At an event this summer, an intern asked Roberts what he thought of Carlson and Fuentes. “Never heard of them,” Roberts joked. He then admitted that their appeal is “the problem we’re trying to solve.” He said this was a reaction to “the perception that institutions are inauthentic and institutions cannot be trusted.” He mentioned universities, churches, and governments—not think tanks, but perhaps that was the implication. “The way some people, a few people, understand this is a burn-it-all mentality,” he said.
Once the midterm elections are over, the conservative movement will have to face the impending post-Trump reality. Different factions want very different futures – and in recent years, these factions have been vying for control of the legacy. An important dividing line is whether you are under forty-five or over forty-five. Roberts’ hope is to influence the next generation: to train them, channel their anger, correct their excesses. “This is a civilizing moment for this republic,” he told me recently. “Whatever struggles there are out there, whether they are political struggles, ideological struggles – God forbid, more real struggles – let them be present in my life, now, so that my children don’t have to fight them.”
Heritage was founded in the 1870s—a time of relative institutional stability when it was taken for granted that experts could shape history. For decades, it served as a lodge for the conservative movement, with alumni serving in prominent positions throughout Washington, D.C. “It was almost like we were missionaries,” one former staffer told me. “We firmly believe that what we do is important and meaningful.” In 2010, the group launched Heritage Action for America, a lobbying group that works to enforce ideological purity on Capitol Hill by shaming apostate Republicans. “Between 2000 and 2012, there was a consensus about what principled conservatism meant,” Tim Chapman, the former director of Heritage Action, told me. That’s more or less the mission statement of the legacy: limited government, free enterprise, individual liberty, traditional values, and a strong national defense.
As Donald Trump gained political clout in 2016, Heritage leaders recognized his potential, but the organization underperformed during his first term. Kay Coles James, who took over the foundation in 2018, was a lackluster fundraiser whose politics were, as one senior think tank leader put it, “bog-standard establishment Republican.” During the 2020 protests, James, who is black, called racism the “fatal wound” in American history. Tucker Carlson helped lead the push for her ouster.
Board wants legacy to be in play again, Roberts appears to suggest Maga Credibility. He served as president of a Catholic university in Wyoming and as director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation—an America First man who understood the grassroots. He comes from the populist wing of the Republican Party. As a young man in Louisiana, he organized a rally for nationalist presidential candidate Pat Buchanan. Roberts once reversed course and cheered the Iraq war, but now describes himself as a “resurgent neocon.”
The details of Roberts’ policy preferences are not necessarily that important to supporters of traditional legacy. The foundation has plenty of small- and medium-sized donors: a Midwestern plumber who sold his business to a private equity firm, or “retired parents who get involved because their grandkids wake up in public schools,” as one former Heritage analyst put it. They knew what they believed: Reagan was good. Free markets are good. Trump is good. Former members of the estate’s management team say they don’t follow the Baroque conflict online or “sit back and think about the ultimate issues”. As long as photos of Roberts and Trump can be sent, the donations seem to keep flowing.
Republicans in Washington, D.C., however, are watching Roberts for signs of his true loyalty. One of the major New Right groups is National Conservatism (NatCon). After taking over, Roberts declared at the national Conservative conference, “I’m not here to invite the National Conservatives to join our Conservative movement, but to acknowledge the simple fact that the legacy is already a part of you.” His 2024 book, “The Light of Dawn,” reads like a tribute to the party’s restless young populists, full of contempt for “conservative” conservatives. He insisted that American life had been rigged against labor. “Today’s American economy bears as much resemblance to the free enterprise system as a movie set does to a real stock exchange,” he wrote.
In 2023, Roberts invited Carlson to deliver the keynote speech at Heritage’s 50th anniversary celebration. Carlson talked about the importance of political courage. “When you see someone you know become a traitor, you get a look of disdain and sadness,” he said. “You see them following new things, which are obviously toxic, stupid things, saying things that you know they don’t believe because they want to keep their jobs.”