Right-wing American magazine
The New American is a right-wing (sometimes described as far-right[2][3]) print magazine published twice a month and a digital news source published daily online by American Opinion Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the John Birch Society.[4] The magazine was created in 1985 from the merger of two John Birch Society publications: American Opinion and The Review of the News.
History
In February 1956, before his foundation of the John Birch Society over two years later, Robert W. Welch Jr. created his first publication, a monthly entitled One Man's Opinion,[5][6] which became known two years later as American Opinion.[7] Additionally, in 1965, he established a John Birch Society-affiliated publication known as The Review of the News, which was intended for a larger readership and covered news.[8]
In September 1985, American Opinion was merged with The Review of the News to create The New American, with the aim of attracting a readership large enough to "make the saving of our country possible."[9] The magazine's name was inspired by Robert Welch's "New Americanism" essay.[10][11] It was first headquartered in Belmont, Massachusetts.
The version of anticommunism espoused by the John Birch Society in The New American has alleged that American sovereignty and freedom are threatened by a conspiracy of powerful "Insiders" who are purportedly moving toward control of a world government in a new world order. As described by the academic Charles J. Stewart, articles in the magazine in the 1980s and 1990s argued that the collapse of communism in the Eastern Bloc at the end of the Cold War was a tactical move in the conspiracy and a "jump forward in the development of socialism". The magazine has alleged that such a conspiracy also animates the United Nations, the European Union, and the North American Free Trade Agreement.
In 2006, The New American launched a mobile edition.[13] In 2007, The New American published a special issue devoted to opposing a purported North American Union, and approximately 500,000 copies were distributed; Political Research Associates and the Southern Poverty Law Center described such descriptions of an imminent loss of American sovereignty in a merger with Canada and Mexico as a conspiracy theory.[14][15]
In September 2019, during the Trump–Ukraine scandal, Hunter Biden's Wikipedia article included dubious claims about his business dealings in Ukraine and his father Joe Biden's motivations for going after a Ukrainian prosecutor; the claims were sourced to The Epoch Times and The New American.[3]
Editorial stance and notable coverage
The New American has described what it sees as American moral decline, including abortion, drugs, homosexuality, crime, violence, teenage pregnancy, teen suicide, feminism, and pornography—all of which, it has said, are undermining the family and by extension the American republic. Such emphases have made the John Birch Society attractive to the religious right in the United States.[16]
The New American publishes the Freedom Index, which rates members of Congress and state legislators “based on their adherence to constitutional principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, national sovereignty and a traditional foreign policy of avoiding foreign entanglements.”[17][better source needed][18]
Contributors have included Hilaire du Berrier, Samuel Blumenfeld, Larry McDonald, and Ron Paul.[19] The magazine has interviewed members of Congress including Andy Biggs, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Ronny Jackson.[20]
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