Talk:The Heritage Foundation

Revert concerning Trumpism

A recent edit of mine was reverted (not Line 82 and 80, those edits were not mine). The reasoning for the revert was "rv PROMO, SOAP." I do not believe the words of the current President of Heritage about what he says the mission of Heritage is PROMO or SOAP (especially when they come from an interview he did with The New York Times Magazine). If this was referring to the edit in the middle of the page that was unrelated to my addition, then this is understandable. Also, if the issue with the edit was including some content in the lead, then I would ask that the information in the body of the page be kept as is. BootsED (talk) 20:16, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

It's an interview. Without independent coverage, it's just him promoting his organization, using the interview as a soapbox. --Hipal (talk) 20:40, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Strong disagree. The president of an organization telling a reporter the purpose of their organization is not self-promotion, and provides important context for the reader of the page. It is also attributed to the leader of the organization in quotations, and not stated in Wikivoice. Saying "we are a global leader in the field and are at the cutting-edge of innovation" would count as being an advertisement and self-promotion. BootsED (talk) 13:36, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I believe policies (NOT, POV, NOR) say otherwise. --Hipal (talk) 19:44, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I tend to agree with BootsED. Reputable news sources talking about Heritage's plans based on quotes from their leader seems relevant and not against any Wikipedia policies. I also believe it belongs in the lead because supporting Trump marks a departure from Heritage's long-standing support of traditional conservatism. –CWenger (^ • @) 22:00, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Getting coverage in the Guardian also. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 22:12, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Policy is what it is. This article is under multiple sanctions. I don't see what the Guardian article has to do with the removed content, but let's remember that news orgs have different priorities than us, especially with the developing interest in Project 2025. --Hipal (talk) 23:19, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

The Guardian article talks about how Roberts wants to align the right behind Trumpism, and also mentions how he said the goal of the organization is "institutionalizing Trumpism." So now there are at least two sources describing Heritage as being for Trumpism. BootsED (talk) 02:14, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I've struck out some of my comment.

Again, RECENTISM. (Apologies, I've been looking at this in the context of the recent, far worse, problems. I may strike out more of my comments.) I'd be very careful with any content, especially in the lede, that puts how they want to be perceived over what they are actually doing. Best summarize what the secondary sources say. They're getting a lot more coverage now due to their Project 2025 plan. --Hipal (talk) 18:18, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Oh no, I wasn't talking about putting anything in the lead at all. I was referring to putting a sentence in under the Biden administration section right after it mentions how Roberts was hired. I will add it in seeing as how several others have spoken in support of it. I also agree with you regarding Project 2025 and am not sure it deserves a mention in the lead at all. BootsED (talk) 23:05, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! That addresses most of my concerns. Still, it would be better with a description of what he's done, if one can be found. --Hipal (talk) 00:27, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Bush administration

It currently says "According to a 2004 International Security study, the Heritage Foundation confused public debate by challenging widespread opposition to the Iraq War by international relations scholars and experts by contradicting them "with experts of apparently equal authority... this undermined the possibility that any criticisms (of the war) might be seen as authoritative or have much persuasive effect." The citation goes here. There's something off about this. The cited publication is not in International Security (journal) but is rather a different Cambridge publication ("Ethics and International Affairs"). The publication that is actually cited doesn't say anything about Heritage causing confusion and doesn't have a sentence in it about "experts of apparently equal authority". etc. Novellasyes (talk) 19:27, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

You've checked both? --Hipal (talk) 03:00, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

I tracked down, downloaded, and read [this article which is where the footnote goes. I didn't track down and read a "2004 International Security study", because that's too vague to go on. International Security (journal). They published a lot of articles in 2004. Not at all clear which one this sentence may have intended to allude to. Novellasyes (talk) 13:02, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Added here by @Thenightaway:.

Maybe Thenightaway copied in the wrong reference, because it's identical to the first. --Hipal (talk) 16:56, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

This is the missing source (p. 45-46): https://www.jstor.org/stable/4137546. Thenightaway (talk) 16:58, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm looking forward to reading https://www.jstor.org/stable/4137546. Novellasyes (talk) 20:56, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

In the meantime, I recommend removing this footnote. About Heritage, that article says this: "The conservative Heritage Foundation, which had since the mid-1990s warned that bin Laden and the Taliban would prove a toxic mix, provided steady and optimistic support to the Bush administration for both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Commentaries such as “Radical Islam vs. Islam” and “U.S. Functions as World's Strongest Defender of Islam” championed the United States as a heroic figure fighting to save not only itself but Islamic civilization as well. The Foundation's unfaltering defense of the practices at Guantánamo Bay further painted the United States as a flawless combatant pitted against an evil embodied by the detainees. In the first days of the Obama administration, Heritage Foundation commentaries suggested the organization's intention to continue treating the war on terror as the ongoing story of a war declared by al-Qaeda against the United States." While those are interesting observations, unless I am missing something, they are not on point with the claim in the sentence to which the article has been appended as a citation. Novellasyes (talk) 21:01, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Having now read the Threat" article that is being used to support the existing write-up in the article to the effect that Heritage scholars "confused public debate by challenging widespread opposition to the Iraq War by international relations scholars and experts by contradicting them 'with experts of apparently equal authority...this undermined the possibility that any criticisms (of the war) might be seen as authoritative or have much persuasive effect.'" I don't think this works, so I advocate removing the claim. It's a (to my eyes) terrific piece of scholarship that's been frequently cited by other scholars. The article starts out by posing a quandary: Mature democracies are supposed to be better at making foreign policy decisions than other regime types. This is supposed to be partly true because in mature democracies, there is or ought to be a marketplace of ideas that allows sifting and winnowing to occur in order to "weed out unfounded, mendacious, or self-serving foreign policy arguments because their proponents cannot avoid wide-ranging debate in which their reasoning and evidence are subject to public scrutiny". This failed, the article says, with respect to the decision to engage in war with Iraq. Why did it fail? That's what the article analyses in 40-some pages with 164 footnotes. Heritage is mentioned once in the article in a basically throw-away line with no footnotes. The overwhelming burden of the carefully-laid out argument in 99.99% of the article has to do with how the White House (so the article claims) managed to prevent the sifting and winnowing that needed to occur, through four different mechanisms. Subsequent to the publication of this scholarly article, others have been written on the same topic: Why was the threat assessment wrong, wrong, wrong? Reading through them, I didn't see any references to Heritage and any role it did or didn't play (of course I may have missed one). I'd also note that additional scholarship such as Origins of Regime Change: “Ideapolitik” on the Long Road to Baghdad, 1993–2000 contests the thesis of Kaufmann's threat assessment article, and instead claims that "In this essay, I trace the “Ideapolitik” of regime change in the 1990s and show that Bush's post-9/11 rhetoric was firmly embedded in a preexisting foreign policy consensus defining Saddam Hussein as the 'problem 'and his overthrow as its 'solution.' Drawing upon recent research in international relations and public policy, I show how the idea of regime change prevailed in redefining American strategy for Iraq. While the September 11, 2001 attacks had important effects on the Bush administration's willingness to use force, the basic idea that ousting Saddam Hussein would solve the Iraq problem was already embedded in elite discourse." (In other words, this existing elite framework was the problem, not the White House [or way far down the line of importance, the Heritage Foundation] bollixing up information). But other than all this, at the end of the day, the Kaufmann article is just one source. Is it even true that Heritage scholars confused the discourse in a way that enabled the war? If it is true, is it a notable fact about Heritage during the Bush administration that they behaved in this way? It doesn't seem notable, and I say that because I don't see this claim being made elsewhere. Novellasyes (talk) 17:35, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

"Mature democracies are supposed to be better at making foreign policy decisions than other regime types." And where is the empirical data for that? They have blundered their way into wars just as often as any other regime. Dimadick (talk) 18:45, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Truly. I was so surprised to read that opening claim in the "Threats" article. Novellasyes (talk) 18:42, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Revisiting the section in the article on the The Heritage Foundation#George W. Bush administration, three paragraphs in a separate subsection have been added about The Heritage Foundation#Belle Haven Consultants. With the current state of this overall section on the Bush admin/Heritage, this is WP:UNDUE and beyond that, probably WP:COAT. How many things did Heritage do and say during the eight years of the Bush admin? Apart from the para on their attitude to the war, we know nothing from this section about anything Heritage did during those eight years. Even if this section is ultimately expanded to include a decent executive summary of the key things they did during those eight years, even then the Belle Haven info would most likely deserve at most a sentence and a link to the Belle Haven article. Novellasyes (talk) 14:14, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Activist label

The word "activist" was deleted from the intro sentence of the article a few weeks back in this diff and then added back in. Let's talk about it, because what the person who took it out seemed to have in mind in their edit summary is that our article on Activism (which we link to from the Heritage intro sentence) has a perspective/definition of what the word "activism" means ("Forms of activism range from mandate building in a community (including writing letters to newspapers), petitioning elected officials, running or contributing to a political campaign, preferential patronage (or boycott) of businesses, and demonstrative forms of activism like rallies, street marches, strikes, sit-ins, or hunger strikes.") that doesn't seem to fit with Heritage. Separately, if we are going to label them as an activist group that should be because WP:RS describe them that way often enough that it is clearly a notable fact about them. Novellasyes (talk) 15:52, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

There was some earlier discussion about this here. I personally think find it unnecessary and think it's meant to impugn them. Sure you can find some sources calling it activist but the vast majority would not specify that in a brief description of the organization. –CWenger (^ • @) 17:12, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Okay thanks. I went and looked through the links over there. (here, here, here, here, and here.) They are respectively from 2023, 2012, 1983, 2013, and 2012. I could nitpick on these as to whether they are RS for the purpose of calling Heritage an activist organization. Two of them are about Heritage Action (the 501c4 that is a sister organization but is not Heritage itself); one of them is by a think tank competitor, etc. However, what I'd say the real issue here is that when anyone talks about Heritage as being an activist organization, they seem to mean "by comparison to the more limited role that older think tanks and some of their competitor think tanks (left and right) took or take in the public dialogue". They aren't saying that Heritage is an activist organization in the sense of how activism is defined in WP's article activism.Novellasyes (talk) 22:26, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

The "activist" label in the lede doesn't make sense to me. It's not borne out in the sourcing given above. The Guardian describes Heritage Action for America "as the foundation's activist wing." National Affairs writes "...ushered in the age of more activist think tanks" and "Heritage's new and more activist approach..." I think the most useful part of this source is "...political scientist Donald Abelson has called [the Heritage Foundation] the 'advocacy think tank.'" "Advocacy think tank" makes more sense than "activist think tank" IMO. The Washington Post says "'An activist version of Brookings,' says Heritage president Edwin J. Feulner Jr." This seems like WP:PROMO. The group's president wants to be seen as "activist" and not just another boring old ineffectual think tank sending unread white papers into the abyss. The Wall Street Journal is probably the best source for "activist"; it says "Now, in one of the more significant transformations in the capital's intellectual firmament, it has become an activist political operation trying to alter the course of conservative thinking." This source doesn't appear to offer anything on the matter. Given all this, I would support describing Heritage in the lede as either an "advocacy think tank" or simply a "think tank", and, in either instance, using the above sourcing to flesh out in the body how Heritage was involved in ushering in a new era of more politically focused think tanks. Marquardtika (talk) 16:02, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Political Bias / Insider Contributors

This Wikipedia page needs far more scrutiny by additional Wikipedia editors. It has been written by Heritage Foundation staff and insiders and is a "puff piece." There is little that challenges this organization by pointing out controversy, little that points out the organization's opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, opposition to Marriage Equality, opposition to protest under First Amendments provisions.

For instance, one of the topics that should be addressed is a 2022 report that says "cultural Marxismm" poses a “far more serious and existential threat to the United States than did Soviet communism.” The far right has used this term to discredit 2024 protestors re the Israel war against Hamas.

Another topic certainly should be an in-depth examination of Project 2025, which would give the president far more power to fire civil servants and give jobs to people who are loyal to the president's (conservative) ideology. Check out this New York Times article (December 2023) about an ongoing application process for government jobs that requires applicants to take a conservative position on immigration, on U.S. membership in the United Nations.

(https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/01/us/politics/project2025-heritage-foundation-administration-application-questionnaire.html)

Given that the Heritage Organization is in the spotlight because Project 2025 is said to be part of the 2024 Republican National Convention platform, this page should be updated immediately. The Heritage Foundation should not be allowed to use Wikipedia as a public relations platform.

To Wikipedia Editors already engaged in editing this page: thank you.

Art-Nature2024

Art-Nature2024 (talk) 14:10, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Trump's disclaimer

If we do mention it, we need to do that in the context of the response of some Republicans to it. See Republicans call Trump’s move to distance himself from Project 2025 ‘preposterous As one of Pence's advisor said, it's not a credible denial. Doug Weller talk 07:09, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure how it could be DUE in this article, and what we do include should be based upon reliable, secondary, independent sources. Trump is none of those.

The Project 2025 section should include details about how The Heritage Foundation's direct involvement with it (creation, promotion, funding, targeting, etc). --Hipal (talk) 19:51, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Nonprofit is too vague! It's actually a 501(c)(3) (source in desc.)

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237327730

I'm not used to making contribution on Wikipedia (never did it before ahaha) but I just saw this lack of precision and wanted to contribute.

Thanks for your **important** work. 2A01:CB1D:88D8:800:40E0:649:9DC9:55C6 (talk) 14:30, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Activities around voting in this year's election

"The conservative Heritage Foundation has sent teams with hidden cameras posing as voter-outreach workers groups into apartment complexes in Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia to ask the mostly Spanish-speaking immigrants there if they were citizens and registered to vote." " Georgia officials later said they had found no evidence that any of the people filmed by Heritage at the apartments in Norcross were actually registered. Some of the residents later said they had misspoken and denied being registered."[1] Doug Weller talk 08:29, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

lead edit

Hipal I contend the wording of this edit is absolutely absurd, especially for the lead, but also pretty much anywhere in the article. just comically bad.

what do others think?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Heritage_Foundation&diff=prev&oldid=1249999057 soibangla (talk) 23:31, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Fix the wording, find an appropriate location for it in the article. --Hipal (talk) 23:39, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

The wording was unacceptably bad, and removing it was appropriate. Grayfell (talk) 23:41, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

How about summarizing instead? TheThis article content identifies multiple, related criticisms. --Hipal (talk) 18:40, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

When you say "the article content identifies multiple, related criticisms" are you referring to the article in the New York Times that is given as the source for the relatively new sentence in the introduction that says "The New York Times reported The Heritage Foundation spread some false information about the 2024 election". Or does "the article" refer to this Wikipedia article? Novellasyes (talk) 22:48, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I meant this article. I've redacted my comment to avoid further confusion.

Looking over the NYTimes article, I don't see why identifying them is necessary, and think Wikipedia's voice is fine to use. --Hipal (talk) 01:50, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Paul Weyrich

per Google Gemini & documentary by Antoine Vitkine "RED SHADOW OVER THE WHITEHOUSE" Paul Weyrich's (HERITAGE FOUNDATION PRESIDENT) visits to Russia in the 1980s were primarily driven by his interest in promoting conservative political movements and ideologies.

As a prominent figure in the American conservative movement, Weyrich saw opportunities to connect with like-minded individuals in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, particularly during the late stages of the Cold War. His visits often involved:

• Meeting with Soviet dissidents and political activists: Weyrich sought to build relationships with individuals who were challenging the Soviet regime and promoting democratic ideals.
• Discussing potential avenues for cooperation: He explored ways in which the American conservative movement could support the efforts of Soviet dissidents and Eastern European reformers.
• Promoting conservative ideas: Weyrich used his visits to introduce conservative principles and values to Soviet and Eastern European audiences, often emphasizing the benefits of free markets and limited government.

It's important to note that Weyrich's visits to Russia during the 1980s were controversial, with some critics arguing that they were counterproductive and could have undermined the efforts of Western governments to promote human rights and democracy in the Soviet bloc. However, Weyrich and his supporters maintained that his engagement with Soviet dissidents and Eastern European reformers was essential for advancing the cause of freedom and liberty. 2A01:CB1D:1A5:1900:840E:B800:EF34:431A (talk) 19:08, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

The sections about various presidential administrations

From an encyclopedic standpoint, the sections on various POTUS administrations seem lacking. For example, the section on The Heritage Foundation#Biden administration, is just a somewhat random list of activities and events that some WP editor saw a news story about, and then added to that section, usually just in a one or two sentence paragraph, such as this one-sentence paragraph, "In March 2023, the Heritage Foundation established a cooperative relationship with the Danube Institute, a Budapest-based state-funded think tank founded in 2013." The nine paragraphs in this section are not thematically related (with one exception). It's hard for me to believe that these nine episodes in the life of the Heritage Foundation during the Biden administration are the nine most important or significant things about Heritage during those four years, partly because as they appear in the article, they just seem very random. I could say the same about the other sections in this article about Heritage as it appeared during various POTUS administrations. Novellasyes (talk) 23:00, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

What improvement are you suggesting? --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:23, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't want to do the halfway-between-minor-and-major-surgery I think these sections need without consensus so thanks for asking. Here are the guidelines I would use to restructure these. (1) I would lean on the wisdom in WP:ONESOURCE which would mean that unless a report on something Heritage did during a particular administration achieved widespread, persistent notice in WP:RS, it probably doesn't really count as a notable fact about Heritage in that administration so I'd remove it. (2) I would preferentially go for content that falls into the buckets of leadership changes, apparent changes in focus (they stopped doing a certain thing they used to do or started something new), and programs or projects that drew the most widespread, persistent notice. Since apparently a certain portion of Heritage beliefs as expressed in their mandate get through during Republican administrations, I think that should be a standard part of the POTUS sections; (3) I would like there to be some type of uniformity in these POTUS sections so that a reader can see that they can reliably expect information in each of the sections about leadership changes that occurred during the administration, etc as per proposal 2. Beyond that, the fact that this article is structured to report out what Heritage did in the context of specific POTUS administrations (rather than, say, by decade), the implicit promise of arranging things by administration is that there is something unique about Heritage, per specific administration. If there isn't, it should just be sectioned out by decade or other timeline feature. So I would look for facts and themes about Heritage, to go in the POTUS sections, that relate to its focus as per a specific administration. Novellasyes (talk) 14:28, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Establishing consensus on labeling The Heritage Foundation as being / having aspects of the far-right

Hey everyone! I'm not super sure how to set this into motion, but I read that any potentially controversial change should be addressed on the talk page first. I was doing some very shallow reading into the "Cultural Marxism" conspiracy theory and found an article about it from Heritage that promoted the theory. The Wikipedia page about it classifies it as a far-right, anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, but labels Heritage as simply "Conservative." I also found an article from the NYT, which says that the President of Heritage wants to "institutionaliz[e] Trumpism," which another Wikipedia article says has "has been referred to as an American political variant of the far-right."

I'm fully aware that we determine what's on Wikipedia based on outside sources, and not what other Wikipedia articles say. If someone with better knowledge on what flies in regards to sourcing and how I could justify this change could step in, that would be great. I would also love to hear the thoughts of anyone who disagrees. A minor addition mentioning their spreading of the Cultural Marxism theory might be more appropriate than a blanket labeling them as far-right. Netipse (talk) 07:26, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

These sound like tenuous connections but could you please put in links both to the off-site articles you are talking about and the on-site articles.Novellasyes (talk) 18:40, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Agree w/ Novellasyes. This is tenuous (at best), overly relies on Wikipedia, and, generally, smells biased. You sound like you're making a good-faith argument (so thank you), but, based on this evidence, there's no reason to label it "far right." Dickenseditor (talk) 16:23, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

@Dickenseditor With, seriously, all due respect, both of you are extremely new and no one would expect you to fully understand how we work. Note that the NYT is attributed and we are not claiming that as fact, so it's ok so far as I can see. Doug Weller talk 16:52, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you; I take you at your word you're just making good-faith comments. (For context: Not new to editing in general, (worked professionally on several books and newspapers for decades now, so, experience-wise, probably in the top echelon of real editorial experience)). In general, one "NYT" article by someone who endorsed Trump's opponent (assuming you're referencing the one attempted to be cited in the introduction) does not generally a consensus make. Dickenseditor (talk) 16:56, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

To your point earlier, sure, you could add in (though generally not in the introduction) the fact that someone (who endorsed THF's purported desired candidate's opponent) tried to malign the organization, but then, one could also add in all the other news organizations who love THF. it's not an introduction-worthy sort of detail. Cheers mate. Dickenseditor (talk) 17:02, 3 December 2024 (UTC)