Project 2025 is the result of the rightward shift in all electoral politics, plus the DeVos family is involved with many of the organizations behind the project

There is a tremendous amount of social media chatter about Project 2025, a project that was hatched by the longtime conservative groups know as the Heritage Foundation.

Most of the social media posts about Project 2025 uses the all too often fear tactic, painting a picture that democracy will end. Granted, a great deal of what Project 2025 is advocating would be horrible, but we need to look at Project 2025 through a historical lens.

The Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973, with a large injection of funding coming from beer magnate Joseph Coors. Coors and other Capitalists who embraced far right thinking were getting better organized in the 1970s, which included the Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel. (See Russ Bellant’s book, The Coors Connection: How Coors Family Philanthropy Undermines Democratic Pluralism.)

In 1980, when Ronald Reagan was seeking to defeat sitting President Jimmy Carter, the Heritage Foundation had crafted a similar platform for Reagan, known as the Mandate for Leadership. The 1980 version of the Mandate for Leadership was 1,100 pages long and “was described by United Press International back then as “a blueprint for grabbing the government by its frayed New Deal lapels and shaking out 48 years of liberal policy.”

The Reagan Administration not only pushed national politics to the right, it forced the Democrats to do the same. Under the leadership of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the Democrats also began to abandon traditional New Deal policies and embrace Reagan era policies, such as the Clinton Administration adopting the end of welfare known as The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. Around the same time, The Clinton Administration adopted the Crime Bill, which was crafted by then Senator Joe Biden, known as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, along with the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which ended Federal Communications Commissions regulations and resulted in media consolidation so complete that only six corporations control most of what we watch and hear. The point being that all politics shifted to the right with the Reagan Administration and that brings us to the present with what is referred to as Project 2025. These policies that were adopted under Clinton were part of the Reagan era Mandate for Change policies that the Heritage Foundation wanted to see implemented. 

The Trump Administration utilized the Mandate for Leadership platform crafted by the Heritage Foundation during his Administration, which is what Project 2025 is also known as. Therefore, it is important that we understand that Project 2025 is the natural outcome of a policy platform that has shifted to the right for the past 40 plus years, just as all electoral politics has shifted to the right. As Black Agenda Report editor Margaret Kimberley has said, “Project 2025 is just the latest in a series of conservative think pieces which outlines how republicans should wield presidential power. The outrage surrounding it ignores democrats’ collusion with republican policies when they are in office and is a cynical effort to scare especially Black voters into continuing support for the Biden/Harris ticket.”

The DeVos connection to the Heritage Foundation and the Project 2025 Advisory Board

Another major omission in the fear-driven cries for people to look at Project 2025 is the lack of any conversation about the long standing relationship between the DeVos family and the Heritage Foundation. One would think that this would draw the ire of liberals and Democrats, but I have yet to see any discussion about the relationships between the Heritage Foundation and the most powerful family in West Michigan, the DeVos family.

The Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation were major contributors to the Heritage Foundation for decades, providing millions to the far right think tank. When Rich DeVos died in 2018, the Heritage Foundation wrote a tribute to the the far right/Christian Right billionaire.

However, Rich DeVos was not the only contributor to the Heritage Foundation, since many of his sons would also provide money and ideological support for the think tank. In 2002, Dick DeVos gave a speech to the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation. In that speech DeVos lays out a strategy for attacking and undermining public education. Here is a video of that speech:

Ten years later Dick DeVos was being interviewed by the Heritage Foundation after Michigan became a Right to Work state, where the Mackinac Center for Public Policy led the charge, with substantial funding from the DeVos family.  Here is that interview:

Then there is the issue of the more than 100 Advisory Board organizations listed as supporting Project 2025, which you can find here. What is instructive about this list are the dozens of groups that the DeVos family has had a direct connection to, whether it has been funding, sitting on their board of directors, policy work or collaborating with them. Here are just a few examples of the direct connection of the DeVos family to the organizations that endorse Project 2025 

Alliance Defending Freedom – Funding, policy work and collaboration

American Center for Law and Justice – Funding

American Family Association – Policy Work 

American Legislative Exchange Council – Policy Work and collaboration 

Center for Immigration Studies – Policy Work 

Claremont Institute – Funding

Coalition for a Prosperous America – Policy Work

Eagle Forum – Policy Work and collaboration

Family Policy Alliance – Policy Work

Family Research Council – Funding, Policy Work and Board of Directors

The Heartland Institute – Funding and Policy Work

Hillsdale College – Policy Work and collaboration

Independent Women’s Forum – Policy Work and collaboration

Dr. James Dobson Family Institute – Policy Work and collaboration

Mackinac Center for Public Policy – Board of Directors, Funding, Policy Work and collaboration

Texas Public Policy Foundation – Policy Work

Turning Point USA – Policy Work and collaboration

Young Americans Foundation – Funding, Policy Work and collaboration

In this moment in history it is vitally important that we take a long view of the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025. The proliferation of memes and other sound bite reactions to Project 2025 does do anything other than to promote fear-based reactions. If we are to defeat such policy platforms, then we need to develop movements and structures that promote collective liberation and the dismantling of systems of power and oppression. Simply voting Blue won’t do that, since all electoral politics has shifted to the right.