America First Policy Institute's "100-year plan" for Trumpism
Well-funded MAGA forces close to the White House are preparing a "100-year plan" to try to sustain Trumpism long after President Trump leaves office.
Why it matters: Top executives at the America First Policy Institute tell Axios that the group is scaling up as an incubator for the America First movement beyond Jan. 20, 2029 — promising to proselytize its policies for the next century.
The big picture: The institute was launched in 2021 — by now-Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, now-Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Larry Kudlow, a Fox Business host who was a first-term Trump official — to help keep Trump's ideas in the political ether after he left office.
During the president's Mar-a-Lago exile and through his 2024 comeback bid, the institute became something of an administration in waiting, pumping out policy papers and staffing up with Trump 1.0 alums.
Now AFPI is retooling as a shadow White House policy shop — and training ground for future administration talent.
The group — along with America First Works, a sister organization focused on political work and policy advocacy — just moved into a posh new office on Pennsylvania Avenue next to the Willard InterContinental, wedged between the White House and Capitol.
Zoom in: The group is naming an expanded leadership team "to further advance the America First movement and policies that put the American people first."
Greg Sindelar, CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), is interim president and CEO, replacing Rollins. "This is about thinking not even five years down the road," Sindelar told us. "This is about thinking 100 years down the road, and how do we make AFPI a permanent institution in the public square."
Chad Wolf, Trump's former acting Homeland Security secretary, will be AFPI's executive vice president and chief strategy officer.
David Bernhardt, Interior Secretary in Trump I, is an EVP focusing on litigation and research.
Between the lines: Trump's current administration is packed with AFPI alumni, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and other officials.
Wolf said Trump is "outcome-driven and outcome-based. But lots of times, there's a lot of work that goes into that, into achieving those outcomes ... That's what we're doing here, which is providing that outside support system for that America First movement, which is now inside government."
Go deeper: See the leadership team.
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Faced with a future as bleak as this, it's only natural to ask what is driving it, and what could we do about it? There's no singular villain here. The decline in birthrates isn't the result of one policy or one cultural shift; it's a slow-motion trainwreck caused by everything, everywhere, all at once. 'We've tried paying people,' Napper says. 'But money doesn't fix this. It's not just an economic decision or a transaction the government or employer can influence with just money. It's personal. People are making very deliberate choices about the kind of life they want, and many are deciding not to replicate the one they've lived.' In part, we've overoptimized for affluence. Modern life is a relentless treadmill of degrees, performance reviews, debt, and the promise that things will get better if you just stick it out. But what if better never comes? What if the very structure of our success makes having children feel like a selfish, impossible luxury? 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