The Right Wing

The far-right National Conservatism Conference used to be an event that many traditional Goldwater and McCain conservatives made a point of avoiding. But with President Donald Trump's MAGA movement now dominating the GOP, NatCon is drawing a lot more attention in Republican circles.

In an article published on September 13, Salon's Heather Digby Parton points to growing interest in NatCon as a troubling example of how much Christianity's lunatic fringe is influencing the GOP and the MAGA movement.

Describing the most recent NatCon gathering — which was held in Washington, D.C. in early September — Parton explains, "'Overturn Obergefell' was one featured panel, the AP's Joey Cappelletti reported. 'The Bible and American Renewal' was another. The conference, he wrote, 'underscored the movement's vision of an America rooted in limited immigration, Christian identity and the preservation of what speakers called the nation's traditional culture' — which is putting it very mildly. It certainly doesn’t seem there was much talk of individual freedom, free markets or liberty of any kind, and that is a big change from the conservative movement that has dominated Republican politics since the Reagan Administration."

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The far-right NatCon gathering should not be confused with National Council for Mental Wellbeing event that is also abbreviated NatCon. The health event was held in Philadelphia in May, not in Washington, D.C. in early September, and has zero connection to the political event.

This year's political NatCon, Parton observes, featured some prominent figures in the Trump Administration — including National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard; Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget and a key architect of Project 2025; and border czar Tom Homan.

"But perhaps the most revealing moment was a viral speech by Missouri GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt titled 'What is an American?' in which he made the claim that the country belongs to the descendants of white Europeans who took the land from the violent Native Americans fair and square because they were just plain superior," Parton observes. "He said straight out: 'America doesn't belong to them — it belongs to us.… We can no longer apologize for who we are. Our people tamed the continent, built a civilization from the wilderness. We Americans are the sons and daughters of the Christian pilgrims who poured out onto the ocean's shores.'"

Schmitt, Parton adds, even promoted the Great Replacement Theory during his speech.

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A recurring theme of NatCon, Parton warns, is that the U.S. is not only a Christian nation — it is a white Christian nation.

"It's tempting to write off NatCon, and Schmitt's speech in particular, as an example of a bunch of right-wing kooks indulging their little fever dream of creating a white Christian autocracy," Parton stresses. "But these are powerful people now, and if there's any person in government who is trying to create 'a pastiche of past glories' — largely by erasing the true American past, both good and bad — it's the most powerful one of all, Donald Trump, who has certainly discovered that 'you can just do things!'"

Parton continues, "Nobody paid attention to Project 2025 until it was too late, and look where that got us. It would be foolish to make that same mistake again."

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Heather Digby Parton's full article for Salon is available at this link.

During the first half of September, President Donald Trump has continued to suffer low approval ratings — including 42 percent (Reuters/Ipsos) and 43 percent (The Economist/YouGov). But the Democratic Party has weak approval ratings as well even though some Democratic governors, including Pennsylvania's Josh Shapiro and Michigan's Gretchen Whitmer, continued to poll favorably in their states.

In an article originally published by Power Mad and republished by The New Republic on September 13, journalist Jason Linkins argues that anti-Trump Democrats need to not only focus on Trump himself, but also, on "the company he keeps."

"It may be that the same forces that are enabling Trumpism could enable the opposition to Trumpism, provided that Democrats lose their risk-averse ways and demonize the elites that are now at Trump's beck and call," Linkins explains. "And while it's true that some have bent the knee more readily than others, we must have the stomach to castigate Trump's allies no matter how willingly they came to his side. For my part, it's OK with me if Democratic messaging included the line, 'While Trump's Harvard cronies were cutting deals, the cost of your groceries has doubled.'"

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Linkins adds, "There are no allies for Democrats to be found in Trump's teeming hive of enablers. Anyone who might serve the ends of democracy and the rule of law has, by now, explicitly announced themselves as having taken that side. As (The Bulwark's) Jonathan V. Last notes, 'Any institution not explicitly anti-Trump will eventually become useful to Trump.'"

Some conservatives and libertarians are scathing, consistently outspoken critics of Trump. But many prominent figures on the right who call out Trump and the MAGA movement — MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Nicolle Wallace, the Washington Post's George Will, The Bulwark's Tim Miller, The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson, attorney George Conway — have long since left the Republican Party.

Linkins stresses that Republicans who continue to enable Trump need to be forcefully condemned.

"For now, brave Democrats can and should implicate and vilify those who have abetted Trumpian misrule and have, by extension, reaped the fruits of its poisonous economic tree," Linkins writes. "It may be that one of the keys to denying Trump long-term power is to foment the public's ire at the company he keeps, paint the whole lot as crooks and brigands who are looting the proceeds of the public trust. The burgeoning anti-Trump movement in the streets will be cheered to hear from some political allies who are promising to name the villains of the Trump era and to crush them in whatever era comes next."

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Read Jason Linkins' full article at this New Republic link.

Throughout Pete Hegseth's months as defense secretary for the second Trump administration, his relationship with Pentagon officials has been tumultuous. And according to CNN, that includes his relationship with U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll.

In an article published by CNN on September 12, reporters Natasha Bertrand, Zachary Cohen and Haley Britzky explain, "Hegseth's tactics can be ruthless. In April, following a series of leaks he believed made him look bad, Hegseth fired three senior Pentagon officials — two of whom were close friends that had worked with him for years — and publicly accused them of being leakers. Those accusations were never proven. Hegseth also threatened senior Pentagon officials, including then-Acting Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Chris Grady, with polygraph tests and leak investigations."

The CNN journalists continue, "Hegseth refused to sign off on a promotion for 34-year Army veteran, Lt. Gen. Doug Sims, who had been serving as the director of the Joint Staff, because he believed he was leaking to undermine him and had been too close to retired Gen. Mark Milley, a fierce Trump critic, sources said. Grady and Sims both denied the accusations, which weren't proven, sources said. Sims is set to retire soon."

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According to Bertrand, Cohen and Britzky, it didn't take long for Hegseth to become resentful of Driscoll — who, sources told CNN, is much easier to get along with than the former Fox News host.

A Pentagon source, interviewed on condition of anonymity, said of Driscoll, "He's non-threatening, he's charming, he's not explosive like Hegseth is. He's just a go-along-to-get-along kind of guy. The better Driscoll looks, the worse it is for Hegseth."

Another Pentagon source, also quoted anonymously, told CNN, "If Driscoll starts getting too prominent, or too favored, it makes it a lot easier politically to just let Hegseth go somehow or find an offramp."

Bertrand, Cohen and Britzky report, "Hegseth's wariness of Driscoll is emblematic of his larger fixation with undermining or removing anyone he perceives as a threat to his public image and standing with Trump, regardless of their expertise or experience, a dozen current and former officials told CNN. Questions about Hegseth's longevity in the job have swirled almost from the beginning of his tenure. And Driscoll's name was increasingly brought up, including inside the White House, as a possible replacement for Hegseth after a series of high-profile missteps by the defense secretary in the spring — to Hegseth's great irritation, sources said."

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Read the full CNN article at this link.

As disdainful as she is of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Salon's Amanda Marcotte acknowledges that Leavitt does her job well — a job Marcotte describes as "chief gaslighter of the nation." Leavitt, according to Marcotte, is a master of spin and deception.

But in an article published on September 12, Marcotte argues that with the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, Leavitt is facing a controversy that she can't spin.

"Leavitt consistently contradicts reality with ease — it's a skill that would cause mental collapse in a person with a conscience," Marcotte explains. "On Tuesday, this knack for playing dumb was on full display when she was asked by a reporter about a telling page from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's birthday book, which was revealed earlier this week by the Wall Street Journal."

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Marcotte continues, "The book, compiled by Epstein associate and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, included a photo of Epstein holding what the Journal described as 'a poster board-sized check for $22,500.' Presented to him by Joel Pashcow, a businessman, Mar-a-Lago member and mutual friend of Epstein and Trump, the fake check was a sort of in-joke, made to appear as if Trump had sent it to Epstein. The caption said it was for a 'fully depreciated' woman that Epstein was selling to Trump."

But as hard as Leavitt tried to "ignore the obvious," Marcotte writes, this is one scandal that isn't going away — no matter how much Leavitt tries to spin new developments.

"Leavitt's efforts to maneuver her way around the implications of the check photo were slick enough, but undermined by two important points," Marcotte stresses. "First, the president's public attitudes about women are in keeping with the misogyny behind Pashcow's attempt at humor. Then, there are the experiences of at least three women who felt victimized in the world inhabited by Trump's close friend Epstein and those in his orbit…. These stories are all different, but they all offer us glimpses of the world Pashcow was referring to with his joke about Trump purchasing a 'depreciated' woman from Epstein…. When Karoline Leavitt gets behind the podium in the Brady Briefing Room and excuses, lies or otherwise deflects inquiry into Trump's association with Epstein, she's contributing to a system that allows women and girls to be abused every day without consequence."

Marcotte adds, "It's why her unblinking shamelessness is so unnerving. On some level, no matter what she tells herself at night, she is participating in the cover-up of details related to a reported sex trafficking ring. How does she even begin to sleep?"

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Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.

During Barack Obama's presidency, then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) — now secretary of state in the second Trump Administration — was an enthusiastic supporter of something that many MAGA Republicans now oppose: foreign aid, including food aid. As traditional conservatives saw it, foreign aid was beneficial to the United States from a national security standpoint because it promoted greater stability in other countries.

In a letter sent to Rubio on Wednesday, September 10, two U.S. senators — Maine Republican Susan Collins and New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen — voiced their concerns about large quantities of food and contraceptives that were set aside for foreign aid. And they wanted answers.

Collins and Shaheen told Rubio, "We write to share our concern regarding recent reports that significant quantities of U.S.-purchased lifesaving commodities, including food aid and contraceptive supplies, have been allowed to expire or targeted for destruction instead of being made available to intended beneficiaries. While we appreciate that operational realities and security concerns can sometimes complicate distribution, these losses raise questions about both the stewardship of taxpayer resources and the Department's ability to implement processes to deliver commodities."

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Collins and Shaheen asked Rubio for a "full accounting of costs" and "the rationale for destruction," and they wanted to know the U.S. State Department's "plan to prevent such waste in the future."

MAGA Republicans defended the decimating of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) by the Trump Administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as a savings to taxpayers. But Collins and Shaheen, in their letter, expressed concerns about millions of taxpayer dollars being wasted.

"Recent reports indicate that millions of dollars' worth of commodities have expired or remained unused since January 2025, with additional costs incurred to dispose of them," Collins and Shaheen told Rubio. "Furthermore, it has been reported that European countries and trusted international organizations have requested to acquire and distribute these commodities, even to rebrand and repackage them at their own expense, but those offers were declined. These outcomes appear inconsistent with our shared goal of minimizing waste in foreign assistance programs."

The New England senators continued, "A May 2025 Department memo noted more than 60,000 metric tons of food aid were at risk of spoilage before reaching their destination. By late July 2025, only around 12,000 metric tons had begun moving, with weeks remaining before final delivery. Just last month, 15,000 pounds of ready-to-use therapeutic food expired and was destroyed in a warehouse in Georgia, despite its critical role in treating malnutrition in children."

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President Donald Trump and the Republican Party are carrying out what The American Prospect deems the most "extreme such attack in American history," on free speech and academic freedom, a hypocritical counterattack on all things filed under "woke" and
"cancel culture."

"Donald Trump and the Republican Party who have the whip hand, and they are setting up, without exaggeration, a fully totalitarian attack on campus free speech and academic freedom writ large," writes Ryan Cooper, adding, "unsurprisingly, many of the most frenzied erstwhile critics of illiberalism on campus are either silent or participating in the attack."

The article cites the most recent example taking place in a Texas A&M University classroom in which a student in a young adult lit class complained about being taught basic gender and sexuality.

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“I’m not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching, because according to our president there’s only two genders, and he said that he would be freezing agencies’ funding programs that promote gender ideology," the student said. "I don’t want to promote something that is against our president’s laws, as well as against my religious beliefs."

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In response to the professor's defense that what they were teaching was perfectly legal, the student hit back, saying, "I’ve already been in contact with the president of A&M and I actually have a meeting with him in person to show all of my documentation.”

"The whole thing was a setup," Cooper writes.

The video went viral and not only was the professor fired, but the dean and department heads were, too. "The university Board of Regents said it would conduct a review of the entire university curriculum, for all 79,114 students," Cooper reports.

And though Cooper notes this hypocrisy is nothing new, citing the late conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk's "Professor Watchlist" of those he declared biased against conservatives, the reporter claims there's one massive difference.

"The playbook here is similar to the right wing’s caricature of the 'woke mob,' except that the right-wing mob has the full backing of state and federal governments," he explains.

"Offend the regime, you will be fired, your career will likely be ruined, and you may be physically harmed. It’s as if President Obama were religiously reading Tumblr in 2013 and sending FBI agents to investigate anyone who committed a microaggression against furries," he adds.

What the right is doing here, Cooper argues, is "far more aggressive" attacks on academia than the red scares of the late 1910s, 1940s, and 1950s, and "genuinely not far from the Nazi approach to higher education."

The Nazi purge of independent thought, especially by Jewish scholars, left the country in intellectual ruins.

"Before the Nazis, Germany was the undisputed world champion of science; it has never regained that position (though it ironically might just have the opportunity now, if it wanted to spend heavily to attract American academics purged by Trump)," Cooper notes.

In the meantime, the author has a suggestion: "A big bonfire of banned university books — perhaps at a glitzy conference sponsored by The Free Press, the Heritage Foundation, and Elon Musk’s X — would be the logical next step."

Many of President Donald Trump's executive orders are getting a stern rebuke in the lower federal courts. But the Trump administration is appealing these decisions, some of which are likely to end up being evaluated by the country's ultimate legal authority: the U.S. Supreme Court.

The New Republic's Matt Ford examines the High Court's docket in an article published on September 12, and fears that it is heavily stacked in Trump's favor.

Ford makes his point by referencing a Jimmy Carter-era Supreme Court ruling: New Motor Vehicle Board v. Orrin W. Fox Company.

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"If you're wondering how the High Court's lawless sausage got made," The New Republic says in a sub-headline for Ford's article, "we must turn to an obscure line from a long-forgotten 1977 case."

Ford notes Chief Justice John Roberts use of "the King line," which comes from the Motor Vehicle Board case.

"The King line is a partial quote — and the partialness of it is important — from an opinion that William Rehnquist, Roberts' predecessor as chief justice, wrote in the 1977 case New Motor Vehicle Board v. Orrin W. Fox Company," Ford explains. "At issue in that case was a California state law that required franchised car dealerships — that is, a dealership that purchased the right to sell cars from a specific manufacturer — to notify a state agency and the dealers' nearby competitors whenever they establish or move their place of business. The competitors could then intervene with the board to stop the dealership from opening or moving locations."

Ford goes on to explain how "the King line" is relevant to the Roberts Court's 2025 docket and its Trump-friendly mindset.

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"Instead of weighing the irreparable harms to both parties, as well as the other traditional relevant factors for these shadow-docket cases," Ford argues, "the Roberts Court has given the federal government a potent card to play against litigants who want to stop ongoing harms. And while the King line is a purportedly democratic principle that exalts the legislative process, its current breadth suggests otherwise."

Ford continues, "It is the Constitution that allows Congress to pass laws and the executive branch to enforce them. The Roberts Court's professed deference to statutes and elected representatives is now being used by the Trump Administration to violate Americans' rights while months or years of litigation takes place, so long as they claim they are enforcing a law along the way."

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Matt Ford's full article for The New Republic is available at this link.

The FBI is continuing its investigation of the murder of MAGA activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot in Utah on Wednesday afternoon, September 10.

Many questions remain unanswered about the killing and possible motivations, but according to Wall Street Journal reporters Sadie Gurman and James Fanelli, some clues are appearing.

In article published on Thursday, September 11 — the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks — Gurman and Fanelli report, "Investigators found ammunition engraved with expressions of transgender and anti-fascist ideology inside the rifle that authorities believe was used in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk, according to an internal law-enforcement bulletin and a person familiar with the investigation. The older-model .30 caliber hunting rifle was discovered in the woods near the scene of Wednesday’s shooting at Utah Valley University, wrapped in a towel with a spent cartridge still in the chamber, the sources said."

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Gurman and Fanelli add, "There were also three unspent rounds in the magazine, all with wording on them."

The WSJ reporters note, however, that officials for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) "cautioned that the investigation was still in its preliminary stages, and that investigators were still examining the ammunition."

"Kirk, 31 years old, was onstage going back and forth with a student about mass shootings involving transgender people when he was targeted, according to videos of the attack," Gurman and Fanelli explain. "The student hasn't been publicly identified."

In a September 11 post on X, formerly Twitter, the FBI's Salt Lake City office posted an image of the person of interest and wrote, "We are asking for the public's help identifying this person of interest in connection with the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University. 1-800-CALL-FBI."

Meanwhile, New York Times journalists Glenn Thrush and Devlin Barrett report, "According to a preliminary internal report circulated inside the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, federal and local officials recovered ammunition with the rifle that appeared to be engraved with statements 'expressing transgender and anti-fascist ideology.' But a senior law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation cautioned that report had not been verified by ATF analysts, did not match other summaries of the evidence, and might turn out to have been misread or misinterpreted."

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After MAGA activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was fatally shot in Utah on Wednesday afternoon, September 10, MSNBC and Fox News had very different tones. MSNBC fired conservative Matthew Dowd in response to criticism of inflammatory statements Kirk had made, but for the most part, its hosts and guests avoided even mild criticism of Kirk — whereas on Fox News, far-right host Jesse Watters angrily called for the right to "avenge Charlie's death."

Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, in a post on X, formerly Twitter, made it abundantly clear that even though Kirk had said some ugly things about him, he wholeheartedly condemned the murder.

Hasan, originally from the U.K., tweeted, "Charlie Kirk called me a 'lunatic' and a 'prostitute' and demanded I be deported. Nothing, nothing, justifies killing him, or robbing his kids of their dad. We don't know the identity or motive of the shooter but murder can never be the response to political disagreements."

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But when Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisconsin) spoke to reporters on Capitol Hill the following day, he was quick to blame the media for Kirk's murder.

Van Orden, pointing his finger, told the journalists, "Every single one of you here, you're at fault."

When a reporter questioned Van Orden's claim, the far-right MAGA Republican responded, "You know what, knock it off…. You are responsible for that assassination yesterday. You should be ashamed of yourself."

Van Orden's attack on reporters is generating a lot of comments on X.

READ MORE: 'None of us should tolerate this': Trump ripped over 'deplorable' promise of 'retribution'

Cat Blanco, a student at Miami-Dade College in South Florida, tweeted, "Deflect- deflect- deflect!! Who's responsible for all the school shootings?! Someone hold this bum accountable!"

X user Jonny Little posted, "When was the last time any right-wing pigeon showed any concern for violence perpetrated on a Democrat?"

Another X user, Abe Bresn, wrote, "The proper response from the reporter to @derrickvanorden was 'who is responsible for the murder of Melissa Hortman and her husband? Donald Trump? JD Vance? Stephen Miller? You?'"

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