Project 2025; part cheerleading, part war plan and all, bullets of BS, aimed at the heart of American Democracy.
It's not a "conservative promise" but an extreme, right-wing promise
Dear TAT family,
It seems like the term, “Project 2025” is a prominent fixture in our recent headlines. Like everything else in the Trump era, the project is mired in mis and disinformation, with Trump even falsely declaring last week, that he didn’t know anything about it. There is nothing new about the orange menace lying, but the reason for it is of critical importance to the survival of our constitutional republic. He is distancing himself from it because, it is the actual 922-page blueprint, for burning down American democracy. In fact, his claims to be unfamiliar with it, has been debunked repeatedly in credible news sources, such as The Hill.
The self-disgraced Heritage Foundation authored this exhaustive document representing far-right extremism, not conservatism. It carries the laughable title, “Mandate for Leadership, The Conservative Promise” and represents the “transition plan” for the next Trump presidency, beginning one minute past 12 noon on January 20th, 2025. Anyone honest about what they have learned in high school government and history classes, knows that this calculating project, is not only unconstitutional, but grievously so. Should the current, MAGA controlled GOP win the November election, their intent would be to turn our nation into an oligarchy based on White Christian Nationalism.
You don’t have to believe me, but rather I provide in this embedded link, the full 922 pages. The things to consider as deep background, for understanding this full-frontal assault on our constitutionally guaranteed rights, are the deep-dive previous essays, linked below:
Oligarchy is an acute threat to democracy
Our Founding Fathers were "Woke" and also... radical progressives, for their time.
Being a Republican today, doesn’t make you a Conservative
Our 2024 election isn't politics, it's a new, Civil War
Project 2025 is nothing more than a glorified version of most red state, GOP platforms. Sure, it is longer, with better spelling, more elite vocabulary and more allegedly prestigious authors but at heart, it is simply a roadmap to obliterating our constitution with extreme-right-wing concepts. Should it be enacted as written, all Americans would be deprived of or have their rights, constitutionally guaranteed in the Bill of Rights infringed upon. For example, see the quote below from page 586 of the document.
"Clarify Title VII’s religious organization exemptions. Congress should clarify Title VII’s religious organization exemptions to make it more explicit that those employers may make employment decisions based on religion regardless of nondiscrimination laws." - “Mandate for Leadership, The Conservative Promise” - Page 586
The MAGA controlled GOP has not written a platform since they anointed Trump king, in 2016. In the TAT essay titled, “Being a Republican today doesn’t make you a Conservative,” I compare in detail, the 2022 Texas GOP, Midterm platform to President Eisenhower’s 1956 presidential platform. The iconic principled conservatism or as labeled, “Dynamic Conservatism” of “Ike’s” platform, is diametrically opposed to the right-wing ideology of what most today, call “conservatism." Ironically, Eisenhower’s 1956 platform is very much like President Biden’s is today. Again, read for yourself at the embedded links throughout today’s essay. The bottom line is that there is zero principled or dynamic conservatism remaining in the GOP. The 2025 project proves this on nearly every page.
One of the most haunting aspects of Project 2025 is how well organized it is. Each Federal entity is to be impacted by what are quite literally, “political commissars” or political officers, the bane of every single entity in the Soviet Union. These are the officials assigned to not only military units in the old Soviet Union, but other agencies as well. They were rigid communist ideologues, propagandists and snitches, keeping an eye on whether or not citizens adhered to communist ideology. That this concept is even discussed in the 2025 document, is dramatically un-American.
The project doctrine creates a wide variety of training or rather, “indoctrination” courses for volunteers and those who would take over Civil Service and appointed positions in different federal agencies. Political appointees are to be tasked with the following.
"When it comes to ensuring that freedom can flourish, nothing is more important than deconstructing the centralized administrative state. Political appointees who are answerable to the President and have decision-making authority in the executive branch are key to this essential task." - “Mandate for Leadership, The Conservative Promise” - Page 21
There are federal agencies that are targeted for complete shutdowns, such as the Department of Education. The babble included in the section discussing how to change the Dept. of Ed. until its ultimate demise, reflect all of the same un-American culture wars present in today’s headlines, or rather, red meat to MAGA. Gender, religion, so-called “parental rights” and of course, historical revisionism in curriculum are favorite targets of 2025’s propaganda.
There are plenty of self-destructive and un-American musings throughout the document. One example that is in direct support to White Christian Nationalism is the following.
'While some conservatives believe that the government should encourage certain religious observance by making it more expensive for employers and consumers to not partake in those observances, other conservatives believe that the government’s role is to protect the free exercise of religion by eliminating barriers as opposed to erecting them." - “Mandate for Leadership, The Conservative Promise” - Page 589
Then there are issues such as putting “temporary political appointees” into positions, before their constitutionally mandated approval, in the US Senate. This is to deny the Senate oversight until “after the fact” opportunities for GOP hacks to act without authority. Had this been suggested prior to the incoming Biden administration, the Heritage far-right ideologues, would have pitched, the proverbial fit and rightfully so. The 2025 project is overflowing with such deviations from constitutionally guaranteed rights and processes, while all the time claiming to adhere tightly to our sacred constitution. Bah humbug is all that I can say politely.
Some of the authors of the document are part of the “who’s/ who in the Trump administration of 2016-2020. Some are corrupt thugs like Ken Cuccinelli and Peter Navaro, while others like the acting SECDEF/ Secretary of Defense on January 6th, Chris Miller, have put their extremist, anti-American stamp on its plans as well. For example, part of the document recommends something called a “unitary view of executive authority” that marginalizes even Congress.
Unitary Executive Authority in theory, leads directly to autocracy or what I would define in more common terms, a dictatorship. Considering last week’s SCOTUS ruling on immunity, a unitarian president without legal restraints, is an express ticket to dictatorship. Chief Justice John Roberts is well aware of this but still wrote the majority decision for Trump’s immunity, supported by all right-wing Justices. After the past year or so decisions emanating from SCOTUS, I can no longer call them “conservative,” Especially Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Coney-Barrett, while occasionally saying the right thing, still votes with the right-wing super-majority.
As long as we’re talking about legalities, the quote from the Boston Review below, clearly demonstrates one of the most heinous aspects of the project. In simple terms, it is the ability to remove federal employ protections so that the predicted “Unitarian presidency of Trump, can purge the Civil Service of employees, only to replace them with “loyalists.”
"One of the Mandate’s central tactics concerns rules around staffing. Currently, agencies hire professional career staff with specialized training and expertise. All must swear an oath to follow the Constitution in carrying out their duties—even and especially if that means disobeying the orders of someone higher up in the bureaucratic hierarchy. As such, these career staff provide perhaps the most important line of defense against an autocratic presidential regime. But through a policy called Schedule F, the Mandate seeks to sideline or even purge them. Derived from another of Trump’s executive orders, the proposal would reclassify the thousands of career government employees who play some role in policy formation outside of the competitive service—the federal personnel category that includes rigorous, merit-based requirements for hiring, firing, and promotion decisions. Stripped of these basic protections, which have been in place for over 140 years, many employees would become “at will,” fireable for any reason—or no reason at all. The intent is obvious: to encourage public servants to obey their political bosses, even when that means going against the law and their own expertise. Were it to take effect, workers who refuse to toe the line could be summarily terminated." - Inside Project 2025 - Boston Review - James Goodwin - 01 July 2024
Other notable features of the plan are to either outsource federal agencies rather than pay the Civil Service corps. I saw first-hand how disastrous this was in 2004 as I ran the operations and rehabilitation of Baghdad’s water and sewer systems. Rumsfeld’s outsourcing went gratuitously to “friends” of the Bush Administration and wasted Billions of US taxpayer dollars, regardless of how fraudulent and devoid of oversight, were the three “prime contractors” managing most of US efforts. I kept receipts, contracts and other documents in English and Arabic, but I was one of the very few.
The countless so-called “USG auditors” of where our tax dollars were being spent, had almost no data to collect and analyze due to Rumsfeld’s and Department of State’s incompetence in tracking either projects or expenditures. In 2004 I either spent or allocated $325M in operations or projects, and prior to leaving, assisted in programing an additional $500B for the following year. I left knowing full well that less than 20% of that money would benefit the people of Baghdad. The rest, would end up in the pockets of contractors and sub-contractors, better termed, “charlatans.”
Now, Heritage’s right-wing plotters, wish to do the same across the spectrum of US government agencies. We cannot afford to both run the US government and also fund the elite oligarchs that would fill these roles in a new Trump administration. Yes, these would also be the elite donors to the Trump campaign. Along with other outsourcing, one of the targets is USAID, who for the Department of State, manages aid to partner nations as well as democratic outreach would be replaced by organizations with a heavy Christian core instead of a US democratic core.
Project 2025 also calls for dismantling the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) lifesaving weather forecasting capabilities and outsourcing them to private companies. NOAA is a target simply because it collects and analyzes data, some of which clearly demonstrates Global Warming. They are on the target list, solely to sustain climate denial and to appease the mega donors in the oil and gas industry. Yes, they too are primary donors to the Trump campaign to destroy American democracy.
The Christian Nationalist themes run throughout the 922 pages with only token tolerance for other religious beliefs. Of course, with predetermined rules like a collective Sabbath, Sunday in almost all cases, this reinforces the ridiculous notion that the US is a “Christian nation.” Making employers pay time and a half on Sunday to accommodate the Christian Nationalists, is absurd and a violation of the Establishment Clause or our First Amendment in the Bill of Rights.
The last thing that I will say about 2025 is that it embraces oligarchism, just as strongly if not more that Christian Nationalism. The step-by-step approach to deregulate or abolish all of the agencies and entities that create a fair as possible, playing field for all Americans, not only in support of oligarchy. This deregulation which has always failed to protect consumers, in conjunction with a right-wing SCOTUS and GOP congress, that are the loudest and shrewdest advocates for loading working Americans with more taxes while concurrently diminishing elite wealth oligarchy’s tax burden, is tantamount to serfdom and/ or slavery for working Americans. As with all GOP policy since Eisenhower, marginalized populations within American society, fare the worst. What part of, “all men are created equal” and “everyone is equal before the law, don’t Republicans get? This is of course, biting sarcasm because it is and since Eisenhower, has been the express and conscious agenda of the GOP.
Today’s essay, the first I have penned and that spanned two writing days, is still but the proverbial tip-of-the-iceberg. Make no mistake about it, Project 2025 is the end of our constitutional republic if the GOP Wins. As today’s essay clearly shows, it is created exclusively to replace our constitutional republic, with authoritarian oligarchy and fake Christian principles.
As far as I am concerned, I will never stop opposing such fake patriotism and the destruction of all that our prestigious founders foresaw for a nation founded to be “of, by and for the people.” Lincoln, speaking at Gettysburg noted presciently in omission that we are not of, by and for oligarchy and Christian Nationalism. It would all Americans to remember how many died to ensure that our republic, “would not perish from the earth.” This is especially true regarding the vile nature of Trump and a MAGA controlled GOP, committed to erasing American democracy.
It would be impossible to detail a complete analysis of all 922 pages, it’s authors, contributors and donors in a short TAT essay. Today, I’ve simply given you a few highlights but also deeply encourage readers, to follow the links to the document itself. The primary highlights of every objective in the 2025 strategy, is to destroy our democracy, and includes overtly dishonest framing of issues and pablum language that attempts to disguise, the true, authoritarian intentions of the GOP.
The last thing that I will say about Project 2025 and its supporting cadre of anti-patriots… is that their stated intentions are to undue, all that our constitutionally guaranteed republic decrees, in order to replace it with an oligarchical and White Christian Nationalist, authoritarian government. Nothing could be further from being so-called, American values.
In November, you have only two choices: Either you can vote for American values, or you can vote Republican, the precise opposite.
My very best for your week,
Paul