A lot of attention is being paid to the fact that Donald Trump, Jr. was in the loop to receive a National Security Council memo that also went to the POTUS. But that’s merely the little story.
The big story is this — the credence the memo gives to the conspiracy theory known as “cultural Marxism” (here’s text of the NSC memo, courtesy of Foreign Policy magazine.) For one thing, this conspiracy theory has links both to the 2015 Dylann Roof massacre and also the far larger 2011 terrorist attacks carried out by neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik.
As I wrote back in July 2016,
On the same day in 2011 during which he single-handedly blew up and shot to death 77 Norwegian citizens (mostly teenagers) and injured an additional 319 people — with a truck bomb and automatic weapons firing hollow point bullets designed to inflict maximum tissue damage — neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Behring Breivik electronically distributed a 1518 page manifesto titled 2083: A European Declaration of Independence that called for the deportation of Muslims from Europe and identified – as the arch-enemies of Western and Christian civilization – two forces: “cultural Marxism” and Islam.
Anders Breivik, who during a recent court appearance gave a classic, stiff-armed Nazi salute, has explained to press that his terrorist massacre, which Breivik has called a “marketing method”, was meant to publicize his manifesto.
The core thesis of Breivik’s manifesto is William Lind’s “cultural Marxism” conspiracy theory, and the terms “cultural Marxism” or “cultural Marxist” appear over 600 times in the manifesto. Analyst and researcher Chip Berlet explains Breivik’s thesis, from Lind, with the following formula:
“Cultural Marxism=Political Correctness=Multiculturalism=Muslim Immigration=Destruction of Judeo-Christian nations”
Anders Breivik was so gripped by William S. Lind’s “cultural Marxism” conspiracy theory concerning the origin of “political correctness” that Breivik’s manifesto plagiarized, with minor modifications and additions by Breivik, the entire body of William Lind’s 2004 Free Congress Foundation book “Political Correctness:” A Short History of an Ideology.
From pages 11 to 37, Breivik’s manifesto reproduces the core of the Free Congress Foundation book (pages 4-51) edited by William S. Lind – whose introductory chapter by Lind, “What is Political Correctness”, Breivik lifted almost unchanged.
Breivik’s manifesto also borrowed, on page 13, the exact words of William S. Lind from Lind’s introduction to a 1990s twenty-two minute Free Congress Foundation video, on the origins of “political correctness”:
“Just what is “Political Correctness?” Political Correctness is in fact cultural Marxism (Cultural Communism) – Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms.”
That Free Congress Foundation video also featured Laszlo Pasztor, a close working colleague of FCF founder Paul Weyrich. During World War Two, Pasztor was “a liaison between the Hungarian Nazi party and Berlin” and after the war served a five year prison sentence for crimes against humanity.
In 1988 Pasztor was at the center of a national scandal over the involvement of Eastern European emigres who had collaborated with the Nazis, but had been allowed into the U.S. because of their fierce anti-communist beliefs, in the presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush.
The Lind and Weyrich book The Next Conservatism explicitly and repeatedly references the cultural Marxism theory that influenced Anders Breivik and, very early in the book, explains it in the most dire and cosmic terms:
‘Americans’ most fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech and freedom of association, are under threat from the ideology most commonly known as “multiculturalism” or “political correctness”. But what really is “PC”? A tour through a bit of esoteric intellectual history reveals its secret: it is cultural Marxism, Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms by a think tank established in 1923 in Frankfurt, Germany, the infamous Institute for Social Research. Cultural Marxism’s goal from the outset has been nothing less than the destruction of Western culture and the Christian religion, goals toward which it has made frightening progress. The next conservatism must arm Americans against this menace with the weapon it fears most: the revelation of its real nature.’ (p. 5, The Next Conservatism)
On page 39 following a several page explanation, in detail, of the “cultural Marxism” conspiracy theory, The Next Conservatism refers readers to the URL of a free book on the website of the Free Congress Foundation, “Political Correctness: A Short History of an Ideology” – the very 2004 book plagiarized in Anders Behring Breivik’s political manifesto.
Following Anders Behring Breivik’s 2011 terrorist attack, that 2004 Free Congress Foundation book disappeared from the Free Congress Foundation’s website.
Now, the even bigger thing :
In early 2016, Donald Trump personally met a man who has been, arguably, the single most important promoter of the “cultural Marxism” conspiracy theory : William S. Lind.
As I wrote, in my July 3, 2016 story (link above) concerning that meeting,
A photo, attached to an opinion column dated April 16, 2016 that was published on the website Traditionalright.com, shows Donald Trump standing with an even taller, neatly dressed, unsmiling man with a strangely intense gaze: William S. Lind.
In his column, Lind wrote, “At the beginning of this column you will find a photograph of me giving a copy of The Next Conservatism to presidential candidate Donald Trump”.
Lind’s many accomplishments include pioneering a novel theory of warfare that, he suggests, may have inspired al-Qaeda’s grand global strategy ; promoting a conspiracy theory concerning something called “cultural Marxism” — now globally embraced by racist, neo-Nazi, and nationalist right movements — which helped provoke one of Europe’s worst terrorist attacks in decades ; and publishing a 2014 novel that envisions white Christian militias carrying out the ethnic cleansing of North America and restoring slavery.
In the website photo, Trump is smiling, and, according to Bill Lind, he holds Lind’s 2009 book The Next Conservatism, co-written with his friend and close working colleague the late Paul Weyrich – who is generally credited as one of the top three co-architects of the contemporary American religious right.
The Next Conservatism, reported to have been circulated within the Trump for President team, not only anticipated most of the positions Donald Trump campaigned on – it maps out a bold new path for conservatism that bears uncanny resemblance to Trump’s 2016 election campaign platform.
Although the “cultural Marxism” conspiracy theory originated in the early 1990s at a think tank associated with the fringe LaRouche movement, it only gained real traction after being promoted by the late Paul Weyrich (in his "Open Letter To Conservatives" ) & by William S. Lind, who worked closely with Paul Weyrich at Weyrich’s Free Congress Foundation.
In the late 1990s, Lind & Weyrich co-produced a 22-minute video documentary purporting to trace the origins of the "Cultural Marxism" conspiracy to the Frankfurt School. The Lind/Weyrich video was then re-packaged and distributed by the virulently racist Council of Conservative Citizens whose website has been widely credited with inspiring Dylann Roof, who in 2015 murdered 9 members of a bible study group at a Charleston, SC historic African-American Church.
In early 2016, the Trump For President campaign granted VIP press credentials to one of the directors of the Council of Conservative Citizens (Political Cesspool radio show host James Edwards) and then contacted Edwards to arrange a “Super Tuesday” radio show interview, on Edwards’ radio show, with Donald Trump, Jr. or Eric Trump. The interview happened, with Trump, Jr. joining Edwards (as a guest host) on a closely associated radio show with ties to the militia movement.
As I covered back in July 2016, James Edwards is also one of the directors of the virulently racist American Freedom Party, which has links to the neo-Nazi and neo-Confederate movements.
As described in my story, during the 2016 campaign Edwards’ AFP ran pro-Trump robocalls and radio ads calling on voters to support Donald Trump to prevent “white genocide”. The AFP enthusiastically promotes the “cultural Marxism” conspiracy and sells a neo-Nazi novel describing a race war.
