eli­gi­bil­i­ty cuts to Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare. Sure enough, last week Trump explod­ed on this sub­ject in a Truth Social post:

[see screen­shot of Truth Social post]

Inco­her­ent and rage‑y as it sound­ed, Trump was clear­ly build­ing a por­trait of DeSan­tis as an old-school Estab­lish­ment Repub­li­can linked to fig­ures like George Bush, Paul Ryan, and Karl Rove. While serv­ing as a back-bench House mem­ber from 2013 to 2018, DeSan­tis was indeed a loy­al sup­port­er of all the stan­dard-brand Repub­li­can bud­get, trade, and defense poli­cies that Trump attacked dur­ing his semi-hos­tile takeover of the GOP. As a pre­emp­tive attack on his most dan­ger­ous 2024 rival, Trump wants to con­vince his vot­ing base that DeSan­tis is still a “RINO” glob­al­ist granny starv­er, not the sav­age anti-woke “pop­ulist” who is cur­rent­ly thrilling audi­ences on Fox News.

And unlike the nick­name Meat­ball Ron, this line of attack clear­ly isn’t a one-off. On Truth Social, Trump is con­tin­u­ing and sharp­en­ing his bar­rage against DeSan­tis:

Trump using tra­di­tion­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic mes­sag­ing on enti­tle­ments this morn­ing on Truth Social to attack Ron DeSan­tis pic.twitter.com/Ibtn815rvR— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) Feb­ru­ary 28, 2023

Repet­i­tive­ly link­ing DeSan­tis to both mem­bers of the failed 2012 Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial tick­et (who had uni­form GOP sup­port when DeSan­tis was run­ning for his first House term) is not only an effec­tive reminder of unhap­py GOP his­to­ry, it’s also an implic­it reminder that any­one with DeSantis’s back­ground will be torn limb from limb by Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, who is already depict­ing Repub­li­cans as “wheel­chair off the cliff” kind of peo­ple. The not-so-sub­tle mes­sage is that only the 45th pres­i­dent can pro­tect Repub­li­cans from those kind of Demo­c­ra­t­ic assaults, which helped both Bill Clin­ton and Barack Oba­ma win sec­ond terms after much worse midterm elec­tions than Biden endured in 2022.

The tricky part of this line of attack, how­ev­er, is that a lot of Trump’s friends are as vul­ner­a­ble to it as DeSan­tis, who was, after all, a found­ing mem­ber of that MAGA hotbed the House Free­dom Cau­cus. For­get about the pre-Trump past; some Free­dom Cau­cus types still seem inter­est­ed in using their lever­age over a nec­es­sary debt-lim­it mea­sure to force the very kind of cuts in retire­ment pro­grams that the for­mer pres­i­dent is accus­ing “RINOs” of pur­su­ing.

...

———-

“Trump to Seniors: DeSan­tis Is Your Mor­tal Ene­my” By Ed Kil­go­re; New York Mag­a­zine; 02/28/2023

“Repet­i­tive­ly link­ing DeSan­tis to both mem­bers of the failed 2012 Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial tick­et (who had uni­form GOP sup­port when DeSan­tis was run­ning for his first House term) is not only an effec­tive reminder of unhap­py GOP his­to­ry, it’s also an implic­it reminder that any­one with DeSantis’s back­ground will be torn limb from limb by Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, who is already depict­ing Repub­li­cans as “wheel­chair off the cliff” kind of peo­ple. The not-so-sub­tle mes­sage is that only the 45th pres­i­dent can pro­tect Repub­li­cans from those kind of Demo­c­ra­t­ic assaults, which helped both Bill Clin­ton and Barack Oba­ma win sec­ond terms after much worse midterm elec­tions than Biden endured in 2022.”

Don­ald Trump isn’t like those oth­er Repub­li­cans. Old School clas­sic Repub­li­cans like Karl Rove, Paul Ryan, or George W. Bush who did­n’t hide their long-stand­ing enthu­si­asm for gut­ting Social Secu­ri­ty the Medi­are. Or “RINO” glob­al­ist granny starv­er Ron DeSan­tis. That’s the line of attack Trump appears to have deter­mined is going to be the most effec­tive against a pri­ma­ry chal­lenge by Ron DeSan­tis. And not just DeSan­tis. It’s a line of attack that will pre­sum­ably work against vir­tu­al­ly all of Trump’s GOP pri­ma­ry oppo­nents. Gut­ting enti­tles is a broad­ly held Repub­li­can goal, after all. At least when it comes to the par­ty’s true stake­hold­ers of Repub­li­can mega-donors. It’s part of what makes Trump’s strat­e­gy a poten­tial­ly potent one: it’s an attack that works against vir­tu­al­ly the entire GOP pri­ma­ry field. Of course, that also points towards the implic­it risk of this strat­e­gy: Trump isn’t just attack­ing Ron DeSan­tis when he calls DeSan­tis a RINO glob­al­ist granny starv­er. He’s attack­ing the Repub­li­can Par­ty’s rea­son for being. Starv­ing grannies is a major ele­ment of the authen­tic Repub­li­can agen­da:

...
Inco­her­ent and rage‑y as it sound­ed, Trump was clear­ly build­ing a por­trait of DeSan­tis as an old-school Estab­lish­ment Repub­li­can linked to fig­ures like George Bush, Paul Ryan, and Karl Rove. While serv­ing as a back-bench House mem­ber from 2013 to 2018, DeSan­tis was indeed a loy­al sup­port­er of all the stan­dard-brand Repub­li­can bud­get, trade, and defense poli­cies that Trump attacked dur­ing his semi-hos­tile takeover of the GOP. As a pre­emp­tive attack on his most dan­ger­ous 2024 rival, Trump wants to con­vince his vot­ing base that DeSan­tis is still a “RINO” glob­al­ist granny starv­er, not the sav­age anti-woke “pop­ulist” who is cur­rent­ly thrilling audi­ences on Fox News.

...

The tricky part of this line of attack, how­ev­er, is that a lot of Trump’s friends are as vul­ner­a­ble to it as DeSan­tis, who was, after all, a found­ing mem­ber of that MAGA hotbed the House Free­dom Cau­cus. For­get about the pre-Trump past; some Free­dom Cau­cus types still seem inter­est­ed in using their lever­age over a nec­es­sary debt-lim­it mea­sure to force the very kind of cuts in retire­ment pro­grams that the for­mer pres­i­dent is accus­ing “RINOs” of pur­su­ing.
...

And that brings us to the fol­low­ing fas­ci­nat­ing piece describ­ing an emerg­ing plan for mak­ing the Repub­li­can agen­da of mas­sive cuts in fed­er­al spend­ing more polit­i­cal­ly palat­able. A plan that has as its cham­pi­on some­one who should sound famil­iar in the con­text of the ongo­ing Sched­ule F plot: Trump’s for­mer head of the OMB Russ Vought, who went on to found the new Cen­ter for Renew­ing Amer­i­ca think tank where the Sched­ule F work con­tin­ues. Of course, as we’ve also seen, the CRA is basi­cal­ly a spin­off of the CPI, itself a CNP enti­ty. And as became clear in the days fol­low­ing Kevin McCarthy’s strained attempts to secure the House Speak­er­ship, it was the CNP that was effec­tive­ly orches­trat­ing the House Free­dom Cau­cus’s suc­cess­ful attempts to extract major con­ces­sions from McCarthy in return for their sup­port. Major con­ces­sions that includ­ed set­ting the state for anoth­er round of bud­get shut­down show­downs lat­er this year. And now, here we are, learn­ing that key CNP oper­a­tive Russ Vought is report­ed­ly act­ing as a kind of Kevin McCarthy-whis­per­er shap­ing the House GOP’s bud­get show­down strat­e­gy.

It’s not the fact that Vought is play­ing this behind the scenes role that’s the sur­pris­ing part. The sur­prise is the par­tic­u­lar polit­i­cal strat­e­gy Vought is push­ing. A strat­e­gy that syn­er­gizes well with Trump’s new ‘Ron the granny starv­er’ line of attack: instead of demand­ing cuts to Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare, Vought is coun­sel­ing the House GOP to demand cuts to vir­tu­al­ly every­thing but Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare. It seems the GOP has learned its les­son about the polit­i­cal via­bil­i­ty of
its agen­da.

We’re told that Vought is hold­ing week­ly meet­ings with McCarthy at this point. So it appears that we should expect demands for mas­sive fed­er­al cuts to every­thing but Social Secu­ri­ty of Medicare from the House Repub­li­cans. But don’t inter­pret this as a sign that the GOP has aban­doned its long­stand­ing goals. Quite the oppo­site. Instead, it sounds like Vought’s think­ing is that cuts to Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare will be more polit­i­cal­ly viable after the pub­lic first sees mas­sive cuts to almost every­thing else. As one fig­ure close to Vought puts it, “He’s tak­en this very inter­est­ing posi­tion that: Yeah, we need to get enti­tle­ment spend­ing under con­trol. But Wash­ing­ton — the agen­cies — need to take a hair­cut first...The agen­cies are a fair­ly small amount of mon­ey, but the sym­bol­ism of it — I think he’ll be suc­cess­ful with that mes­sage. He and Trump have tapped into that it’s offen­sive to most of Amer­i­ca that Wash­ing­ton would be immune to cuts.” That appears to be the polit­i­cal log­ic at work here.

Now, it’s not entire­ly clear why exact­ly the US pub­lic is going to sud­den­ly embrace Social Secu­ri­ty of Medicare cuts after wit­ness­ing the evis­cer­a­tion of the rest of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. If any­thing, it seems like wit­ness­ing the result­ing chaos caused by such poli­cies will make the pub­lic even more resis­tant to the idea. But that’s the appar­ent plan get­ting pushed on Kevin McCarthy. A plan pushed by one of the key fig­ures behind the CNP’s ongo­ing Sched­ule F scheme:

The Wash­ing­ton Post

The for­mer Trump aide craft­ing the House GOP’s debt ceil­ing play­book
The nation­al debt explod­ed on Rus­sell Vought’s watch. Now he wants Repub­li­can law­mak­ers to play hard­ball.

By Jeff Stein, Josh Dawsey and Isaac Arns­dorf
Updat­ed Feb­ru­ary 19, 2023 at 10:28 a.m. EST|Published Feb­ru­ary 19, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EST

Last month, amid the rau­cous bat­tle to elect House Speak­er Kevin McCarthy, for­mer pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump spoke with a hard-line Repub­li­can who had been influ­en­tial in block­ing McCarthy’s path to pow­er.

The agi­ta­tor was not a mem­ber of Con­gress, or even an elect­ed offi­cial. It was Trump’s for­mer bud­get direc­tor, Rus­sell Vought, who has qui­et­ly emerged as an intel­lec­tu­al leader of the GOP’s con­ser­v­a­tive flank.

Vought explained his oppo­si­tion to McCarthy, cit­ing the Cal­i­for­nia Republican’s deals with Democ­rats to increase fed­er­al spend­ing. Trump, who sup­port­ed McCarthy, didn’t push back, Vought said. Con­ser­v­a­tives even­tu­al­ly extract­ed con­ces­sions from McCarthy that could empow­er them to secure spend­ing cuts.

“He knows where I’m at,” Vought said of Trump in a recent inter­view. “He was very respect­ful of where I’m com­ing from.”

The pres­i­dent of a new pro-Trump think tank called the Cen­ter for Renew­ing Amer­i­ca, Vought, 46, has emerged as one of the cen­tral voic­es shap­ing the loom­ing show­down over fed­er­al spend­ing and the nation­al debt. As Repub­li­cans strug­gle to craft a strat­e­gy for con­fronting the Biden admin­is­tra­tion over the debt ceil­ing, which lim­its how much the gov­ern­ment can bor­row to pay for spend­ing Con­gress has already approved, Vought has sup­plied them with a seem­ing­ly inex­haustible stream of advice: sug­ges­tions for nego­ti­at­ing with the White House, brief­in­gs about deal­ing with the media, a 104-page memo that pro­pos­es spe­cif­ic spend­ing lev­els for every fed­er­al agency.

Sev­er­al Repub­li­can law­mak­ers and staffers pri­vate­ly acknowl­edged talk­ing to Vought at least once a week. Ear­li­er this month, he briefed about four dozen GOP sen­a­tors over lunch in the Capi­tol, accord­ing to Sen. Rick Scott (R‑Fla.), who said it was at least the third time he had heard Vought’s pitch for deal­ing with the debt lim­it.

Vought helped push for a new House pan­el led by Rep. Jim Jor­dan (R‑Ohio) to inves­ti­gate the alleged “weaponiza­tion of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment” under Pres­i­dent Biden. Stephen K. Ban­non, the for­mer Trump polit­i­cal advis­er, called Vought the “intel­lec­tu­al archi­tect” of House con­ser­v­a­tives’ rebel­lion against McCarthy. Vought is also close with Rep. Chip Roy (R‑Tex.), who spear­head­ed that fight.

“Russ is the guy con­ser­v­a­tives go to for inti­mate knowl­edge of how the fed­er­al bud­get works,” said Newt Gin­grich, who served as House speak­er in the 1990s and remains a close advis­er to McCarthy. “He under­stands an enor­mous amount of fed­er­al bud­get­ing, and that makes him a very big play­er.”

Vought’s agen­da rep­re­sents a major depar­ture from tra­di­tion­al con­ser­v­a­tive ideas about bal­anc­ing the fed­er­al bud­get. Once, for­mer house speak­er Paul D. Ryan (R‑Wis.) pushed cuts to Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare, the main dri­vers of fed­er­al spend­ing, as the answer. Vought argues for some­thing dif­fer­ent. A Trump acolyte, he echoes the for­mer president’s insis­tence that the pop­u­lar fed­er­al retire­ment pro­grams — which go to the mid­dle and upper class­es as well as the poor — should be walled off from cuts. Instead, Vought has sold many Repub­li­cans on the untest­ed premise that the GOP can push to oblit­er­ate almost all oth­er major forms of fed­er­al spend­ing, espe­cial­ly pro­grams that ben­e­fit low­er-income Amer­i­cans, and dare Biden to stand in the way.

Vought’s bud­get pro­pos­al calls for cut­ting $9 tril­lion over the next decade from thou­sands of domes­tic pro­grams — slash­ing fund­ing for gov­ern­ment agen­cies, stu­dent loans, and anti-pover­ty pro­grams such as hous­ing, health care and food assis­tance — while urg­ing Repub­li­cans to attack the “woke bureau­cra­cy.” Vought even advo­cates for freez­ing mil­i­tary spend­ing, which is still anath­e­ma in many GOP cir­cles.

“I’m tired of this focus on Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare, as if you’re climb­ing a moun­tain and can’t make any progress on that moun­tain until you go to the eagle’s nest on the top,” Vought told The Wash­ing­ton Post. “You take these cuts to the Amer­i­can peo­ple, and you win.”

In the 10-year bud­get pro­pos­al he has cir­cu­lat­ed on Capi­tol Hill, Vought char­ac­ter­izes this approach as part of an exis­ten­tial bat­tle for the soul of the coun­try. The plan includes $2 tril­lion in cuts to Med­ic­aid, the health pro­gram for the poor; more than $600 bil­lion in cuts to the Afford­able Care Act; more than $400 bil­lion in cuts to food stamps; hun­dreds of bil­lions of dol­lars in cuts to edu­ca­tion­al sub­si­dies; and a halv­ing of the State Depart­ment and the Labor Depart­ment, among oth­er fed­er­al agen­cies. While con­gres­sion­al Repub­li­cans have yet to release a bud­get plan, House GOP law­mak­ers are weigh­ing cuts to these pro­grams as a way to reduce the debt with­out touch­ing Medicare and Social Secu­ri­ty.

“Amer­i­ca can­not be saved unless the cur­rent grip of woke and weaponized gov­ern­ment is bro­ken. That is the cen­tral and imme­di­ate threat fac­ing the coun­try — the one that all our states­men must rise tall to van­quish,” Vought writes in his bud­get pro­pos­al. “The bat­tle can­not wait.”

...

Vought was a polar­iz­ing fig­ure long before the cur­rent debt lim­it fight. His tenure in the Trump admin­is­tra­tion was marked by con­tro­ver­sy over his past incen­di­ary com­ments about Mus­lims and a deci­sion to imple­ment a freeze on aid to Ukraine that put him at the cen­ter of the first Trump impeach­ment.

His new think tank advo­cates on hot-but­ton cul­ture war issues, such as “expos­ing crit­i­cal race the­o­ry.” The group has not dis­closed its fund­ing sources, but its annu­al report says it took in $1.1 mil­lion in 2021. Vought recent­ly told C‑SPAN that the orga­ni­za­tion takes no cor­po­rate mon­ey and is sup­port­ed by grass-roots donors across the coun­try.

Most awk­ward­ly for his cur­rent posi­tion: Vought over­saw enor­mous increas­es in the nation­al debt as Trump’s direc­tor of the Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get. The debt bal­looned by stag­ger­ing sums on Vought’s watch: $1 tril­lion in his first year, and a whop­ping $4 tril­lion in his sec­ond, as Con­gress agreed on a bipar­ti­san basis to spend tril­lions of dol­lars in response to the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. Trump repeat­ed­ly over­ruled fis­cal hawks, like Vought, in approv­ing the new spend­ing.

Now, with a Demo­c­rat in the White House, Vought says he wants to use the lever­age of the debt ceil­ing to force Democ­rats to rein in a fed­er­al bureau­cra­cy that he views as abus­ing its pow­er against Amer­i­can cit­i­zens. For exam­ple, he said, the gov­ern­ment is spend­ing mon­ey to detain peo­ple who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the storm­ing of the Capi­tol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“We view our role as almost act­ing like a shad­ow OMB on the out­side,” Vought told The Post.

Even some Repub­li­cans who admire Vought’s exper­tise say his bud­get blue­print is based on unre­al­is­tic assump­tions. To make it bal­ance in 10 years, for exam­ple, Vought’s bud­get also projects that the num­ber of work­ing Amer­i­cans will increase by 14.5 mil­lion peo­ple more than Con­gres­sion­al Bud­get Office pre­dicts, which would allow the Amer­i­can econ­o­my to grow faster, reduc­ing the deficit by anoth­er $3.8 tril­lion.

Vought argues that Amer­i­cans will pour into the job mar­ket because of cuts to fed­er­al aid pro­grams, but his fig­ures are almost cer­tain­ly unre­al­is­tic, par­tic­u­lar­ly because of the GOP’s oppo­si­tion to high­er lev­els of immi­gra­tion, said William Gal­ston, a for­mer domes­tic pol­i­cy offi­cial in Pres­i­dent Bill Clinton’s admin­is­tra­tion who is now a senior fel­low at the Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion, a D.C.-based think tank.

“Russ is an expert. He knows the details; he knows the bud­get back­wards and for­wards,” said one for­mer GOP offi­cial, speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to can­did­ly describe a for­mer col­league. “But he’s sell­ing con­ser­v­a­tives a fan­ta­sy, which is achiev­ing a bal­anced bud­get with­out cut­ting any­thing pop­u­lar.

“We’re going to bal­ance the bud­get by ‘end­ing woke?’ Give me a break.”

...

Raised about an hour north of New York City, Vought grad­u­at­ed from George Wash­ing­ton Law School and rose through the tra­di­tion­al con­ser­v­a­tive insti­tu­tions in Wash­ing­ton.

He start­ed as a Hill staffer in 1999, work­ing for Sen. Phil Gramm (R‑Tex.) before becom­ing a pol­i­cy direc­tor for the House Repub­li­can Con­fer­ence under then-Rep. Mike Pence (R‑Ind.). By the mid-2000s, Vought had become the bud­get guru for the Repub­li­can Study Com­mit­tee, which sought to cut Medicare and Social Secu­ri­ty to rein in fed­er­al spend­ing. Vought then joined the advo­ca­cy arm of the Her­itage Foun­da­tion think tank, where he worked to solid­i­fy GOP oppo­si­tion to the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion.

...

“He was ide­o­log­i­cal in the extreme,” said one of his for­mer col­leagues at Her­itage, speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to can­did­ly describe pri­vate exchanges. For instance, Vought took seri­ous­ly unfound­ed claims that the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood extrem­ist group had infil­trat­ed the U.S. gov­ern­ment, the per­son said. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I‑Vt.) lat­er chal­lenged Vought over a blog post in which he wrote that Mus­lims “stand con­demned” with­out Jesus Christ. (Vought is now again work­ing with Her­itage on the agen­da for the next GOP pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tion.)

When Trump burst into nation­al pol­i­tics, many GOP pol­i­cy ana­lysts recoiled at his appar­ent dis­re­gard for seri­ous pol­i­cy. Vought saw an oppor­tu­ni­ty. He joined the Trump White House as deputy bud­get direc­tor in 2017, work­ing under Mick Mul­vaney, who lat­er became Trump’s chief of staff.

Though a for­mer mem­ber of the Free­dom Cau­cus who was known as a bomb-throw­er, Mul­vaney was seen by OMB staff as more engag­ing and agree­able than Vought, who quick­ly devel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion as fierce and antag­o­nis­tic. Even as deputy direc­tor, how­ev­er, Vought became OMB’s voice in craft­ing the administration’s bud­get pro­pos­als, and by July 2020, Vought was OMB direc­tor.

Yet Vought’s boss often dis­re­gard­ed his views. Vought would push cuts for state-lev­el pro­grams, then a GOP sen­a­tor or gov­er­nor would per­suade Trump to reverse it, said one for­mer gov­ern­ment offi­cial, who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to describe pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions. Vought was frus­trat­ed in 2020 when Trump backed a sec­ond round of stim­u­lus checks dur­ing nego­ti­a­tions with con­gres­sion­al Democ­rats, accord­ing to anoth­er for­mer gov­ern­ment offi­cial, who also spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to describe pri­vate talks. Vought once called this offi­cial to cel­e­brate Trump agree­ing to include spend­ing caps in their bud­get plan — a posi­tion the for­mer pres­i­dent reversed with­in days, the offi­cial said.

“He’d take these dream bud­gets in to Trump, and Trump would say, ‘I don’t want these cuts; don’t make these cuts. I don’t want to touch social pro­grams. I don’t want to touch enti­tle­ments.’ And he’d back down,” said a third for­mer senior Trump admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial. “It would dri­ve Russ crazy, because he want­ed to make actu­al cuts.”

All four of Trump’s bud­gets pro­posed unprece­dent­ed cuts to domes­tic spend­ing for which Con­gress nev­er had much appetite.

Casey Mul­li­gan, who served as chief econ­o­mist for the White House Coun­cil of Eco­nom­ic Advis­ers under Trump, praised Vought for push­ing his cur­rent pro­pos­al to slash fund­ing for fed­er­al agen­cies while pre­serv­ing Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare. Vought has told col­leagues he is prepar­ing a blue­print for Trump for 2025, one per­son famil­iar with his remarks said, speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to describe pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions.

“He’s tak­en this very inter­est­ing posi­tion that: Yeah, we need to get enti­tle­ment spend­ing under con­trol. But Wash­ing­ton — the agen­cies — need to take a hair­cut first,” Mul­li­gan said. “The agen­cies are a fair­ly small amount of mon­ey, but the sym­bol­ism of it — I think he’ll be suc­cess­ful with that mes­sage. He and Trump have tapped into that it’s offen­sive to most of Amer­i­ca that Wash­ing­ton would be immune to cuts.”

But ques­tions remain about whether Repub­li­cans can uni­fy behind an approach that would advance big cuts to Med­ic­aid and food stamps, pro­grams that serve many of their con­stituents. Even if they can coa­lesce behind Vought, ana­lysts say it is vir­tu­al­ly impos­si­ble to bal­ance the bud­get with­out touch­ing Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare — or rais­ing tax­es.

“As a pure­ly rhetor­i­cal ploy, they may be able to get away with it,” said Gal­ston, the Brook­ings fel­low. “As a mat­ter of arith­metic, it’s ridicu­lous.”

———–

“The for­mer Trump aide craft­ing the House GOP’s debt ceil­ing play­book” by Jeff Stein, Josh Dawsey and Isaac Arns­dorf; The Wash­ing­ton Post; 02/19/2023

“The pres­i­dent of a new pro-Trump think tank called the Cen­ter for Renew­ing Amer­i­ca, Vought, 46, has emerged as one of the cen­tral voic­es shap­ing the loom­ing show­down over fed­er­al spend­ing and the nation­al debt. As Repub­li­cans strug­gle to craft a strat­e­gy for con­fronting the Biden admin­is­tra­tion over the debt ceil­ing, which lim­its how much the gov­ern­ment can bor­row to pay for spend­ing Con­gress has already approved, Vought has sup­plied them with a seem­ing­ly inex­haustible stream of advice: sug­ges­tions for nego­ti­at­ing with the White House, brief­in­gs about deal­ing with the media, a 104-page memo that pro­pos­es spe­cif­ic spend­ing lev­els for every fed­er­al agency.”

Sur­prise sur­prise: the fig­ure who as emerged as one of the cen­tral voic­es in shap­ing GOP’s bud­get-show­down strat­e­gy is none oth­er than Russ Vought. As we’ve seen, Trump’s for­mer direc­tor of the Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get was the only Trump offi­cial to actu­al­ly attempt to imple­ment Trump’s Sched­ule F exec­u­tive order weeks before the 2020 elec­tion and remains of the cen­tral fig­ures in the ongo­ing Sched­ule F schem­ing. And now here he is oper­at­ing as the Kevin McCarthy-whis­per­er rep­re­sent­ing “the GOP’s con­ser­v­a­tive flank” (it’s a big flank), hold­ing week­ly meet­ings with Repub­li­can law­mak­ers and staffers. Russ Vought has major con­ser­v­a­tive clout:

...
The agi­ta­tor was not a mem­ber of Con­gress, or even an elect­ed offi­cial. It was Trump’s for­mer bud­get direc­tor, Rus­sell Vought, who has qui­et­ly emerged as an intel­lec­tu­al leader of the GOP’s con­ser­v­a­tive flank.

Vought explained his oppo­si­tion to McCarthy, cit­ing the Cal­i­for­nia Republican’s deals with Democ­rats to increase fed­er­al spend­ing. Trump, who sup­port­ed McCarthy, didn’t push back, Vought said. Con­ser­v­a­tives even­tu­al­ly extract­ed con­ces­sions from McCarthy that could empow­er them to secure spend­ing cuts.

“He knows where I’m at,” Vought said of Trump in a recent inter­view. “He was very respect­ful of where I’m com­ing from.”

...

Sev­er­al Repub­li­can law­mak­ers and staffers pri­vate­ly acknowl­edged talk­ing to Vought at least once a week. Ear­li­er this month, he briefed about four dozen GOP sen­a­tors over lunch in the Capi­tol, accord­ing to Sen. Rick Scott (R‑Fla.), who said it was at least the third time he had heard Vought’s pitch for deal­ing with the debt lim­it.
...

But, of course, Vought does­n’t have this kind of clout sole­ly due to his charm­ing per­son­al­i­ty. As the pres­i­dent and founder of the Cen­ter for Renew­ing Amer­i­ca (CRA) think tank, Vought is rep­re­sent­ing pow­er­ful inter­ests. In par­tic­u­lar, the pow­er­ful inter­ests who donat­ed $1.1 mil­lion to the CRA in 2021. We don’t get to know who the iden­ti­ties of the anony­mous donors who made that $1.1 mil­lion dona­tion to a brand new ‘think tank’ in 2021, but Vought insists they are mere­ly “grass-roots donors across the coun­try.” LOL! This is a good time to recall how Vought’s wife, Mary Vought, shows up on the leaked CNP mem­ber list as an ‘assumed mem­ber’. It’s pret­ty obvi­ous that when Vought claims the CRA was financed by “grass-roots”, it’s the CNP’s ‘grass-roots’ he’s allud­ing to:

...
Vought helped push for a new House pan­el led by Rep. Jim Jor­dan (R‑Ohio) to inves­ti­gate the alleged “weaponiza­tion of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment” under Pres­i­dent Biden. Stephen K. Ban­non, the for­mer Trump polit­i­cal advis­er, called Vought the “intel­lec­tu­al archi­tect” of House con­ser­v­a­tives’ rebel­lion against McCarthy. Vought is also close with Rep. Chip Roy (R‑Tex.), who spear­head­ed that fight.

“Russ is the guy con­ser­v­a­tives go to for inti­mate knowl­edge of how the fed­er­al bud­get works,” said Newt Gin­grich, who served as House speak­er in the 1990s and remains a close advis­er to McCarthy. “He under­stands an enor­mous amount of fed­er­al bud­get­ing, and that makes him a very big play­er.”

...

His new think tank advo­cates on hot-but­ton cul­ture war issues, such as “expos­ing crit­i­cal race the­o­ry.” The group has not dis­closed its fund­ing sources, but its annu­al report says it took in $1.1 mil­lion in 2021. Vought recent­ly told C‑SPAN that the orga­ni­za­tion takes no cor­po­rate mon­ey and is sup­port­ed by grass-roots donors across the coun­try.

Most awk­ward­ly for his cur­rent posi­tion: Vought over­saw enor­mous increas­es in the nation­al debt as Trump’s direc­tor of the Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get. The debt bal­looned by stag­ger­ing sums on Vought’s watch: $1 tril­lion in his first year, and a whop­ping $4 tril­lion in his sec­ond, as Con­gress agreed on a bipar­ti­san basis to spend tril­lions of dol­lars in response to the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. Trump repeat­ed­ly over­ruled fis­cal hawks, like Vought, in approv­ing the new spend­ing.

Now, with a Demo­c­rat in the White House, Vought says he wants to use the lever­age of the debt ceil­ing to force Democ­rats to rein in a fed­er­al bureau­cra­cy that he views as abus­ing its pow­er against Amer­i­can cit­i­zens. For exam­ple, he said, the gov­ern­ment is spend­ing mon­ey to detain peo­ple who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the storm­ing of the Capi­tol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“We view our role as almost act­ing like a shad­ow OMB on the out­side,” Vought told The Post.
...

And if Vought’s sta­tus as a con­ser­v­a­tive estab­lish­ment stal­wart was­n’t obvi­ous, his roles a bud­get guru for the Repub­li­can Study Com­mit­tee — an enti­ty long focused on slash­ing enti­tle­ments — and lat­er as Trump’s bud­get direc­tor — where he fruit­less­ly pushed for those enti­tle­ment cuts — should make those estab­lish­ment bona fides clear. Russ Vought has a mis­sion. The same mis­sion shared by the GOP’s mega-donor estab­lish­ment for the paste half a cen­tu­ry of mas­sive tax cuts for the wealthy and the gut­ting of enti­tle­ments. So when we read about Russ Vought tak­ing on this role as a kind of ‘Shad­ow OMB’ fig­ure shap­ing the House GOP’s strat­e­gy head­ing into the lat­est iter­a­tion of the big bud­get shut­down show­down, it’s impor­tant to keep in mind that we’ve seen this sto­ry before. It’s the same old shtick, albeit with a new lev­el of zeal:

...
He start­ed as a Hill staffer in 1999, work­ing for Sen. Phil Gramm (R‑Tex.) before becom­ing a pol­i­cy direc­tor for the House Repub­li­can Con­fer­ence under then-Rep. Mike Pence (R‑Ind.). By the mid-2000s, Vought had become the bud­get guru for the Repub­li­can Study Com­mit­tee, which sought to cut Medicare and Social Secu­ri­ty to rein in fed­er­al spend­ing. Vought then joined the advo­ca­cy arm of the Her­itage Foun­da­tion think tank, where he worked to solid­i­fy GOP oppo­si­tion to the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion.

...

When Trump burst into nation­al pol­i­tics, many GOP pol­i­cy ana­lysts recoiled at his appar­ent dis­re­gard for seri­ous pol­i­cy. Vought saw an oppor­tu­ni­ty. He joined the Trump White House as deputy bud­get direc­tor in 2017, work­ing under Mick Mul­vaney, who lat­er became Trump’s chief of staff.

...

“He’d take these dream bud­gets in to Trump, and Trump would say, ‘I don’t want these cuts; don’t make these cuts. I don’t want to touch social pro­grams. I don’t want to touch enti­tle­ments.’ And he’d back down,” said a third for­mer senior Trump admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial. “It would dri­ve Russ crazy, because he want­ed to make actu­al cuts.”

All four of Trump’s bud­gets pro­posed unprece­dent­ed cuts to domes­tic spend­ing for which Con­gress nev­er had much appetite.
...

And that brings us to the appar­ent major devi­a­tion from the stan­dard Repub­li­can bud­get antics. Instead of demand­ing that the Democ­rats agree to mas­sive enti­tle­ment cuts under the threat of a debt default, Vought is coun­sel­ing a dif­fer­ent approach: In order to avoid cut­ting Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare, gut every­thing else instead. Espe­cial­ly pro­grams that help the poor. $2 tril­lion in cuts to Med­ic­aid; more than $600 bil­lion in cuts to the Afford­able Care Act; more than $400 bil­lion in cuts to food stamps; and hun­dreds of bil­lions of dol­lars in cuts to edu­ca­tion­al sub­si­dies. It’s the lat­est twist in an oth­er­wise stale play book:

...
Vought’s agen­da rep­re­sents a major depar­ture from tra­di­tion­al con­ser­v­a­tive ideas about bal­anc­ing the fed­er­al bud­get. Once, for­mer house speak­er Paul D. Ryan (R‑Wis.) pushed cuts to Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare, the main dri­vers of fed­er­al spend­ing, as the answer. Vought argues for some­thing dif­fer­ent. A Trump acolyte, he echoes the for­mer president’s insis­tence that the pop­u­lar fed­er­al retire­ment pro­grams — which go to the mid­dle and upper class­es as well as the poor — should be walled off from cuts. Instead, Vought has sold many Repub­li­cans on the untest­ed premise that the GOP can push to oblit­er­ate almost all oth­er major forms of fed­er­al spend­ing, espe­cial­ly pro­grams that ben­e­fit low­er-income Amer­i­cans, and dare Biden to stand in the way.

Vought’s bud­get pro­pos­al calls for cut­ting $9 tril­lion over the next decade from thou­sands of domes­tic pro­grams — slash­ing fund­ing for gov­ern­ment agen­cies, stu­dent loans, and anti-pover­ty pro­grams such as hous­ing, health care and food assis­tance — while urg­ing Repub­li­cans to attack the “woke bureau­cra­cy.” Vought even advo­cates for freez­ing mil­i­tary spend­ing, which is still anath­e­ma in many GOP cir­cles.

“I’m tired of this focus on Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare, as if you’re climb­ing a moun­tain and can’t make any progress on that moun­tain until you go to the eagle’s nest on the top,” Vought told The Wash­ing­ton Post. “You take these cuts to the Amer­i­can peo­ple, and you win.”

In the 10-year bud­get pro­pos­al he has cir­cu­lat­ed on Capi­tol Hill, Vought char­ac­ter­izes this approach as part of an exis­ten­tial bat­tle for the soul of the coun­try. The plan includes $2 tril­lion in cuts to Med­ic­aid, the health pro­gram for the poor; more than $600 bil­lion in cuts to the Afford­able Care Act; more than $400 bil­lion in cuts to food stamps; hun­dreds of bil­lions of dol­lars in cuts to edu­ca­tion­al sub­si­dies; and a halv­ing of the State Depart­ment and the Labor Depart­ment, among oth­er fed­er­al agen­cies. While con­gres­sion­al Repub­li­cans have yet to release a bud­get plan, House GOP law­mak­ers are weigh­ing cuts to these pro­grams as a way to reduce the debt with­out touch­ing Medicare and Social Secu­ri­ty.
...

And as experts point out, this lat­est iter­a­tion of the same old tired ‘bal­anced bud­get in a decade’ scheme is just as unre­al­is­tic as all the pre­vi­ous ver­sion: even with all the pro­posed cuts, there’s no fea­si­ble way to bal­ance the fed­er­al bud­get with­out cuts to Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare. Or, of course, hik­ing tax­es. It’s just the lat­est scam:

...
Even some Repub­li­cans who admire Vought’s exper­tise say his bud­get blue­print is based on unre­al­is­tic assump­tions. To make it bal­ance in 10 years, for exam­ple, Vought’s bud­get also projects that the num­ber of work­ing Amer­i­cans will increase by 14.5 mil­lion peo­ple more than Con­gres­sion­al Bud­get Office pre­dicts, which would allow the Amer­i­can econ­o­my to grow faster, reduc­ing the deficit by anoth­er $3.8 tril­lion.

Vought argues that Amer­i­cans will pour into the job mar­ket because of cuts to fed­er­al aid pro­grams, but his fig­ures are almost cer­tain­ly unre­al­is­tic, par­tic­u­lar­ly because of the GOP’s oppo­si­tion to high­er lev­els of immi­gra­tion, said William Gal­ston, a for­mer domes­tic pol­i­cy offi­cial in Pres­i­dent Bill Clinton’s admin­is­tra­tion who is now a senior fel­low at the Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion, a D.C.-based think tank.

“Russ is an expert. He knows the details; he knows the bud­get back­wards and for­wards,” said one for­mer GOP offi­cial, speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to can­did­ly describe a for­mer col­league. “But he’s sell­ing con­ser­v­a­tives a fan­ta­sy, which is achiev­ing a bal­anced bud­get with­out cut­ting any­thing pop­u­lar.

“We’re going to bal­ance the bud­get by ‘end­ing woke?’ Give me a break.”

...

But ques­tions remain about whether Repub­li­cans can uni­fy behind an approach that would advance big cuts to Med­ic­aid and food stamps, pro­grams that serve many of their con­stituents. Even if they can coa­lesce behind Vought, ana­lysts say it is vir­tu­al­ly impos­si­ble to bal­ance the bud­get with­out touch­ing Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare — or rais­ing tax­es.

“As a pure­ly rhetor­i­cal ploy, they may be able to get away with it,” said Gal­ston, the Brook­ings fel­low. “As a mat­ter of arith­metic, it’s ridicu­lous.”
...

And that bud­get real­i­ty — that a bal­anced bud­get sim­ply isn’t pos­si­ble with­out cuts to Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare — brings us to the admis­sion from Casey Mul­li­gan, who appears to have inside knowl­edge about Vought’s broad­er plans: accord­ing to Mul­li­gan, Vought isn’t actu­al­ly propos­ing all of these cuts in order to avoid hav­ing to cut Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare. These cuts are intend­ed to be a kind of appe­tiz­er for Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare cuts. As Mul­li­gan describes it, “He’s tak­en this very inter­est­ing posi­tion that: Yeah, we need to get enti­tle­ment spend­ing under con­trol. But Wash­ing­ton — the agen­cies — need to take a hair­cut first...The agen­cies are a fair­ly small amount of mon­ey, but the sym­bol­ism of it — I think he’ll be suc­cess­ful with that mes­sage. He and Trump have tapped into that it’s offen­sive to most of Amer­i­ca that Wash­ing­ton would be immune to cuts.” Yes, accord­ing to this dement­ed log­ic, the Amer­i­can peo­ple will be more like­ly to accept cuts to Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare if they first see that ‘Wash­ing­ton’ is going to be cut too. And by ‘Wash­ing­ton’, they mean almost all of the fed­er­al pro­grams for the poor:

...
Casey Mul­li­gan, who served as chief econ­o­mist for the White House Coun­cil of Eco­nom­ic Advis­ers under Trump, praised Vought for push­ing his cur­rent pro­pos­al to slash fund­ing for fed­er­al agen­cies while pre­serv­ing Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare. Vought has told col­leagues he is prepar­ing a blue­print for Trump for 2025, one per­son famil­iar with his remarks said, speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to describe pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions.

“He’s tak­en this very inter­est­ing posi­tion that: Yeah, we need to get enti­tle­ment spend­ing under con­trol. But Wash­ing­ton — the agen­cies — need to take a hair­cut first,” Mul­li­gan said. “The agen­cies are a fair­ly small amount of mon­ey, but the sym­bol­ism of it — I think he’ll be suc­cess­ful with that mes­sage. He and Trump have tapped into that it’s offen­sive to most of Amer­i­ca that Wash­ing­ton would be immune to cuts.”
...

So as we can see, the plan get­ting pushed onto House Speak­er Kevin McCarthy by Russ Vought isn’t actu­al­ly a plan to cut every­thing but Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare. It’s a plan pri­or­i­tiz­ing the cut­ting of every­thing else before gut­ting Social Secu­ri­ty of Medicare. That’s it. The Medicare and Social Secu­ri­ty cuts will be com­ing.

Plus, gut­ting almost all fed­er­al spend­ing would be a great way to fire almost all fed­er­al employ­ees. Much more so than Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare cuts, which don’t actu­al­ly involve large num­bers of fed­er­al work­ers. The shut­down show­down bud­get stand­off schemes and the Sched­ule F schemes are all part of the same scheme. The same fas­cist ‘cap­tur­ing soci­ety’ scheme. A new take on a clas­sic, but still a clas­sic.

Also keep in mind that if the mas­sive Med­ic­aid and food stamp cuts Vought is coun­sel­ing Kevin McCarthy to demand look any­thing like the mas­sive cuts pro­posed by the GOP back in 2017 when ‘Trump­care’ was first get­ting envi­sions, that’s a plan to grannies.

Here’s a quick update on the grow­ing influ­ence and main­stream­ing of the fig­ure that could be con­sid­ered the God Father of the con­tem­po­rary Sched­ule F plot: Cur­tis “Men­cious Mold­bug” Yarvin, founder of the “Dark Enlight­en­ment” and long-stand­ing advo­cate for the kind of soci­ety-wide insti­tu­tion­al purges of lib­er­als that has become the core of Ron DeSan­tis’s polit­i­cal agen­da.

As we’ve seen, Yarv­in’s words car­ry a lot of weight in the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment these days. So much weight that Christo­pher Rufo — the fig­ure lead­ing Ron DeSan­tis’s ‘anti-woke’ over­haul of New Col­lege — felt the need to respond to a post on Yarv­in’s Sub­stack page crit­i­ciz­ing DeSan­tis’s aca­d­e­m­ic purge agen­da. Basi­cal­ly, Yarvin was argu­ing that it was doomed to fail and that it would be bet­ter to wait for aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions to crum­ble and rebuild them instead of try­ing to reform ‘The Cathe­dral’. You can’t reform the Cathe­dral. Instead, burn it down and build some­thing new.

That was the argu­ment Rufo was respond­ing to. And while there’s some inter­est­ing tid­bits found in his response that help to flesh out the scale of the ambi­tions at work here, the con­tent of Rufo’s rebut­tal isn’t real­ly all that inter­est­ing. What’s inter­est­ing is that he felt the need to respond in the first place, using lan­guage that demon­strates in just how high a regard Rufo holds Yarv­in’s opin­ions. That’s the sig­nif­i­cance of this piece. It’s an implic­it acknowl­edge­ment of the fact that the ‘anti-Woke’ war being waged by Ron DeSan­tis’s admin­is­tra­tion is root­ed in the ‘lib­er­al Cathe­dral runs every­thing’ fan­ta­sy world­view Yarvin has been devel­op­ing for years now:

Christo­pher F. Rufo Sub­stack

A Response to Cur­tis Yarvin
The neo­re­ac­tionary writer is too pes­simistic about the prospect for high­er edu­ca­tion reform

Christo­pher F. Rufo
Mar 3, 2023

The writer Cur­tis Yarvin recent­ly post­ed a crit­i­cism of the con­ser­v­a­tive takeover of New Col­lege of Flori­da, where I serve on the board of trustees.

Yarvin, who has built a cult fol­low­ing on the “neo­re­ac­tionary” Right and the “post-Marx­ist” Left, is best known for advanc­ing the the­sis that the pro­gres­sive-man­age­r­i­al state, which he calls the Cathe­dral, is so pow­er­ful, that any action to chal­lenge it will end up rein­forc­ing its pow­er. The bet­ter solu­tion, Yarvin coun­sels, is to adopt the pos­ture of a prey ani­mal, find sat­is­fac­tion through aes­thet­ics, and wait for the Amer­i­can Cae­sar.

I dis­agree. Yarvin’s phi­los­o­phy is an expres­sion of self-ful­fill­ing pes­simism. To a cer­tain extent, the con­ser­v­a­tive takeover of New Col­lege has already been suc­cess­ful. We imme­di­ate­ly fired the for­mer pres­i­dent, abol­ished the DEI bureau­cra­cy, banned coer­cive and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry “diver­si­ty” pro­gram­ming, and brought in for­mer state edu­ca­tion com­mis­sion­er Richard Corcoran—a man of great tenac­i­ty and courage—to lead the turn­around effort.

...

Even if one accepts Yarvin’s premise of inevitable failure—and I do not—he would be wise to remem­ber the words of Leo Strauss, who, in a cri­tique of Edmund Burke, coun­seled that prin­ci­pled action, even against immense odds, can yield unex­pect­ed results:

“[Burke failed to under­stand] the nobil­i­ty of last-ditch resis­tance. He does not con­sid­er that, in a way which no man can fore­see, resis­tance in a for­lorn posi­tion to the ene­mies of mankind, ‘going down with guns blaz­ing and flags fly­ing,’ may con­tribute great­ly toward keep­ing awake the rec­ol­lec­tion of the immense loss sus­tained by mankind, may inspire and strength­en the desire and the hope for its recov­ery, and may become a bea­con for those who humbly car­ry on the works of human­i­ty in a seem­ing­ly end­less val­ley of dark­ness and destruc­tion.”

Tran­script

There has been so much media cov­er­age about our takeover of the New Col­lege of Flori­da down in Sara­so­ta, and the com­men­tary runs the gamut. Con­ser­v­a­tive out­lets have been heap­ing praise upon our ini­tia­tives there, Gov­er­nor DeSantis’s cam­paign to reform high­er edu­ca­tion. Mean­while, lib­er­al out­lets have been hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing in oppo­si­tion to this say­ing that it is ille­git­i­mate for con­ser­v­a­tives to use polit­i­cal pow­er to take over a pub­lic insti­tu­tion. They believe that pub­lic insti­tu­tions should always be lib­er­al, and should always be pro­gres­sive even in a red state such as Flori­da.

But there was an arti­cle that came out this week that I think deserves some atten­tion because it’s some­thing that’s a lit­tle bit dif­fer­ent, it’s a lit­tle bit more inter­est­ing, it’s a lit­tle bit more unique. It’s from a writer named Cur­tis Yarvin. And if you don’t know Cur­tis Yarvin, he is a neo­re­ac­tionary philoso­pher. He has a kind of cult fol­low­ing with­in, let’s say, the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment, but actu­al­ly also peo­ple that are on the far-left or the post-Marx­ist move­ment.

He’s a real­ly unique fig­ure, some­one with whom I don’t agree on every­thing, but I’ve met Cur­tis. I have kind of a per­son­al affec­tion for Cur­tis. I think he’s a very smart per­son that always has a unique opin­ion, even if it’s one that is some­what trans­gres­sive. And so Curtis’s argu­ment in this Sub­stack post called “Acorns for the Cul­ture War” says that our cam­paign to turn New Col­lege into a clas­si­cal lib­er­al arts insti­tu­tion is doomed to fail, and is actu­al­ly more like­ly to rein­force pro­gres­sive cul­tur­al pow­er or left-wing hege­mo­ny.

He has this metaphor, he says that there is a Cathe­dral, a decen­tral­ized oli­garchic alliance between tech com­pa­nies, gov­ern­ment agen­cies, uni­ver­si­ties, and media corporations—all of the opin­ion shapers in our coun­try are unit­ed behind a left-wing ortho­doxy that he believes is almost unbreak­able. And any attempt to break through that hege­mo­ny, such as tak­ing over a small lib­er­al arts col­lege in Sara­so­ta, Flori­da, ends up actu­al­ly rein­forc­ing the pow­er of the Cathe­dral, in his telling.

But I think Cur­tis is com­plete­ly and total­ly wrong for a few rea­sons. The first rea­son is that this is real­ly a right-wing doomerism. It’s a form of right-wing fatal­ism. It’s an argu­ment that we don’t have agency, every­thing is arrayed against us in such a pow­er­ful way that there’s noth­ing we can pos­si­bly do. But we should drill down into the specifics, and get out of these metaphor­ic abstrac­tions about the Cathe­dral and the regime, and all of these oth­er very obscure sound­ing, but all-pow­er­ful enti­ties. Get down to the specifics of: what are we doing at New Col­lege?

Well, we took over the board. The first thing that we did with­in our first hours of admin­is­ter­ing the col­lege, we fired the pres­i­dent. We brought in for­mer Flori­da Edu­ca­tion Com­mis­sion­er Richard Cor­co­ran who is a very strong and dynam­ic leader, he knows edu­ca­tion, he’s not afraid of a fight, and he has tak­en the man­date for reform from Gov­er­nor DeSan­tis, and he’s going to be aggres­sive­ly pur­su­ing it.

And we’ve already changed not just the dynam­ics at New Col­lege. Even this week, we abol­ished the DEI depart­ment, we became the first uni­ver­si­ty in the Unit­ed States to do so. We said, “No more neo-racist dis­crim­i­na­tion. No more racial scape­goat­ing. No more so-called diver­si­ty state­ments that are real­ly polit­i­cal fil­ters.” And all of these actions, with­in just a month, have not only changed the dynam­ics in New Col­lege, have not only changed the dynam­ics in the state of Flori­da, but they’ve sent the entire high­er edu­ca­tion sys­tem scram­bling.

You see this from the news cov­er­age. I mean, peo­ple are sens­ing that we have bro­ken a taboo. We have said that pub­lic insti­tu­tions are ulti­mate­ly respon­si­ble to the pub­lic. And when con­ser­v­a­tives win elec­tions, they get a man­date to reform insti­tu­tions to reflect the will of the vot­ers that put them in office. We’re not going to sim­ply dal­ly around the edges. We’re going to make sub­stan­tive, hard-hit­ting direct reforms. We’re going to do it with a speed and a deci­sive­ness that is unprece­dent­ed, but absolute­ly nec­es­sary.

And so the left with­in high­er edu­ca­tion real­ly went into a pan­ic, you can see this from the media cov­er­age. No one had ever done a full frontal assault against left-wing ortho­doxy with­in high­er edu­ca­tion. And they’re sens­ing that they’re no longer invul­ner­a­ble, they’re no longer untouch­able, they’re no longer invin­ci­ble, and that vot­ers are no longer going to be writ­ing a blank check every year to pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties that take that mon­ey to pro­mote DEI bureau­cra­cies and to push left-wing activism against the val­ues, and will, and demo­c­ra­t­ic wish­es of the major­i­ty of cit­i­zens in those states.

And so with this small beach­head, this small ini­tial cam­paign, we’ve already demon­strat­ed that we can shift broad­er dynam­ics. We’re work­ing on huge lever­age here. We’re actu­al­ly tak­ing this as an exam­ple, as a proof of con­cept, and as an inspi­ra­tion to oth­er lead­ers. All of a sud­den, we’ve seen a cou­ple of things hap­pen with­in the past 30 days. We’ve seen leg­is­la­tors in the state of Flori­da intro­duce leg­is­la­tion to abol­ish the DEI bureau­cra­cies in all Flori­da pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties. That’s going to be deal­ing with tens of mil­lions of dol­lars in defund­ing. It’s going to be chang­ing the game on a large scale.

We’ve also seen Texas leg­is­la­tors sig­nal that they want to do the same. West Vir­ginia leg­is­la­tors, leg­is­la­tors in Mis­souri, leg­is­la­tors in Utah, leg­is­la­tors in all of these oth­er red states look­ing at what we’ve done at New Col­lege, look­ing at what Gov­er­nor DeSan­tis is doing in Flori­da and say­ing, “That’s a good idea. We’re going to repli­cate it. We’re going to now bring these ideas to scale, and we’re going to now lay siege to the left-wing racial­ist bureau­cra­cies that have cap­tured the pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties in an unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic fash­ion.”

Nobody in Texas is vot­ing for DEI bureau­cra­cies to be every­where, to be racial­ly seg­re­gat­ing schol­ar­ships, and to be delib­er­ate­ly exclud­ing pro­fes­sors on the basis of race and polit­i­cal iden­ti­ty. Leg­is­la­tors are say­ing, “You know what? We’ve let this go for too long. We’re tak­ing a stand. We’re going to make changes.” And I think ulti­mate­ly Curtis’s fun­da­men­tal flaw is that he would have us adopt the posi­tion of a prey ani­mal; lean back, don’t make too much noise, kind of hide in the shad­ows, and try not to get wiped out.

Look, that is a per­fect­ly fine, adap­tive response in maybe a state of nature in the ani­mal world, but we’re human beings, we have a human nature, but we also have the abil­i­ty to imag­ine beyond our imme­di­ate con­tin­gent cir­cum­stances. And so I can see a uni­ver­si­ty sys­tem that is far supe­ri­or to the one that we have today. And I think we have then a duty and an oblig­a­tion to fight inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard in order to get there.

And then I think that Curtis’s real error is that he says, “Well, every­thing will be doomed to fail­ure. You’re just going to rein­force your enemy’s pow­er.” This is kind of an excuse to then maybe do noth­ing. And then, of course, as a neo­re­ac­tionary, he hopes that this sys­tem decays and may lead to a kind of impe­r­i­al or a monar­chi­cal sys­tem, which I oppose again. I still believe in the Amer­i­can Repub­lic. I still believe that our demo­c­ra­t­ic pow­er as a peo­ple is mean­ing­ful. I still believe that our leg­is­la­ture has the capac­i­ty to gov­ern our states and our coun­try in the best inter­ests of the Amer­i­can peo­ple.

And so by say­ing that if we believe all of those things to be true, we have a respon­si­bil­i­ty then to take action to turn those con­cepts into a real­i­ty. And I think inac­tion val­i­dates the kind of pes­simistic idea of inevitable Amer­i­can decline and decay. Our more opti­mistic for­mu­la­tion cre­ates not the guar­an­tee of vic­to­ry, but it cer­tain­ly opens up the field of pos­si­bil­i­ty for vic­to­ry.

And one thing that I real­ly rec­om­mend that we take seri­ous­ly is this idea that one action toward a tran­scen­dent ide­al, towards the greater good, towards the true, the good, and the beau­ti­ful can some­times yield sec­ondary results that you don’t expect, but open up new ter­rains, new pos­si­bil­i­ties, new levers of pow­er, new solu­tions, new polit­i­cal ideas. And so mere­ly by tak­ing that first action, you’re cre­at­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty for more. I real­ly believe that. I’ve always seen that in my own per­son­al expe­ri­ence.

I think his­to­ry also shows that some­times small groups of peo­ple with a strong vision that take deci­sive action can lead to an unex­pect­ed almost Rube Gold­berg-like rip­ple effect that has unin­tend­ed con­se­quences that are not nec­es­sar­i­ly bad but are some­times very good. And so when we’re oper­at­ing from a posi­tion as con­ser­v­a­tives where we con­trol almost noth­ing with regard to elite insti­tu­tion­al pow­er, just tak­ing that first strike I think has already yield­ed already more pos­si­bil­i­ties for us.

...

————-

“A Response to Cur­tis Yarvin” by Christo­pher F. Rufo; +Christo­pher F. Rufo Sub­stack; 03/03/2023

“He’s a real­ly unique fig­ure, some­one with whom I don’t agree on every­thing, but I’ve met Cur­tis. I have kind of a per­son­al affec­tion for Cur­tis. I think he’s a very smart per­son that always has a unique opin­ion, even if it’s one that is some­what trans­gres­sive. And so Curtis’s argu­ment in this Sub­stack post called “Acorns for the Cul­ture War” says that our cam­paign to turn New Col­lege into a clas­si­cal lib­er­al arts insti­tu­tion is doomed to fail, and is actu­al­ly more like­ly to rein­force pro­gres­sive cul­tur­al pow­er or left-wing hege­mo­ny.”

“I think he’s a very smart per­son that always has a unique opin­ion, even if it’s one that is some­what trans­gres­sive.” That was Christo­pher Rufo’s over­all char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of the guy best known for cre­at­ing the ‘Dark Enlight­en­ment’ ide­ol­o­gy: just a very smart per­son with just some­what trans­gres­sive opin­ions. Men­cius Mold­bug is a main­stream con­ser­v­a­tive.

Because of course Yarvin is treat­ed like a main­stream con­ser­v­a­tive. His nar­ra­tive about a “Cathe­dral” of left-wing dom­i­nat­ed insti­tu­tions that run soci­ety to the exclu­sion of con­ser­v­a­tives is absolute­ly fun­da­men­tal to the nar­ra­tive Rufo and Ron DeSan­tis are rely­ing on to jus­ti­fy the takeover of New Col­lege. Rufo nev­er actu­al­ly dis­agrees with Yarv­in’s ‘Cathe­dral’ nar­ra­tive. The only quib­ble is whether or not it’s a fruit­less strug­gle:

...
There has been so much media cov­er­age about our takeover of the New Col­lege of Flori­da down in Sara­so­ta, and the com­men­tary runs the gamut. Con­ser­v­a­tive out­lets have been heap­ing praise upon our ini­tia­tives there, Gov­er­nor DeSantis’s cam­paign to reform high­er edu­ca­tion. Mean­while, lib­er­al out­lets have been hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing in oppo­si­tion to this say­ing that it is ille­git­i­mate for con­ser­v­a­tives to use polit­i­cal pow­er to take over a pub­lic insti­tu­tion. They believe that pub­lic insti­tu­tions should always be lib­er­al, and should always be pro­gres­sive even in a red state such as Flori­da.

But there was an arti­cle that came out this week that I think deserves some atten­tion because it’s some­thing that’s a lit­tle bit dif­fer­ent, it’s a lit­tle bit more inter­est­ing, it’s a lit­tle bit more unique. It’s from a writer named Cur­tis Yarvin. And if you don’t know Cur­tis Yarvin, he is a neo­re­ac­tionary philoso­pher. He has a kind of cult fol­low­ing with­in, let’s say, the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment, but actu­al­ly also peo­ple that are on the far-left or the post-Marx­ist move­ment.

...

He has this metaphor, he says that there is a Cathe­dral, a decen­tral­ized oli­garchic alliance between tech com­pa­nies, gov­ern­ment agen­cies, uni­ver­si­ties, and media corporations—all of the opin­ion shapers in our coun­try are unit­ed behind a left-wing ortho­doxy that he believes is almost unbreak­able. And any attempt to break through that hege­mo­ny, such as tak­ing over a small lib­er­al arts col­lege in Sara­so­ta, Flori­da, ends up actu­al­ly rein­forc­ing the pow­er of the Cathe­dral, in his telling.

But I think Cur­tis is com­plete­ly and total­ly wrong for a few rea­sons. The first rea­son is that this is real­ly a right-wing doomerism. It’s a form of right-wing fatal­ism. It’s an argu­ment that we don’t have agency, every­thing is arrayed against us in such a pow­er­ful way that there’s noth­ing we can pos­si­bly do. But we should drill down into the specifics, and get out of these metaphor­ic abstrac­tions about the Cathe­dral and the regime, and all of these oth­er very obscure sound­ing, but all-pow­er­ful enti­ties. Get down to the specifics of: what are we doing at New Col­lege?

...

And then I think that Curtis’s real error is that he says, “Well, every­thing will be doomed to fail­ure. You’re just going to rein­force your enemy’s pow­er.” This is kind of an excuse to then maybe do noth­ing. And then, of course, as a neo­re­ac­tionary, he hopes that this sys­tem decays and may lead to a kind of impe­r­i­al or a monar­chi­cal sys­tem, which I oppose again. I still believe in the Amer­i­can Repub­lic. I still believe that our demo­c­ra­t­ic pow­er as a peo­ple is mean­ing­ful. I still believe that our leg­is­la­ture has the capac­i­ty to gov­ern our states and our coun­try in the best inter­ests of the Amer­i­can peo­ple.
...

And if it was­n’t already obvi­ous­ly, Rufo does­n’t hide the fact that the cap­ture and New Col­lege is intend­ed to be a proof-of-con­cept exper­i­ment to be repli­cat­ed at pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties in every Repub­li­can-run state in the US. It’s all part of mov­ing soci­ety “toward a tran­scen­dent ide­al, towards the greater good, towards the true, the good, and the beau­ti­ful.” It’s the kind of lan­guage one tends to find in a cult, although def­i­nite­ly not a Dooms­day Cult if we take Rufo’s opti­mism at face val­ue:

...
Well, we took over the board. The first thing that we did with­in our first hours of admin­is­ter­ing the col­lege, we fired the pres­i­dent. We brought in for­mer Flori­da Edu­ca­tion Com­mis­sion­er Richard Cor­co­ran who is a very strong and dynam­ic leader, he knows edu­ca­tion, he’s not afraid of a fight, and he has tak­en the man­date for reform from Gov­er­nor DeSan­tis, and he’s going to be aggres­sive­ly pur­su­ing it.

And we’ve already changed not just the dynam­ics at New Col­lege. Even this week, we abol­ished the DEI depart­ment, we became the first uni­ver­si­ty in the Unit­ed States to do so. We said, “No more neo-racist dis­crim­i­na­tion. No more racial scape­goat­ing. No more so-called diver­si­ty state­ments that are real­ly polit­i­cal fil­ters.” And all of these actions, with­in just a month, have not only changed the dynam­ics in New Col­lege, have not only changed the dynam­ics in the state of Flori­da, but they’ve sent the entire high­er edu­ca­tion sys­tem scram­bling.

You see this from the news cov­er­age. I mean, peo­ple are sens­ing that we have bro­ken a taboo. We have said that pub­lic insti­tu­tions are ulti­mate­ly respon­si­ble to the pub­lic. And when con­ser­v­a­tives win elec­tions, they get a man­date to reform insti­tu­tions to reflect the will of the vot­ers that put them in office. We’re not going to sim­ply dal­ly around the edges. We’re going to make sub­stan­tive, hard-hit­ting direct reforms. We’re going to do it with a speed and a deci­sive­ness that is unprece­dent­ed, but absolute­ly nec­es­sary.

And so the left with­in high­er edu­ca­tion real­ly went into a pan­ic, you can see this from the media cov­er­age. No one had ever done a full frontal assault against left-wing ortho­doxy with­in high­er edu­ca­tion. And they’re sens­ing that they’re no longer invul­ner­a­ble, they’re no longer untouch­able, they’re no longer invin­ci­ble, and that vot­ers are no longer going to be writ­ing a blank check every year to pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties that take that mon­ey to pro­mote DEI bureau­cra­cies and to push left-wing activism against the val­ues, and will, and demo­c­ra­t­ic wish­es of the major­i­ty of cit­i­zens in those states.

And so with this small beach­head, this small ini­tial cam­paign, we’ve already demon­strat­ed that we can shift broad­er dynam­ics. We’re work­ing on huge lever­age here. We’re actu­al­ly tak­ing this as an exam­ple, as a proof of con­cept, and as an inspi­ra­tion to oth­er lead­ers. All of a sud­den, we’ve seen a cou­ple of things hap­pen with­in the past 30 days. We’ve seen leg­is­la­tors in the state of Flori­da intro­duce leg­is­la­tion to abol­ish the DEI bureau­cra­cies in all Flori­da pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties. That’s going to be deal­ing with tens of mil­lions of dol­lars in defund­ing. It’s going to be chang­ing the game on a large scale.

...

And so by say­ing that if we believe all of those things to be true, we have a respon­si­bil­i­ty then to take action to turn those con­cepts into a real­i­ty. And I think inac­tion val­i­dates the kind of pes­simistic idea of inevitable Amer­i­can decline and decay. Our more opti­mistic for­mu­la­tion cre­ates not the guar­an­tee of vic­to­ry, but it cer­tain­ly opens up the field of pos­si­bil­i­ty for vic­to­ry.

And one thing that I real­ly rec­om­mend that we take seri­ous­ly is this idea that one action toward a tran­scen­dent ide­al, towards the greater good, towards the true, the good, and the beau­ti­ful can some­times yield sec­ondary results that you don’t expect, but open up new ter­rains, new pos­si­bil­i­ties, new levers of pow­er, new solu­tions, new polit­i­cal ideas. And so mere­ly by tak­ing that first action, you’re cre­at­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty for more. I real­ly believe that. I’ve always seen that in my own per­son­al expe­ri­ence.

I think his­to­ry also shows that some­times small groups of peo­ple with a strong vision that take deci­sive action can lead to an unex­pect­ed almost Rube Gold­berg-like rip­ple effect that has unin­tend­ed con­se­quences that are not nec­es­sar­i­ly bad but are some­times very good. And so when we’re oper­at­ing from a posi­tion as con­ser­v­a­tives where we con­trol almost noth­ing with regard to elite insti­tu­tion­al pow­er, just tak­ing that first strike I think has already yield­ed already more pos­si­bil­i­ties for us.
...

It’s worth not­ing at this point that notion that the focused trans­for­ma­tion under­way at New Col­lege could be eas­i­ly repli­cat­ed at much larg­er pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties across the US neglects one of the core dynam­ics that’s going to be in play at New Col­lege: it’s a tiny school with few­er than 1000 stu­dents. As such, there won’t need to be that many ide­o­log­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed new stu­dents and pro­fes­sors sign­ing up for New Col­lege to fill in for all the left-lean­ing prospec­tive stu­dents who will now pre­sum­ably be look­ing else­where for a high­er edu­ca­tion. But that’s not going to be easy to repli­cate at larg­er uni­ver­si­ties. For this to become a real tem­plate, a sub­stan­tial per­cent­age of the total prospec­tive stu­dent body across the US will have to be will­ing to sub­mit them­selves to a hyper-politi­cized ‘anti-woke’ edu­ca­tion­al expe­ri­ences. Not to men­tion find­ing enough ide­o­log­i­cal­ly com­pli­ant pro­fes­sors. Don’t for­get the tem­plate insti­tu­tion here: tiny Chris­t­ian con­ser­v­a­tive col­lege Hills­dale, which had an enroll­ment of just over 1,500 stu­dents in 2021. It’s not like that there’s mas­sive demand for a con­ser­v­a­tive fun­da­men­tal­ist col­lege edu­ca­tion in the US.

And yet that mas­sive demand for an ‘anti-woke’ edu­ca­tion is what the Rufo/DeSantis plan is pred­i­cat­ed on. A Hills­dale edu­ca­tion for all! It’s what the peo­ple want. At least that’s the assump­tion. An assump­tion Cur­tis Yarvin clear­ly does­n’t share. Time will tell. This is going to take a while to play out. Maybe we’re going to see a flow­er­ing of new New Col­leges all around the US in one GOP-run state after anoth­er. Maybe. But if not, it’s worth keep­ing in mind the under­ly­ing strat­e­gy Yarvin is coun­sel­ing instead: burn it all to the ground, and only then build your tran­scen­dent ide­al­ized soci­ety atop the ash­es. Which is a reminder that, while Ron DeSan­tis no doubt would love to see his New Col­lege ‘anti-woke’ gam­bit suc­ceed at cre­at­ing a vibrant new con­ser­v­a­tive aca­d­e­m­ic envi­ron­ment that is polit­i­cal­ly cor­rect in all the prop­er ‘anti-woke’ ways, there’s a Plan B should that gam­bit fail. A Plan B pred­i­cat­ed on the idea that the only plan that won’t fail is one that starts with burn­ing it all to the ground.

The ide­o­log­i­cal cap­ture of New Col­lege of Flori­da is clear­ly one of Ron DeSan­tis’s flag­ship ini­tia­tives in antic­i­pa­tion of of 2024 pres­i­den­tial run. A sym­bol­ic open­ing shot in DeSan­tis’s ‘war on woke.’ But, of course, this isn’t just Ron DeStantis’s ‘war on wok­ism’. As we’ve seen, DeSan­tis’s war on New Col­lege is basi­cal­ly an exten­sion of the ongo­ing Sched­ule F schem­ing under­way. Schem­ing led large­ly by the Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy (CNP). And as we’re going to see in the fol­low­ing post from the Vic­tims of Com­mu­nism Sub­stack, it’s an agen­da that goes back to the ori­gins of the net­works of inter­na­tion­al fas­cists who formed the ‘New Right’ decades ago.

It’s a his­tor­i­cal rela­tion­ship with a per­haps sur­pris­ing direct tie to the New Col­lege takeover: it turns out Matthew Spald­ing — pro­fes­sor of con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­ern­ment at Hills­dale Col­lege and the dean of Hillsdale’s grad­u­ate school of gov­ern­ment in DC — is mar­ried to the daugh­ter of Lee Edwards.

Who is Lee Edwards? First, recall how Edwards end­ed up work­ing close­ly with spook-con­nect­ed ‘human rights lawyer’ Luis Kut­ner dur­ing Kut­ner’s many inter­ac­tions with groups like the Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations (ABN). But Edwards did a lot more than that: a co-founder of Bar­ry Gold­wa­ter’s Young Amer­i­cans for Free­dom (YAF), Edwards went on to found the Amer­i­can branch of the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League (WACL), the Amer­i­can Coun­cil for World Free­dom (ACWF). In 1974, the ACWF host­ed WACL’s con­fer­ence in DC, which includ­ed OUN‑B leader Yaroslav Stet­sko as a spe­cial guest. Edwards was made the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of WACL that year.

Flash for­ward to 1994, and we find Edwards and key Stet­sko oper­a­tive Lev Dobri­anksy form­ing the Vic­tims of Com­mu­nism Memo­r­i­al Foun­da­tion (VOC). Edwards sat at the head of the VOC board until 2022, at which point his daugh­ter Eliz­a­beth replaced him.

So how does all of this relate to DeSan­tis’s ‘war on woke’ at New Col­lege? Well, as Lee Edwards wrote in 2019, the U.S. suf­fers from “the tyran­ny of minorities—the fem­i­nist minor­i­ty, the wel­fare-rights minor­i­ty, the homo­sex­u­al minor­i­ty, the ani­mal-rights minor­i­ty.”

Flash for­ward again to June of 2022, dur­ing the grand open­ing of the VOC Muse­um in DC when we hear sen­ti­ments expressed by a mem­ber of the VOC Speak­ers Bureau that sound like they were tak­en from a Ron DeSan­tis inter­view. As this VOC mem­ber explained to reporters, “Marx­ism has gained a foothold in the Amer­i­can edu­ca­tion sys­tem through the rise of can­cel cul­ture, revi­sion­ist his­to­ry lessons, crit­i­cal race the­o­ry, and divi­sive gen­der ide­ol­o­gy…

As Lee Edwards said dur­ing a Nation­al Review inter­view at the time, Edwards views the open­ing the muse­um as “the cor­ner­stone of our glob­al edu­ca­tion­al cam­paign about the man­i­fold vic­tims and crimes of com­mu­nism.” As Edwards puts it, “Nazism was exposed and con­vict­ed at the Nurem­burg tri­als. VOC intends to put com­mu­nism on tri­al in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.” It’s that broad­er “we’re putting Com­mu­nism on tri­al” nar­ra­tive — a nar­ra­tive the New Right as been nurs­ing and devel­op­ing for decades — that’s going to be cru­cial to keep in mind as we watch the ‘war on woke’ and broad­er Sched­ule F insti­tu­tion­al purge agen­da play out.

Yes, the fact that Matthew Spald­ing is mar­ried to Eliz­a­beth Edwards is indeed quite inter­est­ing. But even if they weren’t, that would­n’t change the fact that the ‘war on woke’ is lit­tle more than a rehash­ing of the kind of ‘Red Scare’ men­tal­i­ty fig­ured like Lee Edwards have been keep­ing alive and fos­ter­ing ever since Joe McCarthy. An agen­da kept alive in con­cert with the inter­na­tion­al fas­cist net­works like the ABN and WACL that Lee Edwards also helped to orga­nize.

It’s all part of the same shared agen­da. An inter­na­tion­al agen­da a cre­at­ing an envi­ron­ment where every­thing the far right dis­likes is sim­ply labeled ‘Com­mu­nist’ and declared a sub­ver­sive threat that must be extin­guished entire­ly. Ron DeSan­ti’s ‘War on Woke’ is oper­at­ing from an old play­book. The Red Scare play­book Lee Edwards helped to write:

Vic­tims of Com­mu­nism

The Founders, Pt. 1
Con­ser­v­a­tive His­to­ri­ans, Cold War­riors, Cul­ture War

Mar 13, 2023

Two days before Don­ald Trump left the White House, his admin­is­tra­tion released its nation­al­is­tic “1776 Report” on Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Day. This part­ing shot alleged to come “with the inten­tion of cul­ti­vat­ing a bet­ter edu­ca­tion among Amer­i­cans” about the ori­gins of the Unit­ed States, but this could hard­ly be fur­ther from the truth.

Trump’s 1776 Com­mis­sion was estab­lished in the final months of his pres­i­den­cy to pro­mote “patri­ot­ic edu­ca­tion,” at least par­tial­ly in response to the New York Times 1619 Project, which marked “the 400th anniver­sary of the begin­ning of Amer­i­can slav­ery” by try­ing to “reframe the country’s his­to­ry by plac­ing the con­se­quences of slav­ery and the con­tri­bu­tions of black Amer­i­cans at the very cen­ter of our nation­al nar­ra­tive.”

The “1776 Com­mis­sion” report released by Don­ald Trump just before his exit from the pres­i­den­cy is so stag­ger­ing­ly awful, trot­ting out every moldy reac­tionary trope about the his­to­ry of the Unit­ed States it can, that it has to be read to be believed. https://t.co/8KzVsg0h2I— Jacobin (@jacobin) Jan­u­ary 20, 2021

Since then, pre­sum­ably lay­ing the ground­work for a pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, Flori­da gov­er­nor Ron DeSan­tis has led a Repub­li­can cru­sade against the “woke mind virus” (the LGBT com­mu­ni­ty, “crit­i­cal race the­o­ry,” and more) in schools. Whether or not it’s about try­ing to one-up Don­ald Trump in the state they both call home, DeSan­tis has declared war on pub­lic edu­ca­tion. “Flori­da is where woke goes to die,” he claimed after being re-elect­ed in Novem­ber.

The text of DeSan­tis’ high­er edu­ca­tion bill has been released. It’s as ter­ri­fy­ing as the press release sug­gest­ed it would be. Flori­da HB 999 would enact the most dra­con­ian and cen­so­ri­ous restric­tions on high­er edu­ca­tion in the his­to­ry of this coun­try. https://t.co/mTsNuSryt4— Jere­my C. Young (@jeremycyoung) Feb­ru­ary 23, 2023

As part of DeSan­tis’ “war on woke,” and his tri­al run for a national(ist) assault on high­er edu­ca­tion, the Trumpian gov­er­nor has appoint­ed half a dozen right-wing trustees at New Col­lege of Flori­da, a pub­lic lib­er­al arts school. Among them is Matthew Spald­ing, the for­mer exec­u­tive direc­tor of Trump’s 1776 Com­mis­sion.

Spalding’s wife chairs the Vic­tims of Com­mu­nism Memo­r­i­al Foun­da­tion (VOC) and is the found­ing direc­tor of its muse­um in Wash­ing­ton. Her father, “not just a lead­ing his­to­ri­an of the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment” but also said to be “an active play­er in the move­ment longer than any­one else,” is the VOC patri­arch.

...

DeSan­tis’ takeover of New College’s board of trustees includ­ed the appoint­ment of Christo­pher Rufo, who has “led the fight against crit­i­cal race the­o­ry in Amer­i­can insti­tu­tions” accord­ing to the Flori­da governor’s web­site. Rufo has con­tributed to DeSan­tis’ cul­ture wars (includ­ing the anti-LGBT “groomer” pan­ic) as an advi­sor to the gov­er­nor and a senior fel­low at the Man­hat­tan Insti­tute, a con­ser­v­a­tive think tank co-found­ed by Ronald Reagan’s CIA direc­tor. Fol­low­ing the news of his appoint­ment, Christo­pher Rufo declared, “We are recap­tur­ing high­er edu­ca­tion,” and shared with Twit­ter fol­low­ers a speech he gave at Hills­dale Col­lege that “out­lined my the­o­ry of action.”

I have a new sto­ry @VanityFair about the right-wing takeover of New Col­lege, what it means to make a “Hills­dale of the South” & how its archi­tects open­ly agree that New Col­lege is just a tri­al run. https://t.co/IUoFztlmuw— Kathryn Joyce (@kathrynajoyce) Feb­ru­ary 10, 2023

Matthew Spald­ing is a pro­fes­sor and dean at Hills­dale College’s Cen­ter for Con­sti­tu­tion­al Stud­ies and Cit­i­zen­ship who has argued that birthright cit­i­zen­ship is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. “I have known Gov­er­nor DeSan­tis since he was a con­gress­man and have been work­ing with the Flori­da Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion on his civic lit­er­a­cy ini­tia­tive,” Spald­ing said in Feb­ru­ary.

His wife Eliz­a­beth Spald­ing teach­es Cold War his­to­ry at Pep­per­dine University’s School of Pub­lic Pol­i­cy, and serves on the advi­so­ry coun­cil of its “Amer­i­can Project on the Future of Con­ser­vatism,” which was inspired by con­ser­v­a­tive his­to­ri­an George Nash. In a 2016 essay on “Trump­ist pop­ulism,” Nash sug­gest­ed that “by get­ting back, very delib­er­ate­ly to basics, con­ser­v­a­tive intel­lec­tu­als can begin to restore some clar­i­ty and direc­tion to the debate.”

Eliz­a­beth Edwards Spald­ing received a full-tuition schol­ar­ship to attend Hills­dale Col­lege in the 1980s, per­haps because her father, also a con­ser­v­a­tive his­to­ri­an, in his words, “played a key role in the strug­gle for free­dom.”

I was a founder of Young Amer­i­cans for Free­dom, which pro­vid­ed the ground troops for the Bar­ry Gold­wa­ter and Ronald Rea­gan pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns. I was the direc­tor of infor­ma­tion for the Gold­wa­ter for Pres­i­dent Com­mit­tee, which secured the 1964 pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion for Sen­a­tor Gold­wa­ter and changed the course of con­ser­v­a­tive (and Amer­i­can) his­to­ry. I wrote the first polit­i­cal biog­ra­phy of Rea­gan. I was the found­ing edi­tor of Con­ser­v­a­tive Digest, which had at one time the great­est cir­cu­la­tion of any con­ser­v­a­tive jour­nal. I orga­nized the largest Wash­ing­ton ral­ly for the Viet­nam War and our troops. I was denounced as a “son of a Birch” by a nation­al­ly syn­di­cat­ed colum­nist and described by the New York Times as “The ‘Voice’ of the Silent Major­i­ty.”

Lee Edwards was also “a stal­wart of the emer­gent New Right in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics, and brought his own ques­tion­able back­ground and motives into the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League [WACL] as a pro­fes­sion­al fund-rais­er.” Accord­ing to Scott and Jon Lee Anderson’s 1986 exposé of the far-right WACL, an almost car­toon­ish­ly evil orga­ni­za­tion, Edwards was the prin­ci­pal co-founder of its first U.S. chap­ter, the Amer­i­can Coun­cil for World Free­dom.

Accord­ing to Edwards, although Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy vis­it­ed his child­hood home, it wasn’t until the Sovi­et Union crushed the “Hun­gar­i­an Rev­o­lu­tion” in 1956 that his “dor­mant anti­com­mu­nism came alive,” and 23 year old Lee Edwards “resolved that for the rest of my life, wher­ev­er I was, what­ev­er I was, I would help those who resist­ed com­mu­nism how­ev­er I could.”

Reflect­ing on the 1960s, Edwards recalled, “It was the decade when con­ser­vatism was trans­formed from a debat­ing soci­ety into a polit­i­cal move­ment, and I col­lab­o­rat­ed with almost every con­ser­v­a­tive leader who effect­ed the tran­si­tion.” That appar­ent­ly did not include Robert Welch, founder of the con­spir­acist John Birch Soci­ety, which Edwards nev­er­the­less remem­bered as being “made up of good, good Amer­i­cans ter­ri­bly frus­trat­ed by what they saw as the direc­tion of the coun­try.”

The Tai­wan-led Asian People’s Anti-Com­mu­nist League, estab­lished in 1954, spear­head­ed a years-long effort to cre­ate the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League in 1967. Around then, Lee Edwards began to ghost­write a book for Sen­a­tor Strom Thur­mond, one of the most infa­mous seg­re­ga­tion­ists of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Thur­mond addressed the 1970 WACL con­fer­ence in Tokyo, which was spear­head­ed by “Moonies,” or cult fol­low­ers of the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church, but not before Edwards found­ed the Amer­i­can Coun­cil for World Free­dom (ACWF), which he called a “Who’s Who of anti­com­mu­nists in Amer­i­ca.”

Accord­ing to WACL his­to­ri­an Kei­th Allen Den­nis, the ACWF rep­re­sent­ed a right-wing anti-com­mu­nist coali­tion led by the Amer­i­can Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil, which we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly touched on as an influ­en­tial “Cold War­rior think tank.” By 1974, Lee Edwards became the sec­re­tary of the ACWF, which orga­nized that year’s WACL con­fer­ence in Wash­ing­ton. Spe­cial guests includ­ed Yaroslav Stet­sko, for­mer “Prime Min­is­ter” of a pro-Nazi gov­ern­ment in 1941 west­ern Ukraine that the Ger­mans imme­di­ate­ly squashed, and the Nicaraguan dic­ta­tor, “whose secu­ri­ty guard was only slight­ly small­er than our president’s,” recalled Edwards.

Edwards act­ed as the mas­ter of cer­e­monies at a “WACL Free­dom Ral­ly,” and was report­ed­ly named Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League. “I am proud of that con­fer­ence,” he wrote years lat­er. “But as I trav­eled about meet­ing WACL chap­ter lead­ers and dis­cussing the pro­gram agen­da, I became uneasy. Some chap­ters were led by men who were open­ly anti-Semit­ic.” But he was main­ly refer­ring to the Mex­i­cans, instead of Stetsko’s Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations, which Scott and Jon Lee Ander­son described as the “largest and most impor­tant umbrel­la of for­mer Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors in the world.”

The ACWF coali­tion includ­ed the Nation­al Cap­tive Nations Com­mit­tee and the Ukrain­ian Con­gress Com­mit­tee of Amer­i­ca, both chaired by Lev Dobri­an­sky, who was under the sway of Yaroslav Stet­sko as leader of the far-right Orga­ni­za­tion of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists (1968–86). Dobri­an­sky even­tu­al­ly co-found­ed the Vic­tims of Com­mu­nism Memo­r­i­al Foun­da­tion (VOC) with Lee Edwards, but more about Dobri­an­sky in “The Founders, Pt.2.” All you need to know for now is that Edwards eulo­gized him as a “hero of the Cold War.”

The ACWF mar­ried their milieus, so Edwards became the exec­u­tive sec­re­tary of the Nation­al Cap­tive Nations Com­mit­tee, and got a “World Out­look” col­umn in the nation­al­ist Ukrain­ian Week­ly, a news­pa­per pub­lished in Jer­sey City, to bash the for­eign pol­i­cy of the Jim­my Carter admin­is­tra­tion. (His “World Out­look” includ­ed the fol­low­ing hits: “Carter fails cap­tive nations — again,” “Get­ting back to num­ber one [mil­i­tar­i­ly in the world],” “Red star over Africa?” and “The Chi­nese-Latin Amer­i­can con­nec­tion.”)

By 1979, the year that Wash­ing­ton cut diplo­mat­ic ties with Tai­wan, and Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al accused the US-backed mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship in Argenti­na of “dis­ap­pear­ing” thou­sands of cit­i­zens dur­ing its “Dirty War,” Lee Edwards’ pub­lic rela­tions firm reg­is­tered as a for­eign agent of both coun­tries. Accord­ing to his­to­ri­an Patrice McSh­er­ry, “The 1980 WACL meet­ing in Buenos Aires seems to have been a defin­ing event in the export­ing of the Con­dor sys­tem from the South­ern Cone.”

In the 1980s, the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League reached the height of its influ­ence with Ronald Rea­gan in the White House, mean­while Lee Edwards & Asso­ciates con­tin­ued to work for WACL’s Chi­nese branch, which was con­trolled by the Tai­wanese gov­ern­ment. John K. Singlaub, read­ers may recall—“an anti-communist’s anti-com­mu­nist,” accord­ing to Edwards—revived the ACWF as the U.S. Coun­cil for World Free­dom (with mon­ey from Tai­wan), and lat­er took over the WACL, just in time for the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion to keep U.S. mil­i­tary aid flow­ing to the Con­tra death squads in Nicaragua after it was banned by Con­gress.

Of course, this is extreme­ly far from a com­pre­hen­sive overview of the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League or the career of Lee Edwards, but it seems like a good place to start. Future posts will con­tin­ue to touch on the WACL as a sort of pre­de­ces­sor to the VOC, and get into Edwards’ rela­tion­ship with orga­ni­za­tions like the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church, Insti­tute of World Pol­i­tics, and the Her­itage Foun­da­tion, that are rel­e­vant to the “Vic­tims of Com­mu­nism.”

In 1993, Lee Edwards decried a con­spir­a­cy in Wash­ing­ton to “to wipe out the record of impe­r­i­al Moscow’s expan­sion­ism,” and the fol­low­ing year co-found­ed the VOC as Dobriansky’s right-hand man on the Nation­al Cap­tive Nations Com­mit­tee (NCNC), but more about that lat­er. The 1990s turned out to be a dis­ap­point­ment for the NCNC, which set up the Vic­tims of Com­mu­nism Memo­r­i­al Foun­da­tion, dream­ing of a $100 mil­lion muse­um.

“More than once between 1994 and 1999 I almost gave up,” Edwards admit­ted. Dobri­an­sky stepped down as chair­man in 2003, and died five years lat­er, but his for­mer side­kick, deter­mined to hon­or Dobri­an­sky and Hun­gary in par­tic­u­lar, set­tled for a memo­r­i­al in 2007, and stayed at the helm of the board until 2022. At 90 years old, Edwards passed the torch (and a new muse­um) to his daugh­ter, with whom he has authored sev­er­al books.

In the 21st cen­tu­ry, Lee Edwards may have lost touch, but he’s still got plen­ty of hatred in his heart, and that’s all that mat­ters. In 2018, he repeat­ed­ly sug­gest­ed that Ben Shapiro could be the next William F. Buck­ley. At that year’s annu­al “Roll Call of Nations” wreath-lay­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the VOC memo­r­i­al in Wash­ing­ton, Edwards declared, “In our con­flict­ed world, telling the truth about social­ism has become a rev­o­lu­tion­ary act. So, my friends, let us all join the rev­o­lu­tion!”

In 2019, echo­ing Rus­sell Kirk, the con­ser­v­a­tive vet­er­an explained that the U.S. suf­fers from “the tyran­ny of minorities—the fem­i­nist minor­i­ty, the wel­fare-rights minor­i­ty, the homo­sex­u­al minor­i­ty, the ani­mal-rights minor­i­ty.” At the same time, Edwards warned fel­low con­ser­v­a­tives, “if we look close­ly, we can see that we are in dan­ger of becom­ing the very thing we accuse our oppo­nents of being—rigid, dog­mat­ic, in a word, ide­o­log­i­cal.”

Last year, he advised, “You can­not under­stand Vladimir Putin and his war against Ukraine unless you under­stand that he is a Marx­ist-Lenin­ist.” Two days after the Nation­al Review pub­lished this laugh­able non­sense, Edwards attend­ed the grand open­ing of the Vic­tims of Com­mu­nism muse­um, which is a five minute walk from the White House.

Just ahead of the event, almost thir­ty years in the mak­ing, the Wash­ing­ton Free Bea­con inter­viewed a mem­ber of the VOC Speak­ers Bureau, who explained to the right-wing out­let, “Marx­ism has gained a foothold in the Amer­i­can edu­ca­tion sys­tem through the rise of can­cel cul­ture, revi­sion­ist his­to­ry lessons, crit­i­cal race the­o­ry, and divi­sive gen­der ide­ol­o­gy… The coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, [she] said, unveiled the extent of Marx­ist ide­ol­o­gy in pub­lic edu­ca­tion…”

Two months lat­er, Edwards argued that con­ser­v­a­tive infight­ing is “a sign of vital­i­ty and proof, it seems to me, of the movement’s impor­tance and the role that it still plays.” For years, he has called for a “new fusion­ism” to “meld the dis­parate ele­ments of twen­ty-first-cen­tu­ry con­ser­vatism” and “unite our divid­ed move­ment in the face of a com­mon ene­my.” Even putting aside that his son-in-law was part of the 1776 Com­mis­sion, it’s easy to imag­ine that Edwards (and the VOC lead­er­ship) is on board with the far-right “war on woke” to accom­plish this. As Ronald Rea­gan once said, “Lee Edwards has always been in the fore­front of the strug­gle to restore Amer­i­ca, to bring it back to its ancient moor­ings.”

———-

“The Founders, Pt. 1”; Vic­tims of Com­mu­nism; 03/13/2023

“As part of DeSan­tis’ “war on woke,” and his tri­al run for a national(ist) assault on high­er edu­ca­tion, the Trumpian gov­er­nor has appoint­ed half a dozen right-wing trustees at New Col­lege of Flori­da, a pub­lic lib­er­al arts school. Among them is Matthew Spald­ing, the for­mer exec­u­tive direc­tor of Trump’s 1776 Com­mis­sion.”

It was no sur­prise that Math­ew Spald­ing was tapped by Ron DeSan­tis to help lead the ‘war on woke’ at New Col­lege. As the for­mer exec­u­tive direc­tor of Trump’s 1776 Com­mis­sion and a Hills­dale Col­lege pro­fes­sor, Spald­ing was a nat­ur­al choice for a task like impos­ing an ide­o­log­i­cal over­haul of New Col­lege. But as this piece makes clear, Spald­ing has anoth­er affil­i­a­tion that makes him a par­tic­u­lar­ly well-suit­ed indi­vid­ual for this agen­da: his wife, Eliz­a­beth, is the daugh­ter of one of the cen­tral fig­ures in the cre­ation of the New Right net­works start­ing back in the 1960s: Lee Edwards:

...
Spalding’s wife chairs the Vic­tims of Com­mu­nism Memo­r­i­al Foun­da­tion (VOC) and is the found­ing direc­tor of its muse­um in Wash­ing­ton. Her father, “not just a lead­ing his­to­ri­an of the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment” but also said to be “an active play­er in the move­ment longer than any­one else,” is the VOC patri­arch.

...

Matthew Spald­ing is a pro­fes­sor and dean at Hills­dale College’s Cen­ter for Con­sti­tu­tion­al Stud­ies and Cit­i­zen­ship who has argued that birthright cit­i­zen­ship is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. “I have known Gov­er­nor DeSan­tis since he was a con­gress­man and have been work­ing with the Flori­da Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion on his civic lit­er­a­cy ini­tia­tive,” Spald­ing said in Feb­ru­ary.

His wife Eliz­a­beth Spald­ing teach­es Cold War his­to­ry at Pep­per­dine University’s School of Pub­lic Pol­i­cy, and serves on the advi­so­ry coun­cil of its “Amer­i­can Project on the Future of Con­ser­vatism,” which was inspired by con­ser­v­a­tive his­to­ri­an George Nash. In a 2016 essay on “Trump­ist pop­ulism,” Nash sug­gest­ed that “by get­ting back, very delib­er­ate­ly to basics, con­ser­v­a­tive intel­lec­tu­als can begin to restore some clar­i­ty and direc­tion to the debate.”
...

Lee Edwards was­n’t just a founder of Young Amer­i­cans for Free­dom (YAF). He was “a stal­wart of the emer­gent New Right in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics, and brought his own ques­tion­able back­ground and motives into the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League [WACL] as a pro­fes­sion­al fund-rais­er,” and was the prin­ci­pal co-found of the first US WACL chap­ter, the Amer­i­can Coun­cil for World Free­dom (ACWF). As an exam­ple of the kind of fas­cist net­work­ing Edwards was engaged in, in 1974, the ACWF orga­nized the WACL con­fer­ence in DC. Spe­cial guests for the event includ­ed includ­ed Yaroslav Stet­sko, the post­war leader of the OUN/B. This is a good time to recall the CIA’s long-stand­ing rela­tion­ship with Stet­sko going back to WWII. Edwards was report­ed­ly named Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of WACL dur­ing that event. It’s hard to think of bet­ter fas­cist cre­den­tials than that: Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al for what was one of the world’s lead­ing inter­na­tion­al fas­cist net­work­ing enti­ties:

...
Eliz­a­beth Edwards Spald­ing received a full-tuition schol­ar­ship to attend Hills­dale Col­lege in the 1980s, per­haps because her father, also a con­ser­v­a­tive his­to­ri­an, in his words, “played a key role in the strug­gle for free­dom.”

I was a founder of Young Amer­i­cans for Free­dom, which pro­vid­ed the ground troops for the Bar­ry Gold­wa­ter and Ronald Rea­gan pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns. I was the direc­tor of infor­ma­tion for the Gold­wa­ter for Pres­i­dent Com­mit­tee, which secured the 1964 pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion for Sen­a­tor Gold­wa­ter and changed the course of con­ser­v­a­tive (and Amer­i­can) his­to­ry. I wrote the first polit­i­cal biog­ra­phy of Rea­gan. I was the found­ing edi­tor of Con­ser­v­a­tive Digest, which had at one time the great­est cir­cu­la­tion of any con­ser­v­a­tive jour­nal. I orga­nized the largest Wash­ing­ton ral­ly for the Viet­nam War and our troops. I was denounced as a “son of a Birch” by a nation­al­ly syn­di­cat­ed colum­nist and described by the New York Times as “The ‘Voice’ of the Silent Major­i­ty.”

Lee Edwards was also “a stal­wart of the emer­gent New Right in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics, and brought his own ques­tion­able back­ground and motives into the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League [WACL] as a pro­fes­sion­al fund-rais­er.” Accord­ing to Scott and Jon Lee Anderson’s 1986 exposé of the far-right WACL, an almost car­toon­ish­ly evil orga­ni­za­tion, Edwards was the prin­ci­pal co-founder of its first U.S. chap­ter, the Amer­i­can Coun­cil for World Free­dom.

...

The Tai­wan-led Asian People’s Anti-Com­mu­nist League, estab­lished in 1954, spear­head­ed a years-long effort to cre­ate the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League in 1967. Around then, Lee Edwards began to ghost­write a book for Sen­a­tor Strom Thur­mond, one of the most infa­mous seg­re­ga­tion­ists of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Thur­mond addressed the 1970 WACL con­fer­ence in Tokyo, which was spear­head­ed by “Moonies,” or cult fol­low­ers of the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church, but not before Edwards found­ed the Amer­i­can Coun­cil for World Free­dom (ACWF), which he called a “Who’s Who of anti­com­mu­nists in Amer­i­ca.”

Accord­ing to WACL his­to­ri­an Kei­th Allen Den­nis, the ACWF rep­re­sent­ed a right-wing anti-com­mu­nist coali­tion led by the Amer­i­can Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil, which we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly touched on as an influ­en­tial “Cold War­rior think tank.” By 1974, Lee Edwards became the sec­re­tary of the ACWF, which orga­nized that year’s WACL con­fer­ence in Wash­ing­ton. Spe­cial guests includ­ed Yaroslav Stet­sko, for­mer “Prime Min­is­ter” of a pro-Nazi gov­ern­ment in 1941 west­ern Ukraine that the Ger­mans imme­di­ate­ly squashed, and the Nicaraguan dic­ta­tor, “whose secu­ri­ty guard was only slight­ly small­er than our president’s,” recalled Edwards.

Edwards act­ed as the mas­ter of cer­e­monies at a “WACL Free­dom Ral­ly,” and was report­ed­ly named Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League. “I am proud of that con­fer­ence,” he wrote years lat­er. “But as I trav­eled about meet­ing WACL chap­ter lead­ers and dis­cussing the pro­gram agen­da, I became uneasy. Some chap­ters were led by men who were open­ly anti-Semit­ic.” But he was main­ly refer­ring to the Mex­i­cans, instead of Stetsko’s Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations, which Scott and Jon Lee Ander­son described as the “largest and most impor­tant umbrel­la of for­mer Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors in the world.”
...

But Lee Edward­s’s fas­cist cre­den­tials don’t end there. Nor does his net­work­ing with Ukrain­ian fas­cists: the ACWF includ­ed both the Nation­al Cap­tive Nations Com­mit­tee and the Ukrain­ian Con­gress Com­mit­tee of Amer­i­ca (UCCA). Both enti­ties were chaired by Lev Dobri­an­sky, father of Paula Dobri­an­sky who served on Rea­gan’s nation­al secu­ri­ty coun­cil. Recall the appar­ent role Lev played in foment­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion about Lee Har­vey Oswald in the wake of the JFK assas­si­na­tion. Lee Edwards became exec­u­tive sec­re­tary of the Nation­al Cap­tive Nations Com­mit­tee the even got a reg­u­lar col­umn in the pro-OUN/B Ukrain­ian Week­ly. It’s anoth­er exam­ple of how you can’t real­ly under­stand con­tem­po­rary Amer­i­can fas­cism with­out also rec­og­niz­ing the pro­found influ­ence of Ukrain­ian post-war fas­cist inter­na­tion­al net­works. Con­tem­po­rary Amer­i­can fas­cism is an inter­na­tion­al phe­nom­e­na:

...
The ACWF coali­tion includ­ed the Nation­al Cap­tive Nations Com­mit­tee and the Ukrain­ian Con­gress Com­mit­tee of Amer­i­ca, both chaired by Lev Dobri­an­sky, who was under the sway of Yaroslav Stet­sko as leader of the far-right Orga­ni­za­tion of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists (1968–86). Dobri­an­sky even­tu­al­ly co-found­ed the Vic­tims of Com­mu­nism Memo­r­i­al Foun­da­tion (VOC) with Lee Edwards, but more about Dobri­an­sky in “The Founders, Pt.2.” All you need to know for now is that Edwards eulo­gized him as a “hero of the Cold War.”

The ACWF mar­ried their milieus, so Edwards became the exec­u­tive sec­re­tary of the Nation­al Cap­tive Nations Com­mit­tee, and got a “World Out­look” col­umn in the nation­al­ist Ukrain­ian Week­ly, a news­pa­per pub­lished in Jer­sey City, to bash the for­eign pol­i­cy of the Jim­my Carter admin­is­tra­tion. (His “World Out­look” includ­ed the fol­low­ing hits: “Carter fails cap­tive nations — again,” “Get­ting back to num­ber one [mil­i­tar­i­ly in the world],” “Red star over Africa?” and “The Chi­nese-Latin Amer­i­can con­nec­tion.”)

...

In the 1980s, the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League reached the height of its influ­ence with Ronald Rea­gan in the White House, mean­while Lee Edwards & Asso­ciates con­tin­ued to work for WACL’s Chi­nese branch, which was con­trolled by the Tai­wanese gov­ern­ment. John K. Singlaub, read­ers may recall—“an anti-communist’s anti-com­mu­nist,” accord­ing to Edwards—revived the ACWF as the U.S. Coun­cil for World Free­dom (with mon­ey from Tai­wan), and lat­er took over the WACL, just in time for the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion to keep U.S. mil­i­tary aid flow­ing to the Con­tra death squads in Nicaragua after it was banned by Con­gress.

Of course, this is extreme­ly far from a com­pre­hen­sive overview of the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League or the career of Lee Edwards, but it seems like a good place to start. Future posts will con­tin­ue to touch on the WACL as a sort of pre­de­ces­sor to the VOC, and get into Edwards’ rela­tion­ship with orga­ni­za­tions like the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church, Insti­tute of World Pol­i­tics, and the Her­itage Foun­da­tion, that are rel­e­vant to the “Vic­tims of Com­mu­nism.”
...

Flash for­ward to 1993, and we find Edwards and Dobri­an­sky co-found­ing the VOC, which Edwards led until 2022, at which point his daugh­ter took over the role:

...
In 1993, Lee Edwards decried a con­spir­a­cy in Wash­ing­ton to “to wipe out the record of impe­r­i­al Moscow’s expan­sion­ism,” and the fol­low­ing year co-found­ed the VOC as Dobriansky’s right-hand man on the Nation­al Cap­tive Nations Com­mit­tee (NCNC), but more about that lat­er. The 1990s turned out to be a dis­ap­point­ment for the NCNC, which set up the Vic­tims of Com­mu­nism Memo­r­i­al Foun­da­tion, dream­ing of a $100 mil­lion muse­um.

“More than once between 1994 and 1999 I almost gave up,” Edwards admit­ted. Dobri­an­sky stepped down as chair­man in 2003, and died five years lat­er, but his for­mer side­kick, deter­mined to hon­or Dobri­an­sky and Hun­gary in par­tic­u­lar, set­tled for a memo­r­i­al in 2007, and stayed at the helm of the board until 2022. At 90 years old, Edwards passed the torch (and a new muse­um) to his daugh­ter, with whom he has authored sev­er­al books.

...

In 2019, echo­ing Rus­sell Kirk, the con­ser­v­a­tive vet­er­an explained that the U.S. suf­fers from “the tyran­ny of minorities—the fem­i­nist minor­i­ty, the wel­fare-rights minor­i­ty, the homo­sex­u­al minor­i­ty, the ani­mal-rights minor­i­ty.” At the same time, Edwards warned fel­low con­ser­v­a­tives, “if we look close­ly, we can see that we are in dan­ger of becom­ing the very thing we accuse our oppo­nents of being—rigid, dog­mat­ic, in a word, ide­o­log­i­cal.”
...

Final­ly, note how this ‘anti-Com­mu­nist’ fas­cist ide­ol­o­gy ani­mat­ing these net­works has now evolved into con­tem­po­rary absur­di­ties, like the notion that “You can­not under­stand Vladimir Putin and his war against Ukraine unless you under­stand that he is a Marx­ist-Lenin­ist.” Or the idea that “Marx­ism has gained a foothold in the Amer­i­can edu­ca­tion sys­tem through the rise of can­cel cul­ture, revi­sion­ist his­to­ry lessons, crit­i­cal race the­o­ry, and divi­sive gen­der ide­ol­o­gy.” In oth­er words, what we are see­ing play out at New Col­lege is an exten­sion of the ‘anti-Com­mu­nist’ agen­da embod­ied by Lee Edward­s’s life­time of far right activism. Activism shaped by Edward­s’s life­time of net­work­ing with inter­na­tion­al fas­cists:

...
Last year, he advised, “You can­not under­stand Vladimir Putin and his war against Ukraine unless you under­stand that he is a Marx­ist-Lenin­ist.” Two days after the Nation­al Review pub­lished this laugh­able non­sense, Edwards attend­ed the grand open­ing of the Vic­tims of Com­mu­nism muse­um, which is a five minute walk from the White House.

Just ahead of the event, almost thir­ty years in the mak­ing, the Wash­ing­ton Free Bea­con inter­viewed a mem­ber of the VOC Speak­ers Bureau, who explained to the right-wing out­let, “Marx­ism has gained a foothold in the Amer­i­can edu­ca­tion sys­tem through the rise of can­cel cul­ture, revi­sion­ist his­to­ry lessons, crit­i­cal race the­o­ry, and divi­sive gen­der ide­ol­o­gy… The coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, [she] said, unveiled the extent of Marx­ist ide­ol­o­gy in pub­lic edu­ca­tion…”

Two months lat­er, Edwards argued that con­ser­v­a­tive infight­ing is “a sign of vital­i­ty and proof, it seems to me, of the movement’s impor­tance and the role that it still plays.” For years, he has called for a “new fusion­ism” to “meld the dis­parate ele­ments of twen­ty-first-cen­tu­ry con­ser­vatism” and “unite our divid­ed move­ment in the face of a com­mon ene­my.” Even putting aside that his son-in-law was part of the 1776 Com­mis­sion, it’s easy to imag­ine that Edwards (and the VOC lead­er­ship) is on board with the far-right “war on woke” to accom­plish this. As Ronald Rea­gan once said, “Lee Edwards has always been in the fore­front of the strug­gle to restore Amer­i­ca, to bring it back to its ancient moor­ings.”
...

So giv­en that Lee Edward­s’s step-son is one of the peo­ple tapped to lead the New Col­lege lib­er­al insti­tu­tion­al purge, some­thing Edwards has spent decades work­ing towards, we have to ask: What role might Lee Edwards be play­ing in the New Col­lege ‘war on woke’? Who knows, but at this point he does­n’t real­ly need to do much more than allow the Red Scare 2.0 he’s spent decades build­ing towards to keep play­ing out. It’s Lee Edward­s’s and WACL’s ‘War on Woke’ too.

The end of Amer­i­ca is just around the cor­ner. True patri­ots have their backs against the wall and now is the time to fight. A mass nation­al protest to fight the col­lapse of the Unit­ed States and free­dom at the hands of the Amer­i­ca-hat­ing elites. That was the core of for­mer Pres­i­dent Trump’s ral­ly cry pub­licly issued over the week­end in appar­ent antic­i­pa­tion of an indict­ment and arrest that Trump expects clear­ly could arrive as soon as tomor­row from New York pros­e­cu­tors over his ‘Stormy Daniels hush money’-related cam­paign finance crimes.

It was­n’t a par­tic­u­lar­ly sur­pris­ing mes­sage from Trump. Some­what more sur­pris­ing is the fact that Trump’s next big pub­lic ral­ly is sched­uled for March 25, in Waco, TX. As many have not­ed, March 25 just hap­pens to be the 30th anniver­sary of the Waco fed­er­al stand­off. It’s not exact­ly sub­tle.

But beyond being a kind of pre­emp­tive call to arms to his sup­port­ers and the implic­it­ly fram­ing ‘Red Amer­i­ca’ as a new Branch David­i­an com­pound fac­ing off with a hos­tile fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, there’s also no deny­ing that it was a mes­sage that has immense syn­er­gy with the ongo­ing Sched­ule F schem­ing and the exten­sive prepa­ra­tions under­way for a mass gov­ern­ment purge of all non-GOP loy­al­ists. And the more legal heat Trump expe­ri­ences, the more amped up his rhetoric gets about the down­fall of Amer­i­ca, the greater that Sched­ule F syn­er­gy.

So while we are like­ly in store for some poten­tial­ly wild events if the indict­ment of Trump does indeed hap­pen, it’s going to be impor­tant to keep in mind that Trump isn’t just foment­ing anoth­er poten­tial ‘Jan 6’ with his rhetoric. He’s also mak­ing the future imple­men­ta­tion of a Sched­ule F gov­ern­ment mass purge of all non-GOP-loy­al­ists all but inevitable. Maybe it will be a reelect­ed Trump imple­ment­ing that purge. Per­haps a future Pres­i­dent Ron DeSan­tis. It hard­ly mat­ters which par­tic­u­lar Repub­li­can ends up in the White House next in terms of whether or not Sched­ule F is going to be part of the agen­da. Sched­ule F is the GOP’s agen­da at this point. It’s not just a Trump scheme. And the more Trump — and poten­tial­ly oth­er GOP 2024 can­di­dates — rouse the rab­ble over the impend­ing down­fall of Amer­i­ca at the hands of Amer­i­ca-hat­ing Marx­ists, the greater the even­tu­al Sched­ule F fer­vor:

Asso­ci­at­ed Press

Trump says he expects to be arrest­ed, calls for protest

By MICHELLE L. PRICE, JILL COLVIN and ERIC TUCKER
Sat­ur­day, March 18, 2023 18:57:29 CST

NEW YORK (AP) — Don­ald Trump claimed on Sat­ur­day that his arrest is immi­nent and issued an extra­or­di­nary call for his sup­port­ers to protest as a New York grand jury inves­ti­gates hush mon­ey pay­ments to women who alleged sex­u­al encoun­ters with the for­mer pres­i­dent.

Even as Trump’s lawyer and spokesper­son said there had been no com­mu­ni­ca­tion from pros­e­cu­tors, Trump declared in a post on his social media plat­form that he expects to be tak­en into cus­tody on Tues­day.

His mes­sage seemed designed to pre­empt a for­mal announce­ment from pros­e­cu­tors and to gal­va­nize out­rage from his base of sup­port­ers in advance of wide­ly antic­i­pat­ed charges. With­in hours, his cam­paign was send­ing fundrais­ing solic­i­ta­tions to his sup­port­ers, while influ­en­tial Repub­li­cans in Con­gress and even some declared and poten­tial rival can­di­dates issued state­ments in his defense.

In a lat­er post that went beyond sim­ply exhort­ing loy­al­ists to protest about his legal per­il, the 2024 pres­i­den­tial can­di­date direct­ed his over­ar­ch­ing ire in all cap­i­tal let­ters at the Biden admin­is­tra­tion and raised the prospect of civ­il unrest: “IT’S TIME!!!” he wrote. “WE JUST CAN’T ALLOW THIS ANYMORE. THEY’RE KILLING OUR NATION AS WE SIT BACK & WATCH. WE MUST SAVE AMERICA!PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!”

It all evoked, in fore­bod­ing ways, the rhetoric he used short­ly before the insur­rec­tion at the U.S. Capi­tol on Jan. 6, 2021. After hear­ing from the then-pres­i­dent at a Wash­ing­ton ral­ly that morn­ing, his sup­port­ers marched to the Capi­tol and tried to stop the con­gres­sion­al cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of Demo­c­rat Joe Biden’s White House vic­to­ry, break­ing through doors and win­dows of the build­ing and leav­ing offi­cers beat­en and blood­ied.

Dis­trict Attor­ney Alvin Bragg is thought to be eye­ing charges in the hush mon­ey inves­ti­ga­tion, and recent­ly offered Trump a chance to tes­ti­fy before the grand jury. Local law enforce­ment offi­cials are brac­ing for the pub­lic safe­ty ram­i­fi­ca­tions of an unprece­dent­ed pros­e­cu­tion of a for­mer Amer­i­can pres­i­dent.

But there has been no pub­lic announce­ment of any time frame for the grand jury’s secret work in the case. At least one addi­tion­al wit­ness is expect­ed to tes­ti­fy, fur­ther indi­cat­ing that no vote to indict has yet been tak­en, accord­ing to a per­son famil­iar with the inves­ti­ga­tion who was not autho­rized to pub­licly dis­cuss the case and spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty.

That did not stop Trump from tak­ing to his social media plat­form to say “ille­gal leaks” from Bragg’s office indi­cate that “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK.”

A Trump lawyer, Susan Necheles, said Trump’s post was “based on the media reports,” and a spokesper­son said there had been “no noti­fi­ca­tion” from Bragg’s office, though the ori­gin of Trump’s Tues­day ref­er­ence was unclear. The dis­trict attorney’s office declined to com­ment.

Trump’s aides and legal team have been prepar­ing for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an indict­ment. Should that hap­pen, he would be arrest­ed only if he refused to sur­ren­der. Trump’s lawyers have pre­vi­ous­ly said he would fol­low nor­mal pro­ce­dure, mean­ing he would like­ly agree to sur­ren­der at a New York Police Depart­ment precinct or direct­ly to Bragg’s office.

It is unclear whether Trump’s sup­port­ers would heed his protest call or if he retains the same per­sua­sive pow­er he held as pres­i­dent. Trump’s posts on Truth Social gen­er­al­ly receive far less atten­tion than he used to get on Twit­ter, but he main­tains a deeply loy­al base. The after­math of the Jan. 6 riot, in which hun­dreds of Trump loy­al­ists were arrest­ed and pros­e­cut­ed in fed­er­al court, may also have damp­ened the pas­sion among sup­port­ers for con­fronta­tion.

...

Besides the hush mon­ey inquiry in New York, Trump faces sep­a­rate crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions in Atlanta and Wash­ing­ton over his efforts to undo the results of the 2020 elec­tion.

A Jus­tice Depart­ment spe­cial coun­sel has also been pre­sent­ing evi­dence before a grand jury inves­ti­gat­ing Trump’s pos­ses­sion of hun­dreds of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments at his Flori­da estate. It is not clear when those inves­ti­ga­tions will end or whether they might result in crim­i­nal charges, but they will con­tin­ue regard­less of what hap­pens in New York, under­scor­ing the ongo­ing grav­i­ty – and broad geo­graph­ic scope – of the legal chal­lenges fac­ing the for­mer pres­i­dent.

Trump’s post Sat­ur­day echoes one made last sum­mer when he broke the news on Truth Social that the FBI was search­ing his Flori­da home as part of an inves­ti­ga­tion into the pos­si­ble mis­han­dling of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments.

News of that search sparked a flood of con­tri­bu­tions to Trump’s polit­i­cal oper­a­tion, and on Sat­ur­day, Trump sent out a series of fundrais­ing emails to his sup­port­ers, includ­ing one that claimed, “I’m not wor­ried in the slight­est.”

After his post, Repub­li­can House Speak­er Kevin McCarthy decried any plans to pros­e­cute Trump as an “out­ra­geous abuse of pow­er by a rad­i­cal DA” whom he claimed was pur­su­ing “polit­i­cal vengeance.” Rep. Elise Ste­fanik, the third-rank­ing House Repub­li­can, issued a state­ment with a sim­i­lar sen­ti­ment.

The grand jury has been hear­ing from wit­ness­es, includ­ing for­mer Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who says he orches­trat­ed pay­ments in 2016 to two women to silence them about sex­u­al encoun­ters they said they had with Trump a decade ear­li­er.

Trump denies the encoun­ters occurred, says he did noth­ing wrong and has cast the inves­ti­ga­tion as a “witch hunt” by a Demo­c­ra­t­ic pros­e­cu­tor bent on sab­o­tag­ing the Republican’s 2024 cam­paign. Trump also has labeled Bragg, who is Black, a “racist” and has accused the pros­e­cu­tor of let­ting crime in the city run amok while he has focused on Trump. New York remains one of the safest cities in the coun­try.

Bragg’s office has appar­ent­ly been exam­in­ing whether any state laws were bro­ken in con­nec­tion with the pay­ments or the way Trump’s com­pa­ny com­pen­sat­ed Cohen for his work to keep the women’s alle­ga­tions qui­et.

Porn actor Stormy Daniels and at least two for­mer Trump aides — one­time polit­i­cal advis­er Kellyanne Con­way and for­mer spokesper­son Hope Hicks — are among wit­ness­es who have met with pros­e­cu­tors in recent weeks.

Cohen has said that at Trump’s direc­tion, he arranged pay­ments total­ing $280,000 to Daniels and Play­boy mod­el Karen McDou­gal. Accord­ing to Cohen, the pay­outs were to buy their silence about Trump, who was then in the thick of his first pres­i­den­tial cam­paign.

Cohen and fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors said Trump’s com­pa­ny paid him $420,000 as reim­burse­ment for the $130,000 pay­ment to Daniels and to cov­er bonus­es and oth­er sup­posed expens­es. The com­pa­ny clas­si­fied those pay­ments inter­nal­ly as legal expens­es. The $150,000 pay­ment to McDou­gal was made by the then-pub­lish­er of the super­mar­ket tabloid Nation­al Enquir­er, which kept her sto­ry from com­ing to light.

Fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors agreed not to pros­e­cute the Enquirer’s cor­po­rate par­ent in exchange for its coop­er­a­tion in a cam­paign finance inves­ti­ga­tion that led to charges against Cohen in 2018. Pros­e­cu­tors said the pay­ments to Daniels and McDou­gal amount­ed to imper­mis­si­ble, unrecord­ed gifts to Trump’s elec­tion effort.

Cohen plead­ed guilty, served prison time and was dis­barred. Fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors nev­er charged Trump with any crime.

...

———-

“Trump says he expects to be arrest­ed, calls for protest” by MICHELLE L. PRICE, JILL COLVIN and ERIC TUCKER; Asso­ci­at­ed Press; 03/18/2023

“In a lat­er post that went beyond sim­ply exhort­ing loy­al­ists to protest about his legal per­il, the 2024 pres­i­den­tial can­di­date direct­ed his over­ar­ch­ing ire in all cap­i­tal let­ters at the Biden admin­is­tra­tion and raised the prospect of civ­il unrest: “IT’S TIME!!!” he wrote. “WE JUST CAN’T ALLOW THIS ANYMORE. THEY’RE KILLING OUR NATION AS WE SIT BACK & WATCH. WE MUST SAVE AMERICA!PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!””

Amer­i­ca is being killed and only mass protests by Trump’s sup­port­ers can save it. That was the appar­ent pre­emp­tive pub­lic defense issued by the for­mer pres­i­dent on his social media plat­form over the week­end. A mes­sage we’ve heard from Trump before. Repeat­ed­ly, whether it was his call to mass protest in the lead up to the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion or his cries of per­se­cu­tion fol­low­ing the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago last sum­mer. It’s an estab­lished tac­tic. With an estab­lished track record that includes an insur­rec­tion. That’s a big part of the con­text of Trump’s rab­ble rous­ing posts over the week­end: He’s roused the rab­ble like this before, to dev­as­tat­ing effect in the case of Jan 6:

...
Even as Trump’s lawyer and spokesper­son said there had been no com­mu­ni­ca­tion from pros­e­cu­tors, Trump declared in a post on his social media plat­form that he expects to be tak­en into cus­tody on Tues­day.

His mes­sage seemed designed to pre­empt a for­mal announce­ment from pros­e­cu­tors and to gal­va­nize out­rage from his base of sup­port­ers in advance of wide­ly antic­i­pat­ed charges. With­in hours, his cam­paign was send­ing fundrais­ing solic­i­ta­tions to his sup­port­ers, while influ­en­tial Repub­li­cans in Con­gress and even some declared and poten­tial rival can­di­dates issued state­ments in his defense.

...

It all evoked, in fore­bod­ing ways, the rhetoric he used short­ly before the insur­rec­tion at the U.S. Capi­tol on Jan. 6, 2021. After hear­ing from the then-pres­i­dent at a Wash­ing­ton ral­ly that morn­ing, his sup­port­ers marched to the Capi­tol and tried to stop the con­gres­sion­al cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of Demo­c­rat Joe Biden’s White House vic­to­ry, break­ing through doors and win­dows of the build­ing and leav­ing offi­cers beat­en and blood­ied.

...

Trump’s post Sat­ur­day echoes one made last sum­mer when he broke the news on Truth Social that the FBI was search­ing his Flori­da home as part of an inves­ti­ga­tion into the pos­si­ble mis­han­dling of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments.

News of that search sparked a flood of con­tri­bu­tions to Trump’s polit­i­cal oper­a­tion, and on Sat­ur­day, Trump sent out a series of fundrais­ing emails to his sup­port­ers, includ­ing one that claimed, “I’m not wor­ried in the slight­est.”

After his post, Repub­li­can House Speak­er Kevin McCarthy decried any plans to pros­e­cute Trump as an “out­ra­geous abuse of pow­er by a rad­i­cal DA” whom he claimed was pur­su­ing “polit­i­cal vengeance.” Rep. Elise Ste­fanik, the third-rank­ing House Repub­li­can, issued a state­ment with a sim­i­lar sen­ti­ment.
...

It’s also worth not­ing that Trump issued these inflam­ma­to­ry posts despite a lack of any con­fir­ma­tion that an indict­ment is indeed about to be issued by the NY Dis­trict Attor­ney in the hush mon­ey case. It’s like con­scious­ness of guilt man­i­fest­ing in a par­tic­u­lar­ly Trumpian man­ner:

...
Dis­trict Attor­ney Alvin Bragg is thought to be eye­ing charges in the hush mon­ey inves­ti­ga­tion, and recent­ly offered Trump a chance to tes­ti­fy before the grand jury. Local law enforce­ment offi­cials are brac­ing for the pub­lic safe­ty ram­i­fi­ca­tions of an unprece­dent­ed pros­e­cu­tion of a for­mer Amer­i­can pres­i­dent.

But there has been no pub­lic announce­ment of any time frame for the grand jury’s secret work in the case. At least one addi­tion­al wit­ness is expect­ed to tes­ti­fy, fur­ther indi­cat­ing that no vote to indict has yet been tak­en, accord­ing to a per­son famil­iar with the inves­ti­ga­tion who was not autho­rized to pub­licly dis­cuss the case and spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty.

That did not stop Trump from tak­ing to his social media plat­form to say “ille­gal leaks” from Bragg’s office indi­cate that “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK.”

A Trump lawyer, Susan Necheles, said Trump’s post was “based on the media reports,” and a spokesper­son said there had been “no noti­fi­ca­tion” from Bragg’s office, though the ori­gin of Trump’s Tues­day ref­er­ence was unclear. The dis­trict attorney’s office declined to com­ment.

Trump’s aides and legal team have been prepar­ing for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an indict­ment. Should that hap­pen, he would be arrest­ed only if he refused to sur­ren­der. Trump’s lawyers have pre­vi­ous­ly said he would fol­low nor­mal pro­ce­dure, mean­ing he would like­ly agree to sur­ren­der at a New York Police Depart­ment precinct or direct­ly to Bragg’s office.
...

And then there’s the fact that the NY hush mon­ey case is mere­ly one of sev­er­al legal inquiries that could plau­si­bly result in some sort of indict­ment. Which rais­es the obvi­ous ques­tion of what sort of response we should expect from Trump should we actu­al­ly see mul­ti­ple indict­ments issued against the for­mer pres­i­dent. This is just a warm up act, after all:

...
Besides the hush mon­ey inquiry in New York, Trump faces sep­a­rate crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions in Atlanta and Wash­ing­ton over his efforts to undo the results of the 2020 elec­tion.

A Jus­tice Depart­ment spe­cial coun­sel has also been pre­sent­ing evi­dence before a grand jury inves­ti­gat­ing Trump’s pos­ses­sion of hun­dreds of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments at his Flori­da estate. It is not clear when those inves­ti­ga­tions will end or whether they might result in crim­i­nal charges, but they will con­tin­ue regard­less of what hap­pens in New York, under­scor­ing the ongo­ing grav­i­ty – and broad geo­graph­ic scope – of the legal chal­lenges fac­ing the for­mer pres­i­dent.
...

That Geor­gia indict­ment could be just around the cor­ner too. What’s Trump’s response going to be to that? It’s quite a back­drop from a pres­i­den­tial cam­paign.

And yet, as Philip Bump of the Wash­ing­ton Post points out, Trump isn’t just ral­ly­ing his base to his legal defense with these warn­ings about the col­lapse of West­ern civ­i­liza­tion. He’s also inform­ing his base about what a sec­ond Trump admin­is­tra­tion will look like. In oth­er words, he’s feed­ing his sup­port­ers the delight­ful image of imple­ment­ing a ‘Sched­ule F+’ mass soci­ety-wide purge of all the ‘Amer­i­ca-hat­ing Marx­ists’ as a tan­ta­liz­ing appe­tiz­er for a sec­ond Trump term:

The Wash­ing­ton Post

Trump esca­lates his white-nation­al­ist doomerism

Analy­sis by Philip Bump
Nation­al colum­nist
March 17, 2023 at 10:56 a.m. EDT

As he gears up his bid for the 2024 Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion, Don­ald Trump has released a series of videos out­lin­ing the poli­cies and pri­or­i­ties he would bring to office. It’s a very Trumpian approach to the stan­dard prac­tice of can­di­dates out­lin­ing their plat­forms; the video for­mat both replaces com­plex­i­ty with dura­tion and gives Trump a chance to adorn his bul­let points with over­heat­ed rhetoric.

In his most recent offer­ing, pub­lished on the con­ser­v­a­tive shar­ing plat­form Rum­ble on Thurs­day, Trump explores geopol­i­tics, in his way. He picks up the right-wing argu­ment that aid­ing Ukraine in its efforts to repel the Russ­ian inva­sion is Step 1 of a neo­con­ser­v­a­tive push — here some­how includ­ing the Biden admin­is­tra­tion — to start World War III, as has been the fringe right’s argu­ment for more than a year now. But then, redi­rect­ing fair­ly abrupt­ly, he offers a nov­el argu­ment, albeit one toward which he has been head­ing for eight years.

Not only are his polit­i­cal oppo­nents under­min­ing the coun­try, but they’re under­min­ing all of “West­ern civ­i­liza­tion” by weak­en­ing the Unit­ed States.

Before pre­sent­ing the specifics of Trump’s com­men­tary, though, it’s use­ful to con­tex­tu­al­ize them.

...

As Trump was ris­ing, so was white-nation­al­ist rhetoric, and so were white-nation­al­ist actors both in the Unit­ed States and abroad. For many of them, Trump’s nar­row elec­tion as pres­i­dent in 2016 sig­naled a moment of push­back against a strength­en­ing of plu­ral­is­tic, mul­ti­cul­tur­al democ­ra­cy. Groups like the Proud Boys, which couch oppo­si­tion to a diver­si­fy­ing cul­ture as a defense of “West­ern civ­i­liza­tion,” gained pow­er — and avoid­ed crit­i­cism from Trump.

When Trump made his last stand to retain pow­er after los­ing the 2020 elec­tion, the Proud Boys and oth­er extreme groups bat­tled on his behalf. Trump had run his cam­paign on the argu­ment that soci­ety was col­laps­ing, that spo­radic vio­lence that fol­lowed angry protests over anoth­er police killing of a Black man was, in fact, the first step on a slip­pery slope to anar­chy. Vot­ers reject­ed the argu­ment and reject­ed Trump — but Trump and his allies were unwill­ing to accept that rejec­tion until forced to.

So we arrive at Trump’s renewed pitch for the 2024 elec­tion. Here’s what the video pub­lished on Thurs­day said:

“The great­est threat to West­ern civ­i­liza­tion today is not Rus­sia. It’s prob­a­bly more than any­thing else our­selves and some of the hor­ri­ble U.S.A.-hating peo­ple that rep­re­sent us. It’s the abo­li­tion of our nation­al bor­ders. It’s the fail­ure to police our own cities. It’s the destruc­tion of the rule of law from with­in. It’s the col­lapse of the nuclear fam­i­ly. And fer­til­i­ty rates like nobody can believe is hap­pen­ing. It’s the Marx­ists who would have us become a god­less nation wor­ship­ing at the altar of race and gen­der and envi­ron­ment. And it’s the glob­al­ist class that has made us total­ly depen­dent on Chi­na and oth­er for­eign coun­tries that basi­cal­ly hate us.”

Those first few sen­tences have attract­ed a lot of atten­tion, under­stand­ably; a for­mer pres­i­dent is say­ing that Amer­i­cans them­selves con­sti­tute the threat to West­ern civ­i­liza­tion. Here, Trump is lever­ag­ing the patri­o­tism imbal­ance between Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans: The right can dis­par­age aspects of the coun­try or indi­vid­ual states with­out con­dem­na­tion because it is also more jin­go­is­tic, more super­fi­cial­ly patri­ot­ic. Since the left is framed as antag­o­nis­tic to the Unit­ed States, even valid crit­i­cisms are dis­missed as Amer­i­ca-hat­ing.

But pick it apart. Trump is also say­ing that Rus­sia — auto­crat­ic, aggres­sive, homoge­nous — is more com­pat­i­ble with “West­ern civ­i­liza­tion” than the Unit­ed States. Then he explains why.

Because the Unit­ed States has “abolish[ed] nation­al bor­ders.” This is a wild­ly inac­cu­rate, over­wrought con­dem­na­tion of increased appre­hen­sions at the bor­der — cor­re­lat­ed to the arrival of more immi­grants.

Because the coun­try is fail­ing to “police our own cities.” Here, an attempt both to assert with­out uni­form evi­dence that crime is surg­ing and, bare­ly under the sur­face, sug­gest that urban areas that have a lot of Black and His­pan­ic res­i­dents are out of con­trol.

Because of the “destruc­tion of the rule of law.” This is a ref­er­ence in part to the afore­men­tioned crime in cities, which the right has decid­ed is a func­tion of protests against police and changes in how pros­e­cu­tors charge accused crim­i­nals. It’s also a ref­er­ence to the var­i­ous charges Trump him­self might face, of course.

Because of the “col­lapse of the nuclear fam­i­ly” and declin­ing fer­til­i­ty rates. This is as explic­it an endorse­ment of core white-nation­al­ist rhetoric as you will find. Repub­li­cans have expressed con­cern about the decline in two-par­ent fam­i­lies for some time, often because this decline does cor­re­late to low­er suc­cess for chil­dren and, at times, because it’s a way of cast­ing recip­i­ents of gov­ern­ment ser­vices (often Black or His­pan­ic) as unde­serv­ing. It’s safe to assume, giv­en the con­text, that Trump is focused more on the lat­ter.

That “fer­til­i­ty rates” thing, though, is an expres­sion of frus­tra­tion that few­er White Amer­i­cans are hav­ing White babies. Rates are down among most racial groups, but low­est among Whites — and it’s hard to believe that Trump here is express­ing con­cern about the drop in rates among Black or His­pan­ic Amer­i­cans. After all, this is a screed about “West­ern civ­i­liza­tion,” which is under­stood as a short­hand for White cul­ture.

Declin­ing birthrates are, in fact, a chal­lenge for the coun­try, giv­en that the pop­u­la­tion is aging. In order to main­tain the ratio between old­er and work­ing-age Amer­i­cans — impor­tant to con­sid­er giv­en that work­ing-age peo­ple pay into sys­tems that seniors use — demog­ra­phers expect that the Unit­ed States will need to increase immi­gra­tion. And that is not some­thing that Trump wants to see.

In case you aren’t con­vinced by this pars­ing of Trump’s words, he even­tu­al­ly cops to it. “Marx­ists” want the Unit­ed States to be a “god­less nation wor­ship­ing at the altar of race and gen­der and envi­ron­ment.” As with patri­o­tism, the right likes to offer race-cen­tric rhetoric while insist­ing that it’s the left that has a tox­ic rela­tion­ship with race. To draw atten­tion to the ways in which race is present as a fac­tor in Amer­i­can sys­tems and pol­i­tics is to be an anti-Amer­i­can Marx­ist; to defend those sys­tems and espouse those pol­i­tics is to be race-blind, just as Mar­tin Luther King Jr. would have want­ed. Anoth­er corol­lary: To talk about a man being mar­ried to a man is to talk irre­ducibly about sex­u­al­i­ty; to talk about a man mar­ried to a woman is just to talk about life in these Unit­ed States.

Trump has nev­er been sub­tle, from his archi­tec­ture to his pol­i­tics. In this video — again, an artic­u­la­tion of what he promis­es to bring to the White House should he be inau­gu­rat­ed in 2025 — he is sim­i­lar­ly unsub­tle. Trump frames his can­di­da­cy as a last-ditch back­stop against the col­lapse of White cul­ture, more threat­ened by Amer­i­cans them­selves than by Rus­sia — a nation hailed by many on the right for its unabashed aggres­sion in ser­vice to its homo­gene­ity.

This is a pol­i­cy Trump wants vot­ers to know that he will enact.

———-

“Trump esca­lates his white-nation­al­ist doomerism” by Philip Bump; The Wash­ing­ton Post; 03/17/2023

“Not only are his polit­i­cal oppo­nents under­min­ing the coun­try, but they’re under­min­ing all of “West­ern civ­i­liza­tion” by weak­en­ing the Unit­ed States.”

West­ern civ­i­liza­tion is being destroyed by Trump’s polit­i­cal ene­mies. It’s not Trump who faces the exis­ten­tial threat here. All of West­ern civ­i­liza­tion is fac­ing this threat. A threat from with­in from all the Marx­ist “USA-hat­ing peo­ple that rep­re­sent us.” The US either reelects Trump or descends into a “god­less nation wor­ship­ing at the altar of race and gen­der and envi­ron­ment.” One one lev­el, it’s a replay of his great­est hits. But there’s no deny­ing that Trump is tak­ing this rhetoric to a new lev­el:

...
When Trump made his last stand to retain pow­er after los­ing the 2020 elec­tion, the Proud Boys and oth­er extreme groups bat­tled on his behalf. Trump had run his cam­paign on the argu­ment that soci­ety was col­laps­ing, that spo­radic vio­lence that fol­lowed angry protests over anoth­er police killing of a Black man was, in fact, the first step on a slip­pery slope to anar­chy. Vot­ers reject­ed the argu­ment and reject­ed Trump — but Trump and his allies were unwill­ing to accept that rejec­tion until forced to.

So we arrive at Trump’s renewed pitch for the 2024 elec­tion. Here’s what the video pub­lished on Thurs­day said:

“The great­est threat to West­ern civ­i­liza­tion today is not Rus­sia. It’s prob­a­bly more than any­thing else our­selves and some of the hor­ri­ble U.S.A.-hating peo­ple that rep­re­sent us. It’s the abo­li­tion of our nation­al bor­ders. It’s the fail­ure to police our own cities. It’s the destruc­tion of the rule of law from with­in. It’s the col­lapse of the nuclear fam­i­ly. And fer­til­i­ty rates like nobody can believe is hap­pen­ing. It’s the Marx­ists who would have us become a god­less nation wor­ship­ing at the altar of race and gen­der and envi­ron­ment. And it’s the glob­al­ist class that has made us total­ly depen­dent on Chi­na and oth­er for­eign coun­tries that basi­cal­ly hate us.”

...

In case you aren’t con­vinced by this pars­ing of Trump’s words, he even­tu­al­ly cops to it. “Marx­ists” want the Unit­ed States to be a “god­less nation wor­ship­ing at the altar of race and gen­der and envi­ron­ment.” As with patri­o­tism, the right likes to offer race-cen­tric rhetoric while insist­ing that it’s the left that has a tox­ic rela­tion­ship with race. To draw atten­tion to the ways in which race is present as a fac­tor in Amer­i­can sys­tems and pol­i­tics is to be an anti-Amer­i­can Marx­ist; to defend those sys­tems and espouse those pol­i­tics is to be race-blind, just as Mar­tin Luther King Jr. would have want­ed. Anoth­er corol­lary: To talk about a man being mar­ried to a man is to talk irre­ducibly about sex­u­al­i­ty; to talk about a man mar­ried to a woman is just to talk about life in these Unit­ed States.

Trump has nev­er been sub­tle, from his archi­tec­ture to his pol­i­tics. In this video — again, an artic­u­la­tion of what he promis­es to bring to the White House should he be inau­gu­rat­ed in 2025 — he is sim­i­lar­ly unsub­tle. Trump frames his can­di­da­cy as a last-ditch back­stop against the col­lapse of White cul­ture, more threat­ened by Amer­i­cans them­selves than by Rus­sia — a nation hailed by many on the right for its unabashed aggres­sion in ser­vice to its homo­gene­ity.

This is a pol­i­cy Trump wants vot­ers to know that he will enact.
...

“This is a pol­i­cy Trump wants vot­ers to know that he will enact.”

Yep. It’s not just a polit­i­cal threat. It’s a cam­paign promise. He may not be explic­it­ly promis­ing a “Sched­ule F” purge, but that’s clear­ly the mes­sage. It’s one of the warped dynam­ics of the upcom­ing 2024 cam­paign that is going to be increas­ing­ly impor­tant to keep in mind as Trump’s polit­i­cal blus­ter gets loud­er and more dan­ger­ous: Trump does­n’t have to overt­ly cam­paign on the ‘Sched­ule F’ plat­form. Howl­ing about Amer­i­ca-hat­ing Marx­ists who must be destroyed before they destroy Amer­i­ca first has that cov­ered.

They did it again. The Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy (CNP) just had anoth­er one of its net­works exposed as a high­ly coor­di­nat­ed and well-financed oper­a­tion. And yet there’s basi­cal­ly no acknowl­edge­ment in the medi­a’s cov­er­age of this sto­ry of the CNP sinew con­nect­ing it all. They did it again.

So what is this lat­est CNP net­work work­ing on? The top­ic of the day in GOP cir­cles: anti-trans demo­niza­tion and hys­te­ria and the anti-trans leg­is­la­tion that fol­lows. As we’ve seen, the GOP’s scape­goat­ing the trans com­mu­ni­ty as a threat to pub­lic safe­ty — the ‘bath­room bills’ of the past decade — have mor­phed into the fix­a­tion on ‘trans kids’ and the per­ils of drag queens. And as the fol­low­ing Moth­er Jones report makes clear, that cur­rent fix­a­tion on the trans com­mu­ni­ty is thanks in large part to the years-long efforts of a net­work of activists who have spent the last decade try­ing to cre­ate an anti-trans pan­ic in the US and pass leg­is­la­tion that would effec­tive­ly out­law the trans com­mu­ni­ty. In oth­er words, the con­tem­po­rary US polit­i­cal zeit­geist is, to some extent, the fruits of this net­work’s labors. Which, again, is a CNP net­work at its core.

The new report is, like so many CNP-relat­ed reports, based on leaked infor­ma­tion. In this case, it’s a leaked trove of emails sent to a for­mer anti-trans activist Elisa Rae Shupe, a retired US Army sol­dier who became an anti-trans activist after detran­si­tion­ing before retran­si­tion­ing again. Shupe, in turn, was recruit­ed by South Dako­ta law­mak­er Fred Deutsch back in 2019 to join what became ‘the team’, a euphemism for the group of oper­a­tives work­ing togeth­er to pro­mote anti-trans mod­el leg­is­la­tion across the US. So Shupe, the per­son who leaked this, was­n’t just some hack­er or some anoth­er out­sider who some­how got their hands on the emails. This was some­one who knows this group from the inside. And as Shupe informs us, reli­gious-right rhetoric about want­i­ng to help chil­dren with gen­der dys­pho­ria is “just a front for what they do behind the scenes...It’s like they want to do as much dam­age to the trans com­mu­ni­ty as they can.” That’s a big part of the sto­ry here: the more we learn about the folks behind this anti-trans move­ment, the more appar­ent it becomes that the under­ly­ing motive here is using the trans com­mu­ni­ty as an easy scape­goat for not just scor­ing polit­i­cal points but jus­ti­fy­ing a deeply theo­crat­ic reac­tionary agen­da. The trans pan­ic is a required ingre­di­ent for the scale of pub­lic reac­tion they are try­ing a cat­alyze. A pub­lic reac­tion that, of course, goes well beyond ban­ning all things trans. This is the CNP we’re talk­ing about, after all. The same net­work behind the over­turn­ing of Roe and ongo­ing push­es to effec­tive­ly role back the sex­u­al rev­o­lu­tion.

The Alliance Defend­ing Free­dom (ADF) is the enti­ty that appears to be play­ing a key orga­niz­ing role in this net­work. Described as a Chris­t­ian legal pow­er­house, the ADF was found­ed by CNP mem­ber Alan Sears — who sits on the CNP board and wrote the book The Homo­sex­u­al Agen­da, that false­ly links pedophil­ia to homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. But Sears is far from the only ADF asso­ciate who shows up on the CNP’s mem­ber­ship list. For exam­ple, the leaked CNP mem­ber­ship lists up through 2020 include the fol­low­ing cur­rent or for­mer ADF mem­bers:
* Michael “Mike” Baller
* Ben­jamin W. Bull, for­mer Chief Coun­sel of ADF and Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of ADF Inter­na­tion­al
* Gre­go­ry Logan Cha­fuen
* Mar­jorie Dan­nen­felser
* Dr. Michael P. Far­ris, the Pres­i­dent & CEO of ADF
* Cather­ine Glenn Fos­ter
* Dou­glas H. Napi­er
* Kris­ten K. Wag­goner, Gen­er­al Coun­sel of ADF
* For­mer ADF chief exec­u­tive, Paul E. Weber, who is now Pres­i­dent & CEO of the Fam­i­ly Pol­i­cy Alliance, which also fig­ured into this report.

The ADF is a CNP front. One we’ve seen in prox­im­i­ty to bru­tal anti-LGBTQ move­ments around the world. For exam­ple, in 2016, the ADF sup­port­ed a law in Belize mak­ing gay sex pun­ish­able with 10 years in jail. The group also tripled its spend­ing in Europe between 2012 and 2016 and in 2019 co-host­ed an event with the French group La Manif Pour Tous that has been pre­vi­ous­ly been linked to the far right Front Nation­al. Also in 2019, the ADF showed up as the sec­ond biggest spender on Face­book ads among a group of 38 hate groups tracked by the SPLC. The ADF spent at least $391,669 that year on Face­book ads push­ing for the crim­i­nal­iza­tion of “sodomy”. Final­ly, recall how the ADF pro­vid­ed the mod­el tem­plate leg­is­la­tion for Reli­gious Free­dom Restora­tion Act allow­ing for the legal dis­crim­i­na­tion against LGBT peo­ple in Mis­sis­sip­pi. The ADF has been very busy in orga­niz­ing anti-LGBTQ laws over the last decade. But not just anti-trans work. It was the ADF that craft­ed the mod­el leg­is­la­tion passed by Mis­sis­sip­pi to over­turn Roe v. Wade.

But the ADF is also just one of the CNP-con­nect­ed enti­ties deeply involved with this behind-the-scenes agen­da to effec­tive­ly out­law the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty. There’s the Eagle Forum, found­ed by now-deceased CNP mem­ber Phyl­lis Schlafly. Recall how now-deceased Eagle Forum Pres­i­dent and founder, Phyl­lis Schafly, was on the CNP mem­bers list, along with her daugh­ter Anne Cori, and Ed Mar­tin of the Eagle Forum Fund. Oth­er Eagle Forum asso­ciates who showed upon the CNP mem­bers lists include Eunie Smith and LaNeil W. Spivy. The Eagle Forum is deeply in the CNP’s orbit. Also involved in the Lib­er­ty Coun­sel, whose founder and chair­man is CNP mem­ber Matt Staver. Recall that 2016 report about the leaked 2014 CNP mem­ber­ship list that list­ed Staver and Alan Sears as CNP board mem­bers, along­side fel­low CNP board lmem­bers like the League of the South’s Mike Per­out­ka who is an open advo­cate of the theo­crat­ic impo­si­tion of the Old Tes­ta­ment.

Anoth­er group involved with the effort is a fringe pedi­atrics groups call the Amer­i­can Col­lege of Pedi­a­tri­cians (ACPeds), which broke away from the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Pedi­atrics due to its sup­port of LGBTQ par­ents. More pub­licly, the AFD, ACPeds, and Eagle Forum have joined with groups like the Her­itage Foun­da­tion and the Fam­i­ly Pol­i­cy Alliance (led by for­mer ADF CEO and CNP mem­ber Paul Weber) under the umbrel­la of a “Promise to Amer­i­ca’s Chil­dren” cam­paign.

It’s that net­work of pow­er­ful extreme­ly well-orga­nized and well-financed anti-trans activists that just expe­ri­enced a rel­a­tive­ly rare degree of pub­lic expo­sure fol­low­ing Elisa Rae Shu­pe’s release of those emails. And yet, despite that expo­sure, the CNP angle to this sto­ry remains vir­tu­al­ly unac­knowl­edged. But at least the CNP’s anti-trans net­work is get­ting some much need­ed expo­sure. The kind of expo­sure that makes it clear that when Shupe warns that “It’s like they want to do as much dam­age to the trans com­mu­ni­ty as they can”, the lev­el of dam­age to the trans com­mu­ni­ty this net­work is aspir­ing towards is the com­plete era­sure of that com­mu­ni­ty from soci­ety. It’s anoth­er A ‘Sched­ule F+’-style soci­ety-wide purge the CNP is active­ly work­ing on. Specif­i­cal­ly a soci­etal purge of all the trans peo­ple. That’s not hyper­bole. It’s in the emails:

Moth­er Jones

Inside the Secret Work­ing Group That Helped Push Anti-Trans Laws Across the Coun­try

Leaked emails give a glimpse of the reli­gious-right net­works behind trans­gen­der health care bans.

Madi­son Pauly
March 8, 2023

On a Sat­ur­day after­noon in August 2019, South Dako­ta Repub­li­can state Rep. Fred Deutsch sent an email to 18 anti-trans activists, doc­tors, and lawyers with the text of a bill he planned to intro­duce that would make it a felony for doc­tors to give trans­gen­der chil­dren under 16 gen­der-affirm­ing med­ical care. “I have no doubt this will be an uphill bat­tle when we get to ses­sion,” Deutsch warned the group. “As always, please do not share this with the media. The longer we can fly under the radar the bet­ter.”

The mes­sage was one in a trove of emails obtained by Moth­er Jones between Deutsch and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of a net­work of activists and orga­ni­za­tions at the fore­front of the anti-trans move­ment. They show the degree to which these activists shaped Deutsch’s repres­sive leg­is­la­tion, a ver­sion of which was signed into law in Feb­ru­ary, and the tac­tics, alliances, and goals of a move­ment that has sought to foist their agen­da on a nation­al scale.

In mes­sages back and forth, some mem­bers of the group pushed Deutsch to make the bill even more restric­tive. Ver­nadette Broyles, the pres­i­dent and gen­er­al coun­sel of a Geor­gia-based law firm called the Child & Parental Rights Cam­paign, urged him to raise the age thresh­old to 18. Broyles, who is also affil­i­at­ed with the con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian legal pow­er­house Alliance Defend­ing Free­dom (ADF), warned that oth­er reli­gious-right groups might not sup­port the bill if “you start by giv­ing away 16 and 17-year olds right from the out­set.” Oth­ers, includ­ing Andre Van Mol—a mem­ber of a fringe, con­ser­v­a­tive doc­tors group that calls itself the Amer­i­can Col­lege of Pedi­a­tri­cians (ACPeds)—raised con­cerns that the bill as writ­ten might back­fire by acci­den­tal­ly block­ing health care pr