Thursday, October 2, 2025

New Dem Think Tank Hopes to Curb Left's Sway

Here is more from the Washington Post:

As Democrats search for their way out of the political wilderness, a new think tank, introduced on Wednesday, has some ideas about where the party went wrong.

Among them: too much emphasis on issues like climate change and L.G.B.T.Q. rights, and far too much deference to the powerful liberal organizations championing those causes at the expense, some argue, of appealing to voters in battleground states.

The think tank, the Searchlight Institute, was started by Adam Jentleson, a veteran Democratic operative.

Searchlight, Mr. Jentleson said, is starting with an annual budget of $10 million and a staff of seven in its Capitol Hill office. The organization is subsidized by a roster of billionaire donors highlighted by Stephen Mandel, a hedge fund manager, and Eric Laufer, a real estate investor. Its name is a homage to the dusty Nevada hometown of Senator Harry Reid, for whom Mr. Jentleson, 44, served as a senior aide. 

 

Here is a link to the new think tank. 

 

Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Think Tank Quickies (#523)

  • China detains senior diplomat who had recently embraced US think tanks, such as the Asia Society. 
  • Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken joined the board of the Center for American Progress (CAP), and gets blasted by Dem-aligned think tank.
  • Conservative think tank executive Stewart Whitson, of Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), loses in VA-11 special election. 
  • Eric Denece, director of the French think tank CF2R, found dead.
  • Are some of the worst allegations about Qatari influence on campuses the result of a coordinated campaign of distortion led primarily by third-party advocacy groups such as the think tank Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy?
  • The Heritage Foundation is set to propose sweeping revisions to US economic policy meant to encourage married heterosexual couples to have more children.
  • The Edmund Burke Foundation: "A DC-based conservative think tank." 
  • How Trump's think tank allies are exporting illiberalism. 
  • Hoover Institution senior fellows playing big role fighting Trump's tariffs. 
  • New Diplomacy Initiative (ND), "a think tank that collects and distributes information and advocates policy options in the US and Japan as well as throughout East Asia in order to promote a New Diplomacy between politicians, independent experts, businesses, and civil society."