Peter Navarro is the Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy. He's also someone with a clear, logical mind and a gift for distilling the narrative essence of complicated, disparate facts emerging from the six contested states in this election. The 30-page report, plus six pages of supporting footnotes, sets out the six different kinds of fraud and explains how they appeared in each state. It then concludes that, especially given Biden's narrow margin of victory in the contested states, removing the fraudulent votes gives Trump an overwhelming victory and a clear Electoral College win.
The report, entitled "The Immaculate Deception: Six Key Dimensions of Election Irregularities," is here. The factual discussion can be boiled down to this chart, which lists the different types of irregularities, shows in which states they are known to have occurred, and shows how the fraud vastly exceeds Biden's alleged "victory" margin:
Many of us are familiar with each of these claimed frauds, but I can guarantee you that none of us has seen them stated with such narrative clarity. The report ties together every aspect of the fraudulent election without confusing the reader or overwhelming him with facts.
It is a masterful analysis. It's also too long to summarize here. Instead, the remainder of this post quotes Navarro's top-line findings, in which he explains how the system failed, who's at fault, and what needs to be done if the American experiment is to continue:
The weight of evidence and patterns of irregularities are such that it is irresponsible for anyone — especially the mainstream media — to claim there is "no evidence" of fraud or irregularities.
The ballots in question because of the identified election irregularities are more than sufficient to swing the outcome in favor of President Trump should even a relatively small portion of these ballots be ruled illegal.
All six battleground states exhibit most, or all, six dimensions of election irregularities. However, each state has a unique mix of issues that might be considered "most important." To put this another way, all battleground states are characterized by the same or similar election irregularities, but, like Tolstoy's unhappy families, each battleground state is different in its own election irregularity way.
This was theft by a thousand cuts across six dimensions and six battleground states rather than any one single "silver bullet" election irregularity.
In refusing to investigate a growing number of legitimate grievances, the anti-Trump media and censoring social media are complicit in shielding the American public from the truth. This is a dangerous game that simultaneously undermines the credibility of the media and the stability of our political system and republic.
Those journalists, pundits, and political leaders now participating in what has become a Biden Whitewash should acknowledge the six dimensions of election irregularities and conduct the appropriate investigations to determine the truth about the 2020 election. If this is not done before Inauguration Day, we risk putting into power an illegitimate and illegal president lacking the support of a large segment of the American people.
The failure to aggressively and fully investigate the six dimensions of election irregularities assessed in this report is a signal failure not just of our anti-Trump mainstream media and censoring social media, but also of both our legislative and judicial branches.
Republican governors in Arizona and Georgia together with Republican majorities in both chambers of the State Legislatures of five of the six battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — have had both the power and the opportunity to investigate the six dimensions of election irregularities presented in this report. Yet, wilting under intense political pressure, these politicians have failed in their constitutional duties and responsibilities to do so — and thereby failed both their states and this nation as well as their party.
Both state courts and federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have failed the American people in refusing to appropriately adjudicate the election irregularities that have come before them. Their failures pose a great risk to the American Republic.
If these election irregularities are not fully investigated prior to Inauguration Day and thereby effectively allowed to stand, this nation runs the very real risk of never being able to have a fair presidential election again — with the down-ballot Senate races scheduled for January 5 in Georgia an initial test case of this looming risk.
Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy and Assistant to the President Peter Navarro released a thirty-two page report on election fraud earlier this morning.
Titled “The Art of the Steal,” the report is the sequel to a prior report of Navarro’s on election irregularities that alleged outright voter fraud, ballot mishandling, contestable process fouls, equal protection clause violations, voting machine irregularities, and significant statistical anomalies.
A summary from the first report of the election irregularities alleged and which states they were present in is summarized by the chart below:
As for the new report, the key claims made are as follows:
Key methods used by the Democrat Party to strategically game America’s presidential election included changes in the law approved by State Legislatures; rule changes and new guidance initiated by Secretaries of State or other election officials; court rulings and interventions; and the aggressive use of so-called “public-private partnerships” to commandeer and manipulate the election process in key Democrat strongholds.
The Democrat Party used a two-pronged Grand “Stuff the Ballot Box” Strategy to flood six key battleground states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Prong One of the Democrat Party’s Grand Strategy used seven basic gambits to dramatically INCREASE the flood of absentee and mail-in ballots: relaxing mail-in and absentee ballot rules; sending absentee or mail-in ballots or applications for such ballots to every voter (universal mailing); increasing both the legal and illegal use of drop boxes; ballot harvesting; and the use of corrupted voting machines.
Prong Two of the Democrat Party’s Grand Strategy used five additional gambits to dramatically DECREASE the level of scrutiny of the new flood of absentee and mail-in ballots into the battleground states: relaxation of ID verification; reduced signature matching requirements; illegally counting naked ballots to increase ballot curing – both legal and illegal; and reduced poll watching and observing.
This pincer movement resulted in a FLOOD of illegal ballots into the battleground states more than sufficient to tip the scales from a decisive legal win by President Trump to a narrow and illegitimate alleged “victory” by Joe Biden.
Peter Navarro from the Trump Team just released his third report from the 2020 Election – this one proving President Trump won the election.
The Populist Press just reported that Peter Navarro from the Trump Team has released a report showing President Trump won the 2020 Election. (All three reports can be found here.)
Volume 3 of the Navarro Report is designed to serve as a capstone to what has been a comprehensive analysis of the question: Was the 2020 presidential election stolen from Donald J. Trump? In this report, we provide the most up-to-date statistical “receipts” with respect to the potential number of illegal votes in each battleground state.
In the report it begins by discussing the first and second reports and then shares this:
Volume 3 of the Navarro Report is designed to serve as a capstone to what has been a comprehensive analysis of the question: Was the 2020 presidential election stolen from Donald J. Trump? In this report, we provide the most up-to-date statistical “receipts” with respect to the potential number of illegal votes in each battleground state.
The broader goal of this final installment of the Navarro Report is to provide investigators with a well-documented tally of potentially illegal votes on a state-by-state and category-by-category basis. This tally is presented in Figure One on the next page of this report. Note that each number in this figure has a corresponding endnote identifying the source of the number. Note further that we have taken a conservative approach to the count of potentially illegal ballots.
The report continues:
In considering these truths, let us never forget two things: (1) The Democrat Party and its operatives stole the 1960 Presidential Election – it happened then and it can happen again; and (2) it took decades for historians to finally acknowledge the 1960 version of the Immaculate Deception in the face of the same kind of virtue-signaling and cancel culture pressures we are witnessing today.
Despite a similar quest to silence Republican and conservative voices today, 74 million Americans who voted for President Donald J. Trump have the right to a full investigation and bipartisan search for truth. If, however, the Democrat Party, RINO elements of the Republican Party, the anti-Trump mainstream media, and the out-of-control censoring social media oligarchs do not cease and desist from their efforts to suppress the search for truth about the 2020 election, history will judge all of these people, corporations, and institutions in the harshest possible manner.
Here is the list of irregularities and illegalities by state as provided in the report:
The report’s final paragraphs state:
Based on the analysis and the granular, documented quantities of illegal votes in this report, the only thing that must happen now as we engage in a peaceful transition of power is a FULL investigation of this matter.
• The Department of Justice should immediately appoint a Special Counsel BEFORE the Biden administration begins.
• State legislators and Attorneys Generals in the battleground states, particularly Republican states, must launch similar investigations.
Absent a full investigation, we as a nation run the risk of institutionalizing a rigged electoral system in which a large segment of America will no longer have faith in. That’s why clearing the air about the 2020 presidential election is not just about Donald J. Trump but rather about something much larger and of far more import —the future of our election system, the public perception of that system, and ultimately the future of our free and democratic Republic.
We need more than a Special Counsel. This election was stolen.
In Volume 1 of the Navarro Report, The Immaculate Deception, Peter Navarro assessed the fairness and integrity of the 2020 Presidential Election by identifying and assessing six key dimensions of alleged election irregularities. He identified numerous irregularities including: outright fraud, ballot mishandling, a wide range of process fouls, multiple violations of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, voting machine irregularities, and statistical anomalies.
Volume 2 , The Art of the Steal, Navarro examined the institutional genesis of the six types of election irregularities and make several important findings. One key finding: The Democrat Party efforts to strategically game the election process across the six battleground states began years before, and in many cases, shortly after President Trump was elected in 2016. A second key finding: the Democrat’s gaming of the election process was implemented through a two-pronged Grand “Stuff the Ballot
Box” Strategy designed to flood the six key battleground states with enough un-scrutinized and potentially illegal absentee and mail-in ballots to turn a decisive Trump victory into a narrow alleged Biden “win.”
Now, in Volume III, Yes, President Trump Won: The Case, Evidence, & Statistical Receipts, Peter Navarro provides the most up-to-date statistical “receipts” with respect to the potential number of illegal votes in each battleground state.
In Volume III, Narravo identifies hundreds of thousands of possibly illegal votes in six states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. “As this report shows, there is an abundance of evidence – a virtual cornucopia of potentially poisonous election irregularities,” the report reads.
President Donald Trump announced on Thursday he would sign a new executive order establishing the “1776 Commission” to promote patriotic education. The commission will counter the revisionist history peddled by leftist efforts like the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which imposes false narratives on America’s students.
“The narratives about America being pushed by the far left and being chanted in the streets bear a striking resemblance to the anti-American propaganda of our adversaries,” Trump said in remarks during the White House Conference on American History at the National Archives. He further described the 1619 Project—a collection of essays that cast America as an irredeemably racist empire built solely to oppress minorities—as “ideological poison.”
Earlier this year, China successfully weaponized American wokeness to drive divisions deeper in the U.S., seeking to evade responsibility for the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak by complaining that any term linking the virus to its Chinese origins was racist. Woke reporters soon complied with Beijing’s orders and began badgering the president repeatedly on his use of terms consistent with the naming of new diseases.
“Critical race theory, the 1619 Project, and the crusade against American history is toxic propaganda,” Trump said, “that if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together. It will destroy our country.”
President Trump says he will sign an executive order to create a "national commission to promote patriotic education."
Trump’s announcement marks the latest example of the White House’s decision to engage substantively in the culture war, coming less than two weeks after the administration banned critical race theory trainings at federal agencies.
The new 1776 Commission, Trump said, “will encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history and make plans to honor the 250th anniversary of our founding.”
Several Republican House members also ramped up their efforts to counter the 1619 Project, which has already infected K-12 curriculums in some 4,500 classrooms. Earlier Thursday, Reps. Ken Buck of Colorado and Rick Allen of Georgia introduced the House companion bill to legislation from Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton that would bar federal funding from schools incorporating the 1619 Project in their curriculums.
Launched last year, the progressive project spearheaded by the Times’ riot-cheeringNikole Hannah-Jones (who won a Pulitzer for the project’s opening essay, even though it required a major correction) has made its way into the classrooms of major schools districts such as Chicago and Washington D.C.
Watch a short documentary debunking the project here:
Tristan Justice is a staff writer at The Federalist focusing on the 2020 presidential campaigns. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan
or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com
Remarks by President Trump at the White House Conference on American History
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mike. A great Vice President. I am truly honored to be here at the very first White House Conference on American History. So important.
Our mission is to defend the legacy of America’s founding, the virtue of America’s heroes, and the nobility of the American character. We must clear away the twisted web of lies in our schools and classrooms, and teach our children the magnificent truth about our country. We want our sons and daughters to know that they are the citizens of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world. (Applause.)
To grow up in America is to live in a land where anything is possible, where anyone can rise, and where any dream can come true — all because of the immortal principles our nation’s founders inscribed nearly two and a half centuries ago.
That’s why we have come to the National Archives, the sacred home of our national memory. In this great chamber, we preserve our glorious inheritance: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.
On this very day in 1787, our Founding Fathers signed the Constitution at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It was the fulfillment of a thousand years of Western civilization. Our Constitution was the product of centuries of tradition, wisdom, and experience. No political document has done more to advance the human condition or propel the engine of progress.
Yet, as we gather this afternoon, a radical movement is attempting to demolish this treasured and precious inheritance. We can’t let that happen. (Applause.) Left-wing mobs have torn down statues of our founders, desecrated our memorials, and carried out a campaign of violence and anarchy. Far-left demonstrators have chanted the words “America was never great.” The left has launched a vicious and violent assault on law enforcement — the universal symbol of the rule of law in America. These radicals have been aided and abetted by liberal politicians, establishment media, and even large corporations.
Whether it is the mob on the street, or the cancel culture in the boardroom, the goal is the same: to silence dissent, to scare you out of speaking the truth, and to bully Americans into abandoning their values, their heritage, and their very way of life.
We are here today to declare that we will never submit to tyranny. We will reclaim our history and our country for citizens of every race, color, religion, and creed.
The radicals burning American flags want to burn down the principles enshrined in our founding documents, including the bedrock principle of equal justice under law. In order to radically transform America, they must first cause Americans to lose confidence in who we are, where we came from, and what we believe. As I said at Mount Rushmore — which they would love to rip down and it rip it down fast, and that’s never going to happen — two months ago, the left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution.
As many of you testified today, the left-wing rioting and mayhem are the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools. It’s gone on far too long. Our children are instructed from propaganda tracts, like those of Howard Zinn, that try to make students ashamed of their own history.
The left has warped, distorted, and defiled the American story with deceptions, falsehoods, and lies. There is no better example than the New York Times’ totally discredited 1619 Project. This project rewrites American history to teach our children that we were founded on the principle of oppression, not freedom.
Nothing could be further from the truth. America’s founding set in motion the unstoppable chain of events that abolished slavery, secured civil rights, defeated communism and fascism, and built the most fair, equal, and prosperous nation in human history. (Applause.)
The narratives about America being pushed by the far-left and being chanted in the streets bear a striking resemblance to the anti-American propaganda of our adversaries — because both groups want to see America weakened, derided, and totally diminished.
Students in our universities are inundated with critical race theory. This is a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire society must be radically transformed. Critical race theory is being forced into our children’s schools, it’s being imposed into workplace trainings, and it’s being deployed to rip apart friends, neighbors, and families.
A perfect example of critical race theory was recently published by the Smithsonian Institution. This document alleged that concepts such as hard work, rational thinking, the nuclear family, and belief in God were not values that unite all Americans, but were instead aspects of “whiteness.” This is offensive and outrageous to Americans of every ethnicity, and it is especially harmful to children of minority backgrounds who should be uplifted, not disparaged.
Teaching this horrible doctrine to our children is a form of child abuse in the truest sense of those words. For many years now, the radicals have mistaken Americans’ silence for weakness. But they’re wrong.
There is no more powerful force than a parent’s love for their children. And patriotic moms and dads are going to demand that their children are no longer fed hateful lies about this country. American parents are not going to accept indoctrination in our schools, cancel culture at our work, or the repression of traditional faith, culture, and values in the public square. Not anymore. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.
We embrace the vision of Martin Luther King, where children are not judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
The left is attempting to destroy that beautiful vision and divide Americans by race in the service of political power. By viewing every issue through the lens of race, they want to impose a new segregation, and we must not allow that to happen.
Critical race theory, the 1619 Project, and the crusade against American history is toxic propaganda, ideological poison that, if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together. It will destroy our country.
That is why I recently banned trainings in this prejudiced ideology from the federal government and banned it in the strongest manner possible. (Applause.)
The only path to national unity is through our shared identity as Americans. That is why it is so urgent that we finally restore patriotic education to our schools.
Under our leadership, the National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded a grant to support the development of a pro-American curriculum that celebrates the truth about our nation’s great history. (Applause.)
We are joined by some of the respected scholars involved in this project, including Professor Wilfred McClay. Wilfred, please. Thank you very much. Welcome. (Applause.) Thank you. Dr. Peter Wood of the National Association of Scholars. Dr. Peter. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. And Ted Rebarber. Thank you, Ted. (Applause.) Thank you very much, Ted.
Today, I am also pleased to announce that I will soon sign an Executive Order establishing a national commission to promote patriotic education. It will be called the “1776 Commission.” (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. It will encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history and make plans to honor the 250th anniversary of our founding. Think of that — 250 years.
Recently, I also signed an executive order to establish the National Garden of American Heroes, a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans who have ever lived.
Today, I am announcing a new name for inclusion.
One of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence was a patriot from Delaware. In July of 1776, the Continental Congress was deadlocked during the debate over independence. The delegation from Delaware was divided. Caesar Rodney was called upon to break the tie.
Even though he was suffering from very advanced cancer — he was deathly ill — Rodney rode 80 miles through the night, through a severe thunderstorm, from Dover to Philadelphia to cast his vote for independence.
For nearly a century, a statue of one of Delaware’s most beloved citizens stood in Rodney Square, right in the heart of Wilmington.
But this past June, Caesar Rodney’s statue was ordered removed by the mayor and local politicians as part of a radical purge of America’s founding generation.
Today, because of an order I signed, if you demolish a statue without permission, you immediately get 10 years in prison. (Applause.) And there have been no statues demolished for the last four months, incredibly, since the time I signed that act.
Joe Biden said nothing as to his home state’s history and the fact that it was dismantled and dismembered. And a Founding Father’s statue was removed.
Today, America will give this Founding Father, this very brave man, who was so horribly treated, the place of honor he deserves. I am announcing that a statue of Caesar Rodney will be added to the National Garden of American Heroes. (Applause.)
From Washington to Lincoln, from Jefferson to King, America has been home to some of the most incredible people who have ever lived. With the help of everyone here today, the legacy of 1776 will never be erased. Our heroes will never be forgotten. Our youth will be taught to love America with all of their heart and all of their soul.
We will save this cherished inheritance for our children, for their children, and for every generation to come. This is a very important day.
Thank you all once again for being here. Now I will sign the Constitution Day Proclamation. God Bless You. And God Bless America. Thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you.
(The proclamation is signed.) (Applause.)
END
3:13 P.M. EDT
Executive Order on Establishing the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to better enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776, and, through this, form a more perfect Union, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section1. Purpose. The American founding envisioned a political order in harmony with the design of “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” seeing the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as embodied in and sanctioned by natural law and its traditions.
The formation of a republic around these principles marked a clear departure from previous forms of government, securing rights through a form of government that derives its legitimate power from the consent of the governed. Throughout its national life, our Republic’s exploration of the full meaning of these principles has led it through the ratification of a Constitution, civil war, the abolition of slavery, Reconstruction, and a series of domestic crises and world conflicts. Those events establish a clear historical record of an exceptional Nation dedicated to the ideas and ideals of its founding.
Against this history, in recent years, a series of polemics grounded in poor scholarship has vilified our Founders and our founding. Despite the virtues and accomplishments of this Nation, many students are now taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but rather villains. This radicalized view of American history lacks perspective, obscures virtues, twists motives, ignores or distorts facts, and magnifies flaws, resulting in the truth being concealed and history disfigured. Failing to identify, challenge, and correct this distorted perspective could fray and ultimately erase the bonds that knit our country and culture together.
The recent attacks on our founding have highlighted America’s history related to race. These one-sided and divisive accounts too often ignore or fail to properly honor and recollect the great legacy of the American national experience ‑- our country’s valiant and successful effort to shake off the curse of slavery and to use the lessons of that struggle to guide our work toward equal rights for all citizens in the present. Viewing America as an irredeemably and systemically racist country cannot account for the extraordinary role of the great heroes of the American movement against slavery and for civil rights — a great moral endeavor that, from Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King, Jr., was marked by religious fellowship, good will, generosity of heart, an emphasis on our shared principles, and an inclusive vision for the future.
As these heroes demonstrated, the path to a renewed and confident national unity is through a rediscovery of a shared identity rooted in our founding principles. A loss of national confidence in these principles would place rising generations in jeopardy of a crippling self-doubt that could cause them to abandon faith in the common story that binds us to one another across our differences. Without our common faith in the equal right of every individual American to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, authoritarian visions of government and society could become increasingly alluring alternatives to self-government based on the consent of the people. Thus it is necessary to provide America’s young people access to what is genuinely inspiring and unifying in our history, as well as to the lessons imparted by the American experience of overcoming great national challenges. This is what makes possible the informed and honest patriotism that is essential for a successful republic.
A restoration of American education grounded in the principles of our founding that is accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling must ultimately succeed at the local level. Parents and local school boards must be empowered to achieve greater choice and variety in curriculum at the State and local levels.
The role of the Federal Government is to protect and preserve State and local control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, and personnel of educational institutions, schools, and school systems. Indeed, that is why my Administration rejects the Common Core curriculum and all efforts to have the Federal Government impose a national curriculum or national standards in education.
Vigorous participation in local government has always been America’s laboratory of liberty and a key to what makes us exceptional. The best way to preserve the story of America’s founding principles is to live it in action by local communities reasserting control of how children receive patriotic education in their schools.
Sec. 2. The President’s Advisory 1776 Commission. (a) Within 120 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Education shall establish in the Department of Education the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission (“the 1776 Commission”) to better enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776 and to strive to form a more perfect Union.
(b) The 1776 Commission shall be composed of not more than 20 members, who shall be appointed by the President. Members shall serve for a term of 2 years and shall not be removed except for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance. The 1776 Commission may include individuals from outside the Federal Government with relevant experience or subject-matter expertise. The 1776 Commission shall also include the following ex-officio members or such senior officials as those members may designate:
(i) the Secretary of State;
(ii) the Secretary of Defense;
(iii) the Secretary of the Interior;
(iv) the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development;
(v) the Secretary of Education;
(vi) the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy; and
(vii) the Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs.
(c) The 1776 Commission shall:
(i) produce a report for the President, within 1 year of the date of this order, which shall be publicly disseminated, regarding the core principles of the American founding and how these principles may be understood to further enjoyment of “the blessings of liberty” and to promote our striving “to form a more perfect Union.” The Commission may solicit statements and contributions from intellectual and cultural figures in addition to the views of the Commission members;
(ii) advise and offer recommendations to the President and the United States Semiquincentennial Commission regarding the Federal Government’s plans to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American Independence and coordinate with relevant external stakeholders on their plans;
(iii) facilitate the development and implementation of a “Presidential 1776 Award” to recognize student knowledge of the American founding, including knowledge about the Founders, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitutional Convention, and the great soldiers and battles of the American Revolutionary War;
(iv) advise executive departments and agencies (agencies) with regard to their efforts to ensure patriotic education — meaning the presentation of the history of the American founding and foundational principles, the examination of how the United States has grown closer to those principles throughout its history, and the explanation of why commitment to America’s aspirations is beneficial and justified — is provided to the public at national parks, battlefields, monuments, museums, installations, landmarks, cemeteries, and other places important to the American Revolution and the American founding, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law;
(v) advise agencies on prioritizing the American founding in Federal grants and initiatives, including those described in section 4 of this order, and as appropriate and consistent with applicable law; and
(vi) facilitate, advise upon, and promote other activities to support public knowledge and patriotic education on the American Revolution and the American founding, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.
(d) The 1776 Commission shall have a Chair and Vice Chair, designated by the President from among its members. An Executive Director, designated by the Secretary of Education in consultation with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, shall coordinate the work of the 1776 Commission. The Chair and Vice Chair shall work with the Executive Director to convene regular meetings of the 1776 Commission, determine its agenda, and direct its work, consistent with this order.
(e) The Department of Education shall provide funding and administrative support for the 1776 Commission, to the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(f) Members of the 1776 Commission shall serve without compensation but shall be reimbursed for travel expenses, including per diem in lieu of subsistence, as authorized by law for persons serving intermittently in the Government service (5 U.S.C. 5701-5707).
(g) Insofar as the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as amended (5 U.S.C. App.), may apply to the 1776 Commission, any functions of the President under that Act, except that of reporting to the Congress, shall be performed by the Secretary of Education, in accordance with the guidelines issued by the Administrator of General Services.
(h) The 1776 Commission shall terminate 2 years from the date of this order, unless extended by the President.
Sec. 3. Celebration of Constitution Day. All relevant agencies shall monitor compliance with Title I of Division J of Public Law 108-447, which provides that “each educational institution that receives Federal funds for a fiscal year shall hold an educational program on the United States Constitution on September 17 of such year for the students served by the educational institution,” including by verifying compliance with each educational institution that receives Federal funds. All relevant agencies shall take action, as appropriate, to enhance compliance with that law.
Sec. 4. Prioritize the American Founding in Available Federal Resources. The following agencies shall prioritize Federal resources, consistent with applicable law, to promote patriotic education:
(a) the Department of Education, through the American History and Civics Academies and American History and Civics Education-National Activities;
(b) the Department of Defense, through the Pilot Program on Enhanced Civics Education; and
(c) the Department of State, through the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and through opportunities in the Fulbright, U.S. Speakers, and International Visitors Leadership programs, as well as in American Spaces.
Sec. 5. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
DONALD J. TRUMP
THE WHITE HOUSE,
November 2, 2020.
President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Appoint Individuals to Key Administration Posts
Today, President Donald J. Trump announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to be Members of the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission for terms of two years:
Larry Arnn, of Arkansas, Chair
Dr. Carol M. Swain, of Tennessee, Vice Chair
Brooke L. Rollins, of Texas
Vincent M. Haley, of Virginia
Victor Davis Hanson, of California
Phil Bryant, of Mississippi
Mike Gonzalez, of Maryland
John Gibbs, of Michigan
Scott McNealy, of Nevada
Gay Hart Gaines, of Florida
Ned Ryun, of Virginia
Charles Kirk, of Illinois
Peter N. Kirsanow, of Ohio
Charles R. Kesler, of California
Dr. Thomas K. Lindsay, of Texas
Jerry C. Davis, of Missouri
Michael Farris, of Virginia
Bob McEwen, of Ohio
1776 Commission Takes Historic and Scholarly Step to Restore Understanding of the Greatness of the American Founding
1776 Commission—comprised of some of America’s most distinguished scholars and historians—has released a report presenting a definitive chronicle of the American founding, a powerful description of the effect the principles of the Declaration of Independence have had on this Nation’s history, and a dispositive rebuttal of reckless “re-education” attempts that seek to reframe American history around the idea that the United States is not an exceptional country but an evil one.
The newly formed President’s Advisory 1776 Commission just released its report. The group was chaired by Churchill historian and Hillsdale College President Dr. Larry P. Arnn. The vice chair was Dr. Carol M. Swain, a retired professor of political science. (Full disclosure: I was a member of the commission.)
The unanimously approved conclusions focused on the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the historical challenges to these founding documents and the need for civic renewal. The 16-member commission was diverse in the widest sense of the familiar adjective. It included historians, lawyers, academics, scholars, authors, former elected officials and past public servants.
Whether because the report was issued by a Donald Trump-appointed commission, or because the conclusions questioned the controversial and flawed New York Times-sponsored 1619 Project, there was almost immediate criticism from the left.
Yet at any other age than the divisive present, the report would not have been seen as controversial.
First, the commission offered a brief survey of the origins of the Declaration of Independence, published in 1776, and the Constitution, signed in 1787. It emphasized how unusual for the age were the founders’ commitments to political freedom, personal liberty and the natural equality endowed by our creator — all the true beginning of the American experiment.
The commission reminded us that the founders were equally worried about autocracy and chaos. So they drafted checks and balances to protect citizens from both authoritarianism, known so well from the British Crown, and the frenzy of sometimes wild public excess.
The report repeatedly focuses on both the ideals of the American founding and the centuries-long quest to live up to them. It notes the fragility of such a novel experiment in constitutional republicanism, democratic elections and self-government — especially during late-18th-century era of war and factionalism.
The report does not whitewash the continuance of many injustices after 1776 and 1787 — in particular chattel slavery concentrated in the South, and voting reserved only for free males.
Indeed, the commission explains why and how these wrongs were inconsistent with the letter and spirit of our founding documents. So it was natural that these disconnects would be addressed, even fought over, and continually resolved — often over the opposition of powerful interests who sought to reinvent the Declaration and Constitution into something that they were not.
Two of the most widely referenced Americans in the report are Frederick Douglas and Martin Luther King Jr. Both argued, a century apart, for the moral singularity of the U.S. Constitution. Neither wished to replace the founders’ visions; both instead demanded that they be fully realized and enforced.
The report details prior ideological and political challenges to the Constitution as we approach America’s 250th birthday. Some were abjectly evil, such as the near-century-long insistence that the enslavement of African Americans was legal — an amorality that eventually led to more than 600,000 Americans being killed during a Civil War to banish it.
Some ideologies, such as fascism and communism, were easily identifiable as inimical to our principles. Both occasionally won adherents in times of economic depression and social strife before they were defeated and discredited abroad.
Perhaps more controversially, the commission identified other challenges, such as continued racism, progressivism and contemporary identity politics. The report argued how and why all those who insisted that race might become a basis from which to discriminate against entire groups of people were at odds with the logic of the Declaration.
Historically, progressivism assumed that human nature is malleable. With enough money and power, Americans supposedly can be improved to accept more paternalistic government, usually to be run by technocrats. Often they sought to curb the liberties of the individual, under the guise of modernist progress and greater efficiency.
The commission was no more sympathetic to the current popularity of identity politics or reparatory racial discrimination. It argued that the efforts to insist that race, ethnicity, sexual preference and gender define who we are, rather than remain incidental in comparison to our natural and shared humanity, will lead to a dangerous fragmentation of American society.
Finally, the commission offered the unifying remedy of renewed civic education. Specifically, it advocates far more teaching in our schools of the Declaration and the Constitution, and other documents surrounding their creation.
It most certainly did not suggest that civic education and American history ignore or contextualize past national shortcomings. Again, the report argued that our lapses should be envisioned as obstacles to fulfilling the aspirations of our founding.
The commission may be short-lived with the change of administrations, given that it was born in the chaos of the divisive present. President Joe Biden reportedly planned to terminate the commission through an executive order.
But any fair critic can see that the report’s unifying message is that we are a people blessed with a singular government and history, that self-critique and moral improvement are innate to the American founding and spirit, and that America never had to be perfect to be both good and far better than the alternatives.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won,” from Basic Books. You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com.
Have you checked your social credit score lately? You might want to. Mine seems to have taken a nosedive this month. You might want to see how yours is doing.
Everyone knows what a credit score is. But social credit scores are new. They’re the latest corporate import from Communist China, where government and big business monitor every citizen’s social views and statements.
And they’re the latest form of cancel culture in this country, as corporate monopolies and the left team up to shut down speech they don’t like and force their political agenda on America. For those who still believe in free speech and the First Amendment, this is the time to take a stand.
Like the old-fashioned kind of credit score, your social credit requires a lot of maintenance. You’ll need to get good grades in school and stay out of trouble with the law. But that’s just the start — you have to earn your right to live in polite society these days. So if you want to get a good job, stay at hotels and be served at restaurants, you will need to do a few other things. You will need to voice the right opinions. You will need to endorse the right ideas. You will need to conform. That’s what the corporate chieftains tell us, anyway.
They tried to reprimand me this month because I didn’t. On behalf of the voters of my state, I raised a challenge to the presidential electors from Pennsylvania after that state conducted the election in violation of the state constitution. Maybe you agree with me. Maybe you don’t. But whatever your view, corporate America’s rush to cancel those it dislikes should trouble you.
In my case, it started with leftist politicians demanding I resign from office for representing the views of my constituents and leading a democratic debate on the floor of the Senate.
Taking that cue, a corporate publishing house then canceled a book it had asked me to write. Ironically enough, the book is about political censorship by the most powerful corporations in America. (And will be published by an independent publishing house.) Now corporate America is canceling my political events, because two parties are apparently one too many for their taste.
It will get worse. The tech titans have already booted dozens of conservatives off social media, and if they have their way, half the House Republican conference will be expelled from Congress. The corporate titans seem to believe that the only way to get a democracy to their liking is to eliminate all threats to the Democratic Party’s unified control of government.
The alliance of leftists and woke capitalists hopes to regulate the innermost thoughts of every American, from school age to retirement. And they’ve trained enforcers of the woke orthodoxy to monitor dissent or misbehavior. A “Karen” who cuts the wrong person off in traffic gets followed home on a livestream and shamed into crying for mercy as her license plate is broadcast to an online horde eager to hound her out of a job.
Everyone knows it can happen to them, so everyone shuts down. The circle of trust narrows. Conversations — too easily recorded — shift to encrypted messaging apps. For now. Until those get banned too for interfering in efficient social credit markets.
For some time, conservatives, recognizing that we’re now the counterculture, indulged in the delusion that we could opt out of all this. We’d send our kids to schools that don’t teach all the woke stuff. We’d make our friends at church, not at work, and take comfort that trust and openness were still possible in communities of shared purpose. We’d vote our conscience, because the ballot box was something no election could take from us.
And if ever our political organizing were impeded by censorship — say, by the big tech giants — we could build our own platforms.
But the left and the corporations are challenging all of this now. Your “conservative” social platform isn’t worth much when Amazon can shut it down. Your vote may still be yours, but if your party is denied the means to effectively organize by corporate monopolies, it’s not going to win. Your church, well, you can still attend for now, but go to the wrong church and you may not have a job in a few years.
Here’s the good news. The cancel culture agenda will only succeed if we let it. We need live in fear only if we choose to say nothing. In this time of testing, conservatives must not shrink back. We need to stand up for the right of every American to be heard.
We need to stand up for the basic principles that join all Americans together — the right to speak freely, to debate openly, and to address our differences graciously without fear of being silenced or punished for dissenting views.
I for one am not going to back down. My book will be published, and I will continue to represent the people of my state without fear or favor, whatever the left or the corporations say.
The powerful see in the present moment an opportunity to consolidate their control over society and to squelch dissent. That means those who believe in the First Amendment and the fundamental principles of American liberty must now take a stand, while we still can.
Sen. Josh Hawley is a Republican representing Missouri.
