The Council for National Policy began taking root on Jan. 22, 1981, when six religious and social conservatives gathered for dinner at a home in Dallas.
Most American conservatives were still jubilant about the inauguration of Ronald Reagan two days earlier.
They rejoiced at the prospect that Reagan might make good on one of his campaign slogans:
“Let’s Make America Great Again.”
Over dinner, they resolved to bring together #Christian activists, #business interests and #wealthy donors under one umbrella to cajole and pressure the new administration.
Details about CNP’s history have emerged periodically over the decades, as journalists, authors and left-leaning activists pieced together leaked internal documents and other material.
In early June last year, Nick Surgey, executive director of a progressive watchdog group called Documented, reached out to say he had obtained a speech from a CNP meeting in May that celebrated the group’s 40th anniversary. Did I want it?
The speech offered a wealth of new information and context. And it supplemented dozens of hours of confidential conference recordings and documents that I obtained from Surgey and other sources.
“I’m not going to crystal-ball-gaze about the way ahead,” speaker Ed #Feulner told the crowd gathered behind closed doors in Naples, Fla., on May 21. “Rather, I’m focusing on the early days of CNP. How we started, who did what and how the foundations were laid for us now, four decades later.”
One of the organizers of the initial dinner was Tim #LaHaye, an evangelical minister, writer and political activist. LaHaye later wrote the popular "Left Behind" series, books about the end of times and the Antichrist, using themes derived from the Bible. He thought the Christian right would have greater force if its components banded more tightly together.
“This new organization could help bring America back to moral sanity,” he told Feulner, according to the speech.
In their quest to remake our country — to purge it of the cultural and political decay they believe has sapped it of virtue — CNP members are looking backward to receding triumphs.
But it’s clear they’re also looking forward — and they are as determined as ever to shape the nation’s future.
Late last Fall #CNP leaders and the "Conservative Action Project" ( #CAP ) hosted a strategy summit in the nation’s capital for the leaders of more than 100 conservative groups.
They seek ways “to slow the Administration’s left wing policies” and advance a conservative agenda in Congress and the states, according to an invitation obtained by American Oversight, a left-leaning group in Washington.
The title of the meeting? “Saving the Country: The Pathway Forward.”
-- Robert O’Harrow Jr.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/10/25/god-trump-closed-door-world-council-national-policy/
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