In a worrisome trend, conservatism has taken an academic turn, with many Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, choosing to use phrases such as “if everything’s honest” when questioned whether they would accept the results of the upcoming 2024 election. Ignoring the charges of election rigging, a conservative group of intellectuals already deems the election’s outcome to be unethical, tainting the concept of a free and fair democratic process.
Analysts gathered at the Heritage Foundation – identified as the conservative think tank, behind the contentious Project 2025. They ran alleged simulations, not meant to understand weaknesses within our electoral framework but instead, to establish a base for rejecting any results that don’t pave the way for Trump’s return.
Mike Howell, the executive director of Heritage’s Oversight Project, conveyed in an interview with The Washington Post that there is “a zero percent chance of a free and fair election”. This bold statement, however, felt hollow when measured against the group’s own findings, largely due to the biases stitched into their simulation.
The cautious approach to this scenario probably stems from the group’s imitation of the “2024 Transition Integrity Project.” This endeavour by the Heritage Foundation is an unworthy adaptation of a simulation performed by a bipartisan group of specialists during the 2020 election. The collective shared the same namesake, but the resemblance ends there.
The authentic simulation employed a strategic “Matrix Game” design, where groups embodying various stakeholders developed strategies, citing reasons for the potential success or failure of their decisions. The true test of efficacy in these scenarios depends on the strength of these supporting arguments and an element of chance.
Unlike this method, the 2024 simulation appeared misguided and anecdotal, with conservatives playing parts ranging from Chinese representatives, Mexican drug cartels to a miscellany of “Black Lives Matter/Antifa/Pro-Hamas” groups. This broad mix resulted in an over-populated simulation that verged more towards chaotic fiction than a pragmatic analysis.
Heritage Foundation’s exercise also hinged on a baseless assumption that Democrats manipulated the 2020 election results and then presented conclusions aligning with their thesis. This simulation reiterated: “The incumbent is always the greatest threat to a peaceful and effective transfer of power”, disregarding Trump’s notorious efforts to undermine the election’s aftermath in the same vein.
It’s critical for the judicial body, facing potential lawsuits challenging a possible Trump defeat in the 2024 elections, to scrutinize the Heritage Foundation’s endorsed report. This document should not be mistaken as a credible piece of academic research but rather an extension of their whimsical, self-indulgent interpretation of events. It is during these challenging times that we must rekindle our commitment towards preserving democratic norms over personal biases and political theatrics.
