🌊 Project 2025: The Roca Deep Dive

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In Washington, DC, Massachusetts Avenue is known as “Think Tank Row.” Walk down it and you’ll walk down the spectrum of American politics.

First, you’d see the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) – DC’s primary center-right think tank, inside of which scholars are writing papers advocating for tax cuts, defense spending, and closer ties with NATO and Taiwan.

Directly next door is the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where scholars are cranking out books and articles about the “rules-based international order” and the value of alliances. When Biden was elected president, he took staff from here, including Carnegie’s VP of Communications, Jen Psaki, who became his press secretary.

One more building up is the Brookings Institution, inside of which many center-left academics and ex-policy makers are calling for more wealth redistribution, aid for Ukraine, and action to fight climate change.

Keep walking and you’ll pass the Peterson Institute for International Economics, one of the most influential economic policy think tanks; the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the leading defense-focused think tank; and then the CATO Institute, Washington’s primary home of libertarian research.

Ten blocks further down, you’ll reach the Heritage Foundation, Washington’s leading pro-Trump think tank.

Think tanks play a key role in DC.

Funded by a combination of ideologically-aligned foundations (i.e., a liberal billionaire dies and leaves a fortune to support liberal causes); wealthy individuals; corporations; and sometimes governments, they are akin to “universities without students” – they do research and then publish reports, books, and op-eds they hope will influence the conversation and get legislators’ attention. If you open up the Washington Post or Wall Street Journal opinion sections, much of what you’ll read has been written by think tank “scholars.”

Think tanks also hold events, dinners, and conferences, where they share research with policymakers or invite policymakers to speak. When, say, Republicans are in office, many Democrats spend their “exile” working for think tanks, networking, concocting policies, and fundraising. When, say, Democrats take back office, they hire staff from think tanks and apply their ideas. Think tanks therefore cultivate close relationships with policymakers.

When Trump took power, conservative DC institutions faced a choice: Embrace or reject him. Many rejected him, expecting things to soon “return to normal” or deeming him inconsistent with their values. At places like AEI, many staff rushed to sign “never Trump” letters.

Heritage, meanwhile, embraced him, recommending dozens of staff, hiring ex-Trump officials, and advising on policy. Now, as the leading pro-Trump think tank in Washington, DC, the Heritage Foundation expects Trump to turn to it if he is elected in November.

To prepare for that, it published Project 2025.

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