The New Republic has obtained and printed Sen. J.D. Vance’s foreword to a forthcoming book by Project 2025 architect Kevin Roberts.
Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee and author of the memoir Hillbilly Elegy, wrote the introduction to Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington To Save America, a book by Roberts, the president of the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation.
The foundation is behind Project 2025, a a controversial proposal to revamp the federal government by, among other things, expanding presidential powers, slashing Medicaid and Medicare, and restricting access to abortion and contraception.
Vance’s running mate, former President Donald Trump, has attempted to distance himself from the plan, and Paul Dans, the director of the project, recently announced he is leaving his position.
In his foreword to Roberts’ book, Vance praises the Heritage Foundation as “the most influential engine of ideas for Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump.”
“Roberts sees a conservatism that is focused on the family,” Vance writes. “In this, he borrows from the old American Right that recognized—correctly, in my view—that cultural norms and attitudes matter.”
The New Republic notes that the original subtitle of Dawn’s Early Light was Burning Down Washington To Save America, and depicted a match on the book cover. The new cover features only text on a red background. Vance’s foreword echoes the revolutionary themes suggested by the original subtitle.
“We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets,” he writes. “In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.”
Dawn’s Early Light is slated for publication by Broadside Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, on Sept. 24.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
