If you don’t want to read Project 2025, we summarized the key themes in our coverage of the Heritage Foundation’s “Policy Fest” at the Republican National Convention in July.
Here is Michael Schaffer at Politico:
Whenever Vice President Kamala Harris mentions Project 2025 — the Heritage Foundation’s now-toxic blueprint for the next Republican administration — blood starts throbbing in the temples of certain conservative Heritage veterans. Like think tank leaders across the spectrum, the professionals are cringing at the tone-deaf naivete of an organization that touted such a polarizing document as an election-year gospel without realizing it might blow up on their own side.
“We now have a very good example of what not to do,” said Heritage alum Tim Chapman, who leads Mike Pence’s Advancing American Freedom nonprofit and is a former chief of staff to Heritage founder Ed Feulner.
“I cannot think of a study that has done more damage,” said Ken Weinstein, a one-time former President Donald Trump appointee and former head of the conservative Hudson Institute. “It’s the exact opposite of the Harris approach of don’t say anything about what you’re doing.”
Not long ago, the current Heritage president, Kevin Roberts, was triumphantly promising a “second American revolution” and darkly declaring that it would be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.” Steve Bannon floated him as a possible White House chief of staff.
That was before Project 2025 was turned into a campaign issue by Harris — and disavowed by Trump. Last weekend, the 922-page playbook became quite possibly the first think tank paper in American history to appear in TV spots during NFL games, naturally via a scathing negative ad.
For the Heritage old guard, the bill of complaints against Project 2025 dovetails with broader gripes about Roberts, a culture-war intellectual who has dramatically reoriented the foundation in a populist, pro-Trump direction.
Read the rest here.