The Vanished 1776 Report

 Joe Biden’s first presidential actions in the immediate aftermath of his “Unity” inauguration speech made it painfully obvious that his words were meaningless. Most of the executive orders he signed that first day had no other practical purpose than to attempt to “cancel” Donald Trump. The goal of undoing any/all of Trump’s accomplishments is so urgent it matters little that some of those executive orders actually work against the broader interests of the new administration. For example, halting construction of the Keystone XL Oil pipeline puts thousands of people out of work, invites lawsuits from several Canadian oil companies, and raises the specter of the US once again becoming dependent on Middle East oil.

However, it was a much less eye-catching executive order, signed by Biden just minutes after his inauguration speech, that commanded our attention. That order rescinded the “1776 Commission” which had been established by President Trump on November 2nd, 2020 – the day before the election. This commission was intended to operate for two years. Its duties were “to advise the President regarding how to better enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776” (a full description of the commission’s purpose can be found here). Within minutes of Biden being sworn in, the initial report of this commission – published just 3 days earlier – was removed from the White House website. In lockstep, links to this report were also removed from the websites of all the major news networks. Any references to the report in the major media characterized it as “racist”, “scathing”, “inflammatory” and “riddled with bad-faith arguments”. The Biden administration itself issued a statement accusing the commission of seeking to “erase America’s history of racial injustice”.

Clearly, anything so reviled by progressives and the media must be a really good read. A number of smaller conservative websites still have the report available and we provide a copy of it at the end of this article. It takes about an hour to read. It is one of the best, most insightful summaries we’ve ever read about our country’s founding and how/why we got from that founding to where we are today. It has four appendices, the first of which is a reprint of the Declaration of Independence. The other three detail the history of identity politics, scrutinize the state of civics education in this country, and review the role of religion in our country’s founding documents.

The primary thrust of the report explains why our country was formed in the first place and the intent behind the novel form of government laid out in the Constitution. It stresses the importance of understanding the cultural, moral, and religious context of the times. This context is critical for divining meaning in words and/or expressions in the founding documents that are not typical in our language today. In that vein, the report tackles head on the most critical question being asked of our history today – How could the words “all men are created equal” as written in the Declaration of Independence be accepted as genuine while the practice of slavery continued contemporaneously?

Equally relevant to today’s events and attitudes is the report’s account of the origins of identity politics, which is the practice of assigning value to a person (or allowing/disallowing different rights) based on gender, race, ethnicity and economic position. You might think that identity politics is a relatively recent phenomenon, but the report traces the idea back to the early 1800’s as then championed by John C. Calhoun. Calhoun was a candidate for President in 1824 and served as vice-President for both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. As the report notes, Calhoun rejected the Declaration’s principle assertion of equality as “the most dangerous of all political error” and a “self-evident lie.”

This last Calhoun quote could easily have come from the mouths of any of today’s progressive politicians. But unlike current progressive thought, Calhoun believed people were naturally unequal, and that government and society should be built around that concept. Today’s progressives are convinced that any inequality within our population is unnatural, the result of injustice, and can be “corrected” via government intervention and social engineering. Both these viewpoints are antithetical to the words and meaning in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration proclaims, “all men are created equal”, meaning we all begin with the same natural rights and freedoms. It does not presume we will therefore all mature as clones to a point of equal talents, abilities, health, and affluence. Our founders would see it as horrific that an axiom of today’s progressivism is that some members of our society must descend to the level of others as a mechanism for achieving equality.

For us, the most significant part of the 1776 report is how it contrasts the political goals and motivations of the present-day progressive ideology, embraced by the new administration, with the intended role and goals of government originally envisioned in our founding documents. The conclusion reached is that the modern era progressive movement cannot technically achieve its goals within the original founding framework of our government and culture. That framework would need to be radically changed or dispensed with entirely to deliver on progressive promises.

This isn’t the first time in our history a progressive movement tried to change the fundamental nature of our original governing model. Up to now, every one of those attempts have been thwarted either by way of elections, reasoned logic in political debate, or by force (the Civil War).

Today, engaging in thoughtful political debate using reasoned logic is greatly hampered by the generally poor civics education of the debate participants. That our public education system fails so miserably in teaching American history, and the liberal arts in general, is the chief contributor to our deteriorating discourse. Political conversation quickly descends into emotional chaos or is never even begun in the first place for fear of ruining relationships. The report goes into detail about the educational problem in this country, describing the causes and possible solutions.

Despite the difficulties inherent in civil political debate, people historically could take comfort in a fundamental precept from the Declaration of Independence that “…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”. These last four words refer to our tradition of holding periodic elections in the manner outlined in the Constitution, which forces those who govern us to act with our consent. If those elected don’t measure up, they can be removed at the next election by their constituents. This inviolate tenet of our society was shaken for millions of people this past November. Despite caterwauling to the contrary by the Dems and the mainstream media, legitimate concerns about fraud in the 2020 election remain.

There has only been one time in our history when neither the result of an election nor a compromise coming from a reasoned political debate has been able to resolve an issue deemed fundamentally critical to our future. Civil war is a recourse of last resort. The cost to human life civil war reaped in the 1860’s was far and away the worst of any event in our country’s history. Knowing a repeat of that calamitous conflict must be avoided at all costs, what else can be done when our capability for reasoned debate has been compromised and our election integrity is suspect?

While the 1776 report does not directly ask this question, it provides the context and background to consider it thoughtfully. A debate on the traditional policy differences between Democrats and Republicans can reasonably end in compromise, as it has in the past. However, the ideological void between present day progressive Democrats who eschew our original founding framework and Conservatives who are beholden to it cannot end in compromise. There simply is no common ground to work from. Either the original model (i.e., the Constitution) must be successfully defended and kept in place (as it has been for nearly 250 years), or it must be fully replaced by a new model of progressivism that borders on socialism.

For the moment at least, it is vital that conservatives loyal to the precepts of our founding do not jump the gun before a truly progressive change to our founding/governing documents is actually made in law. The truth is that thus far, there has been a lot of talk and bluster from the new administration. However. no new federal legislation or Constitutional amendments have been enacted that will curtail our freedoms or abrogate our inalienable rights. Do not confuse the censoring activities of Twitter, Facebook, and others with official actions of the federal government. Also keep in mind that the last time the Constitution was amended was almost 20 years ago and the next most recent amendment prior to that was 50 years ago. Should the new administration try to bulldoze ultra-progressive legislation through the House and Senate, it will have to stand up to Constitutional scrutiny in the Supreme Court.

Sadly, there can be no unity of the sort spoken of by Joe Biden in his inauguration speech. Indeed, we are convinced Biden knew this and was just reciting the words for appearances. This is not due to unprecedented anger, inflamed emotions, or pure hatred on either side of the political aisle. It is because we have reached a point where the ideology of one party has completely departed from that of our country’s origins. A future built on this new altered ideology is unrecognizable to traditional Americans who are patriotically attached to our true history and devoted to the preservation of our culture.

Plain and simple, present day progressivism must be entirely defeated. There is no logical accommodation, bargain, or concession that permits its coexistence with the words and meaning in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Defeating progressivism means purging progressive politicians from our government. In our system, the means to accomplish that is at the ballot box. However, it is essential that the electorate (the entire electorate, not just half) is confident our election process has the utmost integrity. Only then can the result be accepted as the consent of the governed.

The 2020 election could never be described as having had the utmost integrity. Those who went to the Capitol on January 6^th believed they were disenfranchised and that the election was irreconcilably compromised by fraud. Unfortunately, as occurs all too often in the history of “peaceful” protests, this event included riotous behavior by a relatively few participants. That resulted in the now familiar and highly regrettable acts of a protest getting out of hand.

In describing the events at the Capitol on January 6^th, Democrat politicians immediately latched on to a dramatic theme of full-fledged insurrection. This was pushed hard by a more than willing media aching for big headlines. The narrative was cast conveniently as yet another evil from the hand of Donald Trump, who was instantly accused of whipping his crazed supporters into frenzy and causing an insurrection. Almost too conveniently, that in turn provided the rationale for a 2^nd impeachment needing to be conducted at light speed only days before Trump’s term ended.

Our hope is that the 2020 election and the Capitol protest on January 6th are ultimately perceived as a cautionary tale. It is a perilous reminder of the patriotic backlash that can ensue when millions of citizens lose confidence in the election process. In 2020, suspicions of election fraud only increased when the “winning” party unilaterally declared that the fears of these citizens were without merit and deserving of contempt.

The rejection and demonization of the 1776 project by the Biden Administration without any reasoned analysis and with lots of name-calling follows their sad pattern of refusing to engage intellectually. They vilify any recitation of facts that do not square with their ideological goals. The immediate and mindless dismissal of this report signals that Constitution itself is the next target. Why? – The 1776 report lays bare all the reasons in black and white.

PDF version of 1776 Report (two columns with pictures)

MS Word version (single column, no pictures)

Kindle version (email this as an attachment to your Kindle device using the email address provided by Amazon).