Claremont Institute Associates Glorify Deceased Dictator Francisco Franco & Promote Deceased Nazi Scholar Carl Schmitt
Claremont advises Project 2025, which will go into effect if Trump wins
By Jennifer Cohn
May 25, 2024
The Claremont Institute is an influential right wing think tank and advisor of Project 2025, an expansive plan for dismantling the so-called “administrative state” and placing the Department of Justice under the control of the president if Trump wins the 2024 presidential election. Claremont was founded by, among others, Hillsdale president Larry Arnn, who belongs to the Council for National Policy (CNP), a powerful umbrella organization for the Christian Right. CNP members were heavily involved in efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss, as detailed by “Shadow Network” author Anne Nelson.
The Claremont Institute personally prepared a report (the so-called “79 days” report) that war-gamed potential scenarios for the 2020 election’s aftermath, including one where local sheriffs would deputize ordinary citizens and members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys to shut down alleged anti-Trump “lawlessness.”
In the years since Trump’s defeat, several prominent Claremont associates and members have taken to openly glorifying Francisco Franco, Spain’s deceased murderous dictator, who was supported by Adolf Hitler (before World War II), gave Hitler a list of Spanish Jews (during World War II), killed and imprisoned tens of thousands of his alleged enemies, built and used concentration camps, and made Catholicism the official state religion, while banning public celebration of non-Catholic holidays. (Link to tweet.)
This is an incredibly alarming sign for Project 2025 and Trump 2.0.
In a similarly ominous sign, a number of influential Claremont associates and members have taken to promoting the political philosophy of Carl Schmitt, a deceased Nazi jurist who opposed checks and balances, said that politics is founded on the distinction between “friend” and “enemy”, and supported Hitler’s anti-Jewish policies and murder of political opponents.
On the issue of Franco, Charles Haywood (a generous Claremont funder) has written on X that Franco was “totally awesome.”
Haywood has also used his blog to promote Carl Schmitt’s book, The Concept of the Political, writing that the book has “extra value” for “Christians” because “reading it restores the proper Christian understanding of ‘enemy,’ something that has been (quite recently) lost, to our great detriment.”
Raw Egg Nationalist, a frequent contributor to American Mind (a Claremont publication), has promoted Schmitt in an American Mind article titled “Friend an Enemy.” Yes, he’s enamored of Franco too.
Raw Egg has also published a book through Antelope Press — which is known for publishing historical works written by Nazis — and tweeted the white supremacist symbol “1488,” as shown below. The “14” represents “the Fourteen Words, a white power phrase created by neo-Nazi David Lane,” while the “88” stands for “Heil Hitler” (because H is the 8th letter in the alphabet), as explained by Hatepedia. Raw Egg has apparently had a soft spot for Nazi symbolism since he was a child. (See screenshot 2, below, via @jake_meador on X.)
Unsurprisingly, Raw Egg is an ally of Claremont alum Jack Posobiec who has tweeted “1488” on multiple occasions, as well as the “echo symbol” (triple parentheses), which is used to target Jews, as detailed by journalist Michael E. Hayden.
Posobiec has a new book titled the “Unhumans” (his “nickname” for Democrats), which Raw Egg has promoted. Posobiec’s wife, Tanya Tay, has previously used her social media account to promote Raw Egg’s business, Kindred Harvest.
Posobiec, who has more than 2 million followers on X, is no fan of democracy.
Instead, he is enamored of Franco and Schmitt. Here are examples of posts demonstrating Posobiec’s Franco fandom.
And here’s an example of Posobiec praising Steve Bannon for understanding the friend/enemy distinction, an implied reference to Schmitt.
Claremont scholar Chris Buskirk seems to embrace “Schmittian” politics too, as evidenced by a social media post in which he wrote that, “We need politicians who … know the distinction between friend and enemy, and who will use political power when they have it.”
So does Claremont alum Nate Fischer, founder of American Reformer, whose website features an article by Claremont associate Matthew Peterson (a former Claremont VP) titled “The Friend/Enemy Distinction.”
Peterson’s article discusses Schmitt and claims that utilizing the friend/enemy political paradigm doesn’t violate the biblical admonition to “love your enemies” because (in his view) the admonition applies only to private enemies, not public enemies.
Peterson and Fischer also co-founded a separate company, New Founding, although Peterson has since moved to Blaze Media. “New Founding” partners with Kindred Harvest, which was co-founded by Raw Egg.
Fischer’s other organization, American Reformer, supports the “Center for Baptist Leadership” founded by Trump/Heritage alum William Wolfe, a self-professed “Christian Nationalist”, as we previously reported. (See Brief #2) As discussed in that prior report, the Center for Baptist Leadership’s goals include replacing the already extremely “conservative” leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) with people who are even more extreme.
In addition, Fischer has acknowledged on X that he belongs to the Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), a far right “Christian” men’s society founded by Charles Haywood — the Claremont funder who thinks Franco was “totally awesome”. (Claremont has itself donated funds to SACR.)
Claremont president Ryan Williams followed Fischer’s lead by announcing on X that he’s a founding member of SACR’s board. Williams recently posted an image of a mug that he received as a present. He calls the mug “cheeky” because it references Schmitt’s friend/enemy framework.
Note that it was Williams who accepted a “prestigious medal” from Trump in 2019 for Claremont’s work in the “humanities.”
Meanwhile, Fischer works closely with Claremont fellow Josh Abbottoy, who is the Managing Partner of New Founding and the Executive Director of American Reformer. Last year, Abbotoy posted that, “Basically, America is going to need a Protestant Franco.”
Here’s how Franco enthusiasts demonstrate their support in Spain.
If this is not what you want for America, then you can stop Project 2025 (and Claremont) by voting for President Joe Biden later this year.
For more on Franco, I recommend this video.
