A Clod Be Washed Away
And America is not the less. Plus some very MAGA White House staffers
Welcome back to KTB.
Last week KTB briefly mentioned Charlie Kirk, the notorious alt-right activist. As you know, Kirk is now dead, shot through the throat.
Kirk did not deserve to be murdered - but only because no human being deserves to be murdered, no matter how vile he or she is.
And Charlie Kirk was vile. Kirk was a racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, anti-Muslim, antisemitic conspiracy theorist who evangelized the MAGA movement, white nationalism, and many other hateful, alt-right causes.
Yet many of the most sincere sympathies being expressed online are from the people Kirk spent his life degrading: liberals and moderates; minorities; and apolitical people who just aren’t hateful. I, myself, feel a kind of strange, subtle grief.
The reason why, I believe, is that people who aren’t like Kirk are endowed with empathy - a trait that Kirk derided throughout his life.
We see all people as our brothers and sisters, and so anybody’s death - even the death of our persecutor - feels as if we have lost a sibling. It is good that we feel that way - that we mourn those we loathe. Otherwise, we are those we loathe.
But our mourning should not give way to excuse-making in which we grasp at apologist thoughts like “maybe he had a few reasonable points” or “maybe he wasn’t all that responsible for the alt-right.” He didn’t, and he was.
We must steel ourselves against that denialism, rooted though it is in a deep, humane empathy. We must recognize that Kirk’s death does not diminish me because I am involved in mankind (sorry, John Donne, you never met MAGA). Kirk’s death grieves us, but the sorry truth is that it also leaves all of us much better off.
We must also steel ourselves for what comes next. The murder of a far right peon has, historically, been a useful pretext for anti-democratic action… Will Kirk go down in history with Horst Wessel, Ernst vom Rath, Albert Schlageter, the martiri fascisti, Jose Antonio, and the extreme right’s other useful deaths?
Don’t let Donald Trump give Charlie Kirk that win.
All the President’s MAGA
This week, KTB is going to call out several White House staffers who are in the Heritage Foundation’s “Presidential Personnel Database.”
That database, which leaked three months ago, contains the names of wannabe Trump appointees and those wannabes’ responses to Heritage’s screening questionnaire, including their “short essay” responses.
Short essay responses such as this one from Ali Motamedi, which is totally rational and not at all the paranoid rant of a conspiracy theorist…
For the preservation of our nation’s sovereignty and dignity…American interests need to be put before the special interests of…socially progressive, anti-religious Marxists that seek to employ the state’s power to persecute Christians and hardworking Americans.
Ali is a Research Analyst at the White House who was previously a part-time consultant with the Heritage Foundation. In his short essays, he also decried the supposed “infiltration of our government and key institutions.”
Elijah Diamond would agree - in his own short essays, he condemns the “influence of activist ideology in government, in institutions, and in our cities.”
Elijah was a Publius Fellow at the alt-right Claremont Institute (two previous KTB posts named and shamed the 2021 fellows; Elijah was class of 2020), and today he is an Assistant Staff Secretary at the White House.
Elijah sure talked tough in his short essays: to stop “activist ideology,” he wants “aggressive means” and the “hard-edged approach our moment needs.”
Given severe institutional and government capture by activist ideologues, I believe that conservatives must think [employ?] the strategic (but delimited) use of state power.
So you want to use the American government against your fellow Americans who happen to disagree with you? Reminds me of what our country’s second worst president might do - and it reminds Elijah of the same:
Nixon understood ideological radicalism as the principal threat to American liberty and representative government - and took action accordingly. …
Nixon had the right formula on cultural issues [at] today’s center of gravity.
The right formula? Um, Elijah, how well did things end for Nixon?
Two White House staffers who are in the Heritage database are big fans of The Prince, Machiavelli’s 16th century how-to book for power hungry tyrants.
One of them is Jessica Malanga, a White House Special Assistant. Jessica - who began her short essays with the exhortation, “Liberty or death. America First” - wrote this about The Prince:
The concepts presented within the book are still relevant hundreds of years later. I have been reading it since I was in second grade.
Second grade? You started studying ruthless power politics at age 7?
No idea if Jessica ever tried to seize power in her elementary school. But two years ago, at University of South Florida, she did Machiavelli proud. First, she made herself a hero to campus conservatives by opposing a student government resolution on protecting transgendered students from discrimination.
Then, Jessica leveraged her notoriety to run for student government VP. Jessica set up her own, unofficial, unmonitored polling stations and also handed out snack packs as bribes to voters. Those stunts got her candidacy disqualified.
A right-wing Machiavelli who does election fraud? No wonder Trump hired her.
Quy Le, the other Machiavelli fan, wrote that reading The Prince
marked a turning point in how I saw the world and how I saw other people. I began to see that…political positions that seem altruistic are often hiding ulterior motives.
Ignorance of illegal immigration has more to do with demographic change and political power than compassion. Abortion is…about people’s desire to have sexual relations without consequences. The welfare state is more about promoting government dependency.
The Prince…helped me to realize that there are great forces of evil at the societal level that go beyond good-faith disagreements about what is best for the country.
Huh, I don’t recall Machiavelli alluding to the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, Quy. Or saying anything about abortion or welfare. Maybe that’s just you.
Quy was the White House Director of Correspondence Analysis which means that he was in charge of reading Trump’s fan mail. But he was just appointed by Trump to a new job at the Administration for Children and Families, where he is no doubt lecturing poor children and families on their government dependency.
Three White House staffers in the Heritage database work in the Presidential Personnel Office. (PPO vets and gives jobs to Trump appointees; in previous posts, KTB called out two PPOers, Troup Hemenway and Saurabh Sharma.)
Sarah Calvis is Senior Associate Director for Presidential Personnel. Before joining PPO, Sarah worked for American Moment (Saurabh Sharma’s right-wing outfit). And before that, Sarah worked for the Heritage Foundation on Project 2025, the alt-right’s infamous blueprint for MAGA-izing the government.
Seth Newkirk was an Associate Director for Presidential Personnel. I wonder if anyone at the White House ever read the article Seth wrote in college bashing Trump favorites Jeanine Pirro and Sebastian Gorka?
These are not conservatives. These are charlatans. … A farce of proportions unequaled even by the Joker himself.
Seth is correct about that, but I think the Administration would prefer his loyalty to his honesty. Whose job was it to vet this Seth guy, anyway?! Oh yeah, PPO’s.
Just this month, Seth began a new job: Trump appointed him a Senior Advisor in the State Department’s Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy.
Seth’s new appointment should make Milton Zerman happy. He is an Associate Director for Presidential Personnel and a former Hill staffer, and in his short essays for the Heritage database Milton ranted on about “subversion,” sabotage, and disloyalty in the State Department and Intelligence Community.
Through the fabricated Russian collusion narrative and then by means of the similarly manufactured impeachment hysteria, both demonstrate the crucial necessity of making sure all State Department employees are loyal to the next president’s agenda.
Self-interested officials…were actively sabotaging America First policies…and they potentially even posed a national security risk by leaking information and undermining the president on the world stage. That kind of subversion cannot be allowed.
Samuel Mangold-Lenett also likes to disparage federal employees: in his short essays for the Heritage Foundation database, he wrote
The weaponization of the administrative apparatus threatens the very legitimacy of the American experiment. These rogue agencies must be reined in if we are to retain political solvency [sovereignty?]. I would like to see a…large-scale firing of bureaucrats and the elimination of agencies that are…illegal.
You knew one of these clowns was going to use the “weaponization” trope, didn’t you?
Samuel is a White House Speechwriter and Special Assistant. Before that, he was a 2022 Publius Fellow at Claremont and also a 2024 Speechwriting Fellow. He was also a writer for the Tucker Carlson Network and for several other right-wing outlets. Here are the titles of some of Samuel’s articles:
—“Pride Month Is A Cynical Exercise In State-Enforced Homosexuality”
—“Reject The Rainbow Mob’s Farcical Transgender ‘Awareness’ Celebrations’”
—“If Big Tech Isn’t Regulated Before 2024, The Election Will Be Rigged Again”
—“The FBI Raided Trump Because He’s A Threat To The Deep State”
Being homophobic and transphobic is typical of Trump appointees, as is believing conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the “Deep State.” But the views that Samuel articulated in one other article are more…unique: “Ted Kaczynski’s Murderous Legacy Doesn’t Mean His Diagnosis Of The Post-Industrial West Is Wrong.”
Um, Samuel agrees with the Unabomber Manifesto?
Seems so. In the article, he even describes Kaczynski’s insane ramblings as “obviously an accurate description of contemporary leftists.”
Obviously.
Thank yous
First, a thank you to KTB’s first three paid subscribers! I won’t mention you by name in case you wish to stay anonymous, but I greatly appreciate your support.
And second, thank you to the KTB reader who emailed me the White House personnel list (to protect your anonymity, too, I won’t mention your name). This week’s post used that list extensively - so many thanks for the lift!
Contact KTB
Got a hot tip? A recommendation? Additional info to add? A correction? Want to help write KTB? Click below or email me at KTB2025@protonmail.com.
I have zero grief for Kirk. Only for what his murder represents. Political violence robs us of our innocence (indeed, it has already left us with only a glimmer) while thrusting incivility upon us. As for Kirk? Could happen better to only a few.
Excellent much needed exposure! THANK YOU!
I’ve always said, “I don’t want to elect two people, President and VP, please introduce the team you put together for the American people.”
I had a good sense of that with Obama, no other President in my time.