A Conversation with the Hudson Institute’s John Fonte (Part 1 of 2)

The think-tank senior fellow, historian, and teacher talks to Michael E. Hartmann about the American story and way of life, conservatism and revolution, progressivism, and progressive philanthropy—specifically including the Mellon Foundation and its attempt to reimagine U.S. history.

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A senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of its Center for American Common Culture, John Fonte researches and writes about citizenship, patriotism, history and civics education, immigration and assimilation, and international organizations, among other things.

He has been a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, where he directed the Committee to Review National Standards under the chairmanship of Lynne Cheney; a senior researcher at the U.S. Department of Education; program administrator at the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH); and principal advisor for CIVITAS: A Framework for Civic Education, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Fonte served on the foreign-policy team of Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign in 2012. He was nominated by President Donald Trump in 2018 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2019 to serve on the National Council on the Humanities, which advises the chairman of the NEH. His term is now over.

He worked closely with The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation on The Bradley Project on America’s National Identity—the final report of which, E Pluribus Unum, was issued in 2008—and his Sovereignty or Submission: Will Americans Rule Themselves or Be Ruled by Others? was published by Encounter Books in 2011. Sovereignty or Submission won the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s annual Conservative Book of the Year award in 2012.

In “Rediscovering a Genuine American Narrative”—Fonte’s contribution to 2023’s Up From Conservatism: Revitalizing the Right After a Generation of Decay, also from Encounter—he writes that “the entirety of the American story or ‘narrative’ is interpreted for Americans by the progressive Left” and “is promoted by powerful forces through billions of dollars, physical intimidation, and moral blackmail.” It “seeks to delegitimize the Founders and therewith historical America,” according to Fonte. “This is a hill on which the American Right must fight.”

Earlier this year, in similarly forthright remarks to the Philadelphia Society, he said

the progressive project is a total repudiation of the American way of life, both philosophically and practically. It is a revolutionary assault on America: our principles, culture, history, heroes, economic system and Constitution. The Left’s practical policies threaten the American way of life in terms of public safety, societal cohesion, family formation, family stability, employment opportunities, overregulation, reverse discrimination, the destruction of small businesses, and restrictions on speech, personal liberties, and the free exercise of religion.

Fonte then poses two questions about “the two most important issues facing American conservatism,” as he describes them. “First, should conservatism be conservative? And second, recognizing that our country was founded in revolution: should we, once again, think in revolutionary terms?”

To the first question, he answers no; to the second, yes.

Fonte was kind enough to join me for a recorded “Conversation with The Giving Review—his second—about these questions, his answers, and their implications for philanthropy. The edited, just less than 18-minute video below is the first part of our discussion; the second is here.

During the first part, he talks about the American story and way of life, conservatism and revolution, progressivism, and progressive philanthropy—specifically including the Mellon Foundation and its attempt to reimagine U.S. history.

“The premise of my speech” at the Philadelphia Society “was we’re more in a revolutionary age” than a conservative one, Fonte tells me. “Why? Basically because liberalism, the left, progressivism has changed really over the last, say 20, 30 years.

“I think of the days of, say, Reagan and Mondale,” he continues. “Mondale at that time represented a loyal opposition. … There was a sort of a core agreement on some of the basic truths of what American liberal democracy stood for.” Now, the opposition “thinks the current government, the elected government of United States, is illegitimate.”

Fonte asks, “How did this happen? Well, it sort of happened gradually over the last few decades.” He recalls President George W. Bush “being called Hitler. … So this has been building a long time. …

“What we’ve seen, and philanthropy has been a big push in this, is a change in American liberalism,” according to Fonte, “where they’ve started to reject, essentially, what we used to call the core American values.” Instead of “equality before the law, or you could even say equality of opportunity, equality of citizenship, really,” we instead now “have equity. Equity is very different from equality. Equity means equality of results, and equality of result by my group. … The core of the left argument now is the oppressor” versus the oppressed.

“America itself is a problem,” as he describes the thinking. Progressives “reject historic America—both the principles, equality as opposed to equity, and the culture, the American story. …

“I’ve been around for a while,” he reminds me. “I remember the ’80s, I remember the ’70s. What were they saying? They were saying, Think globally, act locally. What’s missing from that equation? The nation.”

Foundations were actively downgrading any appreciation for the nation, for America, “40 years ago, 50 years ago. The ’70s were 50 years ago,” Fonte says. “Who was saying this? Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Mellon. What are they saying now? They’re saying the same thing.”

Specifically, he continues,

What’s Mellon doing? Now, that one has a monuments project. Five hundred million dollars. That’s a half a billion dollars. What are they trying to do? They’re trying to reimagine American monuments. Too many monuments to dead white males—Alexander Hamilton, to Jefferson, to Madison, to Lincoln, for that matter to Washington.

During 2020, Fonte recalls, rioters “took down a lot of these monuments. So what does Mellon want to do? Well, Mellon’s had some commissions locally in Portland, in Chicago, in Seattle” that get groups together to address what to do about the problem. “Who are these groups? Well, they’re left-wing partisan groups. What are they supposed to do? They’re supposed to figure out what to do with these men” who were memorialized in public.

Fonte lists some of them, summarizing what local commissions decided to recommend. This one’s gone. This one’s okay, but only if there’s signage educating the public about any historic contribution in a proper context, which has the purpose or known effect of denigrating the contribution.

“Who’s paying for this? The Mellon Foundation,” he answers. “They want to change the Capitol Rotunda. You know, too many … of these white guys that the states have sent. Let’s have some new people. … Let’s get some new statues in there. Let’s reimagine American history. This is the Mellon Foundation. They’re spending, again, a half a billion dollars on this. They’re doing it now. They’ve gotten bolder.”

In the conversation’s second part, Fonte discusses what conservatives and conservative philanthropy should consider doing in these (counter-)revolutionary times.

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This article first appeared in the Giving Review on June 30, 2025.

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/a-conversation-with-the-hudson-institutes-john-fonte-part-1-of-2-2/