Tag: newnationalism

Domestic Policy, Foreign Policy, Politics

Victory or Stalemate?

Bob Claude |

Due to family and medical reasons, my posts have been few and far between since the mid-term election last year.  I am deeply grateful and honored by those of you who have nevertheless continued to read, share and subscribe to this website and its versions on Substack, Facebook and Twitter (or X, as Elon Musk now calls it). Your loyalty led to New Nationalism being recently named by the Feedspot e-zine  as one of the top 80 WordPress political blogs in the world. Now that we are approaching a potentially pivotal presidential election, the need for this kind of unifying debate on the real issues American voters will face next year is urgent.  This debate begins, as TR said above, with a look back at the past year and where we are going.

It is tempting to survey the current state of America and feel both secure and, indeed, triumphant. We enjoy record low unemployment and the inflation rate has come down, though is still higher than it was over the past few decades.   Overseas, American assistance has enabled Ukraine to expose Russian military weakness and Chinese ambitions are being challenged by an Asian coalition led by the United States.  So, why are Americans so glum? What could go wrong?

In fact, quite a lot.  Americans care not just about the present, but even more about the future of their children and, as a result, of the nation they will live in. They survey the public landscape and see rising tensions leading to talk of war, lagging wages, continuing economic inequality, and a warming climate. Meanwhile, the response of the American political system is a stalemate at best on these issues and at worst, divisive and irrelevant personal vendettas. Worse, the two major parties in next year’s presidential election appear poised to offer a only a choice between the increasingly feeble and increasingly deranged.  

The mission of this site is to offer a third way that Americans can rally around based on the nationalist philosophy of Theodore Roosevelt. We believe America is exceptional not because of ethnicity, but because of its values of liberty, equality and the pursuit of the American Dream. We also recognize the reality of a world in which other nations are embracing and acting on their own nationalist traditions and ambitions, whether in the form of Russian revanchism, Ukrainian heroism or Chinese threats.  Relying solely on an ideology of globalist liberal hegemony essentially amounts to a form of unilateral disarmament and threatens the survival of our values not just abroad, but here at home as well. 

Over the next year, our goal will be to continue to challenge the conventional wisdom of both parties and develop a progressive nationalist platform that voters can use to challenge the candidates. It will highlight the new, real political debate between globalism and nationalism without condemning those who take the opposite side. All Americans will have to work together if we are to succeed and accomplish our mutual goal of remaining free and prosperous at home and the beacon of liberty abroad. I invite all of you to join in this journey over the next year on any of these platforms:

Main website: www.newnationalism.com

Facebook: www.Facebook.com/newamericannationalism

Substack: https://robertclaude.substack.com/?utm_source=discover_search

Twitter (X) : @nationalismnew

Political Reform, Politics

For the People or the Elite? -The Trojan Horse of Internet Contributions

Bob Claude |

Optimism is a good characteristic, but if carried to an excess, it becomes foolishness.

Theodore Roosevelt

Several years ago, my computer was hacked at the Denver International Airport. Shortly afterwards, I started receiving emails addressed to “Ricot Claude” (not anywhere near my name or nickname) from Democratic party campaigns and affiliated groups hounding me for contributions.  Many of them came through a super-PAC called ActBlue.   The experience exposed a major problem in campaign finance regulation that could be a source of the same kind of “dark money” targeted elsewhere in the For the People Act.

The fundamental flaw of the current system is that it brands the contributors, not politicians, as the culprits who need regulation. At the same time, the Federal Election Commission has almost no resources to chase down and enforce violations by errant contributors.  Campaigns and PACs need only use their “best efforts” to determine whether a contribution is legal, which is defined as only requesting the basic identifying information required by disclosure reporting. See 11 CFR 104.7.  The committee can rely solely on the representations by the contributor and no independent verification of the source of the contribution is required. The only exception is the presidential campaign matching fund program. See 11 CFR 9034.2. Candidates may only receive matching federal funds for contributions evidenced by a “written instrument”.  This is specifically defined as a check, a credit card accompanied by a signed transaction slip or, in the case of an Internet contribution, an electronic record transmitted by the cardholder with a copy of the credit card number and the name of the cardholder. Thus, the candidate automatically has sufficient independent information to verify the identity of the contributor.

In 1995, the FEC ruled in Advisory Opinion 1995-9 that contributions via the Internet were subject to the lax reporting standards applicable to most committees and did not need to be independently verified (see the answer to Question No. 4).  This may explain why so few presidential candidates use matching funds anymore and rely so heavily on Internet contributions instead. This opinion also authorized the use of outside financial contractors to solicit and manage the contribution process.  Since then, a cottage industry of third party vendors unregulated by the FEC has arisen to solicit, raise and manage contributions on behalf of political committees (see this example of Paypal’s service). Only these vendors have the information about the credit card or other source of a contribution.  They have no obligation to cross-reference the name on the credit card or Paypal account or other source against the name reported to the committee or report any discrepancies to the committee.  

Thus, I could have used the system to make illegal contributions under the name “Ricot” with very little likelihood of consequences.  A corporation or foreign national could have done the same.  The potential for abuse was documented in a forensic audit of ActBlue’s contributions by former Kansas Attorney General Phil Kline, who reported that fully 48% of ActBlue’s contributions came from the unemployed while its Republican counterpart WinRed had only 4%.  It also showed how gift cards can be used to game the system. 

This loophole needs to be plugged before it becomes a floodgate of foreign and other dark money into political campaigns.  One way would be to impose on all political committees the documentation and verification rules required under the presidential matching funds program.  In the alternative, the FEC should have the power to regulate outside vendors that manage contributions for committees and impose the same kind of verification rules applicable to the private sector.  A model for such a program can be found in the Federal Trade Commission’s Identity Theft Prevention Rules, which require certain creditors to check transactions against red flags of identity theft.  In the absence of congressional legislation, the FEC should require political committees to use such mechanisms to verify the source of the contribution or require their vendors to have such a system and actively audit the vendor to insure it is enforcing the program.

Internet contributions have been hailed as the average American’s answer to the influence of corporate contributions and dark money.  As Theodore Roosevelt said, we should not let that optimism cause us to repeat the mistakes of the Trojans in the Iliad and unwittingly unleash the same kind of abuses we want to prevent.  The For the People Act or any similar campaign finance reform should be amended to control against this threat.  Otherwise, we may find that the plugging of one dark money loophole will simply cause it to spring up in a more corrosive and damaging form.     

Uncategorized

Theodore Roosevelt on Fatherhood

Bob Claude |

This tender photo of TR with baby Quentin and the quotation shows how important fatherhood was to him. He often talked about the sanctity of families, but also just loved playing with his children. Indeed, he ended his New Nationalism speech otherwise full of pronouncements on governmental policy with this statement:

In the last analysis, the most important element in any man’s career must be the sum of those qualities which, in the aggregate, we speak of as character. If he has not got it, then no law that the wit of man can devise, no administration of the law by the boldest and strongest executive, will avail to help him. We must have the right kind of character – character that makes a man, first of all, a good man in the home, a good father, a good husband – that makes a man a good neighbor.

His example of courage and service to his country led all of his children into military service, two of whom died. Quentin was one of them as well as his namesake Theodore Roosevelt III, who commanded troops on Utah Beach on D-Day and later died in France. TR’s words and example of fatherhood will always be an inspiration to all fathers everywhere.

Happy Fathers Day!