The trump's last blast

In rather peculiar near-death act, the Trump administration published something called ‘The 1776 Report’ (reference 1), the product of an advisory commission made up of luminaries of the academic, religious and political rights, led by one Larry Arnn, the twelfth president of the Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, an institution both conservative and private, which might mean (I have not checked) that it is not in receipt of public funds. The sort of person who, in the interview documented at reference 3, thought it a great triumph for the values of the United States that a Supreme Court judge has stayed a requirement on the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged of Denver to provide health insurance for their employees which included birth control. From where I associated to the Great Gay Cake affair of Northern Ireland.

The 1776 Report itself is a curious document, a rather glossy affair of around 20 pages plus four appendices: a sort of cross between a promotional brochure for a large corporation and a text for school children. I think the idea was that it should be used to promote American values in American children. Values which appear to include worship both of a Constitution written more than 200 years ago and of a Bible written quite a long time before that. A text for the use of school teachers across the land. Perhaps another idea was to have people who aspired to citizenship memorize it and then take a test thereon. ‘Complete the sentence starting with …’ sort of thing.

Then along with various threats to American values like racism, fascism and communism, we have two more: progressivism and identity politics. The progressives apparently thought that the constitution was getting a bit long in the tooth and maybe needed updating. This has, we are told, resulted in the establishment of the deep state, beyond the control of Congress. While the identity people don’t believe the mantra that all men are created equal and think that a bit of affirmative action is needed to push things in that direction. Almost as bad.

At this point I though a bit of word search was in order. Constitution and its relatives get near 90 mentions. Republic and its relatives get near 50. God near 30. While democracy scrapes in with 10. Just one mention of first peoples, as savages in a catalogue of the iniquities of King George III. No mention of Latinos, Hispanics or Mexicans – this despite large chunks of what is now the south west of the United States having been taken from Mexico in the 19th century. No mention of that even more despotic king, Louis XVI of France, providing the money and ships which helped the US to its present independence.

All in all, a sort of bland triumphalism with little space for many of the evils pressing on their country.

A few points of detail

At the very end of Section III about constitutional matters, we are reminded of the important right to bear arms. From where I associate to Clarissa of reference 6, already noticed two or three times, where I have just been reminded that English gentlemen of the mid-eighteenth century still wore swords and young bloods – the full blooded predecessors of Bullingdons like Cameron and Johnson – were fully prepared to use them. A privilege which I imagine did not extend to the population at large. That is to say, the predecessors of the young men who wander the streets of Texas with tattoos and assault rifles – not to mention serious looking machine guns. On which see reference 7.

At the beginning of Section V, mainly devoted to rooting out liberals and lefties from places of education, it is a bit rum – given Trump’s well known peccadillos – to have a section on the sanctity of the family. And to be told that ‘when families pray together, they acknowledge together the providence of the Almighty God who gave them their sacred liberty’.

The Divinity is in at the kill, in the closing words: ‘It is our task now to renew this commitment. So we proclaim, in the words our forefathers used two and a half centuries ago, “for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor”. 

But no mention of the tax breaks dished out to all those with said Fortunes, generally very keen to hang on to them, ancient pledges notwithstanding.

Conclusion

So a rather peculiar document indeed. But, providing the religious right do not snatch the baton from Biden after just one term, probably consigned to the oblivion of Trump’s presidential library of reference 4.

For another take on this see reference 2. Another gang of liberals and lefties.

References

Reference 1: The 1776 Report - The President’s Advisory 1776 Commission – 2021.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1776_Commission. 

Reference 3: https://hughhewitt.com/dr-larry-arnn-foundational-documents-religious-liberty/. 

Reference 4: https://www.trumplibrary.gov/home. The real library.

Reference 5: https://djtrumplibrary.com/. The fake library. One wonders who paid for this rather flashy looking operation.

Reference 6: Clarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady: Comprehending the Most Important Concerns of Private Life. And Particularly Shewing, the Distresses that May Attend the Misconduct Both of Parents and Children, In Relation to Marriage – Samuel Richardson – 1748.

Reference 7: https://politicalfun.blogspot.com/p/gun-control-posters.html. 

Reference 8: https://www.hillsdale.edu/. 'Learning, character, faith, and freedom: these are the inseparable purposes of Hillsdale College'.