Fetal personhood

Steve Bannon, convener of newright personalities and backer of national conservatives abroad like Italy’s Matteo Salvini.

A clutch of journals now promotes the new right’s ideas. First published in 2017, the quarterly American Affairs defends industrial policy and rejects the laissezfaire of conservatives past; it exemplifies the new right’s interest in using state power to reshape the economy and society. First Things and the American Conservative are older but represent the salience of religious and nationalist thinking. First Things has published essays in favour of a profamily welfare state to complement abortion bans. The American Conservative has argued for limits on American support for the war in Ukraine. Their tiny circulation belies their significance in stirring debate and giving newright thinkers a chance to burnish their reputations.

Part wonkish, part anti-woke To translate such ideas into policy, new thinktanks have sprung up. Among the more sophisticated is American Compass, founded in 2020. “There was this white space in the institutional landscape to put out new ideas in a rigorous way,” says Oren Cass, its founder. He has no love for Mr Trump, whose actions following the 2020 election he called “impeachable offences”. Mr Cass prefers to focus on wonkish proposals in support of the Republican Party’s turn towards statism, which have been influential among lawmakers.

Last year Senator Mitt Romney proposed a universal child allowance to cut poverty and encourage family formation. It shared many characteristics with a scheme from American Compass, but Mr Cass and his colleagues criticised the absence of an incentive for work. A new version of the bill released on June 15th incorporated an earnings requirement. Another proposal from the thinktank to create firmbased workers’ councils, rather than labour unions, has been taken up by Senator Marco Rubio.

Former officials from the Trump administration have also created thinktanks, perhaps for combat in the culture wars as much as for policy work. The America First Policy Institute and the Centre for Renewing America (cra) churn out reports on rightwing bugbears: the latter, for example, has drafted tools for school boards to clamp down on the teaching of critical race theory. America First Legal, founded by Stephen Miller, a former Trump aide, is challenging the Biden administration in court, mostly over any loosening of immigration rules.

These outfits are perhaps the most loyal on the new right to Mr Trump personally. The cra employs Jeffrey Clark, whom the former president attempted to install as attorneygeneral to help him remain in office. After the fbi searched Mr Clark’s home on June 22nd in connection with the plot, Russ Vought, president of the cra and Mr Trump’s former budget director, decried the raid as “criminalising politics”.

Whether policies become reality depends on attracting and developing cadres, particularly young ones. The most prominent of these efforts is the National Conservatism Conference, begun during the Trump administration and held annually. It has drawn not only the new right’s leading thinkers, but also many ambitious politicians like Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. The opportunity to rub shoulders with newright icons has made the conference hugely popular with young conservatives. That enthusiasm is evident in some older conservative institutions that cater to the young and to activists, including Turning Point usa and the Conservative Political Action Conference, which have embraced Mr Trump to retain their clout.

The Claremont Institute’s longstanding fellowship has alumni spread across the conservative movement. But American Moment, launched in February 2021, has made it its mission to identify and train young national conservatives for careers in Washington. “We’re looking for people who share our beliefs and motivations, to get them involved in the fight,” says Saurabh Sharma, the organisation’s president.

All of these initiatives require money. Some comes from donors that have long funded conservative causes, such as the Bradley, DeVos and Scaife foundations. Older institutions will compete for these funds: under a new president, the Heritage Foundation is shifting towards newright positions and rhetoric, in part to retain access to donors; Trumpsceptical redoubts such as aei may fade into irrelevance in the party even as many remain formidable fundraisers.

But the new right has also proved adept at mobilising new funders. Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist and early backer of Mr Trump, has become a major benefactor to the National Conservatism Conference. Two Silicon Valleybased philanthropies, the Hewlett Foundation and the Omidyar Network, have earmarked millions of dollars for organisations to develop alternatives to marketfriendly policies. American Affairs, American Compass and American Moment have each managed to secure some of these grants.

The effectiveness of all this activity will become clearer after November’s midterm elections. If Republicans retake both chambers, the party may need over 1,000 additional staff; the new right aims to contribute many of them. They will spread ideas and craft legislation. And they will eventually populate the executive branch under the next Republican president.

Where the new right may stumble is in its affiliation with Mr Trump. Many policy wonks are ambivalent about his continued involvement in Republican Party politics; they are more concerned about the longterm prospects of their own movement. Republican voters’ fealty to the erratic former president may thwart any hopes by newright elites for a more disciplined successor, such as Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis. But any future newright president will have a Washington army in waiting. n

Fetal personhood Votes for zygotes?

W A S H I N GTO N , D C Obtaining rights for the unborn is the next frontier for anti-abortionists

What happens when America’s extreme antiabortion activism meets its litigiousness? Fetuses get their own lawyers. In recent years some judges in conservative states have appointed legal representation for fetuses in abortion disputes (generally, when a minor wants to terminate a pregnancy). The arrangement has some glaring holes. Lawyers cannot meet or talk to their client or, supposing a fetus had wishes, guess at them. Yet with the recent overturning of Roe v Wade—the ruling that had enshrined access to abortion as a constitutional right—the push for legal recognition of the “personhood” of fetuses is set to grow.

Many antiabortionists believe that life begins at conception. Proponents of “fetal personhood” go a step further, arguing that the 14th Amendment of America’s constitution gives “equal protection of the laws” to all, including a fertilised egg (despite the fact that as many as half of all zygotes do