Now that Former President Trump is the Republican nominee for President in 2024, it’s time for Republicans, including those who doubt him or even can’t stand him, to get behind him. The times demand it. Tom Klingenstein, a writer, speaker and playwright, explains in his follow up speech to Trump's Virtues I.
The Claremont Institute is chockfull of people who are too delicate to contend honestly with the legacy of slavery, even while they keep ties to overt racists. It puts America’s Founding ideals in the service of debased political actors and deploys them as ideological cant. The abstractions of the Founding are worshiped as the highest good, but in such a rigid and stultifying way that change and history and progress are inevitably slandered as decline. And alongside unquestioning reverence for the principles of the Founding, we find explosive and irrational distrust in the actual institutions of government. Claremont has become at once insular and incoherent—untethered from broader American reality and deeply enmeshed in practices that would be anathema to those they profess most to admire. They do not have serious views about where the country as a whole should be headed, and yet they are desperate to take us there.
That detachment from practical politics raises a vexing question for anyone trying to judge the significance of what has been going on at Claremont: Why does it matter? What have been, or might yet be, the real-world effects of the institute’s recent work?
After all, Claremont did not have with the Trump administration the kind of close relationship that policy-focused, Washington-based think tanks have often had with other presidential administrations. In 2017, when the incoming Trump administration—chaotic, confused, and wary of many existing conservative institutions—needed help staffing the government, it primarily turned to the Heritage Foundation . The Claremont Institute, on the other side of the country and lacking a policy focus, seems not to have entered into the Trump team’s calculations. A few alumni of the institute’s fellowship programs were hired for junior positions around the administration, and of course the author of Claremont’s “Flight 93” article, Michael Anton, was hired to work on communications for the National Security Council. But there was no major influx of Claremont scholars into the government under Trump.https://www.thebulwark.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/claremont-INSERT-8-300x218.jpg 300w, 768w, 1371w" sizes="(max-width: 395px) 100vw, 395px" >
Nor would it be correct to say that Claremont’s ideas fundamentally shaped Donald Trump’s presidency. Rather, it was the brute fact of Trump’s candidacy and presidency that determined the direction of the institute. The Claremont crowd sought, starting with the 2016 campaign, to provide intellectual justification for Trump’s pronouncements and policies. This was largely an exercise in pretending that Trump’s sow’s ears really had been silk purses all along.
With Trump, an opportunity beckoned, and Claremont jumped. To understand why it matters that they did, consider how the institute’s public reputation has shifted in the last five years. Before Trump, the institute was known for two things: the Claremont Review of Books , its staid quarterly that published essays and reviews about political philosophy as well as cultural and literary analysis, usually by conservative academics; and the fellowship programs that spread the gospel of Jaffa.
Today, the Claremont Institute is better known for three things. First, there is the Trumpism of its people and publications, from the “Flight 93” essay onward. Second, there is the American Mind , which is constantly pumping out combative, juvenile, and grotesque articles and podcasts and Substack content that attract far more attention than the slower, more academic output of the CRB . And third, there is what we might call the “Claremont Expanded Universe”—the shifting web of publications and projects that are not formally owned and operated by Claremont but are perceived as connected. Chief among these is American Greatness , a publication that churns out Trumpist propaganda alongside overt white supremacy . It extensively overlaps with Claremont: Everyone on its masthead has a Claremont connection , and Claremont’s most prominent scholars—including Angelo Codevilla, William Voegeli, Allen Guelzo, and of course Michael Anton, Glenn Ellmers, and John Eastman—have all written for it.
L ike think tanks from time immemorial, Claremont hoped that it could influence the president and his administration. But the lines of influence mostly pointed in the other direction: Claremont’s encounter with Trumpism left Donald Trump unchanged—he did not become enamored of America’s highest ideals—while the Claremont Institute was remade in his image. Not just nativist and racist. Not just illiberal and prone to conspiracy theories. But even post-truth. And now, explicitly anti-democracy.
And I worry that they are just getting started. Claremont is swiftly becoming a propaganda juggernaut. It is welcoming divisive, anti-democratic figures. Through its publications and other programs, it is in a position to warp the intellectual formation of young writers, lawyers, and academics who will presumably play an important part in the future of the American right. And the institute, having been thus transformed by its years-long embrace of Trump, now yearns for a radical remaking of America.
I wonder: Do the respected scholars and thinkers who continue to write for the Claremont Review of Books agree with the new direction of the institute? Do they think that contributing only to the higher-end publication insulates them from being associated with the grossest parts of the overall Claremont project? Their continued involvement suggests that Claremont can continue to operate with reputational impunity. One wonders when, if ever, they might be willing to draw a line.
Similarly, do all of Claremont’s scholars and fe llows , their hundreds of fellowship alumni , including former faculty fellows , feel comfortable having their names used in fundraising efforts on behalf of the institute’s latest undertakings? Or will they voice an objection?
And are the foundations whose grants fund Claremont, including a number of small family foundations, aware of what the institute has become?
That’s actually a pretty well done video. He concedes Trump is a terrible person, but argues that we need him anyway. That could be compelling for a significant number of people in the political middle.
I took a critical view of the video. I can make a critical assessment of a thing without agreeing with its content.
To take a similar, but more extreme example, I can hate everything Hitler stood for but still acknowledge that he was a uniquely powerful and persuasive public speaker.
I don’t agree with the content or message of the video, but I can see it was artfully crafted, cleverly scripted, and persuasively delivered. A video like this will encourage those who already support Trump, and persuade those who don’t think about politics a lot and so might be on the fence.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
That’s actually a pretty well done video. He concedes Trump is a terrible person, but argues that we need him anyway. That could be compelling for a significant number of people in the political middle.
yikes.
The person who made that video denies there was an insurrection, thinks that Donald trump tells the truth, and that the 2020 election was stolen.
He is by any measured use of the word, an extremist. The Claremont Institute is not far from being a white supremacist organization.
So what? What does that have to do with what I wrote?
i think you took a rosy view of the seeded video
I took a critical view of the video. I can make a critical assessment of a thing without agreeing with its content.
To take a similar, but more extreme example, I can hate everything Hitler stood for but still acknowledge that he was a uniquely powerful and persuasive public speaker.
I don’t agree with the content or message of the video, but I can see it was artfully crafted, cleverly scripted, and persuasively delivered. A video like this will encourage those who already support Trump, and persuade those who don’t think about politics a lot and so might be on the fence.
i couldnt disagree more
Then you have nothing to worry about. Right?
Thanks for being the only person to comment on this article