The American electorate has a dark characteristic, which generally seems to fade the further left you go. And that is a deep, profound level of selfishness best described as “Ain’t Gonna Affect Me, So I Don’t Care.”
We saw it with climate change, where for years too many people over 50 years old basically told the young people in their life “too bad too sad, kid, I’ll be dead before it’s a problem so sucks to be you.” We saw it with COVID, where at first it was a city and non-white person problem, then it became an elderly and pre-existing condition person’s problem. So dammit, I want to go get a beer and see a movie, who cares if it kills grandma.
So into this world comes Project 2025. If you haven’t heard, it is pretty much a blueprint for a far-right takeover of the federal government if Trump gets elected. The challenge in communicating the danger posed by Project 2025 is the fact that it is 900 pages long. We have a voting populace that can barely be bothered to read a 140-word Tweet, much less 900 pages.
This vision of an American White Christian theocracy is rather chilling. It includes:
- Eliminate any potential opposition by federal employees, replacing them in a purge with Trump-supporting employees willing to carry out the worst of Project 2025.
- Abolishing immigration, including using the military to round up undocumented immigrants and putting them in camps.
- Eliminate coverage of emergency contraception in the Affordable Care Act, and use the Comstock Act to prosecute those who send and received abortion pills AND contraceptives through the mail.
- Make “life begins at conception” the law of the land, with no exceptions whatsoever, such as threat to life of the mother.
- Criminalize pornography.
- Increased use of the military for domestic policing.
- Eliminate DEI and affirmative action programs, and use the DOJ to prosecute “anti-white racism.”
- Lift any laws punishing the targeting of transpeople and removing regulations protecting LGBTQ+ people from discrimination in general.
- Eliminate the Department of Education
- Get rid of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration based on climate denial, removing a key organization for warning the public about severe and dangerous weather events.
- Take full partisan control of the DOJ, FBI, FCC, and FTC, turning them into organizations that can be used to pursue and punish any political opponent, including regular people who oppose Trump.
These are just some examples, but basically, the entire plan is designed to undermine the basics of American society, such as rule of law, separation of powers, separation of church and state, civil liberties, and civil rights for women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people. The media’s bizarre obsession with Biden’s age to the point where it ignores anything bad about Trump has enabled this stuff to slide under many Americans’ radar.
However, there has been an increase of awareness of Project 2025 thanks to Biden and Democratic campaign comms staff, even to the point where the media is beginning to pay attention to it. Then the head of the Heritage Foundation, the creators of Project 2025, went on a right-wing television program and said the following:
“We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
The Heritage Foundation doubled down on that on their TwitterX account, basically saying that if we don’t accept what they want to inflict on us, they will kill us. No way to get around what they meant. This is coming from the organization that for years was considered the “reasonable conservatives,” a clear indication of how far the GOP has fallen away from the idea of democracy.
Trump and his minions immediately backpedaled and Trump himself denied even knowing about Project 2025, which is ridiculous because 1) Trump lies like most people breathe and 2) Trump’s main people are among the architects of it.
They also likely are trying to run from it because they are worried that eventually, people will realize that oh yeah, this could hurt ME and not just be someone’s problem. Something this sprawling would be very difficult to avoid in our everyday lives. Those people include a lot of centrists and undecided voters, who in my experience can tend to be a little self-centered. That would be bad for Trump.
The last word goes to Woody Guthrie, with a song that has a very anti-Project 2025 mindset.
