Jan 04, 2021

Happy New Year to everyone! After the trials and tribulations we faced in 2020, conservatives still have big battles ahead as the left hopes to use 2021 to push its radical agenda onto a tired nation. Heritage President Kay C. James lays out the stakes. We also look at policy issues that conservatives should focus on that will bring the country together. Meanwhile, we take a detailed look at COVID mask mandates and come to a surprising conclusion. And we show how our public school system has failed students during the pandemic and what can be done about it. There are also events and podcasts worth checking out. All this and more in this week’s Agenda.

A 2021 Rallying Cry for Conservatives
After a long and difficult year, we could all use a rest, but there are big battles ahead that conservatives must fight, says Heritage President Kay C. James. The left, she says, “won’t stop promoting socialist climate policies, government-run health care, identity politics, racial division, bending a knee to our worst enemies and penalties for offending the sensibilities of the woke.” To succeed, she says, conservatives need to put aside differences, and that “2021 is no time to take a break, to retreat or to go off in our own separate corners.” Read her entire commentary here.

Five Ways to Bring the Country Back Together in 2021
After all that transpired in 2020, what can bring the country back together? Mike Howell, Heritage’s senior advisor of executive branch relations, looks at four things Congress can do to help: election integrity, immigration, China, and COVID recovery. You can read Howell’s piece here. On the latest “Heritage Explains” podcast, Heritage vice president of government relations Tommy Binion adds one more to the list, saying we must fight for constitutional conservative values “because it is only under those values where Americans will live in harmony with one another.” Listen to Binion talk about “What to Expect in 2021” here.

Mask Mandates Aren’t Working As Promised
Should there be a nationwide mask mandate? Joe Biden thinks so, as does 75% of the public, according to a recent poll. But Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis dug into the data and found that, while lab studies show that masks work, in the real world mandates aren’t effective. In fact, the counties with the highest rates of infection all had mask mandates in place. Read the report and learn what the government should be focused on instead.

COVID Exposes the Failure of the No-Choice Public School System
Across the county, schools are reporting a sharp rise in the share of students earning D’s and F’s compared with last year. “The utter failure of school assignment systems to provide quality-learning options to all students, especially the most vulnerable, is clear,” write Heritage experts Lindsey Burke and Jonathan Butcher. What’s needed, they write, is for states to let parents use public education money to provide what public schools can’t: A quality education, even during a national pandemic. Read what Burke and Butcher propose here.

Heritage’s Paul Larkin has produced 10 articles for prestigious law and policy journals in 2020, an incredible feat for even the most prolific scholar. Learn more about the topics that Larkin is addressing.

JAN. 11, 2021, Heritage will host an event at noon to discuss critical race theory and its grip on America. Hosted by Angela Sailor, vice president of the Feuler Institute, the event will feature Mike Gonzalez, a Heritage senior fellow and Arredondo E Pluribus Unum fellow, and Christopher Rufo, a visiting fellow in Heritage’s Domestic Policy. Register for this virtual event.

JAN. 13, 2021, Gen. James C. McConville, 40th chief of staff of the U.S. Army, will speak about getting the Army ready for the Great Power Competition by moving beyond incremental improvements and making transformational changes across the entire force. Register for this virtual event.

This week on the “Heritage Explains” podcast, policy expert Adam Michel gives us five reasons why stimulus checks aren’t the answer. Listen to the podcast.

Heritage’s James Carafano joined Newsmax to discuss America's foreign policy threats and how they should be handled. Watch the interview.

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