Oligarchs for Austerity and the CNP Have a Big New Scheme: Suing their Way to a New Constitution

Did you hear? Pres­i­dent Trump is going to be run­ning for a third term in office. And he’s not jok­ing. Who knows how seri­ous he is, but as we’re going to see, the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of third pres­i­den­tial term may not be as set in stone as many sus­pect. Along with the rest of the US Con­sti­tu­tion. A con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ven­tion could be just around the cor­ner. Just a law­suit away. And we can thank the DC aus­ter­i­ty lob­by and their fel­low trav­el­ers at the Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy (CNP) and the Amer­i­can Leg­isla­tive Exchange Com­mit­tee (ALEC) for this loom­ing threat. The same aus­ter­i­ty lob­by that has spent years try­ing to roll back Oba­macare, evis­cer­ate Medicare and Med­ic­aid through block-grants, and gen­er­al­ly erode what’s left of the US’s social safe­ty-nets as more and more Amer­i­cans are forced to take any work avail­able just to qual­i­fy for increas­ing­ly mea­ger gov­ern­ment assis­tance. That aus­ter­i­ty lob­by. It’s back with a big sneaky plan: a law­suit pur­port­ing to prove that the 34 state thresh­old for an Arti­cle V con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ven­tion has already been met. David M. Walk­er — the for­mer US Comp­trol­ler for both Bill Clin­ton and George W. Bush — is lead­ing the legal effort, with legal sup­port from NRA lawyer (and CNP mem­ber) Charles “Chuck” Coop­er. If the law­suit suc­ceeds, get ready for a new con­sti­tu­tion writ­ten by and for the oli­garchy.

But this sto­ry isn’t just about this new law­suit. It’s also about how the DC aus­ter­i­ty lob­by has been work­ing with CNP to push these con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ven­tion ambi­tions since at least 2013, which is right around the same time it become clear that the last major round of DC aus­ter­i­ty lob­by­ing had failed in achiev­ing a “grand bar­gain” of slashed enti­tle­ments. A round of lob­by­ing that began in earnest as the 2008 finan­cial cri­sis was still play­ing out with David Walk­er — then Pres­i­dent and CEO of the new­ly formed aus­ter­i­ty-cen­tric Pete Peter­son Foun­da­tion — tak­ing on a lead role as pub­lic aus­ter­i­ty advo­cate. The Great Reces­sion was a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for a “grand bar­gain”. And it almost worked. But did­n’t work, at least not entire­ly, and it was­n’t long after that fail­ure became clear that we saw the aus­ter­i­ty lob­by and the CNP begin hatch­ing far more ambi­tious plans. Plans that just might be about come to fruition. Because as we’re also going to see, if a con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ven­tion does hap­pen, the forces behind this plan are the ones who will be run­ning it. The DC aus­ter­i­ty lob­by real­ly is just a law­suit away from win­ning every­thing.

“Some Folks Need Killing!” Mark Robinson, David Lane, and the CNP’s American Renewal Project

“Some Folks Need Killing!” So declared North Car­oli­na Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Mark Robin­son on June 30. At a church. With the full endorse­ment of the church’s pas­tor, Rev­erend Cameron McGill, who explained how Robin­son only meant the peo­ple ‘try­ing to kill us’ should be killed. Two days lat­er, Her­itage Foun­da­tion Pres­i­dent and Project 2025 leader Kevin Roberts made his now infa­mous “Sec­ond Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion” speech, warn­ing that the rev­o­lu­tion would remain blood­less “if the left allows it”. Days lat­er, Don­ald Trump laugh­ably dis­avowed know­ing any­thing about Project 2025. And while Robert­s’s com­ments have received ample atten­tion, Robin­son’s “Some Folks Need Killing!” com­ments have remained an under-explored top­ic. Because as we’re going to see, Mark Robin­son has become quite a celebri­ty on the far right. With one very notable fan base: The Amer­i­can Renew­al Project ded­i­cat­ed to recruit­ing con­ser­v­a­tive pas­tor to run for office and the Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy (CNP) fig­ures behind it. Not only is Robin­son the star of Amer­i­can Renew­al Project events, but it turns out Rev­erend McGill is a recruiter for the group too. That project, formed in 2005 by polit­i­cal activist David Lane but with roots going all the way back to the for­ma­tion of the CNP in 1981, is what we’re going to explore in this post. Because as dis­turb­ing as Robin­son’s “Some Folks Need Killings” com­ments may have been out of of con­text, they are a lot more dis­turb­ing when placed in con­text. A Chris­t­ian Nation­al­ist domin­ion­ist con­text that warns of plans for a lot more than just ‘some’ killing.