A man who had worked at Heritage for 47 years rose and reminded Roberts that William F. Buckley’s conservative movement had excluded David Duke and the John Birch Society. Yes, he said, conservatives had canceled them: “Because if they’re in your movement, you look like clowns.”
Then a younger employee offered a different warning. Generation Z’s growing hostility toward Israel didn’t mean millions of young Americans were antisemites, she argued. Many younger Catholic and Orthodox conservatives believed that “Christian Zionism is a modern heresy.”³
In the span of a few minutes, one conference room contained the conservative movement that was, the movement now arriving and the man who believed Heritage could somehow keep both under the same roof.
The younger employee wasn’t wrong. Criticizing Israel isn’t antisemitic, nor is questioning whether the United States should involve itself in another Middle Eastern war. The old conservative establishment sometimes used accusations of extremism to avoid arguments it didn’t want to have about immigration, trade, foreign intervention or Israel.
But the answer can’t be to stop making distinctions altogether. A serious political movement ought to be capable of questioning Israeli policy while rejecting conspiracies about Jewish control, opposing foreign wars without rehabilitating Hitler admirers, and defending free speech without pretending that every speaker deserves a place inside the coalition.
I don’t think the real issue was whether Fuentes should be canceled. No one was asking the government to arrest him or prevent Carlson from interviewing him. The question was whether a conservative institution still believed it had a responsibility to decide whom it would recognize as part of conservatism.
That used to be one of Heritage’s most important jobs.
Heritage published thousands of pages of research, but its most valuable product was institutional confidence. Republican lawmakers, donors and activists trusted it to sort through competing ideas and decide which ones were serious, which ones might actually work and which ones belonged in the political fever swamps. Its power rested less on any individual report than on the belief that the Heritage name meant the argument had survived an institution capable of exercising judgment. Heritage itself says its authority depends on the rigor, depth, quality and independence of its research.⁴
Every durable institution does some version of this. Newspapers decide what has been reported well enough to publish. Universities distinguish scholarship from slogans. Political parties decide which candidates speak for them, and think tanks decide which ideas deserve the credibility of their names.
Those judgments are often imperfect. Gatekeepers can be arrogant, self-protective and wrong, and they sometimes defend their own status more vigorously than they defend the institution. But when an organization gives up making distinctions, it doesn’t become more open-minded. It becomes less of an institution and more of a platform. A platform can distribute an idea. It can’t give anyone a reason to trust it.
Roberts wanted to spend Heritage’s accumulated authority on something much larger. In 2024, he described the foundation’s mission as “institutionalizing Trumpism.” Project 2025 would supply the policies, personnel and plans another Trump administration needed to begin governing immediately. Over time, Heritage would turn Trump’s political instincts into a system sturdy enough to survive him, leaving JD Vance or some other prospective heir with more than a slogan and a mailing list.⁵
It was an ambitious idea, but it contained a problem that may never have had a solution.
Donald Trump built a remarkably broad coalition without requiring its members to agree on very much. Free-market executives and tariff enthusiasts could both believe he represented them. Evangelical supporters of Israel and isolationists deeply suspicious of Israel could stand at the same rally. Libertarians and people dreaming of an all-powerful presidency could each hear what they wanted to hear.
Trump kept them together because loyalty was personal. When two factions collided, he didn’t have to reconcile their principles or produce a coherent philosophy.