That man, behind the Heritage hard turn far right after long posing as a "Think Tank" but now dropping the pose and coming out full shark mode, blood in the water, no think about it. (Sorry mixing metaphors, pigs, sharks, land and sea, but cut me some slack.)
Full pig mode, let's say it that way. ("Pigs With a Blood Lust," as a possible New Heritage slogan.}
And that man, getting Daily Beast attention for the beast he is, Kevin Roberts, has a revealing Wikipedia page.
Clear and present dangers sometimes require following links, when convenient quotes are purposely being withheld. Two links already given. Do a search. Enjoy.
Last, Crabgrass - as a blind guess - suggests Kevin Roberts is close to Leonard Leo; house guests of one another, frequenting the same bar; sharing the same confessorship, etc. No link for that, but, go figure. And don't blame Francis. He does what he can with what he's got. The pair are nominally Rome's, but move as independent allies of whatever forces, dark or darker. Having Bannon, John Roberts, on the rolodex. Maybe past/present social guests of the Mercers. It's speculation.
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Clearing detritus. This Kevin Roberts is a different person. Comparing Wiki sidebar birthdates showed it. Both rooted in Texas recently, both middle initial D. but two separate bald headed white guys.
Back in 2021 when Roberts took over leadership of the Heritage adventure, Real Clear Politics wrote of Roberts' selection:
Barb Van Andel-Gaby, chairman of foundation’s board of trustees,
succinctly described the new president as a “DC Outsider.” [...]
After RealClearPolitics broke the story earlier this year that Kay
Coles James would be stepping down as president, the conservative
editorial board of the Wall Street Journal observed
that “[w]hoever replaces her will say a good deal about the future of
the political right.” In his first interview since accepting the
position, Roberts told RCP that his selection means that the
conservatism of the next decade and the next century will “not only be
less DC-centric, it will be one that gets back to its roots of being
hostile, hostile, hostile to the centralization of power in the national
capitol.”
Not merely hostile, but multiply so. Continuing, RCP text:
Talk of renewal punctuated by references to civic virtue helped the
self-described “recovering academic” win over foundation trustees.
Competition was stiff, and speculation over who would take the helm
of Heritage became a favored parlor game in conservative circles. A
headhunter helped compile a list of more than 100 names. The board then
narrowed it down to about half-a-dozen finalists before interviewing candidates in person.
Former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney was interested but
didn’t make the final cut. A former secretary of labor, Eugene Scalia,
was also considered. Other Trump alumni such as Russ Vought, previously
the director of the Office of Management and Budget and currently the
head of Center for Renewing America, had already moved on to other
pursuits before the search began. That the board would look to Trump
World for recruits is not surprising. “We were Ronald Reagan's favorite
think tank,” Ed Feulner, the founding president of Heritage, privately
told foundation staff four years ago. “And today we are, and will
continue to be, Donald Trump's favorite think tank.”
Got that? DonaldTrump's favorite. Pay attention.
Even Trump’s vice president was floated as a potential pick for a
time. “Mike Pence was actively being courted for a position in
December,” a source directly involved in the talks told RCP. Pence
ultimately took a post at the organization as a distinguished visiting
fellow. In any event, the guesswork is now over. Foundation employees
will soon meet Roberts for the first time as president. Heritage prides
itself on defining “the truth north” for the right, and Roberts was quick to reorient the organization as an ideas shop.
“A think tank occupies the space between policy making and politics
and, on the other side, the academy writ-large,” he told RCP. “In other
words, a think tank at its best — and Heritage has set the standard for
48 years — is one where you have academic quality research.”
Yet, critics who have complained in recent years that the organization had become too political and less cerebral
may be disappointed. “A think tank, at its best, doesn’t merely leave
its thinking on paper,” Roberts said. Heritage sought an answer to that
problem by ratcheting up pressure on lawmakers during the Obama years,
angering establishment Republicans in the process. A political arm of
the foundation, Heritage Action for America, was founded in 2010. Its
paradigm wasn’t strictly scholarly: “If you can’t make them see the
light, make them feel the heat.” Does the new foundation president see
Heritage as an ideas factory or a lobbying shop then? Both. “It is an
institution of civil society, and as such, I wouldn't ever think about
splitting that baby,” Roberts said.
“We have got a real opportunity in the near term, not just for the
2022 and 2024 election cycles, but for the next decade,” Roberts said of
the organization’s political and policy goals “to help define what
institutions who are center right do — not just what they say and not
just who they hire, but what they do and how they act.”
The intellectual orbit on the right has expanded since the 1980s when the Reagan administration borrowed heavily from the foundation’s “Mandate for Leadership.” A constellation of new
groups, many of them founded by Heritage alumni, have exploded on the
scene. [...]
Heritage will have its work cut out. Donald Trump tore the
ideological curtain, and a number of factions have rushed in to
introduce new, competing orthodoxies. While Roberts sees some
innovations in the populist moment to be embraced, like skepticism of
“an overly proactive foreign policy,” he also warned of the “excesses of
populism," a temperament defined by an “inclination for really quick
solutions.”
[...] Roberts will have plenty of policy to wrestle with soon enough. But the
academic returns to one issue in particular — and not surprisingly given
that he founded his own K-12 school in Louisiana (John Paul the Great
Academy) before going on to lead a university, Wyoming Catholic College.
“People expect me as an educator to always start with education,” he
said when asked about the most pertinent political debate on the
horizon, “but I actually happen to believe that's true.”
And the headline quote, that is Roberts speaking, per the opening cite. So ---
Now, 7/5/24, what's next? Well, TheHill:
Former President Trump sought to distance himself from the
conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 on Friday, saying he has
“nothing to do” with the initiative and disagrees with some of its
aspects.
Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he is not involved in the right-wing think tank’s proposal,
which outlines various policies and initiatives that some conservatives
hope a future Republican administration would administer.
“I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it,”
he said. “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of
the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.
Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with
them.”
The 900-page 2025 Presidential Transition Project is a “governing
agenda” filled with conservative priorities and insight from scholars
and policy experts. It is divided into sections based on five main
topics — “Taking the Reins of Government,” “The Common Defense,” “The
General Welfare,” “The Economy” and “Independent Regulatory Agencies.”
The project makes a wide range of policy proposals, perhaps most
notably reshaping the powers of the executive branch. It also calls for
striking various small government agencies and rolling back funding for
abortions and approval of the abortion pill mifepristone.
Another proposal is reimplementing Schedule F, a classification for
federal workers that makes it easier to fire them and replace them with
loyalists. The Associated Press has estimated this could affect 50,000
workers.
The Heritage Foundation is the once-staid think tank that, since
Roberts’ arrival in 2021, has leaned into the culture wars with gusto.
The group has organized the infamous Project 2025, mapping out an extremist agenda for a prospective second Trump term.
Roberts spoke Tuesday
on the show Real America’s Voice with guest host and former Tea Party
congressman Dave Brat, and uncorked comments that made him sound like a
member of the Oath Keepers militia.
“Let me speak about the radical left,” Roberts said, insisting it “has
taken over our institutions.” He said that the reason progressive are
“apoplectic right now” — in the wake of the Supreme Court decision
granting the president immunity from criminal prosecution — “is because
our side is winning.”
Roberts then declared himself an insurrectionist who is open to
violence: “We are in the process of the second American Revolution,” he
said, “which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Heritage
Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court presidential immunity
ruling: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which
will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be" https://t.co/ndMJlNlUKH
Roberts comments underscore the threat of authoritarianism that is
looming over the 2024 election, and immediately caught the attention of
experts on fascist movements. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at
NYU, called out Roberts in a pair of posts on X, describing
him as a “fascist” who was “celebrating” the newfound power of the
president to “kill people and pay no penalty” while “feeling empowered
by the ruling to threaten the American people.” Ben-Ghiat decoded “the
left” as applying to “everyone who is not MAGA.”
The NYU professor, whose expertise is in Italian fascism, added
that “Heritage does not have an in-house paramilitary” and that by
“using ‘we,’ Roberts is suggesting that Heritage is aligned with armed
entities that could be activated if there is resistance to their coup.”
She called this a “classic intimidation tactic: submit or else.”
The Biden campaign denounced Roberts comments in a statement: “248
years ago tomorrow America declared independence from a tyrannical king,
and now Donald Trump
and his allies want to make him on [sic, one] at our expense.” The statement
described Roberts as “dreaming of a violent revolution to destroy the
very idea of America.”
Later in the broadcast, Roberts predicted that his “second revolution”
would be complete by 2050, and that would it would coincide with a new
“great awakening” that would bring America to God — underscoring the
extent to which Heritage and its Project 2025 is entwined with Christian
nationalism.
Which has Trump saying, "Not me." But Trump poses as many things, depending on which audience he faces. But as a bottom line, if Trump says Project 2025 is full of it, then believe, it is. Nonetheless, were Trump to win, what then, being who he is?
Wholly unrelated, Scorpions are invading Texas, (not coming from there invading elsewhere.) Whatever. And, yes. Saying no quotes, and then quoting. Maybe lying is infectious. Put a MAGA hat on my head and who knows what I'd write? No. One of those things on my head would make my hair cringe.
FURTHER: Link. Whether Trump and Project 2025 are cojoined, or not, both are deplorable (Oops, the Hillary word, oh dear. Apologies.)
It is fair to note that Trump has never (not yet?) released a video of him holding up a copy of Project 2025 (900 pages) and touting it as a thing he promotes, endorses and urges you to buy; unlike here and here.