Michael Anton

Michael Anton
Anton in 2023
Director of Policy Planning
Designate
Assuming office January 20, 2025
President	Donald Trump (elect)
Succeeding	Salman Ahmed
Deputy Assistant to the President for Strategic Communications
In office February 8, 2017 – April 8, 2018
President	Donald Trump
Preceded by	Ben Rhodes
Succeeded by	Garrett Marquis[1][2] Sarah Tinsley[1][2]
Personal details
Born	1969 (age 55–56)
Political party	Republican
Education	University of California, Davis (BA) St. John's College, Annapolis (MALA) Claremont Graduate University (MA)

Michael Anton (born 1969) is an American conservative essayist, speechwriter and former private-equity executive who was a senior national security official in the first Trump administration. Under a pseudonym he wrote "The Flight 93 Election", an influential essay in support of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Anton was Deputy Assistant to the President for Strategic Communications on the National Security Council under Trump. He is a former speechwriter for Rupert Murdoch, Rudy Giuliani, and Condoleezza Rice, and worked as director of communications at the investment bank Citigroup and as managing director of investing firm BlackRock.

Early life and education

Anton is of Italian and Lebanese descent. He grew up in Loomis, California, an exurb of Sacramento. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Davis,^[3] and earned advanced degrees from St. John's College and the Claremont Graduate University.^[4][5]

Career

Anton was a speechwriter and press secretary for New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He later took a mid-level job at the United States National Security Council (NSC) in the administration of President George W. Bush. He worked as the press secretary of National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. In 2005, Anton left the U.S. government and became a speechwriter for Rupert Murdoch at News Corp. He then worked for several years in thr communications shop as director of communications at the investment bank Citigroup, and a year and a half as managing director of investing firm BlackRock.^[5][6][7]

Anton joined the U.S. National Security Council as Deputy Assistant to the President for Strategic Communications in February 2017.^[8] He resigned on April 8, 2018, the evening before John R. Bolton became Trump's National Security Advisor.^{[9][10][11][12][13]}

Anton joined Hillsdale College's Kirby Center Graduate School of Government in Washington, D.C., after leaving the Trump administration.^[14]

In December 2020, Trump appointed Anton to a four-year term on the National Board for Education Sciences, which advises the Department of Education on scientific research and investments.^[15][16]

According to The Washington Post in November 2024, Anton was a leading candidate to be deputy national security advisor under President-elect Donald Trump's second term, but removed himself from consideration after learning the National Security Council would include a position for Sebastian Gorka.^[17] In December 2024, President-elect Trump nominated Anton to serve as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department.^[18]

Views

Anton is considered to be a notable West Coast Straussian, as a student of Leo Strauss by way of tutor Harry V. Jaffa,^[19] and he specializes in the study of Niccolò Machiavelli.^[20]

Anton has derided American diversity in his writing, arguing in a pseudonymous March 2016 essay that "'Diversity' is not 'our strength'; it's a source of weakness, tension and disunion."^[21] In the same essay, written under the pseudonym Publius Decius Mus (after the ancient Roman consul), Anton defended Donald Trump's use of the slogan "America First" by arguing that the America First Committee (which included prominent antisemites and opposed the United States entering World War II) had been "unfairly maligned."^[22] He also argued that Islam "is a militant faith", and that "only an insane society" would take in Muslim immigrants after the 9/11 attacks.^[23]

His pseudonymous September 2016 editorial "The Flight 93 Election", published in the Claremont Review of Books, compared the prospect of conservatives letting Hillary Clinton win the 2016 United States presidential election with passengers not charging the cockpit of the United Airlines aircraft hijacked by Al-Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks.^{[24][25][26][27][28][29][21][30]} In the essay, Anton criticized conservatives who were skeptical of Donald Trump,^[31] and he also decried the "ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners," called for "no more importing poverty, crime, and alien cultures", called the idea of Islamophobia and the Black Lives Matter movement "inanities", and argued that the American left was waging "wars on 'cis-genderism'".^[31][32] Rush Limbaugh devoted the bulk of a radio show in September 2016 to a reading of the editorial.^[33]

In Anton's 2019 book After the Flight 93 Election: The Vote that Saved America and What We Still Have to Lose, he argued that Trump constituted "the first serious national-political defense of the Constitution in a generation."^[31] Trump praised the book.^[31]

According to Carlos Lozada, book critic for The Washington Post, Anton's book primarily reprints text from his 2016 editorial, but with a newly added rumination of how dangerous the American left is.^[31] Lozada wrote, "Anton spends virtually no time detailing or defending particular policies of the Trump administration; all that matters is the enemy. For Anton, Hillary Clinton is no longer the chief nemesis—the entire left is, along with sellout conservatives and any other forces countering the president. They contribute to a 'spiritual sickness' and 'existential despair' pervading not just the United States but all the West ... Apparently, Flight 93 did not end with the 2016 vote; we are forever on the plane, endlessly in danger, no matter who has seized the controls."^[31]

Anton is known as a critic of birthright citizenship in the United States, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution does not mandate jus soli ("right of the soil") citizenship, and that the Amendment's use of the provision "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" excludes children born of illegal aliens.^{[34][non-primary source needed]} An analysis of Anton's arguments by Neil Goldfarb in Language Log said they are predicated on a quotation from Senator Jacob Howard whose meaning Anton inverted by adding the word "or".^{[35][third-party source needed]}

In September 2020, Anton wrote a conspiratorial essay titled "The Coming Coup?" in The American Mind; in the essay, Anton suggested that Democrats, aided by George Soros, were planning a coup d'etat to take over the United States^[22][36] by way of a domestic color revolution coordinated by the so-called Deep State and influential operatives of the Democratic Party.^[37] The widely shared article was called a tipping point in spreading the false claim, which was further popularized by The Federalist, DJHJ Media and Dan Bongino.^[36] On Taiwan, Anton has referred to U.S. policy as a "Cold War relic" and that it is not in the interest of the U.S. to defend it.^[38]

Personal life

Anton is a classically trained chef. After resigning from the National Security Council in 2018, he came back to the White House for a day to work as a line cook in the kitchen, helping prepare a state dinner for President Emmanuel Macron of France.^[39] He is also an aesthete with a penchant for tailoring and classic menswear, having authored a short book and over 40,000 posts on internet bulletin board Styleforum.net on the subject.^[40][41]

Under the pseudonym "Nicholas Antongiavanni", Anton wrote The Suit, a 2006 men's fashion guide book, which is a parody of Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince.^[42]

Books

• Antongiavanni, Nicholas (2006). The Suit: A Machiavellian Approach to Men's Style. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 9780060891862.
• After the Flight 93 Election: The Vote that Saved America and What We Still Have to Lose. Encounter Books. 2019. ISBN 9781641770606.
• The Stakes: America at the Point of No Return. Regnery Publishing. 2020. ISBN 9781684510610.

References

1. Vogel, Kenneth P. (May 21, 2018). "Meet the Members of the 'Shadow N.S.C.' Advising John Bolton". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 11, 2021. Retrieved March 10, 2019.
2. Collins, Kaitlan (May 29, 2018). "Bolton adds two loyalists to the National Security Council". CNN. Archived from the original on November 7, 2021. Retrieved March 10, 2019.
3. "Michael Anton | After the Flight 93 Election". dc.hillsdale.edu. Retrieved April 25, 2024.
4. Nguyen, Tina (February 23, 2017). "Machiavelli in the White House: Is This the Most Powerful Man in Trump's Administration?". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on November 11, 2020. Retrieved October 28, 2020.
5. Maas, Peter (February 12, 2017). "Dark Essays by White House Staffer Are the Intellectual Source Code of Trumpism". The Intercept. Archived from the original on March 7, 2017. Retrieved March 7, 2017. In the beginning, Anton attended Claremont Graduate University, an incubator for conservative thinkers. He became a speechwriter and press secretary for New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, then took a mid-level job at the NSC in the George W. Bush administration. As the Weekly Standard reported, he was part of the team that pushed for the disastrous invasion of Iraq. Anton left the government in 2005 and became a speechwriter for Rupert Murdoch at News Corp., followed by several years in the communications shop at Citigroup, then a year and a half as a managing director at BlackRock, the asset management firm.
6. Johnson, Eliana; Stokols, Eli (February 7, 2017). "What Steve Bannon Wants You to Read". Politico. Archived from the original on April 23, 2017. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
7. Nguyen, Tina (February 23, 2017). "Machiavelli in the White House: Is This the Most Powerful Man in Trump's Administration?". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on November 11, 2020. Retrieved June 10, 2021.
8. "Michael Anton | C-SPAN.org". C-SPAN. Archived from the original on March 3, 2021. Retrieved February 24, 2021.
9. Anton, Michael (April 20, 2019). "The Trump Doctrine". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on November 7, 2021. Retrieved February 24, 2021.
10. Landler, Mark (April 25, 2018). "A National Security Aide's Departing Wish: Cooking for the State Dinner". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on June 4, 2021. Retrieved February 24, 2021.
11. Cerbin, Carolyn (April 8, 2018). "National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton to leave White House". USA Today. Archived from the original on June 12, 2020. Retrieved April 9, 2018.
12. Borger, Julian (April 9, 2018). "Syria provides John Bolton with first test as Trump's national security adviser". The Guardian. Archived from the original on May 12, 2021. Retrieved April 9, 2018.
13. Dawsey, Josh; Jaffe, Greg (April 10, 2018). "White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert resigns". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on July 30, 2021. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
14. "Michael Anton". dc.hillsdale.edu. Archived from the original on November 6, 2021. Retrieved July 4, 2021.
15. Sparks, Sarah D. (December 14, 2020). "Researchers Balk at Trump's Last-Minute Picks for Ed. Science Board". Education Week. Archived from the original on January 26, 2021. Retrieved December 18, 2020.
16. Mervis, Jeffrey (December 11, 2020). "Researchers decry Trump picks for education sciences advisory board". Science | AAAS. Archived from the original on September 30, 2021. Retrieved December 18, 2020.
17. Horton, Alex; Hudson, John (November 23, 2024). "Gorka and his hard-right views on Islam head back to the White House". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
18. Phillips, Morgan, "Get to know Donald Trump's Cabinet: Who has the president-elect picked so far?", Fox News, 9 December 2024
19. MacDougald, Park (February 5, 2020). "The Battle on the New Right for the Soul of Trump's America". Tablet Magazine. Archived from the original on October 21, 2021. Retrieved July 3, 2021.
20. Patterson, Troy (February 28, 2017). "Trump Official Once Wrote Book About Suits in the Voice of Machiavelli". www.bloomberg.com. Archived from the original on April 20, 2019. Retrieved July 23, 2021.
21. Gray, Rosie (February 10, 2017). "The Anti-Democracy Movement Influencing the Right". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on January 10, 2020. Retrieved June 10, 2021.
22. Boigon, Molly (September 18, 2020). "A former Trump official dreamed up a George Soros-funded 'coup' and QAnon believes it". The Forward. Archived from the original on November 1, 2021. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
23. Schulberg, Jessica (February 8, 2017), "Trump Aide Derided Islam, Immigration and Diversity, Embraced an Anti-Semitic Past", The Huffington Post, archived from the original on January 10, 2019, retrieved June 10, 2021.
24. "The Anonymous Pro-Trump 'Decius' Now Works Inside The White House". February 2, 2017. Archived from the original on August 9, 2018. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
25. Chait, Jonathan (February 2, 2017). "America's Leading Authoritarian Is Working for Trump". New York Magazine. Archived from the original on October 7, 2018. Retrieved June 10, 2021.
26. Schulberg 2017.
27. Celeste, Katz (February 3, 2017). "Bannon isn't the only shadowy far-right figure in the White House - meet Michael Anton". Mic. Archived from the original on August 11, 2021. Retrieved June 10, 2021.
28. Leonhardt, David (February 3, 2017). "The Unmasking of a Trumpist". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 1, 2020. Retrieved June 10, 2021.
29. Cooper, Ryan (February 3, 2017). "Republicans: You must impeach President Trump". The Week. Archived from the original on January 28, 2021. Retrieved June 10, 2021.
30. Maas 2017.
31. Lozada, Carlos (March 15, 2019). "Thinking for Trump: Other presidents had a brain trust. But the intellectuals backing this White House are a bust". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on December 18, 2020. Retrieved June 10, 2021.
32. Anton, Michael (September 5, 2016). "The Flight 93 Election". Claremont Review of Books. Upland, California, US: Claremont Institute. Archived from the original on November 7, 2021. Retrieved February 23, 2021.
33. Linker, Damon (February 19, 2021). "The chilling tributes to Rush Limbaugh". The Week. Archived from the original on November 6, 2021. Retrieved March 1, 2021.
34. Anton, Michael (July 22, 2018). "Birthright Citizenship: A Response to My Critics". Claremont Review of Books. Claremont Institute. Archived from the original on November 12, 2019. Retrieved October 30, 2018.
35. Citizenship and syntax (updated, and updated again) Archived August 8, 2022, at the Wayback Machine, by Neal Goldfarb, at Language Log; published July 25, 2018; retrieved August 1, 2022
36. Alba, Davey (October 13, 2020). "Riled Up: Misinformation Stokes Calls for Violence on Election Day". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 6, 2021. Retrieved June 10, 2021.
37. Anton, Michael. "The Coming Coup?". The American Mind. Archived from the original on November 7, 2021. Retrieved July 3, 2021.
38. Anton, Michael (December 20, 2021). "Why It's Clearly Not In America's Interest To Go To War Over Taiwan". The Federalist. Retrieved December 10, 2024.
39. Landler, Mark (April 25, 2018). "A National Security Aide's Departing Wish: Cooking for the State Dinner". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on June 4, 2021. Retrieved December 22, 2020.
40. Maass, Peter (February 16, 2017). "Trump Official Obsessed Over Nuclear Apocalypse, Men's Style, Fine Wines in 40,000 Posts on Fashion Site". The Intercept. Archived from the original on July 11, 2021. Retrieved July 3, 2021.
41. Backman, Melvin (March 22, 2018). "How a Menswear Troll Became a Trump Administration Insider". Garage. Archived from the original on December 7, 2020. Retrieved July 3, 2021.
42. "The Dandy". Humanities: The Magazine for the National Endowment for the Humanities. March–April 2008. Archived from the original on May 14, 2017. Retrieved May 19, 2017.

External links

• Michael Anton, Frum Forum, February 11, 2009 (link updated October 20, 2020).
• Christian Chensvold: Five Questions: For Nicholas Antongiavanni / Suiting up for men's power dressing, Interview, in: San Francisco Chronicle, June 18, 2006.
• Clothes Make the Man, Talk by Michael Anton, February 11, 2007.
• The Dandy, Interview with Bruce Cole, in: Humanities, official journal of the National Endowment for the Humanities, March/April 2008.
• Michael Anton on LinkedIn
• Mills, Curt (April 9, 2018). "Michael Anton Lost the Faith of the Populist Right". The National Interest.