As Trump continues to disintegrate before our eyes, and special elections confirm what the polls have been telling us, I think Americans can begin to breathe again. Granted, this evil and incompetent administration will continue to wreak havoc for three more years, but there’s reason to believe that the midterms will put a halt to much of the destruction, and that the political pendulum will swing back from Trump’s gulag to support of something more closely resembling the America we thought we inhabited.
What happens then, however, will depend upon what we’ve learned from this horrifying episode. What rot within the body politic allowed the ascent of people so morally and intellectually unfit for public office? I think there are three interrelated answers to that question. An unfair, “gilded age” economy and a fragmented, politicised media landscape have combined to facilitate the re-emergence of bigotries that had been suppressed but obviously not eliminated.
Research has confirmed that the single most potent predictor of support for MAGA and Trump is racial resentment. But racism is almost always accompanied by other hatreds: of women, of Jews, of Muslims, of immigrants (at least those with Black or Brown skin). Those attitudes haven’t just been fostered and encouraged by “Christian” nationalist churches, publications and social media posts, but also by (mis-named) think tanks. The election of America’s first Black President lit the flame of the rancid ideology they had carefully nurtured during more civil times.
And that brings me to the Heritage Foundation.
With the publication of Project 2025, Heritage shed its disguise as a research institution, and identified itself as a purely ideological enterprise, intent upon remaking American society into one dominated by White Christian males. Minorities aren’t the only elements of the population who would lose status should its fever dream be realized–women would be returned to subservient status too.
The Atlantic has recently documented Heritage’s misogyny. As the article noted, Heritage’s current unmasking may have begun with Kevin Roberts’ defense of anti-Semitism, but disclosure of the nature of the “Heritage” it is trying to protect includes the recent decision to hire Scott Yenor to lead its Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies. The author says the choice “poses serious questions about the institution’s beliefs concerning the equality of women in the workplace and perhaps even as citizens.”
In a 2021 speech at the National Conservatism Conference, Yenor labeled professional women “medicated, meddlesome, and quarrelsome.” He frequently uses the term AWFLs (short for “affluent white female liberals”). He was ejected from a position as chair of the University of West Florida’s board of trustees when even Florida’s MAGA Republican-controlled state Senate wouldn’t confirm him.
Yenor believes that employers should be legally permitted to discriminate against women in the workplace, and has advocated for legal changes that would allow businesses “to support traditional family life by hiring only male heads of households, or by paying a family wage”—that is, denying women jobs solely on the basis of their sex or paying men more for performing the same job as women. He also believes that “governments should be allowed to prepare men for leadership and responsible provision, while preparing women for domestic management and family care.”
Yenor’s ideas are rather obviously outside both the American and conservative mainstreams–and not just his opinions on employment discrimination. He has also dismissed women’s suffrage as “a feat of social engineering.” Feminism, he has asserted, weakens the all-important institution of marriage–a situation that calls out for policy change.
So Heritage now faces an uncomfortable question: Does it agree with its new director of American studies?
What makes the question particularly pressing is Heritage’s “one voice” policy. “While other organizations may have experts advocating contradictory points of view,” the institution explains, “Heritage employees are always rowing in the same direction.” If this is Yenor’s view, and he’s now a Heritage director, does that make it Heritage’s official view?
Heritage was founded in 1973 by Edwin J. Feulner, Jr., Joseph Coors, and Paul Weyrich. Despite the obvious political ambitions of those founders, until very recently the media has portrayed it as a legitimate, albeit Right-wing, think tank. And that brings me to the role played by the media in MAGA’s capture of our government.
One of the thorniest problems we will face as we try to repair the systemic flaws that allowed bigotry and misogyny to drive political behavior will be what to do about a media landscape that abets false equivalences–a landscape that allows Americans to avoid “inconvenient” realities and choose “news” that confirms their biases.
I have no idea what we do about that.
Copied and pasted from a Forbes post:
“Yet there are emerging signs that prospects may be changing for workers who wish to engage in collective bargaining. A study by Kate Bronfenbrenner, a labor studies scholar at Cornell Univerity, found that support for unions reached a 60 year high in 2022. Bronfenbrenner’s data indicates that 71% of workers surveyed supported unions and 48% said they would join one if the option to do so was available. Couple that with high profile organizing efforts at major companies like Amazon and Starbucks, and it may be that the tide has turned back in favor of unions once again.
WHY ARE UNIONS SEEING A RISE IN SUPPORT?
What explains this shift? Some of the turnaround may be a result of the ways work has increasingly become uncertain and difficult for workers, let alone unrewarding and unfulfilling. Journalist Brigid Schulte has written extensively about the ways emerging trends like the expansion of noncompete clauses, unpredictable scheduling, and independent contracting have adversely affected workers. These phenomena suppress wages, constrain benefits, and curtail workers’ ability to react to emergencies and plan for routine, non-work-related needs. Sociologists Erin Kelly and Phyllis Moen have also described how ever-increasing demands on workers’ time rob them of their health, security, and even the ability to get a good night’s sleep on a regular basis. Overall work has become harder, less rewarding, and more precarious for many.’
Can the appearance of an upsurge in organizing Unions reunite working Americans who are seeing only losses on all sides of, not only making a decent living wage, but losing civil and human rights due to the current control by the full anti-DEI powered government?
“One of the thorniest problems we will face as we try to repair the systemic flaws that allowed bigotry and misogyny to drive political behavior will be what to do about a media landscape that abets false equivalences–a landscape that allows Americans to avoid “inconvenient” realities and choose “news” that confirms their biases.”
I, also, do not have the answers to that other than coming from a Union family of Republicans, but not a Union member or a Republican, they made a better living and had protection due to accepted DEI, otherwise known as Civil Rights Laws signed into action by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson. True “Heritage” is now part of America’s recent past, with all it’s warts, we did not live in constant fear of losing what we do have left over from those past days of our lives.
To quote “The Man Who Would Be King” Yul Brenner; “Is a puzzlement.”
Great post, JoAnn!
Well, the Democratic Party has had the opportunity to take down the Heritage Foundation, but has refused to do so. The party itself could have a website showing all the intricate dark networks and funding from the Kochs, Bradleys, etc.
However, they’ve chosen not to burden their voters. Neither has the so-called Blue Media in this country. They let Glenn Beck diagram all day long how George Soros floods the DP with money.
Once you all read the memo prepared by Pam Bondi this week to the FBI targeting Antifa people, organizations, and funders, you’ll wonder why the DP hasn’t done so. Their best chance was during the 1/6 insurrectionist hearings, but they whiffed. Capitalist oligarchs are off limits in this country. This is what allowed Epstein to run his operation for decades “undetected.”
Bondi has declared war on their opponents – all leftists and democrats. If you speak out against Trump or MAGA, you will be considered a “domestic terrorist.” She’s instructed the FBI to advocate for snitches (tip lines) and monetary rewards for those who root out the “terrorists” trying to subvert Trump’s administration. I’ve never seen such an un-self-aware document prepared by our federal government. If SCOTUS doesn’t interfere immediately, it will permanently show itself as a corrupt tool of the oligarchy.
Therefore, any female-oriented groups rebelling against the Trump administration’s anti-DEI policies will be snitched on by what she calls “citizen journalists.” Of course, these journalists are only MAGA supporters—the same people who click on our “Report Post” on social media for violating “community standards.”
The only way to fight these people is to expose the money trail behind them that gives them the power and permission to proceed with these discriminatory practices.
Todd, But Pam Bondi is a professional female – I think – so shouldn’t she be back in the kitchen flipping pancakes? LOL. If only…
This little snippet created the career of one Rush Limbaugh (Trump’s Presidential Medal of Freedom awardee) and let all the hate demons out of the closet: “The election of America’s first Black President lit the flame of the rancid ideology they had carefully nurtured during more civil times.”
The Heritage Foundation is just the latest iteration of the 25% – 30% of terminally hateful citizens in our nation. They’ve ALWAYS been there – even BEFORE we were a nation. Ken Burns’ latest project showed that quite clearly. HATE is what divides us. Bigotry and prejudice are its operating systems.
It really doesn’t matter much these days how the media operates, as the trolls and uglies will find an outlet to counter those actually trying to practice responsible journalism.
Todd; aren’t the Democrats allowing freedom of speech to the pseudo-republicans as protected by the Constitutional 1st Amendment? THAT IS OUR PROBLEM! The Democrats are following the Constitution as it was meant to be understood in a democratic republic; the false republicans have bastardized the meaning of both definition titles of established government using the same Constitution and Amendments by buying their control and unleashing anti-DEI and violence the 2nd Amendment provides as interpreted by them.
“The only way to fight these people is to expose the money trail behind them that gives them the power and permission to proceed with these discriminatory practices.” These are the truest words you have ever posted here; but we saw who they are before the election and before the inauguration of their bought and paid for candidate was moved to its private location. Another First to list in America’s history.
Trump has not called his ICE troops a “regulated militia” but is using them as such and has sent our own military against us on our streets, in our homes, schools, worksites, churches and government buildings as immigrants legally follow the rules to maintain legal residence in the U.S. Must we violate the Constitution and the Amendments to regain our rights as Americans? Will our military follow Trump’s illegal orders against American citizens and determine that like Hitler’s administration and military they are only “following orders”? Each member of the military swore an oath to protect U.S. citizens and uphold the Constitution and its Amendments but the Supreme Court and republican Congress follow Trump into the abyss that lies ahead like sheep following the Judas goat.
If hatred is the driving force behind the Trump administration then a shared hypocrisy about our values is the glue that holds us together.
In another scenario: What if Trump croaks by choking on a Big Mac and leaves J.D. Vance as President. I know. Shudder. But imagine what policy implementation will look like with the hypocritical hillbilly trying to hold off the slings and arrows of the overly ambitious who have to change their methods of how they curry favor.
If we think it’s chaotic now, those first months of the Vance administration will give disarray a whole new meaning. Who, for example, will Pam Bondi go after when she no longer has the mob boss to defend and protect? How will Kash Patel run an FBI when he’s no longer feared by the agents and operatives? Then there’s the Hegseth factor. Will he vie for the new V.P. slot? Yikes. Or will he be content to just start WW III with Vance’s blessing?
I need more coffeee …
As much as I hate to say it our American Heritage is one of racism and misogyny, so it seems appropriate that the Heritage Foundation feels great about where we are.
We used to admire the Chinese for their ability to plan for the next five years, but the Heritage Foundation makes the Chinese look like pikers. They’ve been planning their takeover of America for seventy years. Yes, I did say seventy. They started in the fifties with the John Birch Society and Papa Koch. Please, please don’t think it will be easy to root them out.
Theresa – a brilliant summary in a few words – KUDOS!
Nobody said that maintaining a democratic republic would be easy.
No, Peggy, not easy.
The Koch boys learned to be patient and take a long term approach from their father, and it has worked well, in their favor. Hopefully many people will come to view the Heritage Foundation for what it really is, but it will not be going away any time soon, I’m sure. And, we will still have the rancid SCOTUS Xtians to deal with, in effect Heritage Foundation moles in the heart of the gov’t.
Once the congressional leadership changes for the better, we will NEED to make Bannon’s prediction come true…put the gov’t criminals behind bars. We can not afford to “let them be” as was done with the traitors after the Civil War, as nasty as the process may be.
Peggy Hannon. Our American heritage is far more than just racism and misogyny. Racism and misogyny have existed since the dawn of our species. To expect any country to be free of them is wildly unrealistic. But the founders of America tried to create a government which moved in a new direction. Could they, in one fell swoop, eradicate evil and replace it with good? Of course not!
What they could and did do was identify a set of ideals and structure a government designed to move toward those ideals. Will we now throw out those ideals and destroy that government because they were and are less than perfect? I think that to do so would be insanely self destructive. Rather, we should rededicate ourselves to defending those ideals and that government so as to continue our progress toward achieving those ideals.
As I have written before, I have personally witnessed significant progress that has been made during my lifetime. My reading of history has added to my appreciation of the importance of that progress and my admiration for the people who have sustained it.
Lester, thanks for the kind words. I was hoping that someone would get it.
Mitch, Bannon may have said that, but Mike Johnson just repeated it lately during a presser. His priority is to “keep control of the Congress, because if they lose control, many people are going to prison.” Hegseth needs to be in The Hague with Stephen Miller. Trump needs to be impeached due to all the wealth he and his family have accumulated since Day 1.
I believe this is one of the main reasons the MAGA Republicans are retiring or leaving Congress. MTG will not be the only one. They don’t want to defend Trump when the hammer comes down.
I wasn’t around during the Nuremberg Trials, but that is precisely what we need. I know six justices who should also face the wrath for tossing the Constitution out the window and allowing Trump to become an autocratic dictator who doesn’t respect the separation of powers.
Nice summary, Todd. The information should be part of the D.C. trials libretto.
Joann–I sure hope Unions are making a ‘come back’. They helped create the middle class and without them we have lost the middle class. As a nurse, unions are needed for those in healthcare are needed!! They only exist in a few states
I agree with Sheila on the three issues and the problems with false equivalencies.
I have always suggested that if you read the Mission Statements of “Conservative Think Tanks”, they have always started with the answer (Laissez-faire, dog-eat-dog) and researched a justification. Heritage has just gone full-bigot now.
Bigotry has always been with us, it had just been tamped down to the point where it was too shameful to show. By accepting “dog whistles”, the “slippery slope” led us to full, open bigotry. Nixon and Reagan were “enablers”.
I agree with Todd about Hegseth and Miller – perhaps a few others should be charged as well.
My only fear is that the “moderates” who are anti-Trump will back off from the needed reforms because they are “too liberal” to be enacted.