Kim Holmes at The Dispatch:
Which leads me to my first and most important definition of what a think tank should be. Above all, it should be about ideas. As soon as the purpose becomes advocacy alone, or some other purpose related to gaining money or power, the “think” part is lost. The organization becomes a mere propaganda machine. There is nothing inherently wrong with policy advocacy for its own sake. But an organization that does only that should not be described as a think tank. Nor should its word on policy be trusted. Any policy research organization worth its salt will respect the rules of evidence and argumentation and avoid sensationalist rhetoric and ad hominem attacks. And it should certainly avoid besmirching the think tank’s reputation by flirting with toxic and vile media personalities.
The ideas themselves must have integrity. There is no such thing as pure political science when it comes to policy analysis. All public policies are grounded in one way or another in principles of governance over which much disagreement will occur. But there is a difference between analyzing a policy problem from a particular point of view and simply tailoring your analysis to partisan talking points. The former requires evidence and reasoning, while the latter appeals solely to emotion and prejudice for the purpose of gaining influence and power.
For many years, the Heritage approach was to apply the principles of economic freedom, limited constitutional government, and strong national defense to the task of formulating policies. Today that is no longer the case. The doctrines driving Heritage’s output, as determined by the foundation’s president and the board of trustees, are a combination of Pat Buchanan-esque populism, nationalism, Trumpism, and various strains of what is called postliberalism. There are still some Reaganite conservatives left on the staff, and they write papers and make public appearances. But they are no longer the dominant voice, and their numbers are dropping ever lower amid a recent wave of resignations.
Former ISI President Christopher Long and former ISI Chairman Thomas Lynch resigned as trustees after the other board members voted against removing Burtka at a meeting on November 7. The pair explained their decision in an open letter posted to X, in which they object to "ISI's celebration of the odious and un-American ideas espoused by" figures such as Carlson and Curtis Yarvin and warn about the rise of "white supremacy, antisemitism, eugenics, and bigotry" on the right.
Carlson was the headliner at ISI's 70th anniversary gala in 2023. ISI also placed one of its three media fellows with Tucker Carlson Tonight this year—that is to say, after his Russia trip and Cooper interview—at a cost of $75,000, according to a document prepared for the board of trustees ahead of the November 7 meeting and reviewed by Reason.
Meanwhile, Yarvin, a blogger and leading "neoreactionary" thinker, was featured in the inaugural episode of ISI's Project Cosmos, a YouTube series hosted by Burtka that launched in August. Like Fuentes (who has claimed, among other things, that "a lot of women want to be raped"), Yarvin has a history of making highly controversial statements, including that he is "not exactly allergic" to white nationalism, that Americans need to "get over their dictatorphobia," and that an ideal society would find a way to accomplish "the removal of undesirable elements" while avoiding the "moral stigma" associated with genocide.
Yarvin, Fuentes, and Carlson are also among those who question or reject the notion that anyone who accepts this country's founding creed should be welcome here. Instead, they suggest—sometimes explicitly, sometimes subtly—that a certain ethno-religious or cultural background is a requirement to be truly an American, such that newcomers have less of a claim to belonging than do "legacy" or "heritage" Americans who can trace their bloodlines to the land for many generations.
Such thinking was until recently considered idea non grata on the mainstream right, and to see it making inroads into respected intellectual institutions has been a cause for alarm among many more traditional conservatives. In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute's annual gala on Monday night, the historian of the American Revolution Gordon S. Wood pointedly warned against a view of American nationhood as rooted in blood, soil, religion, or race. Though he didn't mention Carlson by name, the impetus for his remarks wasn't hard to guess.
