9 Laying Siege to the Institutions

Perhaps best to frame the notion of the siege with the Field (2025, p. 193) reporting findings from a historian by the name  David Sessions about how Claremonters actually formed an effort, a strategy and a tact to guide a siege, to carry out an assault on American Institutions. In DIT terms, the siege is to orchestrate an assault on the content of the shared interest represented especially in left-wing thinking and replace it with extreme right-wing interests, shared among the Claremonters especially, but growing within the MAGA New Right.

It is framed like this (the Clubhouse being an online meeting place):  “The panelists for the Clubhouse talk were Matthew J. Peterson, Kyle Shideler, James Poulos, David Reaboi, Christopher Rufo, Nate Fischer, and Ryan Williams. In other words, this was very much a Claremonter affair. David Sessions’s notes delineate with specificity a plan to use propagandistic terms to cultivate the antileft culture war. The participants openly acknowledged their intentions to launch a destructive and dishonest campaign against mainstream public institutions… (Rufo, a main framer of the assault suggested) … The New Right should work to turn ‘critical race theory’ into a toxic catch-all term—so toxic that it would lead to new laws in red states. He told listeners not to worry about potential backlash against them, because claims of white supremacy and racism had lost all meaning. And he concluded by advocating for a ‘propaganda war against public institutions.’ The plan was to turn critical race theory into a toxic brand category meant to “annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”

Assault on the Educational System is at All Levels

The assault was to take place especially in the educational system, starting at the local level in school board meetings, but soon it would be taken to an assault on all educational institutions, especially the universities.  It was all about stirring a ground swell of support for the emerging MAGA New Right, which really started out with a very small number of people. The frame was that any and all kinds of education had been invaded by the left, it had become “woke” and had to be taken back, and somehow purified to extreme New Right thinking. The plan was to “go ‘full bore against the educational establishment’ and try to demonize teachers’ unions, professors, graduate schools, and theorists (Field 2025, p. 194).” 

As DIT is based in understanding of history, and Field does not describe it as fascism, it sounds a great deal like the plan of the 1930s era fascists in Europe, as in use distortions to push propaganda in order to bring the youth into the fascist fold. It needs to be understood that modern fascism --- neofascism --- is far more nuanced, the fascism hidden in strategy, tactic, using slightly but never the less distorted claims about such things as critical race theory to wrap people into the neofascist system, the “us” vs “them” system with the “us” in power. Like Field (2025, p. 194) says it, “There is so much bad faith here—not to mention the presumption to speak for middle Americans.”  The New Right has  no qualms about linking together Americans with all manner of disparate concerns and ideas under the banner of CRT, and, then, claiming the educational institutions are engaged in indoctrinating the youth about a full range of said disparate concerns.

Everything was Framed the Spurious Claim that CRT was Actually Taught in the System

Field points to the lack of empirical credentials for so much of what the New Right claims. The 1776 Commission report is a case in point, rewriting history to claim a kind of “reverse discrimination” is now in play, and, well, slavery was somehow a good thing: Like Governor DeSantis said once, it gave the slaves new skills.  Sure. The case of the distortion about CRT is especially revealing, as CRT is not systematically taught anywhere in the educational system, and, certainly did not have much effect at all in the effort to deal with the rot of the Jim Crow years.  As Field makes clear, real people on the ground fixed that rot, not CRT.  Claiming otherwise is disingenuous to the core.  But, it was a shrewd, and, overall, ironically, in the at the New Right makes self-righteous claims all the time, not only immoral but extremely unethical. Assaulting American institutions using such a tactic is to assault the very American Ethic itself.

Unfortunately, it spread like a very bad Pandemic virus, wrapping in even mainline conservative organizations like the Heritage Foundation.  It came to be framed by language used by the right-wing in Europe (yes, it is back, in force) “… the activists and theorists who first spoke of a leftist ‘long march through the institutions’ (Field 2025, p. 196),” which now would be taken apart by the New Right. According to Rufo, and many others joined in the chorus,  “... the ‘woke” leftists and Marxists had infiltrated and conquered the “commanding heights of culture’ as well as elected government, the administrative state, and the corporate world.” And, it supposedly peaked under the Biden Administration, and it had to be taken down. Empirical evidence, please.

Even the Civil Rights Act was Disparaged

Like Field points out, sure, there had been a few wins on the Left, as in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Also, misogyny had been tamed, with women no longer as regularly under the thumb of authoritarian men. And, the serious and systematic inquiry using robust empirical techniques in the sciences and humanities had made it clear that the point to which a person is born on the gender spectrum is not chosen, but is simply genetics and biology.  As a result, such things as marriage were opened for access to everyone, no matter where on the gender spectrum said people had by chance been born. Discrimination on the basis of race and gender was in effect set aside as untenable, no something reasoned people could go along with: The Left had nudged the shared other-interest onto more reasoned common ground, for the true common good.  But, the New Right would not here of it.

Quoting a reviewer of a Rufo book, Field (2025, p. 1997) points to how “Zack Beauchamp concluded that ‘Rufo has serially exaggerated the phantom menace of a leftist cultural revolution because he seeks to justify its right-wing mirror: a wholesale assault on mainstream liberal institutions designed to indoctrinate the public into its preferred social vision’”  As Field correctly states it:  “That’s right.”   As  DIT makes clear, it is largely a total disregard for the truth for purpose, even using supposedly “noble” lies to achieve “noble” cause. According to Rufo, from that same book, the New Right is working to “ .. ‘re-secure the rights of the common citizen, allowing him to live as an equal, raise a family, participate in the Republic, and pursue the good, the true, and the beautiful’ (Field 2025, p. 197).”  And, New Right framing, it is the good, the true, and the beautiful for the “us” not the “them” and, clearly not for We the People. It is about smashing the American Institutions, i.e., smashing the shared other-interest framed by the US Constitution and that which has evolved from it over the last 250 years, and somehow start all over with the “us” in charge.  In crudest terms, it is a get the Libs frame of mind, with no reality-based plan by the New Right that would actually make it better.  

CRT Became the Focal Point for the Claim of All Left Wing Progress Relabeled as Lunacy

CRT became the focal point for the claim of ‘left-wing lunacy’ …  ‘to defeat the radical left, the socialists, Marxists, and the critical race theorists’ (Field 2025, quoting Trump claims, short on truth content as usual, p. 198).”  Trump became the perfect vehicle because disregard for truth, not even acknowledging facts, along with “noble” lies for purpose of taking power is the way. It served the long march to take down left-wing framing, the extent of which was greatly exaggerated.

The Manhattan Institute --- Rufo a Fellow --- put out a guide book for CRT claims. Hillsdale College got involved with curriculum. Many jumped on the CRT framing, including several red state legislatures, taking the CRT claims to extremes, as in banning all kinds of teaching deemed “divisive.”  The laws reflected the total disregard for truth claims coming from Rufo and others on the CRT bandwagon. And then along came the Pandemic:  “Protests against masking, critical race theory, and gender identity merged, and schools became a major flashpoint for this trifecta of political disagreement and frustration (Field 2025, p. 199).” 

And, then, there is Orban-Hungary. 

Even Deneen, a noted academic, traveled to Hungary to in effect study the strategy to introduce a MAGA New Right kind of politics. Orban had taken control over universities.  Orban had neutralized the old Enlightenment styled Democracy, replacing with vertical power system, an illiberal Democracy wherein We the People were no longer were in charge.  It was now Orban and loyalists, the “us” in charge, imposing the New Right frame of thinking on the “them.” The people behind the MAGA New Right were looking for ways to bring it about. It was all about the supposed loss of Christianity, and such things as CRT being imposed on the youth, and, homophobic (including especially trans) claims supposedly based in legitimate theology, totally ignoring the empirical science and humanities. Even the learned, well-read, widely published academic Deneen seemed all in.

CRT Claims Even Wrapped in an Assault on the LGBTQ+ Community

The anti-CRT easily spread to anti-LGBTQ, and, then, even into the world of investment with anti-ESG. Investment in any company that had any expression of empathy-with the other, including the Spaceship Earth system, was now something to be branded as “woke”  --- just another catchall term associated with CRT.  Anything having any frame of empathy-with, i.e. being in any sense mindfully aware of the state of the other, which could result in going into sympathy-with, and perhaps even compassion-for, was now wrapped under the anti-CRT banner of the MAGA New Right. 

In effect, empathy was banned, except for the empathy-with the “us” holding the extreme New Right views. Using DIT framing, only egoistic-(ironically, een hedonistic, given the moral claims)-narcissistic based self-interest frames, with a narrow band of shared other-interest with dark overtones, and Trump was the perfect conduit, were now to be recognized.  Such framing even led VP JD Vance (suggested by Libertarian Peter Theil in an earlier speech) to proclaim “The Universities are the Enemy.” 

Homophobia, too, Under the CRT Banner

And, then, here comes Governor DeSantis, the student of tactics in Orban-Hungary. The “Don’t Say Gay” bill restricted Florida educators on what could be said about the gender spectrum, totally denying any relevance to the empirical evidence from the sciences & humanities (especially ethics). A political hack was installed as the President of the University of Florida, and courses like even Sociology no longer allowed for meeting core requirements. The Humanities were especially put under assault.  Every teaching and research programs having any sense of empathy-with as a driving force in considering empirical reality, as in perhaps finding inclusive empathy across all people was essential to economic and social stability, were to be greatly restricted if not outrightly banned. It seems the study of the empirical foundation for DIT would be banned under said frame, as it considers the real possibility that empathy-with is essential.

DeSantis also took neofascist moves as represented in reviving the Florida State Guard, which had been dormant since 1947.   It was all about suppressing any kind of political opposition. 

Also, DeSantis took action, along with help of Rufo and others of the Hillsdale and Claremont frame of mind, to expand the Hillsdale-styled charter school system.  The former liberal arts New College was also taken over by Rufo-minded people, who claimed the indoctrination of students at all Florida Universities had be countered by the “truth” coming from the New Right. It was about building a “Hillsdale of the South”, the ultra-right wing Hillsdale College, pursuing the true, good, and beautiful as only the New Right can do.  The DeSantis redoing of universities, following on what had been done in Orban-Hungary, was to become the model for the United States. 

Any and All Kinds of Empathy-With is Disparaged

DeSantis also went after any and all expressions of empathy-with in the business world, demonstrated with an assault on Disney.  It was, to the New Right, all about eliminating “woke capitalism,” i.e., any capitalism not doing excessive greed, as highlighted in DIT is exactly the opposite of what should be done.  Any company tamping down excessive greed was to be sanctioned, in the general assault on ESG associated companies, with Disney claimed to be way to sensitive to the LGBTQ community.

As Field (2025, p. 207) points out, “Environmental, Social, and Governance metrics have been around for nearly two decades. In the world of asset management, ESG is a way of assessing a company based on how it contends with environmental risks, social considerations (treatment of its workforce, for example, or the diversity of its board), and its internal practices.”  In DIT terms, it is about looking to the extent to which a company is tempering the excesses inherent in business, primal in human nature, and a result in the businesses run by said humans. DIT makes clear such empathy-with considerations, as in ESG assessments, are key to productive, efficient, and stable business and market environment.  MAGA New Right framing ensures the opposite from the claims made by same, and clearly will not lead to the “true, good, and beautiful.” Empirical evidence, please. Also, even more ironically, while the MAGA New Right teeters toward Market Fundamentalism, with the call for “free markets,” investors are no longer free to invest in ESG companies.  MAGA New Right framing is authoritarian in character, in effect banning the free choice in the Market.

Case in point:  “… in 2021 Texas passed a law that forbade state and municipal entities from doing business with banks and firms that had restrictions on investments in the state’s oil and gas industry, including through the ESG investment mechanism (Field 2025, p. 208).”  Said law is authoritarian to the core, and requires investment in oil and gas industry firms who may well be causing all manner of damage, not acting on empathy-with the other, including the Spaceship Earth system. It is a clear case of the MAGA New Right driving economic inefficiency.  As Field 2025, p. 210) says it, the MAGA New right will allow “no mechanism except for unfettered, red-blooded, free-market greed” --- no other mechanism,  no other approach has any economic legitimacy.  It is not about the best economy: It is about ideology to stop any effort to counter what the authoritarian with neofascist overtones MAGA New Right wants to do, without regard for the true good, the true common good for America.

MAGA New Right Took Over the Old Republican Party

The MAGA New Right, while working at “… its seizure of mainstream institutions—school boards, higher education, and the economy at large --- (Field 2025, p. 210),” also took over the Republican Party, in effect making it the MAGA Party. Intriguingly, the Heritage Foundation which represents 100s of Conservative organizations and think tanks went all in, with Project 1500 (oops, keep making that typo, 2025). The New Rights Lost Cause narrative took hold surrounding the events of January 6, 2021. On Project 2025 specifically (Field 2025, p. 214) “ the nine-hundred-plus page document (quoting historian Thomas Zimmer, it) ‘oozes the siege mentality, self-victimization, and grievance-driven lust for revenge that is fueling the Right and animating the plans …’ (it contains) signature elements of the New Right: catastrophism and Ideas First culture warriorism on behalf of a monolithic and antiliberal moralism.”

It was now even noble to outright lie for purpose, and, total disregard for the truth for purpose was already in play, starting with the bogus claim of a 2020 Stolen Election.  Using DIT which is based in empirical reality in search of fact content of the truth, said approach assures failure in the long run, but, yes, it can produce the purpose in the short run, a purpose even the MAGA New Right will eventually regret.  The truth is essential to the good and beautiful, a point the MAGA New Right has yet to grasp.

Led to an Assault on Modern Government

An especially devasting part of Project 2025 is the assault on Modern Government (see Hanson and Kopstein 2024 for similar efforts now spreading like a Spaceship-wide Pandemic), which is as Field (2025, p. 214) says it, a “comprehensive blueprint for how to dismantle segments of the government—while at the same time mobilizing the state, wherever possible, in favor of conservative moral purposes…  dismantling part would include eliminating the federal Department of Education, installing a “conservative” Environmental Protection Agency, and limiting the capacity of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to make recommendations. A major part of the plan involved removing job protections for civil servants and replacing them with political appointees and loyalists.”  It is about putting cargo-cult science in play, replacing legitimate science practiced by professional civil servants with ideology (and theology) based claims.

Field (2025, p.   ) then details how the Hard Right was also welcomed into the New Right. A point is directed at Nathan Pinkoski, political theorist, PhD from Oxford, who has touted a Catholic frame, in effect a vertical power authoritarian church & state Nationalism must be restored, going back to the 1500s. It certainly would take the system back toward the 1930s-1940s frame of Carl Schmitt, German philosopher and NAZI, with “us” in the church & state imposing their will – a supposed moral (and ethical) will coming from the heavens --- on the “them.”  Hazony, the Virtues of Nationalism frame, eventually gets associated with the Pinkoski, based in Schmitt, frame of thinking.  Hard Right Extremism here we go, with even academics like Hazony and Deneen all in.

Field claims a kind of schism came into play in about 2022, with the Postliberals like Deneen, to also include Ahmar, Pappin and Vermeule, although hard right extreme especially a related to reintegrating church and state, did some distancing from the Claremonters and National (Isolationist) Conservatives. The invasion of Ukraine by Putin-Russia, which was supported by Orban-Hungary, did not play well with the Postliberals. Even Hazony had to reconsider the Virtues of Nationalism, with Putin-Russia supposedly being a legitimate Nation now invading another legitimate Nation.