E.J. Fagan: Basically since Day 1, Heritage has been an outsider, insurgent organization w/r/t executive politics. It was often a fierce critic of the admin during the three Bush terms. After Trump pushed out much of the party's of center-right, Heritage remained as party's MAGA center.

I'd like to add some historical context to the discussions around Project 2025. The discourse misses why Project 2025 is so important. As I write about in my book, Heritage has built something like Project 2025 for every election since 1980, but this time it's different. Big 🧵

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The Heritage Foundation was established in 1973. It's founders created the "advocacy" model - a hybrid of think tank and pressure group. They were outsiders in the Nixon/Ford era, but formed an alliance with the movement conservative faction led by Ronald Reagan.

Their big move came in 1980. They published Mandate for Leadership, a thick book filled with hundreds of policy recommendations for every major executive branch agency. Reagan bought in. Heritage claimed that the administration implemented more than half of their recommendations.

Why was Mandate so successful? In part, because Reagan bought in. But mostly because presidential candidates don't do a lot of real policy planning, just outlines for big campaign promises. The Center for American Progress has done similar work for Democrats.

Heritage also worked to get its employees and other like-minded movement conservatives appointed to positions in the Reagan government. They created directories of conservative policy experts that you can still get in most university libraries.

Heritage made big claims about how successful their rolodex was. They claim that they got "more than two hundred" people hired into the Reagan Administration. I have my suspicions about this claim, but we can point to quite a few Heritage employees in Republican admins since.

Project 2025 is just the newest incarnation of the Mandate/conservative rolodex that Heritage maintains. However, this one is different. Heritage had gradually grown less influential in Republican admin staffing post-Reagan. After 2020, Heritage changed its strategy.

Basically since Day 1, Heritage has been an outsider, insurgent organization w/r/t executive politics. It was often a fierce critic of the admin during the three Bush terms. After Trump pushed out much of the party's of center-right, Heritage remained as party's MAGA center.

The Republican Party is no longer a coalition dominated by center-right, cosmopolitan, business-y types. It's now dominated by the Christian nationalist faction. For the first time since 1980, it looks more like Heritage than AEI or the Chamber of Commerce.

Project 2025 includes not just Heritage, but a huge collection of far-right groups. Take a look at the list: it's heavily weighted toward the party's evangelical religious movement, not its business side. www.project2025.org/about/adviso...

Advisory Board | Project 2025www.project2025.org GET INVOLVED Does your organization want to join us in the fight for our country? Join Us

No longer an outsider, Heritage brought in a ton of former top Trump insiders as part of Project 2025. His attempt to distance himself from it is absurd. This year's Mandate is even more representative of a Trump admin's priorities than previous years.

So, is it fair to use the 2024 Mandate for Leadership as a guide for Trump's policy agenda? Even in 2017, when the center-right faction was still powerful, Trump's administration implemented most of Heritage's policy recommendations (according to Heritage).

The 2024 Mandate for Leadership is much more radical than even the 2016 edition. It is the only significant policy planning document by any Republican-aligned organizations. We have no reason to believe that it won't guide a second Trump Admin's agenda. static.project2025.org/2025_Mandate...

static.project2025.org

I'm so curious about the "streamlined" GOP platform that will be coming out. Esp. since no platform on 2020.

Is there a connection between Heritage Foundation and the old John Birch Society?

Not directly.

I don't think that the economic-orienter organizations would get behind the economic suicide that is the drop taxes raise tariffs lynchpin.

*Economics-oriented

I don't think anyone in policy circles believes that the 10% tariff thing is real, but they will enthusiastically lower taxes again.

They should believe it. He's gonna try.