The Claremont Institute Feed Items

Daniel Penny enjoyed a well-earned beer more than a year too late. After protecting dozens of New York City subway passengers from the violent fantasies of Jordan Neely, Penny was punished at the hands of activist Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Though he escaped a heavy punishment—spending the prime of his life rotting away in jail—for Penny and others like him, the process is the punishment. The stress of a grueling trial, the financial toll brought on by his parents fronting an $100,000 bond, and the reality that many Americans taken in by the media’s lies think Penny got away with committing a lynching in broad daylight—all of this will serve as a stern warning to men who dare stand up to the lawless tyranny in many of America’s major cities.

A regime that allows an army of Jordan Neelys to harass and threaten its citizens, and then tries to make an example of any man who dares try putting a stop to it, is a regime infused with a deep-seated hatred of masculinity. This makes sense given that masculinity is what will protect the innocent from the regime’s open embrace of lawlessness.

A decent society would honor Daniel Penny. Instead, our elites dragged him through a sham trial that ended in an acquittal despite their most brazen efforts. In a regime of lawlessness, citizens who enforce order are the enemy.

A well-functioning society possesses an inherent will to survive. Daniel Penny’s grave mistake was assuming he lived in such a place.

In the hamlet of Remsenburg, Suffolk County, Long Island, New York lies a small cemetery behind the chapel of the Remsenburg Community Church. There one finds the modest final resting place of a great American, marked by a substantial rectangular headstone with a large open book sculpted on top, in which is inscribed from top to bottom:

Jeeves

Blanding’s Castle

Leave it to Psmith

Meet Mister Mulliner

Beneath this on the wide headstone you see the name of the great American:

Sir Pelham Grenville

WODEHOUSE

At the very bottom of the headstone are the words:

HE GAVE JOY TO COUNTLESS PEOPLE

Seldom have truer words been engraved in stone. Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (Plum to his friends; P.G. to his reading public) gave joy to countless millions of people with his books, about a hundred of them, written during the first 75 years of the 20th century. So long as people and books are to be found, he will continue to give joy—the joy of pure soul-refreshing laughter—by inviting his readers into the worlds of Jeeves, Blandings castle (not Blanding’s as on the headstone), Psmith (with a silent P as in ptarmigan), Mr. Mulliner, and other immortal comic characters and settings.

In light of the commanding victory by Donald Trump and J.D. Vance in November’s election, conservatives are optimistic about the prospects for restoring American greatness. While I share this hope, it’s important to understand the true state of the regime and the character required to heal our nation’s wounds and unite the country around a shared political vision.

The American regime is ill, and everyone feels it. Yet few can agree on the diagnosis and fewer still on the cure. On the Right, some blame the alien germ of European progressivism that captured the imaginations of John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, others Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, or the Supreme Court’s Engle v. Vitale decision banning school prayer—the list could go on. There’s some truth to all these narratives, but they elide more fundamental realities.

In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election victory, many education reformers are saying that now is the time to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the presumptive leaders of the new Department of Government Efficiency, have been strongly hinting that eradicating the DofEd outright is a real possibility.

That’s an attractive goal—the DofEd wastes a great deal of money and does a great deal of damage to American students. But eliminating it outright will be difficult. Education reformers need 60 votes in the Senate to abolish the Department of Education. Using budget reconciliation might allow that requirement to be sidestepped, but it’s doubtful that Congress will go along with that tactic. Additionally, the Trump voting coalition isn’t just made up of small-government conservatives—it includes voters who don’t mind big government so long as it isn’t woke.

Also, “abolishing the Education Department” can mean less than meets the eye. Every single office and program can be transferred over to the Department of Health and Human Services—uncut, unreformed, and unchanged. Putative reformers could declare a hollow victory while supporters of the radical education establishment would then happily perform their outrage dance, secure in the knowledge that nothing really has changed.

The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Spencer Klavan, and Mike Sabo devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

Strangio-er than Fiction | The Roundtable Ep. 247

There is a striking similarity between the situation President Reagan faced in 1982 and the state of the Middle East today. There are three valuable lessons from the Reagan era that will almost certainly help inform the future course of President Trump’s approach toward peace: 1) the countries of the region want security above all, and the United States is the only one that can provide it; 2) Saudi leadership is essential for any comprehensive and durable peace; and 3) laying the foundation for relationships between Arabs and Israelis can only take place in private, far from the public view. Liberal institutions and commentators might question the new administration’s ability to make further gains on regional peace absent a comprehensive solution for the Palestinian issue, but their skepticism is more a consequence of their narrow vision for how negotiations should be run.

Two explanations are popular among Democrats for why Donald Trump won: voters are racist and voters (wrongly) blame their economic insecurity on mass immigration.

In a post-election autopsy at The New York Times, correspondent Miriam Jordan admitted that Americans’ immigration attitudes have shifted “to the right,” but argued that this is borne not of intelligent analysis but of a spell cast by a demagogue. Jordan quoted Rodrigo Garcia, a “Mexican American” who was taken in by “Trump’s forceful rhetoric.” “I feel like there should be a certain limit of the people that come into America, instead of just letting everyone come in,” Garcia said.

Garcia’s view is not radical. It’s a sensible one, no matter what nation is being considered. Trump’s “forceful rhetoric” is not what makes people think immigration needs some limits.

During the past 20 years in America, a great contest has been waged over what the nation will become in the twenty-first century. Those on the political Left—progressives, statists, academics, and secularists—insist that America was always fundamentally flawed. They say we must become something other than what we have been. For their part, conservative Americans—workers, traditionalists, religious believers, and constitutionalists—hold that America is becoming something they don’t recognize. They claim the Left has betrayed the nation’s founding principles and has rejected the habits and traditions that once defined our national identity.

In short, the political battle between the Left and Right is best understood as an existential fight over what America will be. The Left pushes for a metanoic transformation, while the Right tries to catalyze an epistrophic one.

Metanoia is a forward-looking change—a recognition that one’s past way of life was flawed in some fundamental way. Regret precipitates a self-rejection that drives the transformation, which is a deliberate turning away from one’s previous identity. In contrast, epistrophe is a backward-looking change—a realization that at some point one betrayed the true self and embraced a false mode of being. Epistrophic transformation, then, is a return to one’s essential identity—a return to a previous (and more authentic) way of life.

Perhaps no sector better exemplifies the economic recklessness, inflation, and elitism that Americans rejected last month than academia. What was once a beacon of Western enlightenment has devolved into a profiteering industry that survives on Washington’s tired, cynical bribe: “Vote for us, and we’ll funnel more money to colleges!” As this hollow promise loses its power to persuade, President Trump has a historic opportunity to dismantle the College Cartel and free Americans from the stranglehold of these calcified interests.

Donald Trump’s victory was in part a decisive repudiation of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), the odious, unconstitutional, racist, and sexist grift concocted by the extreme Left as a radicalized form of affirmative action. DEI is based on Critical Race Theory (CRT), the doctrine that all whites are bigots. It has been fused into the firmament of academia, government, and business by the far Left, those beholden to it (particularly Joe Biden), and those fearful of it (including corporate boards and CEOs).

DEI and CRT have destroyed the careers of straight white men and Asians, humiliated blacks and other minorities who can excel without preferences, reduced government effectiveness and business productivity, savaged American exceptionalism, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and vitiated a century of federal civil rights laws.

The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Spencer Klavan, and Mike Sabo devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

A Pardon in a Pear Tree | The Roundtable Ep. 246

It’s time to ramp up the fight against corporate bias. The next four years will be difference-making ones.

For years, corporate activists have infiltrated the boardrooms and governance structures of America’s biggest companies and brands, destroying their focus on fiduciary duty and politicizing them through a plethora of activist-driven ESG and DEI initiatives. As a proxy analyst, I see the fruits of corporate activism everywhere, from shareholder proposals pressuring brands like Walmart into auditing their “racial equity” to existing corporate policies discriminating against religious and/or conservative employees.

For conservatives interested in doing the work of depoliticizing American businesses, it shouldn’t just be about stopping the current ambitions of ESG activists—it should be about undoing all the gains they’ve made in company culture and policy. And it shouldn’t be simply about decrying companies’ biased decisions, but about working to bring them back to a politically neutral baseline so that such decisions don’t happen again.

As much as this election was affected by voters’ concerns about the economy and their dissatisfaction with the past four years, the most decisive factor in Kamala Harris’s loss may well have been a massive cultural transformation currently happening in America. Despite their obsession with vibes, no one on the Harris team seemed to notice the actual vibe shift happening across the country. Briefly put, we are beginning to see a collective rejection of the fake in favor of the real.

It’s no great revelation that major TV and movie studios have been pumping out repetitive, overproduced, and unimaginative tripe for some time. But whereas big-budget schlock used to be accepted as mildly amusing by a public with few better options, TikTok and the smartphone have totally changed the game. As critic Ted Gioia pointed out in a recent essay, viewers are increasingly turning their attention from “official” sources of entertainment to homemade clips by amateur creators. There are obvious dangers in this, as Gioia points out. But there’s also opportunity: what’s driving people to choose the phone screen over the big screen is a newfound interest in the raw, the real, and the direct. Fake is out. Live is in.

I served in the U.S. Army Special Operations Command on a Cultural Support Team embedded with elite combat units. From this vantage point, I can state with absolute certainty that women do not belong in U.S. military combat units.

Today it has become a perverse badge of progress to claim that equality demands women shoulder the same burdens of war as men, even at the cost of life, limb, and sight. The feminist project seeks full parity within all combat ranks of the U.S. military, the latest effort in a decade-long push for formal gender integration.

But this misguided egalitarianism reflects not progress but a profound cultural regression. Unfortunately, the military has become yet another battleground for the cultural revolution, where the truths of human nature are denied in service of ideological dogma.

The recent nomination of Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense has reignited this debate. Hegseth, unlike most generals and policymakers today, understands that combat roles demand capabilities and cultural cohesion that women cannot provide. For his honesty, he has been met with predictable outrage, as contemporary gender ideology admits no dissent. In 2024, to question a woman’s “right” to fight and die on a battlefield is to invite condemnation as a bigot. This is the twisted truth of modern feminism: celebrating a woman’s ability to die in foreign wars over her capacity to build families and communities at home.

As you gather with your loved ones this Thanksgiving, passing the turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, I hope you take time to reflect on the many blessings God has bestowed upon our nation.

And while politics at the dinner table is typically taboo, most of us have at least one relative eager to stir the pot.

Now, I’m certainly not advocating for full-blown debate before the pumpkin pie, but if the conversation happens to shift to politics, and that friend or family member is still reeling from President Trump’s overwhelming win, don’t worry. Here are a few reasons to be thankful for the upcoming Trump Administration.

At the heart of President Trump’s MAGA movement has always been the American people. The bright thread throughout his historic 2024 campaign was promoting policies that will reverse the damage of the Biden Administration and restore America and her citizens to greatness. President Trump’s authentic rock-and-roll campaign resonated with voters weary of stale DNC talking points, and his enthusiastic message resounded far beyond what pollsters anticipated. In fact, the majority of Americans demanded his vision of change.

The transition to this new era of leadership is already off to a promising start with President Trump’s key appointments. From Susie Wiles and Russ Vought to RFK Jr., Pam Bondi, and Elise Stefanik—these individuals will bring fresh perspectives to the White House and will combine their experience and Trump-required work ethic to deliver for the American people.

By September 25, 1789, the U.S. House of Representatives had only been operating for about six months under the Constitution. They were meeting in New York, as they would continue to do until the government was moved to Philadelphia the following year, and then to what became Washington, D.C. Everything was new and uncertain.

On that day in September, Elias Boudinot, a representative from New Jersey, introduced a resolution:  

That a joint committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon the President of the United States, to request that he would recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution of government for their safety and happiness.

Not everyone thought this Thanksgiving business was a good idea. Aedanus Burke of South Carolina “did not like this mimicking of European customs, where they made a mere mockery of thanksgivings.”Thomas Tudor Tucker, also of South Carolina,

The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Spencer Klavan, and Mike Sabo devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

Biden’s Parting Gifts | The Roundtable Ep. 245

The approach of Thanksgiving invites us to turn our minds to the relationship between religion and the American regime. We now encounter controversy where we once found consensus. With the rise of modern secularism, many Americans now believe that religion should play no role in the nation’s public life, while many other Americans continue to hold to the traditional view that it should.

These divisions were illustrated strikingly in the homestretch of the presidential campaign. Speaking in Wisconsin, Kamala Harris was interrupted by hecklers who called out, “Jesus is Lord.” Harris responded by saying, “You guys are at the wrong rally.” A few days later, in the same state, and apparently in response to this exchange, someone cried out, “Jesus is king!” during a speech by J.D. Vance—and Vance replied, “That’s right. Jesus is king.”

It did not take long for the Left to demand a consolation prize for their failed leader Kamala Harris. The opening bid was replacing Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor with “Justice” Harris. What joy that would be. But it’s also mercifully implausible. Not only would the Wise Latinx Justice need to retire to make way for a proud black Brahmin, but Chuck Schumer would have to wrangle a one-vote majority that includes departing former Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. In his lame duck era, Schumer doesn’t really have the ability to rally this captious crowd behind any nominee. But for Harris? Please.

We must go back to the beginning of our quest: how to console the hapless Harris? She’ll have to do what she always does: fail upward. And there’s only one logical next step on that path: the governorship of California.

The ghastly Gavin Newsom is termed out in two years. Unless California Rs get their stuff together in a big way, he will inevitably be followed by another progressive D. And there is no bigger progressive D in Cali Town than Kamala D. Harris, D-San Francisco.

Harris recently won three statewide races in California, twice for attorney general and once for the United States Senate. She then appeared twice on presidential tickets that handily won California in 2020 and 2024. She will easily win a race for governor. Yes, she is a disaster in national politics, but for the exact same reasons she is the bespoke lefty for today’s Golden State coasties.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s crushing victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, social media has been flooded with videos of apartment- or vehicle-bound neurotics screaming, banging pots and pans in sheer disbelief, packing their belongings, or generally convulsing as if Kristallnacht were upon us. The American public has been introduced to the 4B movement, in which liberal women appropriate a South Korean sex strike because justice.

To be sure, social media is at best a caricature of real life. Only the most dramatic individuals will shave their heads for “reproductive rights” (read: for likes), but most people do not express themselves in quite such a hyperbolic register. That said, in this case the memes are imitating real life. Not every ex-Kamala voter is experiencing a full-scale breakdown. But judging based on my own clinical observations as a practicing therapist, I think it may well be true that a significant number of young American leftists are going through a collective mental health crisis.

I speak from some experience, having spent multiple hours per day over the past few weeks hearing from clients about the damage inflicted upon their psyches “by the Trump win.” This is their account of things. My own opinion, however, is that someone has subjected these kids to psychic trauma. But it wasn’t Donald Trump.

First Things

For much of their political history, particularly since the Enlightenment, Jews have identified with the progressive Left. Israel itself, although funded by oligarchs, was launched largely as a socialist experiment, epitomized in the kibbutzim.

Today the political Left has betrayed that loyalty, becoming prime movers against Israel and Jews on the ground. In America, as many as 19 Democratic senators voted with Bernie Sanders to block America from sending several types of weaponry to Israel. Even though most still identify as Democrats, many American Jews are finding that their former “safe spaces”—leftist parties, big cities, universities, the media—have morphed into places where anti-Semitic incidents regularly occur, even though they often are vigorously downplayed. 

In the waning days of the 2024 campaign, Team Harris made a truly devious effort to revive their flagging poll numbers. Their two-part pitch to the electorate went like this: 1) Men should vote Democrat so their daughters can get abortions, and 2) women should vote Democrat, then lie to their conservative husbands about it.

Part one focused its appeal on the vanishingly small percentage of abortions performed in response to rape. This argument probably appeals to some men. Most Americans are pro-choice in that they don’t much care if their neighbor gets an abortion. And when it comes to their own families, they’d rather have the option than not. Better to keep abortion legal for any reason at all than for my wife or daughter to “need” an abortion and not be able to get one.

In extreme cases, the argument goes, getting your daughter an abortion is an act of fatherly protection. When Charlie Kirk spoke out against rape exceptions, the anonymous X personality known as RadFem Hitler responded with characteristic vitriol. “No genuinely masculine man would ever allow his 10 year old daughter to give birth to her rapist’s baby,” she wrote. “Something is deeply CUCKED within you if you would allow a child molester to pass on his genes at the expense of your own progeny.”

From the start of the climate panic, very prominent scientists opposed the claim that increasing CO₂ was a significant danger to climate due to man’s industrial emissions. A select group of these are listed below:

William Nierenberg: Director of America’s foremost oceanographic research institute, Scripps Oceanographic Institute of the University of California, San Diego. The Institute is located at La Jolla. Nierenberg was also a member of the National Academy, and he chaired the massive 1983 NRC (National Research Council of the National Academy) report on climate. He died in 2000.

Frederick Seitz: Often regarded as one of the fathers of condensed phase physics, he was a professor at the University of Illinois, President of the National Academy of Sciences, and President of Rockefeller University. He died in 2008.

Jerome Namias: Professor of Meteorology at Scripps and former head of NOAA’s long-range forecasting. Namias was also a member of the National Academy. He died in 1997.

Robert Jastrow: First chairman of NASA’s Lunar Exploration Committee, founding director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Upon his retirement, the bulk of the institute was moved back to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. However, a rump group headed by James Hansen successfully fought to remain in New York. Jastrow continued as Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth College. He died in 2008.

Modern political movements have not infrequently laid claim to being based in science, from immigration restriction and eugenics (in the U.S. after WWI), to antisemitism and race ideology (in Hitler’s Germany), to Communism and Lysenkoism (under Stalin). Each of these falsely invoked a scientific consensus that convinced highly educated citizens, who were nonetheless ignorant of science, to set aside the anxieties associated with their ignorance. Since all scientists supposedly agreed, there was no need for them to understand the science. 

Of course, this version of “the science” is the opposite of science itself. Science is a mode of inquiry rather than a source of authority. However, the success that science achieves has earned it a measure of authority in the public’s mind. This is what politicians frequently envy and exploit.
 
The climate panic fits into this same pattern and, as in all the preceding cases, science is in fact irrelevant. At best, it is a distraction which has led many of us to focus on the numerous misrepresentations of science entailed in what was purely a political movement.