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CNP Helped Spawn Trumpism, Disrupted the Transfer of Power, and Stoked the Assault on the Capitol
https://washingtonspectator.org/nelson-cnp/. . .
One major player in the events leading up to the assault on the Capitol was the Council for National Policy, an influential coalition of Christian conservatives, free-market fundamentalists, and political activists. Over the previous year the CNP and its members and affiliates organized efforts to challenge the validity of the election, conspired to overturn its results, and tried to derail the orderly transfer of power. This is an account of the measures they took, leading up to the deadly January 6 insurrection.
The Council for National Policy was founded in 1981 by a group of televangelists, Western oligarchs, and Republican strategists to capitalize on Ronald Reagan’s electoral victory the previous year. From the beginning, its goals represented a convergence of the interests of these three groups: a retreat from advances in civil and political rights for women and minorities, tax cuts for the wealthy, and raw political power. Operating from the shadows, its members, who would number some 400, spent the next four decades courting, buying, and bullying fellow Republicans, gradually achieving what was in effect a leveraged buyout of the GOP. Favorite sons, such as Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, were groomed, financed, and supported. Apostates, such as John McCain and Jeff Flake, were punished and exiled. The leaders of the CNP tended to favor their conservative Christian co-religionists, but political expedience came first.
In 2016, the CNP put its partners’ money, data, and ground game behind Donald Trump, as the ultimate transactional candidate. Trump promised it retrograde social policies, a favorable tax regime, regulatory retreats, and its choice of federal judges. He delivered in spades. By 2020, the leaders of the CNP were ready to go to extreme lengths to keep him—and themselves—in power.
Over the final year of the Trump presidency, the CNP took center stage. By January 2020, its leading figures had become sought-after guests on talk shows and frequent visitors to the White House. Many of its stated goals had been advanced. By March, the Republican Senate had confirmed more than 185 of Trump’s conservative nominees for the federal bench. All but eight of the judges had ties to the Federalist Society, headed by longtime CNP members Eugene Meyer and Leonard Leo. Two of the CNP’s favored Supreme Court nominees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, had been confirmed. The court was only one justice away from a conservative majority, and the CNP had its eye on the seat held by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. With a second term in office and normal attrition, Trump could decisively tilt the federal courts, opening the door for a massive overhaul of the American legal framework.
Many initiatives that were pending in the courts had been addressed by fiat. Trump rolled back scores of environmental regulations created to protect air quality, potable water supplies, and wildlife, as a quid pro quo for the support he received from CNP’s favored oil and gas interests. His administration decimated the budgets and personnel of federal agencies assigned to protect public health, public safety, and public lands, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture, and the National Park Service, to the benefit of corporations and extractive industries. There was also notable progress on CNP’s social agenda, with the erosion and rollback of the rights of LGBT populations, women, and minorities in the courts and state legislatures.
One major player in the events leading up to the assault on the Capitol was the Council for National Policy, an influential coalition of Christian conservatives, free-market fundamentalists, and political activists. Over the previous year the CNP and its members and affiliates organized efforts to challenge the validity of the election, conspired to overturn its results, and tried to derail the orderly transfer of power. This is an account of the measures they took, leading up to the deadly January 6 insurrection.
The Council for National Policy was founded in 1981 by a group of televangelists, Western oligarchs, and Republican strategists to capitalize on Ronald Reagan’s electoral victory the previous year. From the beginning, its goals represented a convergence of the interests of these three groups: a retreat from advances in civil and political rights for women and minorities, tax cuts for the wealthy, and raw political power. Operating from the shadows, its members, who would number some 400, spent the next four decades courting, buying, and bullying fellow Republicans, gradually achieving what was in effect a leveraged buyout of the GOP. Favorite sons, such as Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, were groomed, financed, and supported. Apostates, such as John McCain and Jeff Flake, were punished and exiled. The leaders of the CNP tended to favor their conservative Christian co-religionists, but political expedience came first.
In 2016, the CNP put its partners’ money, data, and ground game behind Donald Trump, as the ultimate transactional candidate. Trump promised it retrograde social policies, a favorable tax regime, regulatory retreats, and its choice of federal judges. He delivered in spades. By 2020, the leaders of the CNP were ready to go to extreme lengths to keep him—and themselves—in power.
Over the final year of the Trump presidency, the CNP took center stage. By January 2020, its leading figures had become sought-after guests on talk shows and frequent visitors to the White House. Many of its stated goals had been advanced. By March, the Republican Senate had confirmed more than 185 of Trump’s conservative nominees for the federal bench. All but eight of the judges had ties to the Federalist Society, headed by longtime CNP members Eugene Meyer and Leonard Leo. Two of the CNP’s favored Supreme Court nominees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, had been confirmed. The court was only one justice away from a conservative majority, and the CNP had its eye on the seat held by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. With a second term in office and normal attrition, Trump could decisively tilt the federal courts, opening the door for a massive overhaul of the American legal framework.
Many initiatives that were pending in the courts had been addressed by fiat. Trump rolled back scores of environmental regulations created to protect air quality, potable water supplies, and wildlife, as a quid pro quo for the support he received from CNP’s favored oil and gas interests. His administration decimated the budgets and personnel of federal agencies assigned to protect public health, public safety, and public lands, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture, and the National Park Service, to the benefit of corporations and extractive industries. There was also notable progress on CNP’s social agenda, with the erosion and rollback of the rights of LGBT populations, women, and minorities in the courts and state legislatures.
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