# Michael Anton Political theorist, former Trump National Security Council official, and senior fellow at the [[Claremont Institute]]. Author of the pseudonymous "Flight 93 Election" essay (2016), which became the intellectual [[New Right]]'s most important justification for supporting Trump — and a template for permanent crisis politics. ## Role in the New Right Anton is the **crisis theorist** — the voice that framed the 2016 election (and by extension, all subsequent politics) as an existential emergency requiring extraordinary measures. The "Flight 93" framing — we're all going to die if we don't rush the cockpit — gave permission for conservative intellectuals to abandon their reservations about Trump and embrace populist disruption as civilizational self-defense. ## Key Writings - **"The Flight 93 Election" (2016):** Published pseudonymously as "Publius Decius Mus" in the Claremont Review of Books. Argued that electing [[Hillary Clinton]] would be civilizationally fatal — a guaranteed crash — while Trump was at least a *chance* of survival. The essay's logic: the left has already destroyed the republic; procedural conservatism has failed to stop them; Trump is the only option, however imperfect. This framework has defined New Right politics ever since — every election is Flight 93, every compromise is surrender. - **Review of [[Bronze Age Mindset]] (2019):** Anton's review of [[Bronze Age Pervert]]'s *Bronze Age Mindset* in the Claremont Review of Books was a pivotal moment — it bridged dissident-right internet culture with established conservative institutions, treating an anonymous bodybuilding-Nietzsche manifesto as serious political thought. - **"After the Flight 93 Election" (2019):** Follow-up book expanding the crisis framework. ## Connections - [[Claremont Institute]] — Senior fellow; the institution most associated with intellectual Trumpism - [[Bronze Age Pervert]] — Reviewed BAP's book in CRB, creating the bridge between dissident-right internet ↔ Claremont - [[Curtis Yarvin]] — Overlapping in the Claremont/NRx milieu - [[Peter Thiel]] — Adjacent via the Claremont network - [[Donald Trump]] — Served on NSC; the essay was written to justify supporting Trump ## The Permanent Crisis Template Anton's most lasting contribution to the New Right may be the *structure* of his argument rather than its specific content. By framing politics as perpetual existential crisis, he created a template that justifies any action — ignoring norms, breaking laws, supporting demagogues — as self-defense. Every election since 2016 has been fought on Flight 93 terms within the New Right. ## See Also - [[Claremont Institute]] - [[Bronze Age Pervert]] - [[Dark Enlightenment]] - [[Hillsdale College]] - [[The New Right Ecosystem]]