Edwin J. Feulner, a outstanding determine within the American conservative motion and co-founder and former president of the Heritage Basis, died on Friday on the age of 83.
Feulner served because the group’s president from 1977 to 2013 and once more from 2017 to 2018.
He was well-known for reworking the once-obscure assume tank into one of the vital influential coverage powerhouses in Washington, DC.
He was its longest-serving president after serving to to create the Washington, DC-based assume tank in 1973.
“Ed Feulner was more than a leader—he was a visionary, a builder, and a patriot of the highest order,” Heritage President Kevin Roberts and Board of Trustees Chairman Barb Van Andel-Gaby stated in a joint assertion. “His unwavering love of country and his determination to safeguard the principles that made America the freest, most prosperous nation in human history shaped every fiber of the conservative movement—and still do.”
The group had organized Mission 2025, a controversial initiative that supplied right-wing coverage suggestions for the second Trump administration.
Feulner co-wrote the initiative’s afterward and he and Roberts met with President Donald Trump forward of final yr’s election.
Feulner was additionally on Trump’s transition workforce forward of his first time period.
Underneath his management, Heritage instituted a brand new mannequin of conservative coverage advocacy.
This helped form Reagan-era reforms and pushed market-based concepts into political mainstream.
Feulner has remained energetic by Mission 2025 and a transition plan for a second Trump time period which is drawing reward and criticism for its hardline coverage proposals.
An writer of 9 books and a former congressional aide, he was additionally concerned in numerous different conservative organizations.
“Whether or not he was bringing collectively the varied corners of the conservative motion at conferences of the Philadelphia Society, or launching what’s now the Heritage Technique Discussion board, Ed championed a daring, ‘big-tent conservatism,’” Roberts and Andel-Gaby wrote. “He believed in addition, not subtraction. Unity, not uniformity. One of his favorite mantras was ‘You win through multiplication and addition, not through division and subtraction.’ His legacy isn’t just the establishment he constructed, however the motion he helped develop—a motion rooted in religion, household, freedom, and the founding. “
“His ‘Feulnerisms’ still resonate in the halls of Heritage—where they will always be remembered. ‘People are policy,’ for instance— the heartbeat of his mission—to equip, encourage, and elevate a new generation of conservative leaders, not just in Washington, but across this great country,” the assertion continued. “And we still remember his adjuration to never be complacent or discouraged: ‘In Washington, there are no permanent victories and no permanent defeats.’”
Roberts and Andel-Gaby vowed to honor Feulner’s life by “carrying his mission forward with courage, integrity, and determination.”
“Thank you for showing us what one faithful, fearless man can do when he refuses to cede ground in the fight for self-governance,” the leaders stated of Feulner.
Heritage didn’t disclose Feulner’s reason for demise.
Feulner is survived by his spouse Lina, in addition to their kids and grandchildren.
