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 October 14, 2024 cover | |
| Editor | Gary Benoit |
|---|---|
| Categories | Magazine, Internet |
| Frequency | Semimonthly |
| Publisher | Steve Bonta |
| Total circulation (2021) | 20,194[1] |
| First issue | September 30, 1985 |
| Company | American Opinion Publishing |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | Appleton, Wisconsin |
| Language | English |
| Website | thenewamerican |
| ISSN | 0885-6540 |
The New American is aright-wing, sometimes described asfar-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 theJohn Birch Society.[4] The magazine was created in 1985 from the merger of two John Birch Society publications:American Opinion andThe Review of the News.
In February 1956, before founding theJohn Birch Society over two years later,Robert W. Welch Jr. created his first publication, a monthly entitledOne Man's Opinion,[5][6] which became known two years later asAmerican Opinion.[7] Additionally, in 1965, he established a John Birch Society-affiliated publication known asThe Review of the News, which was intended for a larger readership and covered news.[8]
In September 1985,American Opinion was merged withThe Review of the News to createThe 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 inBelmont, Massachusetts.
The version ofanticommunism espoused by the John Birch Society inThe New American has alleged that American sovereignty and freedom are threatened by a conspiracy of powerful "Insiders" who are purportedly moving toward control of aworld government in anew world order.[12] As described by the academic Charles J. Stewart, articles in the magazine in the 1980s and 1990s argued that the collapse ofcommunism in theEastern Bloc at the end of theCold 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 theUnited Nations, theEuropean Union, and theNorth American Free Trade Agreement.[12]
In 2006,The New American launched a mobile edition.[13] In 2007,The New American published a special issue devoted to opposing a purportedNorth American Union, and approximately 500,000 copies were distributed;Political Research Associates and theSouthern 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 theTrump–Ukraine scandal,Hunter Biden'sWikipedia article included dubious claims about his business dealings in Ukraine and his fatherJoe Biden's motivations for going after a Ukrainian prosecutor; the claims were sourced toThe Epoch Times andThe New American.[3]
The New American has described what it sees as Americanmoral 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 thereligious 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 includedHilaire du Berrier,Samuel Blumenfeld,Larry McDonald, andRon Paul.[19] The magazine has interviewed members of Congress includingAndy Biggs,Marjorie Taylor Greene, andRonny Jackson.[20]
Likewise, far-right magazine The New American attacked the message of the commercial arguing that it "reflects many false suppositions" and adding that "Men are the wilder sex, which accounts for their dangerousness – but also their dynamism."
...there are fierce objections on the extreme right to initiatives related to international collaboration. This attitude is typified byThe New American (TNA), a print magazine published by American Opinion Publishing, Inc., a subsidiary of the John Birch Society (JBS), a far-right organization.
