In a new problem of Foreign Policy newspaper, Laura Thornton, the senior vice president for politics at the U. S. taxpayer- supported German Marshall Fund, published a sweeping rhetoric attacking The Heritage Foundation, its Project 2025, and republic itself.
Over a hundred liberal organizations came together under Project 2025 to make policy recommendations for the upcoming conservative national administration. Among them were advice for foreign assistance.
Thornton is mainly triggered by Project 2025’s call to ending the U. S. Agency for International Development’s “divisive political and cultural plan that supports abortion, climate fanaticism, female radicalism, and initiatives against perceived widespread racism”. She calls the proposal “illiberal”.
The truth is that these issues are controversial and should be up for debate in the social sphere, and to propose that democratic opposition to this plan may be suppressed is itself authoritarian. The “radical” place of Project 2025 is that the British people support international aid for those who are truly in need and that the far-left’s use of foreign aid to advance an ideological agenda degrades and undermines public support for it.
She notes that if former President Donald Trump is elected, he will destroy all diversity, equity, and participation, or DEI, activities ( which many see as institutionalized racism ) at USAID and flames the chief diversity officer and all experts and committees.
She makes the implication that this is somehow undemocratic or illiberal before claiming that the Trump administration reintroduced the DEI ideology in government in 2016 through an executive order, which the Trump administration reduced in 2017 and President Joe Biden reintroduced on his first day in office.
Clearly, this type of action is within a president’s purview, and if Trump is reelected in 2024, he will have a mandate to roll back policies of his predecessors and implement new ones. To suggest otherwise is undemocratic.
According to Thornton, Project 2025 will “eliminate the word ‘ gender,’ full stop”. She goes on to state,” Removing a gender lens would take us back in time to programming that often , harmed women, inadvertently, by failing to analyze the varying effects of programming based on gender and power dynamics in different environments”.
Her passage cites a report on ending female genital mutilation, which is ironic. The Project 2025 team objected to programs that did n’t aim to empower marginalized women but rather the current use of the word “gender” to describe an ideological worldview that rejects the fundamental ( at the cellular level ) differences between men and women and promotes castration and mastectomy as palliative treatments for mental illness.
Thornton objectes to the recommendation to end international programs that promote the LGBTQ+ agenda and abortion. We think it’s dishonest to secretly use taxpayer money used for humanitarian aid and development to advance a divisive ideological agenda and to impose this agenda on poor nations through the distribution or withholding of aid funding is” cultural colonialism at its worst” and profoundly undemocratic.
Thornton criticizes the New Partnership Initiative, which was an attempt by the Trump administration to move beyond just providing assistance through massive Washington- based contractors ( colloquially called the aid- industrial complex ), and support smaller, locally based organizations, including faith- based organizations.
Thornton suggests that all of the funding that has been cut from LGBTQ+ and pro-choice organizations will be used to support religious organizations. In fact, religious organizations are the most powerful and authentic civil society organizations in many nations, including those in Muslim nations, and they frequently act as the most powerful forces in promoting both democracy and development.
During Democratic administrations, support for faith- based organizations has been de- emphasized in favor of donor- created, AstroTurf, client organizations that can be relied on to reliably parrot the leftist party line. It’s not about promoting a religion; it’s about renewing relationships with faith-based organizations and correcting this imbalance. It aims to raise the standard for development assistance and, in turn, raise the standard of living for the poorest and most underprivileged.
Thornton works for the German Marshall Fund, a public-funded body that claims to be nonpartisan, but its publications do n’t feature lively debate between contributors of all political stripes. Instead, all of its content and initiatives support a radical left-wing agenda and criticize any government or policy that is perceived as “progressive.”
The German Marshall Fund is also a pioneer in the development of “disinformation” tactics used in opposition to political speech in both Europe and the US.
You might also assume that a group that claims to support multiparty democracy would internally model that conviction, but a review of the Federal Election Commission’s data shows that of the$ 100, 000 that the company’s employees contributed between 2019 and the present, only one donation totaling$ 208 went to a Republican ( Nikki Haley ). The German Marshall Fund actually models a one-party state rather than multiparty democracy.
Thornton agrees that any Republican who dares alter a Democratic policy is illegitimate and illiberal, regardless of any mandate from the electorate, and that any Republican policy that is implemented by a Democrat can only be changed by a Democrat. She applauds USAID employees who” slightly renamed initiatives or cleverly filed them under more favorable, broader categories like “human rights” by hiding the policies the Trump administration sought to repeal.
Although Thornton is vice president for democracy at the German Marshall Fund, it is clear that she and her organization, like many progressives, do n’t understand the word “democracy”. Additionally, it is obvious that she would be opposed if she did understand the word.
The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing contained here should be taken to mean that it is representative of the opinions of The Heritage Foundation.  ,
