Project 2025 AKA Trump 2.0 (Part I)
Donald Trump can win in November. The old adage “plan for the best and prepare for the worst” is apt, here. His people certainly are getting ready for Trump 2.0. The Orange Inmate may not have the intellectual heft to care about the things his cronies are proposing in “Project 2025,” let alone understand them. All he cares about, and all they care about, is power.
Power over you. Power over me. Power over every American.
The Heritage Foundation first released it’s 900 page plan last January; January of 2023. Why does timing matter? Because it means that they’d been working on it since Trump (involuntarily) left office. It is the length of a Tom Clancy novel precisely because they want to discourage individual Americans from reading it, and so they can salt enough ‘that seems reasonable’ chickenfeed throughout.
To date, there has been a great deal of analysis, writing, and videos about what Trump 2.0* means for America. It is all worthy and important work. We must not miss the forest for the trees (honestly I don’t know what that expression means but it seems to fit here.)
*We must re-frame this plan as “Trump 2.0” so that MAGA cannot mainline it into the American political bloodstream as just one more policy plan no one will read.
What is Trump 2.0?
Very simply, Trump 2.0 is the destruction of the parts of government that help Americans and the empowerment of those parts of government that can control Americans.
We’ve heard the inanity of renaming the Department of Health and Human Services “The Department of Life” or the insanity that NOAA (the weather people) would be disbanded because Trump is still upset about Sharpiegate. It is in the ridiculousness that we can lose what’s really going on.
Trump 2.0 is a fundamental restructuring of American political, social, cultural and economic life. It is empower the federal government above all else to control all parts of our lives, and reward those cronies who have paid their way. This is all transactional, you see.
Think the Green New Deal, but for American fascists.
As I’ve said for years, the GOP is no longer a political party, it’s a gang. It’s only objectives are power, money, and territory.
In 2016, we were told to take Donald Trump seriously but not literally. I’d like to say we’re years past that naive notion, but we’re not. When would-be Attorney General Mike Davis (a guy I used to know) says he wants to deport millions, believe him. When Johnny McEntee (Trump’s personnel enforcer) says he doesn’t believe the 19th Amendment was a good idea, take him literally and seriously.
We cannot and must not let our collective lack of imagination to blinker our thinking about this plan and the people who would undertake it. Still today, there are too many professional Democrats and senior members of the political media elite who are unwilling or unable to process what they’re seeing.
Perhaps they’re hoping that in the event of a Trump victory, the wave will wash over them, leaving them disoriented, but largely unharmed. That’s not how any of this works. Not any of it. History, which we’ve neglected for the last decade, tell us what we have to expect.
Trump 2.0 is a blueprint cooked up by a few authoritarian and would-be autocratic leaders of the UltraMAGA movement. Most Americans, when they hear of it, will want nothing to do with it. Of course, voters must hear, see, and understand what all this means, in a simple, direct, and even jarring manner.
We don’t need a poll to tell us that the majority of Americans are unhappy with their political choices, or the state of the country. There are myriad underlying reasons for all this, most of which have been described and dissected by others far smarter and more articulate than I.
What Trump 2.0 represents, though, is the destruction of the status quo by political blowtorch. Yes, we as a nation have many, many things we must address. But are we willing to stand by as arsonists like Steve Bannon pour gasoline and light a match, fiddling and grinning like Nero?
What do we do?
Advice to Democrats:
Remind your base voters that 2024 is about far more than whether Joe Biden is reelected President of the United States. If you’re unwilling to work hard because the president has done (or not done) something, than do it for the issue you care most about. Pick one: choice, the environment, education, all of it falls into the hands of Trump cronies, Russian sympathizers, and white Christian nationalists.
Advice to pro-America Republicans
When I was a Republican, there were three pillars to the GOP:
Individual Liberty
A Muscular and Moral Foreign Policy
Fiscal Responsibility
Trump and his followers have excised each of these conservative underpinnings. Trump 2.0 further erases these beliefs, as they will use centralized power for control of groups, individuals, and their personal and private behavior. They will retreat from the world and allow Russia and China to destroy the American century on behalf of autocrats. They will spend money on themselves, on the “power ministries” and those that kowtow to them enough to earn favor and fortune.
Is this your country?
Advice to everyone else
If you’re an independent or undecided voter, get onside - right now. You can dislike Biden, Democrats, progressives, all that stuff all you want. There is only one choice six months hence and it is to ensure Donald Trump never returns to power. We know who and what he is; and his people are telling us they want to use the power of government to punish their enemies, control your life, and empower our adversaries. With all due respect, get over yourselves.
“Project 2025” is exactly as it appears to be: A detailed plan to transform America from an imperfect democracy to an authoritarian country overnight. History reminds us that when democracies fall, the perpetrators move quickly to consolidate power and authority: It’s essential for them to squash any resistance in the crib.
I’d prefer not to have to go to the barricades, but I’ll be there if needed.
Will you?
News and Notes:
Hope you’ll check out my fun conversations with two patriots.
The Bob Cesca Show
Give them a like, stars, and a recommendation while you’re there!
If you’re looking for a smart, fun read as you prepare for summer, please check out You Never Forget Your First, a Biography of George Washington by
’s Alexis Coe.
People, by and large, still don't understand the magnitude of the changes that will occur.
Whether it's the Insurrection Act or martial law, people will be rounded up and detained for social media posts, emails, and texts.
Public education will become public indoctrination.
Segregation will spread to religious affiliation.
Fear of voting will cement autocratic rule, as civil rights are overturned.
"McCarthy-like"...neighbors will turn on neighbors.
Trump's economic policies will lead to hyperinflation, and inevitably to stock market implosions as money flees to freer countries.
The gay community won't be "safe", the Jewish community won't be "safe", the Muslum community won't be safe, women most definitely won't be safe.
The GOP is frothing at the mouth to dictate every aspect of our lives.
The changes won't be subtle and orderly...it will be rapid, disorienting, and chaotic.
There will be no "off" button, no chance to turn back, no future election to "save us".
We should all read Project 2025 next. But it can't be any more illustrative than Bill Browder's two books about Putin's version of Russia. Red Notice and Freezing Order. And his success in fighting back with the Magnitsky Act. Which very few Americans or journalists seem to know about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnitsky_Act
Donald and his core MAGAs have their sights on an America that operates very much like Putin's Russia. Perhaps with a taste of China and North Korea.
1. Declare, as an official act, that all news media that doesn't toe the Trump line is invalid. FTC licenses revoked. See Russia Today TV for an example of actual state managed media. Fox News gets their talking points from RT. As you can readily see, daily.
2. Quietly communicate to every state and federal judge that all Trump blessed cases will be decided in his favor. Putin controls his legal system this way. If a criminal act is blessed (paid off) by Putin, they are found not quilty. Indeed, the accuser/prosecutor is often found by the courts to be guilty of the crime. After a few dozen judges die/disappear of suspicious causes, the survivors will comply.
3. Trump blessed corporations (oil companies, for example) will receive targeted tax breaks.
4. Nations that contribute to the Trump oligarchy will have reduced tariffs.
5. Presidential pardons will be granted to criminals who pay for them.
6. Federal employees who are competent at their jobs, but not explicitly loyal to Donald, will lose their jobs. If they complain they will find themselves at the mercy of his "justice" system.
7. Trump quits NATO. Putin will have a greenlight to invade his neighbors. Even though Russia is one tenth the military and economic power of the European Union, Trump can help Putin get what he wants.
Trump's promises to imprison and deport 11 million illegal immigrants and monitor women's pregnancies may only be window dressing for the election. (Be dubious of his words. They are all chosen to deceive--whoever he wants to deceive in the moment--MAGAs and non-MAGAs.) These actions take a lot of work. So much easier to focus on the money/power grubbing.