WSJ Editor Baker: Battle Over Heritage Foundation 'Good Against Evil'

Vice President JD Vance and conservatives who dismiss the movement's infighting — including the current battle over the future of the Heritage Foundation — are making a mistake, writes Wall Street Journal Editor at Large Gerard Baker.

In an article posted Monday titled "Vance, Heritage and the Case for Conservative 'Infighting,'" Baker, the Journal's former editor-in-chief, argues that the uproar at the Heritage Foundation over its embrace of Tucker Carlson — and Carlson's praise of white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes — exposes a deeper moral crisis for the conservative movement.

Baker writes: "The 'infighting' has been on public display in the struggle unfolding at the Heritage Foundation in the past 10 days after its leader, Kevin Roberts, assertively rebutted suggestions that his institution should distance itself from Tucker Carlson, the leading impresario these days of barroom ideology, after his fawning elevation of Nick Fuentes, the Hitler- and Stalin-admiring antisemitic agitator of the internet."

Roberts' decision to continue to call Carlson a "close personal friend" and refuse to criticize him for his many antisemitic statements — not to mention promoting a number of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories — has sent Heritage into a free fall with more than a dozen senior fellows and supporters quitting the once-revered conservative think tank.

Baker calls the continuing episode a revealing test for conservatives.

"The sheer weirdness of these people — the wild conspiracy theories, the apologetics for America's enemies from Russia to Iran to Venezuela — makes it tempting simply to dismiss them and to eschew the 'infighting,'" he writes, apparently referring to Carlson and other right-wing media influencers.

"That would be a mistake," he asserts.

Baker warns that we may be sitting on the verge of a breakup of the MAGA movement itself.

"What we saw at Heritage last week wasn't some distraction from more important work. It was the latest episode in the struggle of good against evil."

But Baker says Vance "misses the larger point" by claiming conservatives should not be arguing over these issues because "infighting is stupid."

Extremist thinking and ultranationalism that have emanated from the likes of Carlson and Candace Owens are also growing significant antisemitism, Baker says.

Baker is not alone in his concerns about the impact on the Jewish community and others if social media influencers like Carlson are not responded to.

Late last week, Morton Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America, publicly condemned the trustees of the Heritage Foundation for not speaking out against Roberts. Klein called on the trustees to fire Roberts.

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, who had served on Heritage's antisemitism task force, resigned in the wake of Roberts' defense of Carlson's interview.

Menken, whose organization represents more than 2,500 rabbis, said Heritage's failure to act is not just a political mistake but a moral collapse.

He suggested that the failure of Heritage to condemn Carlson's hate "poses a huge danger."

"If you look at the civilizations that welcomed hatred of Jews, they all destroyed themselves in the process," he said.