Darren Beattie
Hard Right intellectual; Duke PhD in political science 2016 (dissertation: “Martin Heidegger’s Mathematical Dialectic: Uncovering the Structure of Modernity”); Claremont Institute Publius Scholar 2008; Trump White House speechwriter 2018; forced out August 2018 when CNN discovered his 2016 HL Mencken Club speech; hired by Matt Gaetz; founded Revolver News; ideological innovator for “Stop the Steal”
Who He Is
Darren Beattie is one of the key figures in the Hard Right’s pipeline from extremist fringe to MAGA mainstream. A Heidegger-trained political philosopher with connections to both the Claremont Institute and the HL Mencken Club, he moved from academia to the Trump White House to far-right media — carrying Hard Right ideas into each venue.
Biography
Beattie received his PhD in political science from Duke University in 2016. His dissertation was titled “Martin Heidegger’s Mathematical Dialectic: Uncovering the Structure of Modernity.” At Duke, he signed on to a scholars’ endorsement of Trump for the presidency and predicted Trump’s victory, gaining some attention. He was a Claremont Institute Publius Scholar in 2008 — giving him connections to the Claremonters even before he entered the Trump orbit.
HL Mencken Club (2016)
Just before the 2016 election, Beattie gave a speech at the HL Mencken Club — Paul Gottfried’s white nationalist-friendly conference — called “The Right and the Intelligentsia,” about the emergence of a new antiglobalist intelligentsia. He also responded eagerly to a Claremont email from right-wing provocateur Charles Johnson about whether to support Trump early in 2016.
Both Richard Spencer and Peter Brimelow were regulars at the Mencken Club. That Beattie appeared there places him in the Hard Right network, even as he maintained connections to the mainstream Claremonters.
Trump White House (2018)
By 2018, Beattie was working as a speechwriter and aide in the White House. During this time he became close with Steve Bannon and Michael Anton. In 2019, in a dinner with Bannon and Teitelbaum (who later wrote about it in War for Eternity, 2020), Beattie was enthusiastic about Michael Millerman — a Toronto PhD who writes apologetics for the neo-fascist Russian thinker Aleksandr Dugin.
Firing: Beattie was forced out of the White House in August 2018, when CNN uncovered his participation at the 2016 HL Mencken Club meeting.
Post-White House Career
After the White House, Beattie was hired by Congressman Matt Gaetz, leading to further controversies. He then founded Revolver News, a conspiratorial website where he became an ideological innovator for “Stop the Steal” — the propaganda apparatus around Trump’s election fraud claims post-2020.
On November 13, 2020, the Trump administration appointed him to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad (the same day it also appointed Jason Richwine to a senior position at the National Institute of Standards and Technology).
The Hölderlin Speech
Beattie concluded his 2016 Mencken Club speech — the one about a new right intelligentsia — by quoting Hölderlin’s “Patmos”: “Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst das Rettende auch” (“Where, however, there is danger, salvation also grows”). This line famously concludes Heidegger’s essay “The Question Concerning Technology.” Beattie reversed the meaning: “Hinter das Rettende liegt auch das Gefahr” (“Behind salvation, the danger also lies”). His concern: that right-wing political victories might not translate into “something of real philosophic significance.”
Field: “He was right to be concerned.”
Significance
Beattie’s trajectory — Heidegger dissertation, Claremont Publius Scholar, HL Mencken Club speaker, White House speechwriter, far-right media founder — illustrates the routes by which Hard Right ideas entered the MAGA government. His enthusiasm for Millerman (Dugin’s translator) places him at the intersection of American Hard Right and Russian neo-fascist thought.
Cross-References
- Hard Right — his camp
- Richard Spencer — overlapping Mencken Club circuit
- Paul Gottfried — HL Mencken Club organizer
- Steve Bannon — close collaborator in White House; dinner at Tucson smokehouse
- Michael Anton — White House colleague; Beattie urged Anton to take Bronze Age Mindset seriously
- Curtis Yarvin — Hard Right network
- Costin Alamariu — Beattie told Anton that BAP’s book “has struck a chord with younger people”
- The Claremonters — Claremont Publius Scholar; connected to both camps
- January 6 2021 — Revolver News was a key propaganda organ for Stop the Steal