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Back in July, reports surfaced that Project 2025 Director Paul Dans had stepped down from The Heritage Foundation, supposedly “amid backlash from Trump.”
As it turns out, however, Trump’s entirely-non-specific criticism of Project 2025 (which he seems to oppose mostly on the grounds that people are attacking him over it) had nothing to do with Dans’s departure. He didn’t “step down” and he didn’t “resign,” he was fired, supposedly for being a total jackass to his coworkers — women especially.
Gee, who would have thought that a guy who helped create a game plan to deprive women of their reproductive rights by weaponizing a law created over 40 years before we were allowed to vote would not be an absolute doll to women?
Dans often directed his ire at women in particular, according to multiple sources who described a pattern of exhibiting anger that boiled over in July at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
A meeting among Heritage Foundation officials there went off the rails when Dans began berating and swearing at colleagues for what he considered their poor performance. The tense encounter ended when Heritage President Kevin Roberts intervened to warn Dans the personal attacks were unacceptable. “He was being so demeaning,” said a source present for the meeting. “It was constant, and he refused to listen.”
It’s almost as if the political really is personal after all! The real surprise to me, here, is that the Heritage Foundation has any female employees at all. Are they all on the Phyllis Schlafly Plan For Ladies Who Want A Career In Telling Other Ladies To Stay Home?
For his part, Dans is denying that he was fired for being an asshole.
“I was made a scapegoat by The Heritage Foundation to cover up for their own mishandling of the public relations fiasco over Project 2025,” he wrote in an email to Real Clear Politics. “The statements that you have provided to me are false and it appears that the Heritage Foundation continues to trash my good name and professional reputation for their benefit.”
I am somewhat inclined to believe him, as it seems incredibly likely that, much like Wolfram and Hart, being a monster is kind of a prerequisite for working at the Heritage Foundation.
Of course, the only thing that would have not created a “public relations fiasco” over Project 2025 is not producing Project 2025 at all — and certainly not publishing it publicly. It was the dystopian content people objected to, not the way it was presented. There’s not really a spoonful of sugar that can make that medicine go down.
Heritage’s head of human resources, surprisingly, sided with the Foundation’s version of events, insisting that Heritage “deeply values all of our staff, and is committed in both practice and principle to maintaining a positive work environment where abusive or demeaning behavior is not welcome.”
Unless, of course, that abusive or demeaning behavior is coming from Donald Trump, in which case it is the mark of a true leader.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
