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

The think-tank senior fellow, historian, and teacher talks to Michael E. Hartmann about what conservatives and conservative philanthropy should consider doing in these (counter-)revolutionary times.

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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. In the first part of our discussion, which is here, 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 less than 12-minute video below is the second part, during which we discuss what conservatives and conservative philanthropy should consider doing in these (counter-)revolutionary times.

“The situation is we’ve got is this new left, which is very different from the left of 30, 40 years ago,” Fonte tells me. “It’s not Arthur Schlesinger, who loves America.” It’s

not the loyal opposition. Conservative philanthropy has to be sort of aware of that. I think they are starting to catch on—not completely, but they are, at this point, I think they’re funding both what we call the legacy conservative institutions and elements of national conservatism, the New Right, and so on. They’re funding both right now.

He notes that this is “actually counterrevolutionary, because the revolution has already succeeded …. The woke revolution that was implemented quickly during the George Floyd days. What you have now is a counter-revolution, another revolution that’s against a revolution.

“We want to reverse,” Fonte says. “In a way, this is what [Bill] Buckley was saying with [Willmoore] Kendall.”

“The New Right is not by itself enough. The legacy conservatives,” he continues, “are not enough. It has to be sort of a coalition of this New Right and legacy.

“You have these foundations, Scaife and Bradley, and they’re sort of funding both people, both groups— which makes sense, I guess, from their point of view,” according to Fonte. “So there’s an awareness that times have changed. That’s all I’m suggesting here: that we were aware of what’s changing.”

Asked whether the conservative response to the progressive revolution should perhaps also include reform of government policy regarding philanthropy and nonprofits, Fonte answers, “Well, I think yes. It’s use of government … in the sense of the Founding Fathers.”

Citing Florida’s actions against Disney and the Trump administration’s actions against government funding—directly or through contracts with or grants nonprofits—of other diversity, equity, and inclusions (DEI) efforts, as well as critical race theory, he says, “The government has acted, and I contend the Founding Fathers” would act similarly. “If this happened in Virginia or Massachusetts, can you see John Adams sitting on his hands and doing nothing as the East India Company spread transgenderism in the 18th Century?

“So, yes, there is a use of government for the common good. That’s right in the Constitution, the question of the general welfare,” Fonte concludes. “Foundations like Mellon that promote DEI, that promote [The 1619 Project], that remote transgenderism—is that part of the general welfare of the United States? We certainly can argue it’s not and perhaps they shouldn’t have, they should lose their tax-exempt status ….”

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This article first appeared in the Giving Review on July 1, 2025.

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