The Heritage Foundation Scandal and the Growth of Anti-Semitism on the Right

Today, Princeton professor and prominent conservative political theorist Robert George resigned from the Heritage Foundation board in protest of Heritage President Kevin Robert’s defense of anti-Semitic “influencer” Tucker Carlson and his support of Nick Fuentes, an even more virulent right-wing anti-Semite. George’s resignation is the latest of a wave of departures from Heritage, including that of my George Mason University colleague Adam Mossoff, who wrote an eloquent statement explaining why he resigned from his position as a visiting fellow at Heritage.

For more detailed accounts of the Heritage controversy and reactions to it, see accounts by Cathy Young at the UnPopulist, and conservative Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby. See also David Bernstein’s post about the recent Federalist National Lawyers’ Convention panel that addressed the issue of right-wing anti-Semitism, including the Heritage incident.

As Young indicates, the rot at Heritage extends far beyond this one incident, and began years ago. George and Mossoff are far from the first to leave Heritage in reaction to its descent into illiberalism and bigotry. Several leading Heritage scholars and policy analysts departed for similar reasons during the last decade, including Todd Gaziano (founding director of Heritage’s Edwin Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies), fiscal policy expert Jessica Riedl (then known as Brian Riedl), and foreign policy analyst Kim Holmes (a former Heritage vice president).

I myself was a Heritage intern  way back in 1994 (when I was a college student and Heritage was a very different institution). I would not work with them today, and I reached that conclusion years ago, based on their descent into illiberal nativism and nationalism. In December 2022, I turned down an invitation to contribute to the new edition of  the Heritage Guide to the Constitution. I told the editor (who is my former student and current co-blogger Josh Blackman) that I was busy. That was true, in so far as it went. But my main reason was revulsion at Heritage’s shift towards illiberalism and nationalism. If Heritage was still the organization I remembered from 1994, I might well have found the time to contribute.

Not wishing to provoke an unpleasant exchange, I shied away from fully explaining my reasons to Josh. I was wrong to do so. I should have told the full truth. I hope late is better than never, so I am doing so now.

Sadly, the problem here goes beyond the bigotry of a few “influencers” or the flaws of specific leaders at Heritage and some other conservative institutions. Rather, as Kim Holmes put it, this is the predictable consequence of “replacing conservatism with nationalism.” A conservative movement that increasingly defines itself in ethno-nationalist terms as a protector of the supposed interests of America’s white Christian majority against immigrants and minority groups cannot readily avoid descending into anti-Semitism, as well. 

My Cato Institute colleague Alex Nowrasteh and I wrote about the connections between nationalism and bigotry in some detail in our 2024 article “The Case Against Nationalism.” We are working on a follow-up piece that specifically addresses links to anti-Semitism and related current controversies surrounding the conservative movement.

In addition to right-wing anti-Semitism, there are also left-wing versions, some of which have also become more prominent in recent years. I wrote about some of them in a 2023 post on the roots of far-left support for Hamas. Right-wing anti-Semitism should not lead us to turn a blind eye to the left-wing varieties (and vice versa).

In his resignation letter from the Heritage board, Robert George urged his fellow conservatives to be guided by the principles of the Declaration of Independence, especially the idea that “that each and every member of the human family, irrespective of race, ethnicity, religion, or anything else, as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, is ‘created equal’ and ‘endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.’”  George is right. Unlike nationalist movements focused on ethnic particularism, the American Founding was based on universal liberal principles. Those principles remain the best protection for Jews and other minority groups. Left and right alike would do well to recommit to them.

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