Originally Published: March 9, 2024 6:53 a.m.

The last presidential election flipped democracy on its head after conspiracy theorA secret, men-only right-wing society with members in influential positions around the country is on a crusade: to recruit a Christian government that will form after the right achieves regime change in the United States, potentially via a "national divorce." 

It sounds like the stuff of fantasy, but it's real. The group is called the Society for American Civic Renewal (the acronym is pronounced "sacker" by its members). It is open to new recruits, provided you meet a few criteria: you are male, a "trinitarian" Christian, heterosexual, an "un-hyphenated American," and can answer questions about Trump, the Republican Party, and Christian Nationalism in the right way. One chapter leader wrote to a prospective member that the group aimed to "secure a future for Christian families."

It's an uncanny mimicry of the clandestine engine that, in the right-wing's furthest imaginings, has driven recent social changes and left them feeling isolated and under siege: a shadowy network occupying the commanding heights of business, politics, and culture, open only to a select, elite few, committed to reshaping the United States to align it with the group's radical values. 

The men TPM has identified as behind this group — and they are all men — have a few things in common. They're all a certain kind of devout Christian traditionalist. They are white. They have means, financial and social, and are engaged in politics.

Until TPM began reporting this story several weeks ago, the membership of the group had remained largely secret. Its existence was known and has been previously reported on by The Guardian, but the details of the group's mission, membership criteria, board, and internal communications remained outside of public view. Beginning late Thursday, some of the leading members of the group identified by TPM through our reporting came forward publicly to acknowledge their memberships in the organization and published an internal document that TPM had already obtained. They said they were doing so in anticipation of another story by The Guardian.

The members identified by TPM don't necessarily fit the profile of the disaffected, disgruntled loner or the amped-up, testosterone-fueled militia types often found on the paranoid right-wing fringe. TPM's reporting has identified as SACR members the president of the influential, Trump-aligned Claremont Institute, Harvard Law grads, and leading businessmen in communities scattered across America.

The group speaks earnestly about itself and tries to downplay its more controversial views. It is, the group's leaders say, merely another in a long line of fraternal organizations that try to foster civic engagement. But there's a lot that's almost zany about the group's aims and activities. An Idaho chapter sought to fight back against marriage equality by making stickers representing traditional marriage to compete with the rainbow, pro-LGBTQ-rights symbols which adorned coffee shops in the area. In another episode, that chapter supported a quixotic bid to court wealthy conservative donors into funding a website focused on unearthing the spread of DEI in Idaho. The man who incorporated the national umbrella group is an Indiana shampoo tycoon who refers to himself as "maximum leader" and blogs about Rhodesian anti-guerilla tactics and how the must-read dystopian fiction novel for white supremacists, The Camp of the Saints, is actually a vision of America's present.

Group members hold a distinct vision of America as a latter-day ancient Rome: a crumbling, decadent empire that could soon be replaced by a Christian theocracy. To join, the group demands faithfulness, virtue, and "alignment," which it describes as "deference to and acceptance of the wisdom of our American and European Christian forebears in the political realm, a traditional understanding of patriarchal leadership in the household, and acceptance of traditional Natural Law in ethics more broadly." More practically, members must be able to contribute either influence, capability, or wealth in helping SACR further its goals. 

"Most of all, we seek those who understand the nature of authority and its legitimate forceful exercise in the temporal realm," a mission statement reads.

Once in the group, the statement says, members can expect perks: "direct preferential treatment for members, especially in business," and help in advancement "in all areas of life" from other members. 

It's a vision of society which doesn't just extend back before the Obergefell decision on same-sex marriage or before the sexual revolution of the '60s and '70s, before the Civil Rights movement or even before World War II. It goes back further, beyond living memory: to the late 19th century, before the Progressive Era opened the floodgates to what the group regards as a long corruption of America's founding principles.