Project 2025: A Villain Origin Story

Existential threats to democracy don’t just fall out of a coconut tree. They are the product of centuries of cultivation, existing in the context of all the heinous colonization, calculated oppression, and “color-blind” manipulation that came before. To most Americans, Project 2025 is a terrifying depiction of authoritarianism, the likes of which are fathomable only in the most apocalyptic scenes of a Hulu series. But to the Heritage Foundation, the organization responsible for the 900-page manifesto, it’s just another day at the office. 

“We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be” – Kevin Roberts, President of the Heritage Foundation 

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank founded in 1973 by Edwin Feulner, Joseph Coors (yes, Coors beer), and most notably Paul Weyrich, who is widely regarded as one of the most prominent conspirators behind the modern conservative movement. In its early days, Heritage operated as a small D.C. policy shop, funded exclusively by the Coors’ family fortune. Their advocacy centered around pro-business ideology (naturally) and conservative cultural issues. 

Weyrich had been trying for a decade to siphon the political strength of evangelical voters into conservative campaigns, sampling a host of wedge issues from school prayer to pornography (we see you, Anthony Comstock) to opposing the Equal Rights Amendment (in cahoots with Phyllis Schlafly). Finally, in 1971 Weyrich uncovered what really got evangelical leader’s blood boiling―racial desegregation. 

The Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education concluded that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, yet by the late 1960s many schools in the deep south still refused to integrate their classrooms. Instead of allowing their white children to dare be educated alongside Black students, parents enrolled them in newly formed private academies whose core subjects were reading, writing, and racism. Moreover, the segregation academies received full tax-exempt status, so the public was literally footing the bill for these schools to blatantly defy the law. Black parents in Mississippi sued the federal government, and in Green v. Connally, a district court concluded that private schools with racially discriminatory admissions were not exempt from paying federal taxes.  

This infuriated evangelical kingpins like Jerry Fallwell and Bob Jones, Jr., whose Bob Jones University adamantly refused to admit Black students and had its tax-exempt status rescinded by the IRS in 1976. Weyrich, the zealous Heritage Foundation co-founder, teamed up with Fallwell and other evangelical leaders to stir up a political groundswell by awakening a “moral majority.” But while racial segregation certainly got the most bigoted believers out of bed, it was less attractive to the masses by the late 1970s. The moral majority needed a benevolent facade they could rally behind while masking their more sinister white supremacist motives. motives. 

And ABORTION enters the chat! 

By the mid-1970s, anti-abortion activists, predominately Catholic, were still reeling from the Roe v. Wade decision. Weyrich, a dominionist Catholic himself, believed merging politically reenergized evangelicals with fundamentalist Catholics would solidify a formidable Christian right voting bloc. Evangelicals had traditionally remained ambivalent on the issue of abortion, with some prominent leaders publicly supporting it. But they followed Weyrich’s lead into the 1980 presidential election – and boy did it pay off. 

Evangelicals rallied behind the Republican candidate, Ronald Reagan, turning against their Southern Baptist brethren, President Jimmy Carter, for ostensibly not being “Christian” enough, since he had rebuffed efforts during his term to seek a constitutional “Right to Life” amendment. Never mind the fact that while governor of California, Reagan signed into law the most liberal abortion rights bill at the time. All Reagan had to do was sound the segregationist “states’ rights” dog whistle for evangelicals to come flocking to his side. 

Prior to the 1980 election, Heritage published its first Mandate for Leadership, a policy blueprint for the next conservative administration. President Reagan wasted no time disseminating the agenda throughout his cabinet, implementing 60% of its proposals by the end of his first year in office. In the decades that followed, Heritage established itself as the premier authority for conservative policy―and became a hub for developing the most extreme attacks against racial justice, gender justice, and the role of our federal government since the turn of the century. 

Weyrich’s influence in the conservative movement seeps far beyond Heritage. His Free Congress Foundation published a manifesto in 2001, authored by his mentee, Eric Heubeck, which practically serves as a preamble for Project 2025. Weyrich also founded the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative lawmaker’s one-stop shop for cookie-cutter pro-billionaire, anti-everyone else, legislation. You may know ALEC best for its hazardous environmental proposals, lethal “Stand Your Ground” laws, extreme abortion restrictions, and discriminatory voter suppression bills. 

“I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. . . . As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting population goes down.” – Paul Weyrich in 1980 

Another truly dreadful Weyrich enterprise is the Council for National Policy―where Christian nationalists, uber-wealthy elites, and white supremacists all come together to push their authoritarian agenda under the most opaque veil of secrecy.  

The network’s “confidential” list of members has leaked over the years, and unsurprisingly represents a who’s who of racist, misogynist, anti-LGBTQ extremists, and the rich oligarchs who fill their coffers. Members include the presidents of SPLC designated anti-LGBTQ hate groups Liberty Counsel, Family Research Council, American Family Association, and Alliance Defending Freedom (also responsible for the abortion bill that resulted in the overturn of Roe). These organizations also sit proudly on the Project 2025 Advisory Board, along with America First Legal, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, and the Claremont Institute. 

“Our movement will be entirely destructive, and entirely constructive. We will not try to reform the existing institutions. We only intend to weaken them, and eventually destroy them. . . . All of our constructive energies will be dedicated to the creation of our own institutions.” – 2001 Heubeck manifesto 

The hatred fueling Project 2025 has been festering for decades, waiting for the right time, the right place, and the right candidate to eradicate the hard-fought progress towards gender justice―reverting our country to a time where freedom was conditional, and equality was inaccessible. But in case they forgot, we are here to remind them: We’re not going back!