When Senator Kamala Harris faced two dozen other candidates in the 2020 Democratic primary, she competed hard against the others to attract the far-left wing of the party. Reid J. Epstein, a New York Times columnist, explained that Harris ran to the left since progressive ideas dominated the last competitive Democratic primary. Now, as she enters a tough general election, Republicans are bringing up her previous positions, and the Kamala Harris of four years ago is going to haunt her.
The Harris campaign is not concerned about their candidate’s progressive background. They pretend it does not exist. The Harris campaign repositioned its candidate as a moderate former prosecutor who will combat corporate greed in order to build an “opportunity economy” for middle-class Americans, and they characterize their Republican opponent as a far-right ideologue who intends to dismantle American democracy by enacting the Heritage Foundation’s radical plan for America—Project 2025—which is a 900-page document that contains policy recommendations for the next president.
The Heritage Foundation is a think tank established in 1973. The Heritage Foundation’s founders believed that the think tanks that dominated public policy from the New Deal to the Great Society were overly liberal, so they founded Heritage to develop and recommend conservative public policy to elected officials. Heritage’s influence was at its height between 1980 and 2008. However, Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans are not ideological conservatives, so the Heritage Foundation has little influence over them.
The Harris campaign, on the other hand, intends to scare voters with numerous campaign ads warning about “Donald Trump’s” far-right Project 2025, and prominent organizations such as the Center for American Progress (CAP) have weighed in by providing the public with a comprehensive breakdown of Project 2025’s “dangerous” policies.
CAP published a series of academic essays, produced videos, and created a newsletter claiming to expose Project 2025 and the far-right assault on America. According to CAP, “The scope of Project 2025 is extensive, ranging from raising the cost of prescription drugs and restricting access to contraception to slashing funding for early childhood and K-12 education. The plan includes proposals to end civil rights protections, exploit the most vulnerable Americans, stop safeguards that protect clean drinking water, halt action to combat the climate crisis, and open the door to an unprecedented level of corruption at the expense of American democracy. Altogether, Project 2025 is a plan for a presidency focused on consolidating and holding on to power.”
Of course, CAP has the right to assess Project 2025, but given that CAP is aiding the Harris campaign and candidates are notorious for projecting onto their opponents what they are guilty of themselves, how much stock can voters place in CAP’s analysis?
To address that, we must expose CAP, just as CAP exposed the Heritage Foundation.
Former Democratic President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, John Podesta, established the Center for American Progress (CAP) as a public policy think tank in 2003. Podesta founded it as a progressive rival to the conservative Heritage Foundation. Time magazine’s political reporter Michael Scherer wrote about CAP’s influence after Democrat Barack Obama’s election in 2008. He said, “Not since the Heritage Foundation guided Ronald Reagan’s transition in 1981 has a single outside group held so much sway.”
In 2011, Washington Post reporter Jason Horowitz wrote that CAP was “Washington’s leading liberal think tank, an incessant advocate for a broad progressive agenda.” In 2013, Podesta left CAP to join Obama’s White House staff. Following Obama’s administration, Podesta led the 2016 presidential campaign to elect Hillary Clinton.
Neera Tanden succeeded Podesta as CAP’s president and CEO. After Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump, Tanden transformed CAP into the “central hub for Trump resistance” and the chief policy center for drastically transforming healthcare in America. Tanden left CAP in 2021, when President Biden appointed her as one of his senior advisors.
Patrick Gaspard, the former head of the George Soros-run Open Society Foundations, was named CAP’s next president and CEO. Politico introduced readers to Gaspard in a 2021 article titled: The most influential think tank of the Biden Era has a new leader. This title indicates that CAP wields greater power in the Biden/Harris administration than the Heritage Foundation did in the Trump administration.
According to the Politico report, “Gaspard’s current mission will be to take the reins of an entity that finds itself with new found power inside a political system that’s proven dysfunctional. CAP has fed more than 60 officials into the Biden administration, many in critical roles. It helped shape some of the legislative initiatives and executive actions that the president has pursued on topics ranging from immigration to inclusivity in government agencies.”
Politico also highlighted what critics of CAP found problematic: CAP has received significant donations from corporations such as Walmart and Google, as well as foreign governments such as the United Arab Emirates, leading to allegations of undue influence on its work on issues such as antitrust and US-Saudi policy.
CAP and the Harris campaign are warning Americans about the Heritage Foundation’s Presidential Transition Project 2025, but Americans should be more concerned about CAP’s policy recommendations for the next democratic president because CAP will have more influence over Harris than the Heritage Foundation will have over Trump.
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