More than 30 years before Project 2025, Weyrich openly suggested dismantling democracy and government institutions in response to the Iran Contra, because he believed it reflected a system that allowed for failed leadership and inexperienced cabinet advisors.
AS PROPONENTS of a strong foreign policy and defense, conservatives have a special responsibility. Our advocacy brings with it the burden of doing the job competently. We must be leaders in thinking deeply and carefully about America's role in the world, about relating goals to means and about our national strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities and constraints they impose. If we fail to do this, we lose our legitimacy as advocates.
In the Iran-contra mess, conservatives have failed. Obviously, they failed in the way the matter was handled. But the failure is really much more profound than that. The scandal is not a disease, but a symptom. It is a symptom of some underlying contradictions in our national strategy and national institutions.
It is time for a new national grand strategy. Nothing less will address the real problem. Conservatives have a responsibility to take the lead in developing one.
Second, there is a basic contradiction between the structure of our government and our role as a great power. Our government was designed not to play great-power politics but to preserve domestic liberty.
Yikes 😬
As conservatives, we have to help the nation face a stark choice: either modify our institutions of government to play the game of great power, or move back toward our historic, less active foreign policy.
Our current system institutionalizes amateurism. Unlike European parliamentary democracies, we have no "shadow cabinet," no group of experts who are groomed by their party for decades before they take high office. Our presidents can be peanut farmers or Hollywood actors. They can choose their top advisors either from among "professionals" who may not share their goals or supporters who often have no background or expertise in policy. Either way, they lose, and so does the country. The current crisis could not make the point better: our foreign policy was set by an admiral and a Marine lieutenant colonel, neither of whom had any background in the field. The resulting failure is not their fault. The system by which they were chosen is defective.
Odd that Weyrich would feel policy under Reagan was so shameful. After being blown off by the peanut farmer, the Hollywood actor became the first President to use the Heritage Foundation's Mandate for Leadership (The origin of much of Project 2025) to guide policy making.
But, it also seems odd that the Heritage Foundation is back in the White House and directing policy in 2025 under a reality TV star.
If the Heritage Foundation learned so much from seeing Oliver North fail, it seems absurd that a 22 year old grocer was recently given top security clearance before being arrested for attempting to leak sensitive information to a spy agency in another county.
Why would you put someone so inexperienced in such an important role? Odd that if he fails to do his job, it would seem to be proving Weyrich's point all over again. Were the failed policies that lead to the Iran Contra, really due to incompetence? Could they have been part of a larger strategy that was intended to fail in order to prove to America and the world why democracy doesn't work?
What about now in 2025?