Note: as we mentioned yesterday, we're experimenting with a new, more informal format for the newsletter. Let us know what you think!

#Claremont #ThinkTanks #Arrival — Politico has delivered itself of a longread on something you and everyone else in this town has known since last January at least: the Claremonsters are very well-placed in the admin and a very influential network.

"At least 23 people who have participated in the institute’s fellowships in the last decade work in the White House, according to POLITICO’s review, with another 11 at the Justice Department, seven at the State Department and five at Homeland Security. Others are sprinkled throughout Commerce, the Pentagon, the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office and the Department of Labor, among other departments and agencies. Those numbers are even greater when factoring in those who participated in fellowships pre-2016, like Vought."

Sounds about right.

The rise of Claremont, under the wise leadership of Ryan Williams, has been great to watch. They filled a vacuum that sucked them in, to be true, but even a great opportunity requires talent to execute, and going from a small West Coast shop mostly known for obscure Straussian philosophy to a hub for training and credentialing the highest IQ tranche of the MAGA right required a fair bit of execution.

The roots of the phenomenon are simple, and go back to 2016. First, most Washington think tanks ostracized the Trump administration and the MAGA movement, and for much longer than even most other parts of the conservative establishment, who were quicker to surrender to political reality. (The other big exception is, of course, Heritage.) Second, Claremont's California location was providential. People may not remember this anymore, but it was striking at the time that almost all of the right-wing intellectuals who got on the Trump train in 2016 were from California: apart from Claremont, prominent examples include Tucker Carlson and Hoover's Victor Davis Hanson (pray for Victor, by the way), long the only member of the National Review masthead to support Trump. And the reason for that, in retrospect, is obvious: Californians watched their state go from what was pretty close to utopia to a wretched third world socialist hellhole, in large part because of "mass third-world immigration" (as Michael Anton put it at the time, using an expression that sent many to the fainting couch at the time, even though it is now commonplace), and because of a Democratic establishment perfectly willing to use dirty tricks to marginalize their opponents and turn their state into a one-party state (dirty tricks which could only be confronted by a pugilist like Trump and not a genteel member of the establishment like Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush).

As we say, it's been a long road from 2016 to now, and Claremont's leaders have executed very well on the opportunity that Fate, or Providence, dropped on their lap. It's an extraordinary success. We hope Williams gets to fundraise more off this Politico piece.

#Reindustrialization #Energy — Great piece from Daniel Bring, executive editor at American Affairs, arguing that the Trump administration's reindustrialization agenda hinges on energy. Industrial policy (subsidies, loan guarantees, trade barriers) can help restart capacity, yet it cannot make US production cost-competitive over time if energy is expensive, volatile, or insecure.

Bring’s core warning to Republican decisionmakers is that energy dominance must be "full-spectrum," not just more drilling and more exports. He points to the 1970s oil shocks as the historical lesson: once energy prices surged (including a 56 percent jump in a single year after 1973), heavy industry that had remained globally competitive suddenly became uneconomic, accelerating closures and offshoring—making price stability and supply security as important as headline production volumes. From there, he lays out three priorities: comprehensive permitting reform to rapidly build pipelines, transmission, and nuclear capacity (including federal preemption for nationally strategic projects); an energy industrial policy that treats turbines, transformers, batteries, grid gear, and industrial power systems as strategic goods that should be made domestically, backed not only by tax credits but by demand anchors; and tighter integration of federal R&D with domestic manufacturing so innovation scales inside U.S. supply chains. The bottom line is blunt: reindustrialization and energy dominance are the same project, and energy policy will decide whether reshored factories get built, run at scale, and stay open.

#RightWingCancelCulture — You may have seen this: a Hilton Hotels franchisee refused to book rooms for HHS investigators sent to Minnesota. And in response, the Hilton Hotels corporation removed the franchisee's license. This is a very good development. The entire question about the Trump 2.0 anti-woke crusade is whether it trickles down from the government and into places like corporate compliance departments, so that it actually shifts the culture durably. This is a good sign (and something that wouldn't have happened in a Trump 1.0 admin).

#AuRevoir — The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been officially dissolved.

#Minnesota #Somalia — Great find by Mickey Kaus: after the Democrats won the trifecta in Minnesota in 2022, they enacted the entire Biden-era Democratic agenda, and were hailed as a model. EJ Dionne was ecstatic. Worth reading in retrospect.

"6he Minnesota Miracle, which is only beginning to get the attention it deserves, is so important. The avalanche of progressive legislation (…) is a wonder to behold."

"It’s no wonder former president Barack Obama tweeted recently: 'If you need a reminder that elections have consequences, check out what’s happening in Minnesota.'" Did he, indeed?

Don't forget the popcorn.

#Virginia — Speaking of Democrats gaslighting themselves, Manhattan Institute's Judge Glock has a good short item at City Journal showing that when it comes to affordability, Democrats have learned nothing from the long record of failure of blue states.

In spite of the headlines, her "affordability" agenda largely relies on mandates and cross-subsidies that would push prices up for the broad middle to (surprise, surprise) benefit politically favored constituencies. Her health-care proposals would shift costs onto nonsmokers and other insureds by restricting risk-based pricing and limiting prior authorizations, while her pharmacy plank would effectively force higher reimbursements that flow through to premiums and drug costs. On energy, Spanberger frames progressive climate priorities as relief for households, yet Glock shows Virginia’s Clean Economy Act is already a primary driver of rising electricity bills, and her add-ons—like mandated battery storage and utility-funded retrofits for low-income homes—would further load costs onto ratepayers with limited savings. On housing, her support for longer eviction/lease termination timelines and expanded inclusionary zoning is a clear recipe for higher rents, as landlords and developers recoup added risks and set-asides from everyone else. Finally, the agenda leans on taxpayer subsidies (with Obamacare marketplace premium support sensibly flagged as fraud-prone) and more state borrowing for subsidized housing, which is the opposite of affordability once debt service and future taxes are counted. 

#PeoplesRepublicOfNewYork — Sorry for doing so many items on state and local policy, you know we try not to do that unless there's a link to national policy. But we believe there is. When it comes to Minnesota's slow-motion collapse, Virginia's new government and, of course, the New York of Future of the Democratic Party Zohran Mamdani, we are looking at the laboratories of Democrat national policy.

Which is why we enjoyed this piece by Sohrab Ahmari on the new mayor's new tenant-protection tsar who, surprise surprise, is a crazy left-wing white lady who believes, among other joyous things, that "private property is white supremacy." Cea Weaver deleted her X account upon her nomination, but sadly it had been saved by sleuths since she was already a Mamdani advisor, and it's a doozy. It's simultaneously funny and sad in the way that these things usually are, but as Ahmari points out, it shows that Democrats can't quit racialist nonsense. Upon his election Mamdani tried to paint himself as a moderate, but ultimately this is who he surrounds himself with, this is who he owes his victory to, this is probably what his sincere beliefs are, and this is who he is going to appoint to positions of power.

#FactOfTheDay — "A Canadian has a greater chance of dying by MAID than an American has of being shot dead." Via T. Becket Adams.

#QuoteOfTheDay — "Those who engage in climate activism are mostly female (61%) and almost entirely white (93%). More than 9 out of 10 climate activists have at least a BA...environmentalism is regularly used as a means to feel morally and intellectually superior" (Source, via Rob Henderson)