Kevin Roberts, the president of The Heritage Foundation, discusses America’s founding ideals in Drummond lecture. Courtesy | Olivia Pero

“I’m Kevin Roberts from Project 2025, and I’m here to help,” the president of The Heritage Foundation said as he opened his speech for the Drummond Lectures in Christ Chapel series Oct. 23.

The Left has embraced elitism and rejected populism, Roberts said in his lecture, “The Re-Founding of America in the 21st Century.” But now men and women in the U.S. and other Western countries are finally pushing back against the Left’s elitism, Roberts said.    

According to Roberts, elites today have captured and weaponized institutions, dictating everything from public policy to religious devotion without opposition.

“As I look around our country and all the damage leftist elites are doing to her, I can’t help but notice that none of our problems are beyond our constitutional order’s power to solve,” Roberts said. 

The solution to America’s problems today is not discarding or transcending the Constitution, but following it, Roberts said. The people possess the power to reestablish majority rule, democratic accountability, and national sovereignty. 

“If populism drives successful American reform movements yoked to the principles that steer them, the Constitution must be the pledge,” he said. “To truly serve our republic, principled populism must serve its founding ideals.”

The new populism rising across multiple continents takes different forms and cultures but shares similarities, Roberts said. It tends to be economically and politically nationalistic, culturally patriotic, socially conservative, and it tends to sympathize with workers rather than corporations.

“It’s not a coincidence that so many of the West’s populist leaders have, shall we say, colorful personalities,” Roberts said. “Javier Vile, Gerald Osonora, Victor Orbon, Boris Johnson, Georgio Maloney, Nigel Farage, and of course, our very own Donald Trump.”

Roberts said these leaders’ political swagger may have more influence than their policy agendas because it makes them more vulnerable to public scrutiny.

“That helps explain why those elite institutions hurl harsher invective at populists themselves rather than at any of their ideas,” Roberts said. 

Like these leaders, Roberts said, the populist movement requires action, not merely attitude.

Roberts said from the beginning of the U.S. republic, successful reform movements always join populist energy to a coherent, principled, political agenda. 

“Whatever you think of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, in their times, they all channeled populous frustrations and aspirations toward their policy aims,” Roberts said.

Gary Wolfram, director of economics and professor of political economy, said Roberts’ lecture was both timely and enlightening. 

“As Ludwig von Mises wrote about in his 1927 book, ‘Liberalism,’ it is vitally important to win the battle of ideas,” Wolfram said. “Hillsdale College and the Heritage Foundation are both engaged in this important battle.”

Jonah Apel, a student in the Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship, said he appreciated Roberts speaking at Hillsdale and the thoughtful vision for a modern conservative movement he provided.  

“He provided a sober yet genuine analysis of our political situation,” Apel said. “It’s great that the college provides so many opportunities for students to listen to high-caliber speakers.”

Roberts said in conclusion that the leftist elites cannot be negotiated with.

“They must be defunded, disbanded, and disempowered — and they can be sooner and more decisively than we might think,” Roberts said. “The rewards for finally putting American families first again are greater than we can know.”