{"id":2317309,"date":"2024-08-01T06:47:01","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T10:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wsj-smears-heritages-kevin-roberts-for-not-being-a-neocon\/"},"modified":"2024-08-01T06:50:56","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T10:50:56","slug":"wsj-smears-heritages-kevin-roberts-for-not-being-a-neocon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wsj-smears-heritages-kevin-roberts-for-not-being-a-neocon\/","title":{"rendered":"WSJ Smears Heritage&#8217;s Kevin Roberts For Not Being A Neocon"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwsj-smears-heritages-kevin-roberts-for-not-being-a-neocon%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2317309&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal criticized Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, for allegedly leading the organization\u200b away from its conservative principles to appeal to Donald \u200cTrump, who has recently\u200d distanced himself from Heritage&#8217;s\u200d Project 2025. Project 2025 outlines\u2062 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/project-2025s-abortion-plan-goes-way-too-far-trump-argues-washington-examiner\/\" title=\"Project 2025\u2019s abortion plan goes \u2018way too far,\u2019 Trump argues - Washington Examiner\">conservative policy recommendations<\/a> for a potential Republican administration and has faced significant\u2064 attacks \u200cfrom Democrats and the media, who aim to distract from the failures of the Biden-Harris \u200cadministration. While Roberts emphasized\u2064 that the project serves as a collection of ideas for leaders to\u200d use, the WSJ\u200c editorial framed this as a cautionary tale about conservatives who abandon their \u2064principles for political appeal. The author counters\u2063 this narrative, arguing that Roberts has maintained his \u200cconservative ideals while revitalizing Heritage,\u200b which was struggling \u2064before his leadership. They\u200d assert that Roberts&#8217; \u200bshift in\u200c direction aligns the think tank with\u2064 the needs of the \u200dAmerican public, countering criticism from the WSJ and \u2062reflecting a necessary change from \u2063the outdated GOP establishment. The piece \u200cpositions\u2063 Trump as a figure who identified and vocalized the issues within the\u200d Republican Party, reinforcing the idea that Roberts is focused on addressing\u200b the concerns of ordinary Americans.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal published&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/project-2025-heritage-foundation-paul-dans-kevin-roberts-donald-trump-38b913b0?mod=opinion_lead_pos2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a ridiculous hit piece<\/a>&nbsp;on Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts this week, claiming Heritage has been led astray by Roberts, who has supposedly &ldquo;steered the venerable think tank away from some of its longtime conservative principles to court Donald Trump, only to be spurned by the temperamental former President he and his institution courted.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The editors are referring to the Trump campaign&rsquo;s recent move to distance itself from Heritage&rsquo;s Project 2025, a hefty document outlining conservative policy recommendations for a potential incoming Republican administration (Heritage has published something like it every four years since 1981). Democrats and the media have been attacking &mdash; and brazenly lying about &mdash; Project 2025 lately in a desperate attempt to distract from the Biden-Harris administration&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/democrats-using-january-6-hearing-as-political-theater\/\" title=\"Democrats using January 6 hearing as political theater\">massive policy failures<\/a>. Unfortunately, the Trump campaign responded to these attacks not by calling out the lies but by disavowing Project 2025.<\/p>\n<p>In fairness, Project 2025 was never formally connected to the Trump campaign. Roberts himself&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/0904848D-D54C-416D-A101-969D96D96A44\/a%20stockpile%20of%20conservative%20policy%20recommendations%20from%20which%20our%20leaders%20can%20pick%20and%20choose\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">has said<\/a> it&rsquo;s meant to be &ldquo;a stockpile of conservative policy recommendations from which our leaders can pick and choose,&rdquo; and that of course there will be disagreement and debate, which is a healthy and normal part of the democratic process.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For the WSJ editorial board, all of this is a cautionary tale about what happens to conservatives who abandon their principles to &ldquo;court the political flavor of the day.&rdquo; What an outrageous and lazy smear. Roberts hasn&rsquo;t abandoned his conservative principles. On the contrary, he&rsquo;s stuck to them amid attacks from all sides &mdash; and in the process helped save the Heritage Foundation from irrelevance.<\/p>\n<p>When Roberts came in as president of the think tank in 2021, Heritage was directionless, leaderless, and losing influence. It had long been out of touch with the concerns and struggles of ordinary Americans, advocating a business-as-usual approach to policymaking at a time when it was clear the old GOP policy consensus had collapsed, and for good reason.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Roberts&rsquo; new direction for Heritage had nothing to do with courting Trump and everything to do with ensuring the think tank advocated for policies that would serve the interests of the American people above all else. To be sure, it was a shift for Heritage, but a necessary one. Detractors like the WSJ editorial board try to dismiss that shift as populist pandering, but to do so they have to ignore just how badly Heritage had lost its way, along with the entire Republican establishment.<\/p>\n<p>In 2016, Trump was instrumental in exposing the rot at the heart of the GOP, which during the Bush and Obama years had become dominated by neoconservatives pushing for endless foreign entanglements, convoluted multilateral trade deals that were bad for American workers, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rep-chip-roy-says-biden-admin-basically-turning-dhs-into-a-welcome-mat-for-illegal-immigrants\/\" title=\"Rep. Chip Roy Says Biden Admin \u2018Basically Turning DHS Into A Welcome Mat\u2019 For Illegal Immigrants\">wide-open borders<\/a>. On these and other important issues, rank-and-file Republicans had become totally alienated from their party&rsquo;s leadership, whose priorities had little to do with what their voters actually wanted. Trump was successful back then in part because he was willing to call out these festering problems and talk about the elephant in the room. From the Iraq War to the border to our disastrous trade relationship with China, Trump forced a reckoning that Republican leaders had been trying very hard to avoid.<\/p>\n<p>Any casual observer of American politics knows all this, just as any close observer of Washington knows that before Roberts arrived at Heritage, the once-respected think tank was in bad shape.<\/p>\n<p>What the editors of the WSJ&nbsp;<em>really<\/em>&nbsp;object to, and why they published a disingenuous hit piece on him and Heritage, is that Roberts isn&rsquo;t an open-border neocon who is willing to sell out the American people for the military-industrial complex and big business. That&rsquo;s why neocon hucksters like Marc Thiessen were&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/marcthiessen\/status\/1818616654282056061\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reveling in WSJ&rsquo;s smearing of Roberts<\/a>&nbsp;this week. For these people, anyone who opposes Ukraine funding, or even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/up-for-debate-trump-desantis-and-2024-gop-hopefuls-stance-on-immigration-and-the-border\/\" title=\"Debating: Trump, DeSantis, and 2024 GOP candidates&#039; views on immigration and the border.\">prioritizes border security<\/a> over the funding of foreign wars, has to be sidelined and discredited. Because Heritage under Roberts&rsquo; leadership dares to question the neocon agenda, WSJ has targeted it. It&rsquo;s not more complicated than that.<\/p>\n<p>As for accusations that Roberts is chasing clout, if that were the case you&rsquo;d expect him to change his tune about Project 2025 after getting brushed back by the Trump campaign. But he&rsquo;s not, and he won&rsquo;t. Unlike the editors of the WSJ, Roberts understands the sea change underway in American political life. He&rsquo;s part of the crowd who knows that whether or not Trump wins back the White House in November, the GOP is never going back to being dominated by neoconservative, open-border elites &mdash; or putting much stock in what the editors of The Wall Street Journal have to say about it.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. He is the author of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Pagan-America-Decline-Christianity-Dark\/dp\/1684514444\/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Pagan+America&amp;qid=1695306441&amp;sr=8-1\"><i>Pagan America: the Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come<\/i><\/a>. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal recently published an absurd critique of Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, alleging that he has misled the organization by diverting it from its established conservative principles in an attempt to win favor with Donald Trump, who has since rejected their overtures. This criticism arises in light of the Trump campaign&#8217;s recent decision to distance itself from Heritage\u2019s Project 2025, a comprehensive document outlining conservative policy suggestions for a potential Republican administration\u2014a project Heritage has produced every four years since 1981. In response to attacks from Democrats and the media on Project 2025\u2014attacks filled with blatant falsehoods aimed at deflecting attention from the Biden-Harris administration&#8217;s significant policy failures\u2014the Trump campaign chose not to counter these lies but instead disavowed Project 2025.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s important to note that Project 2025 was never officially linked to Trump&#8217;s campaign. Roberts has clarified that it serves as &#8220;a stockpile of conservative policy recommendations&#8221; for leaders to utilize, acknowledging that disagreement and debate are natural aspects of democracy.<\/p>\n<p>For the WSJ editorial board, this situation serves as a warning about what happens when conservatives stray from their principles in pursuit of fleeting political trends. This characterization is both outrageous and lazy; Roberts has not abandoned his conservative values. In fact, he has remained steadfast amidst various criticisms and played a crucial role in revitalizing the Heritage Foundation during his tenure.<\/p>\n<p>When Roberts took over as president in 2021, Heritage was struggling without direction or leadership and had lost its influence. It had become disconnected from everyday Americans&#8217; concerns while continuing a traditional approach to policymaking despite clear signs that the old GOP consensus was no longer viable.<\/p>\n<p>Roberts\u2019 new vision for Heritage focused on advocating policies prioritizing American citizens&#8217; interests rather than seeking approval from Trump. While this represented a shift for Heritage, it was essential given how far off course both the organization and much of the Republican establishment had strayed.<\/p>\n<p>Trump&#8217;s rise in 2016 highlighted significant issues within the GOP\u2014issues stemming largely from neoconservative influences promoting endless foreign conflicts, unfavorable trade agreements detrimental to American workers, and lax border policies. Many grassroots Republicans felt alienated by party leaders whose priorities did not align with those of their constituents. Trump&#8217;s willingness to address these uncomfortable truths contributed significantly to his success during that period.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone observing American politics can recognize these dynamics; those familiar with Washington know how poorly off Heritage was before Roberts arrived.<\/p>\n<p>The real issue for WSJ editors appears rooted in their disapproval of Roberts\u2019 departure from neoconservative ideals\u2014they seem frustrated by his refusal to compromise American interests for military-industrial complex gains or big business benefits. Figures like Marc Thiessen have celebrated WSJ\u2019s attack on Roberts because they believe anyone opposing foreign aid or prioritizing domestic security must be marginalized.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding claims that Roberts is seeking popularity: if this were true, one would expect him to alter his stance on Project 2025 after being rebuffed by Trump&#8217;s team\u2014but he remains committed regardless. Unlike WSJ editors, Roberts recognizes significant shifts occurring within American politics; whether or not Trump regains office next November will not revert GOP dominance back into neoconservative hands nor will it give weighty consideration towards opinions expressed by The Wall Street Journal\u2019s editorial board.<\/p>\n<p>John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist whose work appears across various publications including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post; he authored &#8220;Pagan America: The Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age To Come.&#8221; Follow him on Twitter @johnddavidson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":518,"featured_media":2317310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Kevin-Roberts.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[36848,36849,20677],"class_list":["post-2317309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-heritage-foundation","tag-kevin-roberts","tag-wsj"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Kevin-Roberts.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2317309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/518"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2317309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2317309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2317310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2317309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2317309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2317309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}