New Series From The American Mind: Multiculturalism vs. America
The Claremont Institute, well known for its quarterly Claremont Review of Books, has launched an online publication called The American Mind. Unique among conservative think tanks for its application of the principles of the Founding to the political challenges of today, the Claremont Institute intends The American Mind to drive the unfolding political and philosophical debates on the right. Regular readers of RealClear sites will note that both the CRB and its new online cousin are regularly linked.
“Defend America—Defeat Multiculturalism,” by Ryan Williams, president of the Claremont Institute and publisher of the Claremont Review of Books is worthy of special attention. Williams announces the Claremont Institute’s new campaign against identity politics and political correctness, arguing today’s multiculturalist enforcers seek to erase and replace America and its traditional notions of justice and equality. Williams posits that only the American right is in a position to push back against the multiculturalist creed and the disunity it promises. But this will take hard work on the part of conservatives in media, academia, think tanks, business, and other institutions of civil society.
To begin the campaign, there is a new series at The American Mind called “Multiculturalism vs. America.” The launching point for the feature is an essay by Claremont Institute chairman Thomas Klingenstein entitled “Our House Divided.”
Klingenstein makes the provocative argument that multiculturalism has morphed from a sort of academic fad into a comprehensive political philosophy bent on destroying the American way of life. Multiculturalism, according to Klingenstein, “conceives of society as a collection of cultural identity groups, each with its own worldview… and makes American history a collection of stories of white oppression, thereby dismantling our unifying, self-affirming narrative—without which no nation can long survive.” He credits President Donald Trump with using the 2016 campaign to expose multiculturalism as an existential threat to the union akin to slavery in the 1800s. Through the counterrevolutionary action of speaking uncomfortable and decidedly un-politically correct truths, Trump has opened new opportunities for Lincolnian politics our time.
In “Norman Podhoretz on Trump’s Virtues,” a preview of an interview with CRB editor Charles Kesler, Podhoretz examines Trump through Klingenstein’s lens of a battle between patriotism and multiculturalism—and finds that the president, with his love of country, comes out on the right side.
Conrad Black, the columnist and former newspaper publisher, responds to Klingenstein’s essay in “Trump vs. the Multiculturalist Insurrection.” Black casts the capitulation of the Democratic Party to illegal immigration and its reshaping of our democratic life and institutions as a full-scale rebellion, and further develops Klingenstein’s notion of President Donald Trump as the only alternative for those who seek to restore unity to these United States.
John Fonte of the Hudson Institute argues in “What The Right Must Learn from Trump” that the concept of “diversity” lies in the nexus between two deeply pernicious foundations to contemporary American political life: the administrative state and the cultural leviathan. The former represents the complex of bureaucratic agencies which effectively rule our lives unshackled from any constitutional limit. The latter is the “vast network of universities, mainstream media, corporate human resources departments, public schools, and the entertainment industry” which sets the moral tone, providing legitimacy to the administrative state. These two rogue elements collude to force ideological multiculturalism upon Americans. Per Fonte, we must follow Trump’s lead in fighting back.
R.R. Reno, editor of First Things, responds to Klingenstein in “Trump vs. Libertarian-Multiculturalism.” Reno points the finger at some on the Right no less than those on the Left. He distinguishes the deeply entrenched “cultural Marxism” of Left multiculturalism from the multiculturalism of “indifference” on the Right. “Almost the entire conservative apparatus is now captive to a libertarian-inflected political correctness,” Reno claims. The libertarian-conservative approach is to defend free speech, but to cast aside larger social and moral questions such as “what does it mean to be an American.” Whereas the Left seeks multicultural transformation, the Right sees cultural and moral norms as “matters of purely private concern” with no bearing on questions of governance.” Donald Trump’s opposition to this dispensation is the “sole source of his political power,” according to Reno.
In “Mass Culture: Multiculturalism vs. Education,” Claremont Institute senior fellow and professor of political science at University of Nevada-Reno John Marini contrasts our technologically enclosed, politically correct society to the liberally educated America we once were. He finds that although multiculturalism lays claim to “culture,” it is not cultural in any meaningful sense because it cannot articulate and defend its own principles.
David Azerrad of the Heritage Foundation exposes “The Identity Politics Playbook.” He argues that the term “identity politics” is preferable to “multiculturalism” because it makes clear that the problem is not an anodyne celebration of the varied origins of hyphenated Americans, or even solely a cultural threat, but one with a pointedly political mission.
This series serves as both a worthy introduction to the work of the Claremont Institute for the uninitiated, and an excellent read for the familiar. For those who wish to further engage with the ideas presented in the series, Claremont is hosting an event entitled “Multiculturalism vs. America” on May 3rd in Washington, D.C. Panel participants include Kesler, Azerrad, and the Claremont Institute’s Christopher Caldwell, plus Michael Anton of Hillsdale College, Henry Olsen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and Colleen Sheehan of Villanova University. The panels will be followed by a keynote address by Christopher DeMuth of the Hudson Institute, former longtime president of the American Enterprise Institute and author of a CRB cover essay anchoring a recent series on post-Trump politics at The American Mind.
Bill Zeiser is the editor of RealClearPolicy.
