What the Claremont Institute is for

Conservative blogger Erick Erickson published an essay last week on Substack, “The Midwestern Führerbunker Driving the Right Off a Cliff,” maligning the Claremont Institute, one of our donors, and a few of our fellows and alumni.

Claremont Institute senior fellow Steve Hayward published the first in a promised series (“Is Conservatism in Crisis?”) on his Political Questions Substack, criticizing the tone, rhetorical tactics, and substance of Erickson’s essay. As Hayward shows, Erickson relies on guilt-by-association smears and innuendo that let the juxtaposition do the arguing.

It’s clear that Erickson wants merely to cherry-pick the document to stoke outrage with his readers.

Many of his citations come from untrustworthy and hostile sources, like the Guardian, which has published numerous hit pieces against Claremont. Erickson’s essay is a mile-wide,