Why Is Everyone Talking About the Claremont Institute?

On Wednesday, Elisabeth Zerofsky of The New York Times Magazine published a lengthy essay titled, “How the Claremont Institute Became a Nerve Center of the American Right.” Zerofsky’s piece was well-researched, honest and measured, but the same cannot necessarily be said for other recent fulminations against the California-based conservative think tank. Less than two weeks ago, The Washington Post published one such sordid entry, disproportionately focused on the Jan. 6, 2021, jamboree at the U.S. Capitol, titled, “The Claremont Institute Triumphed in the Trump Years. Then Came Jan. 6.“Other examples abound. Last fall, Emma Green of The Atlantic published a moderately fair interview with Claremont Institute President Ryan Williams provocatively titled, “The Conservatives Dreading — and Preparing For — Civil War.” The New Republic reserved much digital ink for Claremont in a long essay last year on “The Radical Young Intellectuals Who Want To Take Over the American Right.” And The Bulwark, a fetid swamp of “NeverTrump” histrionics, h …