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First Post
18 hours ago
- Politics
- First Post
US strikes in Iran carry a message to China against Taiwan invasion — but there's a catch
Analysts have said that US strikes on Iran's underground nuclear sites have a message for China against the invasion of Taiwan. However, they have noted that there is major catch with this approach: Unlike Iran, China already has nuclear weapons. read more A US Air Force B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber (C) is flanked by 4 US Marine Corps F-35 fighters during a flyover of military aircraft down the Hudson River and New York Harbor past York City, and New Jersey, US, July 4, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo US airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities carry a message to China against the invasion of Taiwan, according to analysts. China considers the self-ruled island of Taiwan a breakaway province and is committed to it reunification with the mainland — forcefully if needed. Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the military to be ready by 2027 for an invasion of Taiwan for the reunification. Analysts have said that the way US struck Iranian nuclear sites and deploy a group of bombers as decoys to Guam in the Indo-Pacific showed that the United States was capable of fielding bombers in two theatres and conducting two parallel operations. As the principal challenger in the Indo-Pacific, the message could not have been lost on China. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD However, analysts have stressed there is a catch. Unlike Iran, China has nuclear weapons and any US-China confrontation is bound to be very different from a US-Iran confrontation. How US strikes in Iran sent a message to China Firstly, US strikes told China that its top strategic sites, such as the Central Military Commission command center and forward wartime headquarters, would not be beyond the reach of US bombs. Notably, the United States is developing 'bunker buster' bombs expected to be four times more powerful than the ones dropped on Iran last week. Secondly, the deployment of decoy bombers to the Indo-Pacific was a 'brilliant deterrence operation' and demonstrated US capabilities to operate across the world from Tehran to Taiwan, according to Miles Yu, a former State Department policy planner on China. 'This operation also served as stern warning to the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] as to what the American military is capable of, especially our ability to outsmart, outplan, out-coordinate and overpower any adversary in a long-distant global conflict, whether it's half a world away in Tehran or over the Taiwan Strait,' Yu told Washington Times. Such a message also told China that it does not 'own' the Indo-Pacific region, according to Captain Jim Fanell, a former Pacific Fleet intelligence chief at the US Navy. 'Not only did it deceive the 'open source' intelligence community and provide operational security, but it was also a very important signal that the [People's Republic of China] does not have any 'ownership' of the western Pacific, and that America is still the most dominant military force in the world,' Fanell told Washington Times. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Thirdly, the bombing of Iranian nuclear sites served as the demonstration of Trump's will to intervene abroad if required and come to the aid of allies and partners. 'After the Iran strikes, I suspect that Chinese leaders will now be more nervous about testing President Trump's resolve' on Taiwan, Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told The New York Times. 'Caution is warranted, both because Trump appears more willing to use force than many expected, but also because his actions seem less predictable,' Cooper further said. But there's a catch Despite the gravity of the message that US strikes inside Iran sent to China, there is one catch: Unlike Iran, China has nuclear weapons. As China has nuclear weapons and has naval and air defence capabilities much better than Iran, any US-China confrontation is bound to be very different from US-Iran confrontation. Moreover, Israel holds a special place for the United States that Taiwan does not hold. Trump, or any other US president for that matter, may not feel the same security commitment to Taiwan as Israel. For decades, China has prepared for the invasion of Taiwan and US intervention. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Chinese leaders are confident that their military is much more formidable than the weakened Iranian forces that Israeli and US forces overcame, said Stacie Pettyjohn, a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, according to NYT. 'The US couldn't just swoop in there with an exquisite capability and launch a limited number of strikes and win. That is something that would be very clear to Beijing,' Pettyjohn further said. In the case of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan that sees US military involvement on Taiwan's side, the destruction will be at a scale not seen since World War 2, according to a wargame by Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The CSIS exercise concluded that US-Taiwanese forces will thwart the Chinese occupation of Taiwan, but the costs will be so huge that US military will be degraded for many years. 'This defense comes at a high cost. The United States and Japan lose dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and thousands of servicemembers. Such losses would damage the US global position for many years. While Taiwan's military is unbroken, it is severely degraded and left to defend a damaged economy on an island without electricity and basic services. China also suffers heavily. Its navy is in shambles, the core of its amphibious forces is broken, and tens of thousands of soldiers are prisoners of war,' the wargame's report noted. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
News18
4 days ago
- Politics
- News18
Supreme Court Backs Trump, Lets Him Deport Migrants Rejected By Their Home Countries
Last Updated: The case drew attention after eight criminal migrants were stopped mid-deportation to South Sudan. The US Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump another legal victory on Monday, allowing his administration to deport undocumented immigrants to third countries, especially if their home nations refuse to take them back. In an unsigned order, the justices set aside lower court rulings that had restricted such deportations, giving Trump more leeway in dealing with some of the most difficult deportation cases. The case is still ongoing, but the court's order means the earlier rulings will not apply for now. The three liberal justices dissented. Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the court's intervention a 'gross abuse" of judicial power and warned that some deportees could face torture or death. 'In matters of life and death, it is best to proceed with caution," she wrote. The case centers on migrants who have been ordered to leave the US but whose home countries are unwilling to receive them. Under American law, such individuals can instead be sent to a 'third country" if one agrees to accept them. The migrants for whom this case grabbed attention are a group of eight men. These eight men are convicted of serious crimes including murder, kidnapping and sexual assault. The Trump administration attempted to deport them to South Sudan last month after their home countries had refused to take them back. The effort sparked legal backlash when Judge Brian Murphy, an Obama appointee to the court in Massachusetts, halted the flight mid-journey, arguing the deportees had not been given a fair chance to contest their removal. Washington Times. The plane was diverted to a US military base in Djibouti, where the men are currently being held in a shipping container turned makeshift detention unit. Homeland Security says it is still trying to provide them with a chance to appeal their deportation to South Sudan. South Sudan is a country the US itself warns its citizens against visiting due to instability. Among the group are Cuban nationals convicted of attempted murder and kidnapping, a Laotian man convicted of murder, two Burmese nationals found guilty of sex crimes and others from Mexico, Vietnam and South Sudan with similarly grave convictions. Trump's legal team has accused the judge of overreach, saying his ruling endangered US military operations, diplomatic ties in Africa and ongoing humanitarian efforts. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also said the judge's intervention compromised secretive negotiations with partner nations. Despite the Supreme Court siding with Trump, Judge Murphy ruled Monday that the men in Djibouti must still be granted due process. First Published: June 24, 2025, 22:55 IST
Morocco World
30-05-2025
- Politics
- Morocco World
Western Sahara: Bolton Continues to Lead Anti-Morocco Crusade
Rabat – John Bolton, who Trump fired from his position as national security adviser in 2019, is keeping up his Morocco-bashing campaign in favor of Algerian-backed claims challenging Moroccan sovereignty over its southern provinces in Western Sahara. In a new opinion piece published in the Washington Times, Bolton urged the US to support the outdated referendum claims promoted by the Algerian regime. Bolton's latest plea is bound to fall on unreceptive ears For decades, Algeria's regime has been using the Polisario Front – a separatist group harbored in the Tindouf camps on Algerian soil – to advance its interests against Morocco by supporting referendum and self-determination claims. Ignoring Algeria's involvement in interference in the domestic affairs of other countries in the Sahel region, Bolton blamed Morocco's strong ties with the West as the reason that 'worked to the Sahrawis' detriment.' But he claimed that the situation is changing, suggesting that Algeria is seeking new alliances and the first-ever US-Algeria military cooperation agreement that the North African country signed at the start of the second Trump administration. This 'signals a new direction,' he claimed. To the dismay of Polisario supporters, however, recent developments suggest that their continued agitation for separatism in southern Morocco are bound to fall on unreceptive ears. In the past few weeks, many comments and moves by various US officials have given renewed vigor to Washington's support for Morocco's sovereignty over its southern provinces. Indeed, with the first Trump administration being the instigator of Washington's unambiguous embrace of Morocco's territorial integrity in December 2020, the incumbent Trump administration has in recent statements signaled its unwavering commitment to upholding Western Sahara and that came months after Trump assumed his office as the US President of the United States for the second time in the country's history. In April, the US sent a direct setback to Algeria's regime, stressing that its decision of December 2020 remains unchanged and recognizing Morocco's full sovereignty over its southern provinces. The State Department issued a similar statement following a meeting between Marco Rubio and his Moroccan counterpart . In it, the seat of American diplomacy made sure to remind Algeria and its advocates that Washington supports Morocco's Autonomy Plan as the only feasible political solution to end the Western Sahara dispute. All of this comes as the Moroccan autonomy initiative continues to gather steam and build unprecedented momentum. Over 113 countries, including once staunch supporters of the Polisario, have over the past decade joined the growing list of nations that see the autonomy plan as the only viable path to a lasting and realistic political solution to the Sahara dispute. Reality does not matter Yet this blindingly obvious reality does not appear to discourage Bolton from continuing his support for the lost, sidelined cause of Sahrawi separatism in southern Morocco. His latest anti-Moroccan tirade dismissed Morocco's growing momentum and turned a deaf ear on Polisario's alarming use of terrorist threats to give renewed urgency and relevance to its waning cause. Many observers have decried Polisario's recent terrorist attacks in southern Morocco, yet Bolton dismissed these condemnations as a 'new line of propaganda' against Sahrawi emancipation. 'The Polisario's opponents are trying a new line of propaganda, alleging without evidence that the Polisario has come under Iran's influence. This misinformation may well be intended to divert U.S. attention from Morocco's decades-long stonewalling against a referendum,' he claimed. Bolton's dismissive claims come in defiance of many reports, including some that have quoted high-level US and regional officials as confirming that there has been collusion between Polisario (in support of the Algerian regime's agenda in the Maghreb) and Hezbollah, the notorious Iranian proxy. In April, the Washington Post quoted sources as confirming that Hezbollah had been trainingPolisario operatives on Syrian soil, with the blessing of Iran and the fallen al-Assad regime in Syria. 'Over the years, Iran has fostered a wide array of proxy groups to advance its interests,' the report said, quoting a regional official and a third European official who said Iran trained fighters from the 'Algeria-based Polisario Front' that are now detained by Syria's new security forces. Such reports have resurfaced on many occasions in recent weeks and months, alerting the international community about Algeria's interference in the domestic affairs of several countries. 'Over the years, Iran has fostered a wide array of proxy groups to advance its interests,' the Post report went on to stress, quoting a regional official and a third European official as indicating that Iran had trained fighters from the 'Algeria-based Polisario Front' that are now detained by Syria's new security forces. Read also: US Senator James Inhofe, Western Sahara, and 'Alternative Facts' Meanwhile, Algeria's interference in its neighbors' internal affairs is now known to have not been limited to Morocco. Mali and its Sahel allies, Niger and Burkina Faso, have recently slammed Algeria's hegemonic ambitions in the Sahel. They accused the Algerian army of shooting down a surveillance drone near the border with Mali, lamenting that this was not an isolated incident as Algeria had long interfered in Malian internal affairs. Yet none of this was enough to convince Bolton of the veracity of Morocco's warnings against the security threats that Polisario and its Algerian sponsors represent not only for Morocco, but for the entire Sahelo-Saharan corridor. Like most hardened ideologues, Bolton prefers his tainted vision to the reality under his nose. Despite mounting evidence of Polisario's cancerous impact on regional security and stability, he remains convinced that the terror-linked militia is a peace-loving group seeking decolonization. The mountain of reports about Polisario's atrocities; the well-documented links between Polisario and terrorist groups in the Sahel; the tortured voices of oppressed locals denouncing Polisario and calling for a political solution to end their families' decades-spanning tragedy, the pile of UN reports acknowledging the impossibility of a referendum-based solution — none of this seems to matter to Bolton. And what's more, arguing that Western Sahara 'should return to its 1991 origins,' Bolton is implicitly suggesting that his truth is what matters to him, not the tragic reality on the ground. Tags: Algeria and John Boltonjohn Bolton and algeria
Globe and Mail
28-05-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Else Nutrition CEO Highlights Urgent Need for Infant Formula Alternatives in The Washington Times Op-Ed
VANCOUVER, BC , May 28, 2025 /CNW/ - ELSE NUTRITION HOLDINGS INC. (TSX: BABY) (OTCQX: BABYF) (FSE: 0YL) ("Else" or the "Company"), a pioneer in wholefood, Plant-Based nutrition for babies, toddlers, children and adults, is pleased to announce that its CEO and Co-Founder, Hamutal Yitzhak , authored a featured op-ed published in The Washington Times on May 25, 2025 . Titled " Operation Stork Speed will ensure babies get the nutrition they need," the piece highlights the urgent need to modernize the infant formula regulatory environment and emphasizes the importance of increasing access to safe and innovative nutrition options—particularly for infants with dietary restrictions or allergen sensitivities. The Washington Times has a substantial readership in Washington, D.C. , particularly among Congress and the Administration. "Our mission has always been to deliver a safe, plant-based infant formula that supports healthy development and gives families—especially those with dietary or dairy/soy allergen concerns—greater access to trusted nutrition," said Hamutal Yitzhak , CEO and Co-Founder of Else Nutrition. "Operation Stork Speed is an excellent initiative designed to expand access to these types of formulas, and as noted in the Washington Times op-ed, we look forward to continuing to collaborate with the White House, policymakers, and the FDA as we look to bring our unique solution to market in a swift and responsible manner." Regulatory Pathway and Status Else Nutrition has developed a clean-label, whole plant-based infant formula intended as an alternative to dairy- and soy-based products. In 2023, the Company successfully concluded the pre-clinical studies required and received Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for its infant growth clinical study protocol—marking a key step toward U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) compliance. At present, the Company is awaiting final authorization from the FDA to initiate its clinical trial in the United States , pending regulatory modernization that the company believes may be accelerated through Operation Stork Speed. Several Congressional Appropriators recently called on the FDA to accelerate this effort, as directed through an oversight letter. Policy Advocacy and Operation Stork Speed The op-ed coincides with the recent launch of Operation Stork Speed, an initiative by the Trump administration and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , aimed at improving the regulatory review and safety of infant formula in the United States as well as encouraging innovation and transparency in formula composition to serve unmet needs. Ms. Yitzhak's commentary lends industry perspective to this national conversation and urges regulatory authorities to accelerate the path to market for scientifically supported, non-traditional formula options. Else Nutrition is actively engaged in this effort through direct outreach to policymakers, bipartisan advocacy on Capitol Hill, and consumer education. The Company continues to advocate for updated infant formula guidelines that recognize the validity and safety of plant-based, non-soy, allergen-friendly alternatives. About Else Nutrition Holdings Inc. Else Nutrition Holdings Inc. (TSX: BABY, OTCQX: BABYF, FSE: 0YL) is a food and nutrition company in the international expansion stage focused on developing innovative, clean, and Plant-Based food and nutrition products for infants, toddlers, children, and adults. Its revolutionary, Plant-Based, non-soy formula is a clean-ingredient alternative to dairy-based formulas. Since launching its Plant-Based Complete Nutrition for Toddlers, made of whole foods, almonds, buckwheat, and tapioca, the brand has received thousands of powerful testimonials and reviews from parents, gained national retailer support, and achieved rapid sales growth. Awards and Recognition: "2017 Best Health and Diet Solutions" award at Milan's Global Food Innovation Summit #1 Best Seller on Amazon in the Fall of 2020 in the New Baby & Toddler Formula Category "Best Dairy Alternative" Award 2021 at World Plant-Based Expo Nexty Award Finalist at Expo West 2022 in the Plant-Based lifestyle category During September 2022 , Else Super Cereal reached the #1 Best Seller in Baby Cereal across all brands on Amazon To delve deeper into Else Nutrition's offerings and its revolutionary approach to nutrition, visit TSX Neither the TSX nor its regulation services provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains statements that may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as "will" or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements in this press release include statements with respect to the anticipated dates for filing the company's financial disclosure documents. Such forward-looking statements reflect current estimates, beliefs, and assumptions, which are based on management's perception of current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors management believes are appropriate in the circumstances. No assurance can be given that the foregoing will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements made in this press release assume, among others, the expectation that there will be no interruptions or supply chain failures as a result of COVID-19 and that the manufacturing, broker, and supply logistic agreement with the company does not terminate. Actual results may differ from the estimates, beliefs, and assumptions expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which reflect management's expectations only as of the date of this press release. The company disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
He's a Key Thinker of the Radical Right, But Is He All That?
PUT IT THIS WAY: Samuel T. Francis has been thoroughly rediscovered. Once upon a time, Sam Francis had been a leading voice of the hard right—what used to be called the 'paleoconservatives.' By the time he died twenty years ago, he had slipped into relative obscurity. But now? Growing interest over the last decade, combined with the Trumpian shift in American politics, has brought this right-winger's name back into the national political conversation. The paleoconservatives were the embattled and often embittered second generation of traditionalists within the conservative intellectual movement. They emerged in the late 1970s and early '80s as a conscious group in direct opposition to 'neoconservatives.' (The term 'paleoconservative,' in currency as early as 1980, obviously riffs on neocon.) The paleos resented the neos for several reasons. Intellectually, they did not consider the neocons, who were often Cold War liberals who moved to the right in the late 1960s or in the '70s, to be truly conservative. The paleocons thought, rather, that the neocons were still liberals, just disgruntled ones, and that their basic assumptions remained left-wing, not right-wing. Second, the paleos resented the neocons' capacity to dominate right-leaning venues and patronage networks. While the well-connected and well-credentialed neocons appeared to live large in multiple Washington think tanks, the paleos had a harder time funding their own think tank up in Illinois, or winning professorships or federal appointments. In the public mind, the most salient fact about the paleoconservatives was that they were, on the whole, more drawn to racialist thinking than were mainstream conservatives. For several paleocons, this became a decisive factor in their careers. That was certainly the case for Francis. For all his trenchant writing—the American Society of Newspaper Editors twice, in 1989 and 1990, gave him an award for his Washington Times editorial writing—his increasingly open racism led to a slow-motion expulsion from the conservative mainline. In 1995, the Times cashiered Francis for saying whites ought to 'reassert our identity and our solidarity, and we must do so in explicitly racial terms through the articulation of a racial consciousness as whites' at a conference hosted by white supremacist magazine American Renaissance.1 Francis denied being a white nationalist. In the immediate aftermath he said, 'I believe there are racial differences, there are natural differences between the races. I don't believe that one race is better than another. There's reasonably solid evidence for IQ differences, personality and behavior differences. I understand those things have been taken to justify segregation and white supremacy. That is not my intent.' But his later efforts directly involved raising the political consciousness of whites as a bloc. He argued this was because a consciously white political movement was the only realistic basis for his preferred political outcomes, since, he thought, nonwhites in America were essentially clients of a liberal elite. He continued to make this case at racist venues like American Renaissance where he was celebrated as a victim of liberal censorship. Even if we take at face value Francis's denials of being a white nationalist himself—and I don't think we have to—he was objectively pro–white nationalist. By the time he died on February 15, 2005 at the age of 57, Francis was cofounding the white supremacist National Policy Institute. Since 2016, however, a cottage industry has been busily recovering Francis's thinking. From the center right, Matthew Rose in First Things; from the left, Peter Kolozi and John Ganz; from the center, Damon Linker. Youthful hard rightists plumb Francis for insight. (Michael Brendan Dougherty, now of National Review, beat everyone to the punch by highlighting Francis in 2007.) At his height, Francis's allies were impressed by him. The 'paleolibertarian' Murray Rothbard wrote of him in 1994 that 'Sam Francis is our Pareto, our Gramsci, and we must not allow him to be suppressed,' breathlessly adding: 'Francis can be the Tom Paine, the Patrick Henry of the next American Revolution that will at last redeem the glorious promise of the first.' Paleocon Paul Gottfried called Francis the 'contemporary on the American Right who shaped my thinking most decisively.' The magazine Chronicles, where Francis was contributing editor, said that in his anthology, Beautiful Losers, he staked 'his claim as one of the most important conservative thinkers of our time.' Share The paleoconservatives' great political hope, Pat Buchanan, also respected Francis as a thinker. According to his biographer, Buchanan met Francis with another paleocon writer, Joe Sobran, in the early 1990s.2 This meeting began a decade of monthly dinners between the three men: a defining intellectual friendship. Francis and other paleos willed Buchanan to be their battering ram against liberal institutions, especially in his primary campaign against President George H.W. Bush. Buchanan's biographer calls Francis a 'true believer' in Buchanan, whose 'zeal infected Pat' as much as his thinking informed him. Witnesses to a meeting in which Francis described Buchanan's transformation of the political scene came to believe 'Buchanan was in love with Francis's mind, that he truly believed that the two men could remake the world.' It wasn't to be, and with exile following the American Renaissance scandal came obscurity for Francis. Unless you are particularly sympathetic to the paleoconservative narrative of expulsion (especially at the hands of neoconservatives), Francis does not cut a romantic figure. Gruff, combative, and overweight, charm does not emanate from him or his writing to win modern readers. When he died, whatever moment Francis had once had was long past. Until Trump. Really, it's the sense of prescience that has remade Francis. The reevaluation of Francis makes me uncomfortable, and not necessarily only for the obvious political reasons. Part of my discomfort is uncertainty about how original a thinker Francis was exactly—and a sense that granting Francis too much acclaim is to bestow upon him and his ideas more credit than they deserve. When does a shocked rediscovery become celebration? THE CHIEF CAUSE of Francis's rediscovery is that his writing appears to have anticipated in startling detail Donald Trump and Trumpism. I vividly remember reading in the autumn of 2016 his 1981 essay, 'Message from MARs: The Social Politics of the New Right' and thinking, 'My God, this anticipated all of it.' I was obviously not alone. What seems to set Francis apart from the earlier generation of conservative intellectuals was his materialism—grounding politics in the hard structures of politics—and his related belief that ideas and rhetoric are not enough. Power matters. In 'Message from MARs,' Francis's central move was to find a sociopolitical base for the emergent 'New Right,' an activist-oriented right-wing movement organized around social issues. The New Rightists were often the younger or second-generation members of the conservative intellectual movement who, based in Washington, D.C. or its Virginia suburbs, aimed to turn their ideas into real political action, usually funded by small donors reached by direct-mail appeals. Aggrieved or worried middle Americans were the financial drivers of the New Right, and Francis saw in them a greater possibility. In his hands, they became 'Middle American Radicals' (MARs): high-school educated, white ethnic (or Baptist and Mormon), 'skilled and semi-skilled blue-collar workers' aged in their thirties through sixties, who wanted change. Their defining feature was the attitude that, politically speaking, 'The rich give in to the demands of the poor, and the middle income people have to pay the bill.' The MARs are the angry middle class, resentful of the poor, envious of the rich, and after theirs. Francis saw opportunity in the MARs. If the New Right harnessed their power, it could effect a revolution in the ruling elite, replacing the left-liberal rulers and their administrative arm with a right-wing elite that would dismantle the 'managerial power structure.' Francis's most unique contribution was probably to think transgressively—from a conservative perspective—about how to achieve New Right goals. With the backing of the MARs, the New Right, Francis argued, should 'find a radical, anti-establishment approach better adapted to the achievement of its goals.' It could be more protectionist, and use the state to benefit the interests of the MARs directly. It would be staunchly nationalist in foreign policy. It would make greater use of the presidency than conservative theory traditionally allowed: only the Presidency—as Nixon and Agnew showed—has the viability and resources to cut through the intractable establishment of bureaucracy and media to reach the MAR social base directly. Only the Presidency is capable of dismantling or restructuring the bureaucratic managerial apparatus that now strangles the latent dynamism of the MAR-Sunbelt social forces. There's so much of Trump here: an appeal to resentment of the 'cosmopolitan' elite; the shedding on conservative dogma for right-wing populism; intent to use the state to punish and reward; a drain-the-swamp ethos; unapologetic nationalism. Support our pro-democracy mission and get our original, independent political and intellectual journalism delivered to your inbox: Sign up for a free or paid Bulwark subscription. IN RETROSPECT, ONE QUIRK is how conventional Francis was on foreign policy. When he wrote 'Message from MARs' in 1981, he was a more conventional anti-Communist hawk. By the time the essay was anthologized in post-Cold War 1993, he had moved toward isolationism, and closer to modern Trumpism. In the 1991 essay 'Beautiful Losers,' Francis refined his MARs analysis. He specifically recommended appeals to the 'salient concerns of postbourgeois Middle Americans,' namely: 'crime, educational collapse, the erosion of their economic status, and the calculated subversion of their social, cultural, and national identity by forces that serve the interests of the elite above them and the underclass below them, but at the expense of the middle class.' Add the word 'gender' there and it's hard to come up with a better succinct summation of the contemporary right's 2024 electoral campaign. When Francis wrote 'Message from MARs' he was 34 years old, working as a national-security aide to Sen. John East (R-N.C.), a tragic conservative true believer. Previously, Francis had earned a Ph.D. in British history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There he had been a part of the Carolina Conservative Society, alongside a number subsequently important paleoconservatives (jokingly self-dubbed the 'Tar Heel Conspiracy'), where they read classic conservative literature. Francis was most taken with the older conservative intellectual James Burnham. At the same time he was writing 'Message from MARs,' Francis was completing a short monograph on Burnham's thought, which permeates 'Message' and much of Francis's work. It is perfectly reasonable to call Francis a Burnhamite. Rereading Francis in light of Burnham, the paleoconservatives, and the wider New Right milieu causes some of his luster to wear off—for it turns out that many of Francis's preoccupations that seem so impressive for their proto-Trumpism were widely shared across the New Right. For instance, his focus on the Middle American Radicals, for which he became well known, is largely a reformulation of the standard New Right talking point of the emergence of a new majority of Southern, Midwestern, and Northeastern whites and some 85 percent of Republican voters—the case for which had been made by in books by New Rightists Kevin Phillips in 1969 and William Rusher in 1975, and in innumerable articles by cobelligerents, including those in The New Right Papers, a 1982 anthology edited by Robert W. Whitaker in which 'Message from MARs' was first published. The arrival of this new majority, which had been both fostered and delayed by the repeated presidential campaigns of segregationist George Wallace and finally propelled Nixon and then Reagan to the presidency, had been long expected, and it was taken to be an article of New Right faith. Francis had keyed in on the MARs specifically as a unitary class—but even this wasn't original to him: His essay built on the research of the academic sociologist Donald I. Warren, whose book The Radical Center: Middle Americans and the Politics of Alienation (1976) had identified and detailed the group, which, while important, was much smaller than Francis implied. In fact, the proposal for The New Right Papers put together by its editor Robert Whitaker in early 1979 indicates that Whitaker initially intended for Warren ('far from a regular rightist') to write 'A Message from MARs' himself. It may have been that Francis alerted Whitaker, who at the time was an aide to the archconservative Rep. John Ashbrook, to Warren. But it is more likely that Whitaker, who was a populist activist and political entrepreneur, had found the work useful and asked Francis to write the essay, which already had the title, when Warren either could not or would not do it. But whereas Donald Warren saw the Middle American Radicals largely as victims of cultural and economic change who became alienated and often bigoted, and wanted to reduce their sense of alienation, Sam Francis wanted to amplify and exploit it. Francis's emphasis on harnessing cultural grievances as a winning political strategy was also a core assumption of the New Right. As Whitaker wrote in his foreword, 'The New Right seeks to give 'social issues' . . . more than lip service. Among the powers-that-be in Washington, only the New Right is capable of seeing busing and other social experiments as mere symptoms of a deeper malady, and being aware of the dangers that arise from treating only symptoms.' Social issues included opposing desegregation busing, opposing racial quotas, and limiting immigration. Another contributor to The New Right Papers, the institution builder Paul Weyrich, who cofounded the Heritage Foundation, saw the 'value-orientation' of the New Right toward social issues as based in the 'the blue-collar, middle class origins' of the movement. The entire New Right political project was organized around using controversial wedge issues to motivate blue-collar social conservatives to donate money and unite with conservative Republicans. Likewise, Francis's framing of liberal elites in control of bureaucracy and the media was not new, either. Media and bureaucrats had long been bugbears of conservative intellectuals. By the 1970s, some, like Jeffrey Hart and Kevin Phillips, were treating both as powerful constitutive parts of the American regime. In an article Francis cited in 'Message from MARs,' Hart, a senior editor at National Review, specifically argued conservatives should overturn their orthodox view of the presidency and start seeing the executive as a tool to be harnessed to smash these dangerous pillars of liberal domination.3 In short, many of the elements that seem most prescient in Francis's 'Message from MARs' were commonplace New Right themes: The focus on blue-collar former Democrats; the combativeness and self-definition against the temporizing conservative movement (personified by William F. Buckley) for being too economically royalist and socially laissez-faire; the willingness to use the state to go after social conservatives' enemies. Even the focus on power was widespread in the New Right circle. 'To me—and I think most other New Right leaders would share this perception—politics is activity in relation to power,' wrote Weyrich as he explored the need—and the New Right's actions—to shape the presidency at the level of staffers and permanent bureaucrats. Share The Bulwark IN THE TRUMP ERA, Francis has been plucked from the New Right (and paleoconservative) world by people with an interest in ideas, who have treated him as the New Right's most sophisticated spokesman. In doing so, the attention on Francis has made him appear to be the genius behind and progenitor of ideas that were in fact fairly widely shared from the mid-1970s until the mid-1990s. To what extent does Francis deserve credit for originating and influencing either paleoconservative, New Right thought or today's Trumpist right wing? I'd argue that there are really just two reasons Francis's work has recently caught the attention of folks looking for figures of foresight. First, Francis did do something novel in 'Message from MARs': He brought the Middle American Radicals into conversation with James Burnham's theory of elites. Once a celebrated Marxian and post-Marxian thinker, Burnham turned rightward in the early 1950s and became an éminence grise at National Review. In The Managerial Revolution (1941), he outlined his view that modern politics is and will increasingly be based on the rule of a technocratic elite and an ideology that justifies their domination. In a follow-up, The Machiavellians (1943), Burnham explained in detail the dynamics of elite politics, as different classes and cliques attempt to cling to power or harness the people to oust their rivals. Francis, who called The Managerial Revolution 'the most accurate and comprehensive account of the New Class, its ideology, interests, and dynamics,'4 adapted Burnham's concept of elites and of rival elites cycling in and out of power, and the use of political ideology to justify the dominance of particular sets of elites. Francis envisioned the fading of the liberal elite class and the possibility for a right-wing elite class to replace it on the backs of MAR votes. As Francis put it, the MARs are 'a political class, and they aspire, through the New Right, to become the dominant political class in the United States by displacing the current elite, dismantling its apparatus of power, and discrediting its political ideology.' According to Francis's adaptation of Burnham, liberals dominate the key institutions of power and knowledge production, and they use their dominance to propagate the idea that liberal leadership is necessary to combat entrenched privilege and inequality—effectively uniting a cadre of elites with the (often racial minority) underclass against the squeezed (often white) middle. Each of these constituent ideas had existed separately on the right—and even in concert. Francis's contribution was to put a fine, Burnhamite point on them all. To read Burnham's The Managerial Revolution today is to be impressed with some of his subtle analysis, but also amused at his shockingly wrong predictions, as no less a figure than George Orwell pointed out. Burnhamite structural analysis tends to universalize and prophesy as it identifies laws and patterns, and it does so with a confidence that is rarely warranted. It creates the perception of disinterested analysis, even when, like Burnham and Francis, its authors are far from disinterested. Francis's use of Burnham's thought gave the New Right a framework and vocabulary to explain their enmities in grand systemic terms, which can make it all seem much more profound than it really is. (The neoreactionary Curtis Yarvin, an influence on JD Vance and various Silicon Valley figures, is another Burnhamite who does the same.) It is this pseudo-prophetic aspect of Burnhamite thinking that leaves anyone reading Sam Francis in the Trump era with an impression of profound foresight. But how much prescience can we grant to someone who, working very much within the accepted wisdom of his time and circle, predicted something that came to pass thirty-five years after he suggested it? In the mid-1990s, according to his friend Paul Gottfried, Francis himself 'recognized that he was betting on a fading horse' in the MARs, who composed a 'declining percentage of the work force in a postindustrial economy.' And so Francis focused more and more on explicitly racialist thinking and anti-immigration writing. 'Trying to win non-whites, especially by abandoning issues important to white voters, is the road to political suicide,' Francis wrote after the 2000 election. This prescription, of course, runs totally counter to Trump's much-vaunted success in bringing black and Hispanic voters into the GOP coalition. THE SECOND REASON FRANCIS is remembered more nowadays than his New Right peers is a mundane one: He stuck around longer and focused on writing. After working as a Senate aide he became an editorial writer for the Washington Times and a columnist for Chronicles. He made writing his trade in a way that Weyrich (an organizational impresario), Whitaker (a would-be-populist organizational impresario), and other paleocons (often scholars) did not. An interesting counterpart might be the New Right's demographer–prophet Kevin Phillips, whose sociological analysis seems just as prescient as Francis's and was certainly much more influential. Perhaps Phillips, who died in 2023, will get his own reconsideration and his own elevation to the status of foreteller of Trumpism. Or perhaps his political apostasy will make him less alluring to those who excavate right-wing thought. None of this is to say Francis was not a sophisticated thinker. He was. But placing him in context is a corrective to over-reading him, either from the left or right, as a theorist of genius. Whatever his talents, at least in regard to his foresight about the American political scene, Francis was a Burnhamite, a paleocon, and a New Rightist. In bringing these ways of thinking together, he made an interesting, although not necessarily groundbreaking contribution to right-wing thought, but also one fraught with racialist potential. I suspect that alongside Francis's supposed prescience, curiosity about him is linked to his tone. Francis was frequently bleak and eschewed most of the moralizing of the era. He didn't think the early conservative intellectuals were really serious. Interest in such an amoral, seductively pessimistic writer says more about the nature of the right today—and our moment—than anything else. When we look back at Francis, we see what we want to see. Share this with a friend who enjoys reading essays in intellectual and political history. Share 1 Funnily enough, it was Dinesh D'Souza who publicized Francis's remarks in the Washington Post. 2 Sobran was fired from National Review for antisemitism in 1993, and denied a role at the American Conservative in 2001 for his refusal not to engage with the Holocaust-denying Institute for Historical Review. 'We can't let these people win,' Sobran reportedly said to the American Conservative's managing editor—although it is unclear whether 'these people' referred to neoconservatives, to those who tar their opponents as antisemites, or, simply, to Jews. 3 Jeffrey Hart made his own contribution to The New Right Papers in the form of a bizarre dialogue between a Young Man and an Intelligent Woman. Robert Whitaker originally wanted Hart to write a dissection of the verbalist class. Who knows why he phoned it in with his odd contribution? 4 Although almost amoral in its analysis and deeply cynical about the moral content of political ideologies, The Machiavellians reveals Burnham's fairly ordinary bourgeois political preferences in his prescriptions for restraining and channeling elite competition in order to maintain 'an advanced level of civilization' and personal liberty.
