Project 2025's aim is to institutionalize Trumpism

By Zachary Albert / For The Conversation

As the 2024 presidential election heats up, some people are hearing about the Heritage Foundation for the first time. The conservative think tank has a new, ambitious and controversial policy plan, Project 2025, which calls for an overhaul of American public policy and government.

Project 2025 lays out many standard conservative ideas — like prioritizing energy production over environmental and climate-change concerns, and rejecting the idea of abortion as health care — along with some much more extreme ones, like criminalizing pornography. And it proposes to eliminate or restructure countless government agencies in line with conservative ideology.

While think tanks sometimes have the reputation of being stuffy academic institutions detached from day-to-day politics, Heritage is far different. By design, Heritage was founded to not only develop conservative policy ideas but also to advance them through direct political advocacy.

All think tanks are classified as 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations, which are prohibited from engaging in elections and can take part in only a small amount of political lobbying. But some, like Heritage, also form affiliated 501(c)(4) organizations that allow them to participate in campaigns and lobby extensively. Heritage is one of the sponsors of the Republican National Convention, which wrapped up in Milwaukee on Friday.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-project-2025s-aim-is-to-institutionalize-trumpism/