Since being selected as Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, Senator JD Vance (Republican of Ohio) has been inundated with criticism from Democrats and conservative supporters of the Never Trump movement. Much of it was in response to his widely known comments about “childless cat ladies” in 2021 and 2022, but his ties to Project 2025 and other far-right groups have also been the subject of criticism.

In a report published on August 28, Jason Wilson of the Guardian details the connections between Vance, his press secretary Parker Magid, and the far-right Claremont Institute.

Founded in 1979, Claremont was once a conservative think tank that championed the ideas of the late Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona). But in recent years, Claremont has taken a far-right MAGA turn, openly aligning itself with conspiracy theorists and voter refuseniks like attorney John C. Eastman.

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“Parker Magid was recently appointed Vance’s press secretary, and his professional record links Vance and his circle to elements of the extremist right that are well outside the mainstream of American politics,” Wilson explains. “Vance’s associates connect him to Beck & Stone (B&S) and its subsidiary, the political consulting firm Knight Takes Rook (KTR). The branding firm, which has offices in New York, is close to Vance’s allies, including the far-right Claremont Institute, serial Arizona candidate Blake Masters, and the ‘counter-revolutionary’ magazine IM–1776.”

The Guardian reporter continues: “B&S was founded in 2014, according to its founders Andrew Beck and Austin Stone. The first corporate filings in Florida date back to April 2015. The current Florida filings list the address as a UPS store in New York City.”

Wilson points out that Beck is “closely associated with the Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), a secret, invitation-only, male-only fraternity that has been extensively covered in the Guardian.”

Beth Daviess of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey has studied the SACR and described its views as “far more extreme than mainstream conservatism.”

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According to Daviess, SACR has expressed disturbing views about “whether government should be democratic at all.”

“The connection is just one of many links between Vance and the so-called ‘New Right,’ an anti-democratic movement that attacks feminism, racial equality and immigrants while centering white male grievances,” Wilson reports. “These connections were dramatized in an April 2023 photo that resurfaced last month, showing Vance posing with the staff of New Founding, a ‘pro-right’ venture capital firm affiliated with B&S that opposes what it calls ‘woke capital.'”

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Read the full Guardian report at this link.