Analyze. In the United States House of Representatives, the commission of inquiry into the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 continued its work as the midterm elections on Tuesday, November 8 approached. She is conducting her investigations into the responsibility of Donald Trump and his entourage for these events, which took place as parliamentarians confirmed the results of the 2020 presidential election. However, this investigation does not weigh very heavily in the campaign for the midterm elections on Tuesday 8 November. Although 71% of Americans believe democracy is under threat, the economy remains their top concern, according to a poll published by the New York Times in July. The hearings nonetheless shed light on the role certain intellectuals play in supporting Trumpism.
Among the latter, the one who is considered the architect of the day of January 6th: John Eastman. This lawyer and former law professor wrote the plan that Donald Trump wanted to implement to prevent Joe Biden from becoming president. This worthless legal framework made Vice President Mike Pence the key cog in allowing the billionaire to remain in the White House.
Through John Eastman, Americans discovered the influence a little-known think-tank had gained under Trump. The attorney is in fact a researcher at the Claremont Institute. This think tank in suburban Los Angeles employs a variety of thinkers who spread hate speech like John Eastman, insurgent and heavily authoritarian. Until recently, the Claremont Institute was respected within the conservative establishment. Their radicalization through the adoption of illiberal and intolerant positions shows how seduced certain American intellectual elites are by democratic regression.
Arbitrary Powers
The Claremont Institute was founded in 1979 by Harry Jaffa (1918-2015), a brilliant intellectual who could be uncompromising. It was he who would have inspired Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, to succinctly formulate: “Extremism in defense of liberty is not a vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is not a virtue. Barry Goldwater, supported by the party’s more radical wing, was speaking at the Republican convention at the time. With these two sentences he ended a security and war-mongering discourse. But Harry Jaffa is a character not limited to this formula. He is also the author of a critically acclaimed work on Abraham Lincoln, the visionary president who abolished slavery in 1865. A student of the philosopher Leo Strauss (1899-1973), a protector of neoconservatism, Jaffa is the initiator of the current West Coast Straussians
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