Up From Conservatism on Capitol Hill

Dear John,

On December 11 at the United States Capitol Building, the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life (CAWL) held a conference that sketched out a 2024 battle plan for the future of the Right. 

This gathering was not merely notable. It was momentous. The message, who delivered it, and where and why it was delivered will have a lasting impact as we enter a decisive year for the future of the Republic.

Part of the message was to say loud and clear in the U.S. Capitol—with the help of allied members of the House and Senate—that since the end of the Cold War, the conservative establishment has a long history of losing, and has failed even to learn from its failures.

Despite conservative electoral victories, officeholders have mostly proven weak and ineffective because of a lack of courage and the absence of the will to win. It’s not the lack of tools to turn America from its course of destruction—it’s the unwillingness to use them.  

The other part of the message was to raise a banner of leadership to rally around—to put an end to this timidity and to make thinkable what formerly was not.

The Claremont Institute is the intellectual force behind a rapidly growing coalition in the House and Senate that has the stiff resolve needed to turn things around. And that coalition regards our latest book, Up from Conservatism: Revitalizing the Right after a Generation of Decay, as a roadmap for their legislation. 

Members of the coalition speaking at the event were Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio and members of the House of Representatives Dan Bishop of North Carolina, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, and Brian Babin of Texas.

They joined our scholars Arthur Milikh, Matthew Peterson, Jeremy Carl, and Michael Anton in exploring the road ahead. Congressman Jim Banks of Indiana, who leads the House Anti-Woke Caucus, delivered closing remarks. 

You can whet your appetite with the highlights above, or view the whole event from start to finish below. Here are a few hints at the flavor of the content (quotes condensed and edited for brevity): 

From Senator J.D. Vance: When we’re elected to power and we say we can’t do anything, how is that victory? Our answer to the administrative state can’t be that every time the American people give us power, we say the only thing we want to do is trim this thing down. Sometimes we need to make it more responsive to the will of the people. The most egregious and out-of-control part of the Deep State is the Department of Justice. We should make it investigate corruption in the government instead of persecute our people. 

From Congressman Jim Banks, founder and chairman of the House Anti-Woke Caucus: (Quoting our book): The New Right recognizes the left as an enemy, not merely an opposing movement, because the left today promotes a tyrannical conception of justice that is irreconcilable with the American idea of justice…There must be a political force that earnestly opposes this tyranny and wields legitimate political power in a way the old Right was allergic to. That is the goal of the New Right. 

The establishment Right hoped to be left alone to remain the perennial runner-up. The New Right understands that’s impossible because the stakes are too high. The New Right must take the Churchillian attitude that victory is the only aim—“however long and hard the road may be—for without victory, there is no survival.”

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The mission of the Claremont Institute Center for the American Way of Life is to refute woke doctrines, reclaim America's institutions, and form a new Right.