A warm, gusty wind was whipping through Washington that morning, rattling the bare branches along Massachusetts Avenue and sending scraps of paper skittering down the sidewalks. The National Weather Service had issued a red-flag warning — gusts up to 45 miles an hour in air so dry that any spark could run. The sky had that washed-out autumn glare that makes the city feel brittle.Inside the Heritage Foundation’s headquarters, the air felt just as charged.The all-hands meeting had been called in the foundation’s main conference room, paneled in dark wood. Roughly 200 chairs faced a small stage, where deep blue...