3 The Journal of American Greatness

Even though based in a substantive disregard for the truth, and often with presumed “noble” lies even when the facts are acknowledged, “… the Claremonter crowd has, since 2016, achieved something that could be interpreted … as the vanguard of an illiberal renaissance. After the publication of the Flight 93 essay and the 2016 election of Donald Trump, the Claremont Institute went from being a peripheral group of academics to playing a major role in national politics. The Claremonters made it to the White House. And they did so intentionally, with a plan (Field 2025, pp. 50-51).”  It continued in the years leading up to and including the 2024 Election Campaign, an election won using both the total disregard for truth and “noble” lies, and came into full play on January 20, 2025.  The Claremont Institute declared war on multiculturalism, and worked the plan for dismantling Modern Government, framed as the deep state, the administrative state that could do nothing but harm. As Field (2025, p. 51) characterizes it, the Claremont Institute emerged “as the beating heart of the New Right.”  As DIT makes clear, identifying said frame, said reality is at least one-half the solution to the problem:  Examine the tenets of the Claremont Institute, look for the credibility of the claims, and reveal what “the heart” is about so it can be countered.

Claremonters Wanted to Bring Old Right-Wing Frames Back into Play

The title refers to a Blog, with anonymous authors.  The Blog was about bringing old right-wing frames back into view.  It was alarmist, and pointed to using Authoritarianism, as in the strongman politics described by Caesarians to bring said frames into operation. A main contributor was “Publius Decius Mus” who was Michael Anton, a manager with Blackrock a financial firm. Decius was a Roman consul who sacrificed himself to the cause of the Roman empire; Anton speaks to the 2016 Election as Flight 93, the Claremonters needing to sacrifice to save the country from the unspeakable downfall caused by Progressive thinking. Nonsense. Anton continued to use the Decius name in writing for the Claremont Review of Books. Anton, hiding under name Decius, is a huge fan of Machiavelli.

Some of the Old Books Raised Up By Claremonters are Worth Consideration

On a positive note, and consistent with DIT,  Anton and others operating in the frame of Jaffa “make room for old-fashioned moral and ethical concerns, and old-fashioned bookish enthusiasms. Many of the books that Straussians read so closely are genuinely profound and can be transformative (Field 2025, pp. 55-56).”  DIT, too, sees the need to bring moral and ethical concerns into view, but also (in contrast to Straussians) require that such moral and ethical framing be put to empirical test, not just read and believed after extracting it out of some old book no matter how cherished by the readers and believers. So, Anton, and the Straussians generally, call for University humanities programs to put more attention to the old and supposedly great books.  And, as Field points out, and consistent with DIT, the call for such attention is not all bad, but, it can also lead down roads that have no empirical count in the modern world.

As Field (2025, p. 58) points out, pointing to “educational forms that take big, ‘meaning-of-life’ questions seriously and as though they might lead to answers—are nothing new. Liberalism was designed to defray and defuse some of these questions—the kinds of questions that Socrates’s life put front and center. The world of right-wing intellectualism in our time is forcing modern liberals to confront them anew.”  Also, unless one is well-read in the great books, it is difficult to counter Straussians who may also not really well-read, either, but are assertive about the parts preferred for own purpose, like claiming vertical power systems (Caesar styled) are somehow better than horizontal power democracies.

Claims of Superior Intellect of Men Over Women is Old News

Field (2025, p. 60) points to how Straussian conservatives and the MAGA New Right generally  draw on old, going way back to Plato, lacking in empirical content claims about the superior intellect of men over women. So, young men are supposed to believe  and act as if being superior to all young women as in “…all that gender equality stuff is just a big joke! Nothing to see here, boys!”  Straussian Conservatives undergirding the MAGA New Right see no possibility for any kind of gender equality --- all nonsense, as in cargo-cult make-believe, without any serious support from the sciences and humanities.  Feminism does not play in the MAGA New Right, who draw on the work of Harvard’s Harvey Mansfield and the book Manliness. It has resulted in and “fomented an increasingly narrow-minded conservative grievance culture (Field 2025, p. 62).”  It has led to all manner of mis-representations of the gender issue, as in false claims about stereotypical women “the wronged woman, the trophy wife, the gold-digger, and the serpentine co-ed who sleeps with a superstar and then cries ‘rape’ (Field 2025, p. 62).”  More nonsense. More cargo-cult make-believe.  It is nothing more than casual if not actually practiced misogyny, now a main feature of the MAGA New Right.

Anton went on, with colleagues, to start a Journal of America Greatness, another Blog.  The purpose: “… to disrupt ‘conservatism’s intellectual stagnation’ by providing an intellectualized defense of Trumpism (Field 2025, pp. 63-64).” Field goes through some examples of what was posted anonymously on the Blog site.

Assault on the Supposed Global Managerial Elite is Common

A Julius Krein, posing as Plautus a comedic play-write in the time of the Rorman Republic posted one on the “global managerial elite.”  Plautus had a deep distrust of the old line Conservatives who had supported the fiasco of Afghanistan. The neoconservative view of what was going on was nothing like the reality, as in how the middle east had been destabilized by the incompetence.   Krein came to be a paleoconservative, an isolationist, which is where the MAGA New Right landed. The view built on James Buchanan, and Sam Francis before him, also an isolationist. The managerial elite were the problem. “that the global managerial elite is exploitative, actively seeks to dominate, and so is ruthlessly destroying the American way of life and must be stopped … (the global management elite working) ‘to seek the destruction of any intermediating institutions, ultimately and especially the family, the homogenization, de-legitimization, and eradication of culture, and the levelling, regimentation, and dehumanizing of all society (quoting Krein)’ (Field 2025, p. 67).”  

In DIT terms, the shared other-interest represented in American culture was being destroyed by finding a shared other-interest with all the cultures of all the countries on the Spaceship Earth. Again, isolationism, and the supposed  shift in focus onto some inherent and specific American culture and American families became frame in the MAGA New Right.

Virtue of (Especially Christian) Nationalism is  Praised

From a DIT frame, it seems like a reasoned goal in the sense of each country could certainly have a shared other-interest primary to that country, in the notion of the Virtue of Nationalism by  Hazony (2018), who has also become an intellectual source for the New Right.  Problem is, such shared other-interest, i.e., some form of American Culture, does not preclude also finding common ground with the cultures of other countries, especially trading partners.  It seems the MAGA New Right takes it way too far, and, ignores the essential need for all countries on the Spaceship Earth to find some common ground.  And, it is not at all clear that what has actually happened since January 20, 2025, when the MAGA New Right took political power, has made any progress in either realm. 

It certainly has not found a reasoned common ground within America, instead using authoritarian means to impose some vague understanding of what it means to be an American.  And, with all manner of international intervention using bully tariffs, and even illegal military activity violating international law on foreign soil, is actually destroying and not building common ground of shared other-interest across the Spaceship Earth.  So, as Field points out, the MAGA New Right often runs on ideas which in general terms may be useful and productive, but the reality makes clear are not pragmatic and functional.

As Field (2025, pp. 67-68) says it,  quoting Krein, the goal of the New Right is the “ … ‘(Krein) destruction of the soulless managerial class, a task inseparable from the assertion of a healthier culture and a stronger elite in its place’ … Kriens programmatic recommendation reads: ‘The political project of supreme importance is therefore the transformation of passive Middle Americans into a new ruling elite, while the ideological project of supreme significance is the formulation of a new nationalism which will justify that political project.’ This is heady stuff.”  Heady stuff, without empirical credentials, indeed. And, it is not happening. 

Instead, an Authoritarian Nationalism is emerging, with the vertical power rule of men being installed in an American Autocracy, which is neutralizing the Democracy of Middle Americans. The supposed “soulless managerial class” is being replaced by a small group of loyalists to the supposed MAGA cause, who have both neofascist and authoritarian tendencies.  Like a colleague of mine said a few days after the 2024 Election, “the fasciste have arrived, and even the libertarians are all in.”  Go figure. Yes: The shared other interest of Middle Americans is certainly not what is being represented by same.  Rather, the egoistic-hedonistic-narcissistic frame of “the Leader” and loyalists is the driver, which has little to nothing to do with Middle Americans.

Seems White Nationalism as in Nativism is Favored in a Re-integrated Church and State

But, back to Field (2025, p. 68) who says:   “According to Krein,  “the great failure of the (established prior to 2016) American right has been the failure to define an American nationalism at once grounded in binding, necessarily particularist, traditions and institutions while at the same time leavened by a creed worthy of the name’ … (Field claiming the New Right in effect is working to bring back)  … white nationalism … nativisim … fascistic (us vs them framing) …  paleoconservatism … old fashioned racism.” 

And, don’t forget, the New Right is about reintegrating church and state, as in bringing Conservative Catholicism and Evangelical “Christianity” back into play, relying on old religious books for political guidance,  without concern for empirical credibility.

Red Caesar Would Run Said Nationalism

Field then turns to the even more extreme than Plautus (Krein), the posts of  Decius --- the pseudonym of Michael Anton --- who was all in on Caesarism, a vertical power rule of men (literally) Autocracy, as though it was far superior to any form of Democracy. Decius even went so far a to claim only a corrupt  America could possibly have elected President Obama twice: Really? 

Decius was also totally against any kind of egalitarian immigration, illegal or otherwise.  Great Replacement “Theory” built on anything but solid empirical ground is in play in the view of Decius. It is theory built on a foundation of cargo-cult science.  It is based in the paleoconservative wanting to go back to the tribe, as in empathy-with only that tribe, as though said tribe was the best that could ever be, as Field (2025, p. 69) calls it, “love of one’s own.” It leads to the cargo-cult claim that somehow America First,  going back to some magical time that never existed,  has any substantive and productive meaning.  It leads to the related claim that only the MAGA loyalists are to be the First --- the “us” --- and are superior over any and all of the “them.”  

Decius was all in on inequality as something not only to be recognized but imposed.  Only certain people qualify to be part of America First. Exclusion is the norm in a vertical power  Autocracy, and the notion of inclusiveness in a horizontal power Democracy is rejected.

Extreme Homophobia Also a Force

Another hero of the Roman Republic was Manlius, adopted by MAGA New Right Gladden Pappin, a pro-Caesar populist sort. Pappin is known for extreme views on homosexuality, which supports that part of the MAGA New Right. But, the main Pappin focus is on economy, favoring an “… economics that broke with the presuppositions of technocracy and managerialism … belief that politics has ceded too much authority to the experts … (Field 2025, p. 72).”  Intriguingly, Pappin came down hard on Neoliberalism (as in the 1970-2008 Neoliberal Order, put in link??) the kind of economics touted by more old-line Conservatives, especially the Libertarian Branch connecting back to Milton Friedman and the Libertarian Branch of the Chicago School of Economics.  The State was to stay out of the economy.  Pappin disagrees.  

The MAGA New Right wants to use the Government to shape the economy to what serves the MAGA. Pappin is all in on “… trade protectionism, keen attention to the problems of automation, … new thinking about production and value … genuine respect for employment, manufacturing, and real production value—and disdain for commodification and financialization (Field 2025, p. 73).” Krein claimed Trump would deliver on all said fronts.  Well, all such concerns are real, as DIT also makes clear, but the approach of the MAGA New Right since January 20, 2025 is not addressing any of said concerns in reasoned ways.  Rather, it is a kind of authoritarian takeover with neofascist framing common in Authoritarian Nationalist systems, not in a Democracy.  The Metaeconomic Order (??point to the Substack) could actually solve said problems: The MAGA Authoritarian Nationalistic Order just makes all said problems even worse.

MAGA is Trumpers but Some Have Pulled Support

Field points to how the Journal of American Greatness was eventually shut down.  The various contributors moved on.  Anton to form  American Greatness.  Krein and Pappin moved on to form American Affairs.  Both of said supposed legitimate outlets have questionable scientific (and humanities) credentials.  Krein eventually pulled his support of Trump, calling “the administration disgraceful and urged others to stop defending Trump (Field 2025, p. 74).”  So, hope reigns. In contrast, “Pappin rose through the ranks of the Catholic/Postliberal faction of the New Right and became one of its core constituents—one of its most prolific writers, most popular speakers, and an eager participant in pro-Hungary propagandizing (Field 2025, p. 75).”

And, at the risk to quoting too much of Field in one place… this overview makes an important distinction:  “One way to distinguish Krein’s trajectory from that of Anton and Pappin is to say that only Krein had the good sense not to continue down anything like the Schmittian path. Carl Schmitt (Note: Schmitt was a Third Reich intellectual supporter, very much influencing and contributing to many mistakes and horrors in 1930s-1945 Germany) was a reactionary thinker and legal scholar with a Catholic background who was prominent during the turbulent Weimar period in Germany that preceded the takeover of the country by Hitler and the National Socialists. When the Nazis did gain power, he joined the Party and had significant influence, for a time, in Hitler’s regime. He has been called the ‘the crown jurist of the Third Reich,’ and his work justified limitless emergency powers (Field 2025, p. 75).” Distance oneself from Schmitt, please.

The flood of Executive Orders since January 20, 2025,  claiming national emergencies and ignoring the bounds of the Constitution comes especially to mind.  As Field (2025, p. 75) notes, in early 2025, Trump posted on Truth Social that ‘He who saves his Country does not violate any Law’. ”  Said claim is Schmittian to the core. Schmitt advocated for raw power and force in an Authoritarian Nationalism, which history makes clear cannot and does not work.