Project 2025 leader urges state Republicans to seize control of blue cities like Austin and Nashville
In address to ALEC conference, Heritage Foundation makes a mockery of right-wing pretenses of favoring local governance
First published by Right Wing Watch.
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts urged right-wing state legislators this month to “de-charter” liberal capital cities and replace them with “state municipal districts.”
In a speech to a gathering of the American Legislative Exchange Council in Indianapolis, Roberts asserted, “We are in the second American Revolution,” which he explained by saying “we are renewing sovereignty and self-governance and faith in fellow man.”
Roberts showed no apparent recognition of the glaring inconsistency between his declared support for “sovereignty and self-governance” and his demonstrated contempt for the democratic choices made by voters in cities who disagree with Heritage’s agenda.
"When we have cities like Austin, or Nashville, or other capital cities whose local government is not representative of the will of the people, de-charter them and establish them as state municipal districts in the name of common sense,” he urged.
Roberts called Austin, Texas his “adopted home town” and described it as “a once-great place that has been taken over by Marxists.”
Roberts’ justification for this brazen attack on democratic self-governance? He claimed that the biggest threat to the Trump-Vance agenda, which is essentially the Project 2025 agenda promoted by Roberts and Heritage, is “that there are government entities that illegitimately are imposing something other than the American dream on their people.”
Roberts promised the legislators that Heritage would provide “air cover” if they made this virtual declaration of war against their own capital cities.
Roberts’ recommendation was part of a ten-point policy agenda he urged the state legislators to adopt. Among his other recommendations:
Roll back environmental regulations—“nonsense from the Green New Scam”—that he said are contributing to a crisis in affordable housing;
End subsidies and preferential treatment for “fickle energy resources.” (He said nothing about the subsidies enjoyed by fossil-fuel industries);
Force every local law enforcement agency to sign cooperation agreements with ICE’s 287 (g) program;
Replace SAT and ACT tests with the Classic Learning Test, which is promoted by right-wing culture warriors like Christopher Rufo and favored by conservative Christian schools and homeschoolers; the test was approved for statewide use in Florida in 2023.
The Heritage Foundation is a deep-pocketed think tank that has spent 50+ years shifting the Republican Party to the right and making America less free, less fair, and less safe. It was the sponsor of Project 2025, which Trump falsely disavowed during his 2024 campaign before aggressively implementing its recommendations since taking power this year, putting the country on a fast road to fascism. The American Legislative Exchange Council functions as a sort of matchmaker between corporate lobbyists and right-wing interests and state legislators eager to do their destructive bidding.
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