Heritage Explains

For the better part of a decade, China has played the role of America’s greatest long-term strategic competitor.   American foreign politicos have long advised a pivot to Asia as Washington slaps tariffs on Chinese goods. The CCP has served as America’s bête noire, guilty of repeated intellectual property theft, human rights abuses, and imperial ambitions towards the essential island of Taiwan.  ...

I was eight years old when my family got our first home computer. I remember this hulking grey Dell computer taking up massive amounts of space on the desk, and I remember thinking to myself how amazing technology was. The mood around tech is no longer nearly as cheery. Over the past five years, Americans have grown increasingly concerned over the broadening prevalence of AI. Pew Research reports...

As stories about non-citizen voting and voter fraud become disturbingly common, Americans are beginning to lack confidence in our elections. The debate over the elections process has taken on a renewed urgency given we are just months away from the 2026 midterms and a few years out from what promises to be a contentious 2028 election. That's why Heritage Foundation recently launched the latest edi...

Energy is the nucleus of everything. The oil that powers our cars, the natural gas heating out homes, and the nuclear keeping the lights on: it’s all tied back to energy policy. Reliable energy is essential to both American prosperity and national security. To help lay out just how essential understanding energy policy is, and what the future holds for it, we spoke to Jack Spencer, Director of the...

A few weeks ago, conservative online discourse was focused on the price of a burrito. Yes, the Vice President of the United States, along with the right’s most celebrated minds, were arguing over whether a burrito should cost $20. Beneath the viral posts was a serious question: why does it feel like the American Dream keeps getting more expensive? Me and my wife certainly feel the squeeze on the c...

New York Times journalist James Reston once quipped that "This is the devilish thing about foreign affairs: they are foreign and will not always conform to our whim."  Never have those words been truer than now. The world is a very dangerous place at the moment. We are still engaged in Iran, with little sign of things improving. China looms large in Asia, though we have abruptly stopped engaging w...

Fertility is often framed as a women's issue, but do men have any place in the conversation? In this episode of Heritage Explains , Heritage Action's Doug Blair sits down with Dr. Marguerite Duane to discuss the realities of fertility, the factors contributing to declining birth rates, and why men play a much bigger role in the fertility conversation than many realize. The pair also discuss Rep. A...

Portland was once held up as a model of urban America: a walkable, vibrant city known for parks, restaurants, breweries, and a thriving downtown. Today, record office vacancies, rampant homelessness, drug use, and shuttered businesses have turned the City of Roses into a warning for other American cities. So what happened? On this episode of Heritage Explains , we’re joined by Heritage Senior Fell...

This epsiode originally aired on February 11th, 2026. Enjoy! Washington is abuzz with talk of the SAVE America act, a piece of legislation that is designed to secure American elections and ensure that only American citizens have the right to vote. The proposed law is experiencing a groundswell of popular support, but also opposition. To understand what makes this law consequential, I sat down with...

The last Supreme Court term was a very busy and consequential one. With decisions from redistricting to birthright citizenship to boys in girls’ sports, many cases made headlines and there is a lot to talk about.   That’s why we decided to bring you a very special bonus episode this week. Heritage Action’s Doug Blair sat down with Heritage legal fellows Cully Stimson and Zack Smith to break down t...

For much of the 2024 presidential campaign, Biden supporters as well as legacy media insisted that the president was mentally sharp and fully competent to execute his duties. Most Americans doubted this, and this debate performance confirmed that they were right.  In the weeks that followed, Biden stepped down from the race, replaced by Vice Presidenet Kamala Harris. But the situation left America...

When President Trump took office in January of 2025, he signed 26 executive orders on the first day. In that pile of executive orders was one entitled: Protecting the Meaning and Value of American American Citizenship.  In it, the president directed that federal officials were not to issue documents recognizing United States citizenship to anyone who is born in the country to illegal immigrants or...

Who ever heard of a state-based agency that is older than the state itself?  The Texas General Land Office was established in 1836 by the Congress of the Republic of Texas, the sovereign country that became the State of Texas ten years later, in 1846. When that transition happened, Texas retained control of all of its public lands.  That made the General Land Office’s role even more important, and...

Harriet Tubman’s Shawl and Hymnal. Abraham Lincoln’s Hat. Chuck Berry’s Red Cadillac.   These are just a few of the estimated 157 million items currently held by the Smithsonian Institutions. Spread across 21 museums, 21 libraries, 14 education and research centers, a zoo, and various other facilities, the Smithsonian was created by the federal government in 1846, and named after its founding dono...

America’s 250th anniversary of independence is being celebrated on the Fourth of July, this very week. And celebrations are taking place across the country. Tractor pulls. Concerts. Competitions. UFC Fights on the white house lawn.   But there’s another, slightly quieter, event happening in Philadelphia this year for America250: the burying of a time capsule.   America’s Time Capsule, as it’s call...

In July of 1777, gunshots rang out over Philadelphia. At first glance, this may not be surprising, as America was still in the throes of the Revolutionary War. But it was not the redcoats who were firing that night. It was Americans, celebrating the very first anniversary of their independence. The edition of the Philadelphia Evening Post, published on July 15 1777 described the celebration thus: ...

In 2025, data analytics company Gallup asked 144,000 people in 140 countries a survey question they have been asking for decades:   “Ideally, if you had the opportunity, would you like to move permanently to another country, or would you prefer to continue living in this country?”  If the respondent says they would like to move, they are then asked which country they would like to move to.   In 20...

In our political climate, it is always nice to have a bit of authentic bipartisanship. The Marshall plan to rebuild Europe following World War 2, the Interstate Highway System under President Eisenhower, and the Apollo Program are all examples of both political parties coming together for a common goal.   The first Trump Administration saw another of these moments in the passage of the Formerly In...

Graduation season is once more upon us. The long school year has come to a close, and now, in caps and gowns, the nation’s graduates gather to receive their various certifications, diplomas, and degrees, and listen to wisdom from a speaker.   However, many college graduations are not the same tranquil affairs they used to be. FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, reports that ...

Along with Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Massachusetts, Virginia describes itself as a commonwealth. In reality, a commonwealth is no different from a state. But in the English of colonial times, “commonwealth” denoted something along the lines of “a state for the common good”, and had a more revolutionary connotation. The state was for the people, not the people for the state. In some ways, this ha...

The tiny town of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire is located just 20 miles south of the Canadian boarder. Home to an idyllic hotel known for its skiing and golfing, the town itself had a population of four. At the time of the 2020 census.   But if you happen to be one of those residents, your election day experience is a bit different from most. At the stroke of midnight, you enter the polling place,...

During the Second World War, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, joined by Winston Churchill, sat down with Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek. The purpose of the meeting, now known as the Cairo Conference, was to strategize against the Empire of Japan and make preparations for a post-war Asia.   Nearly 30 years later, President Richard Nixon, seeing an opportunity to widen the distance betwe...

Jim Crow laws are the blanket name given to the the state and local laws that pervaded the American South from the 19th century all the way to the 1960s, which were meant to enforce racial segregation.  They limited the public services and facilities available to Black Americans. They included poll taxes, literacy tests, and other measures designed to limit the ability of Black Americans to exerci...

The Southern Poverty Law Center, founded in 1971, has its roots in the Civil Rights movement. But there’s reason to believe that this American institution, like so many others, has drifted from its original mission.    Here to talk about that is our resident SPLC expert here at the Heritage Foundation, Daily Signal Senior Editor, Tyler ONeil.      Email us with thoughts, questions, or suggestions:...

The US House and Senate are storied institutions and packed with traditions and procedures like these. Some, like the fabled “candy desk”, are whimsical artifacts of history. Others are more central to the way that government works, and one such is the Budget Reconciliation process. This is a unique mechanism for passing budget and finance related legislation in the House and Senate. In the wake o...