Project 2025 is neither political theater nor phantasm. It is a primer choreographed to liquidate our democracy systematically. As a so-called nation, we stand balkanized, careening toward an abyss. If we encroach upon that space, there’s not likely to be a return to any semblance of civility. We do, however, have volition.
UNFIT FOR A KING
Donald Trump’s aspiration to become a führer does not necessitate a degree in quantum physics to discern. Elections become obsolete if it were up to him and his ilk, and he could preside in perpetuity. At some juncture, he would eventually bestow his sovereign position to his beloved princess (Ivanka), quasi-prince (Junior) or jester (Eric) as he fades into oblivion.
According to legal journalist Benjamin Wittes, “Trump has campaigned against decency. [If victorious] He has actively promised countless abuses of power. He has promised retaliations against his enemies. A country that, having been so clearly forewarned, nonetheless chooses to elect such a man cannot then treat his misconduct as indicating a deficiency in the office in which it knowingly installed him.” [1]
More foretelling, in an utterance from Trump himself, “[Article 2 of the Constitution] allows me to do whatever I want as president.” [2] That’s a fallacy, but he has more than a smattering of minions amenable to abet him in undertaking this.
THE REVEAL
The election of President Barack Obama was by no means a Catholicon regarding social ills in American society. While some extolled that the United States had embarked upon a post-racial consortium, nothing could’ve been more secluded from authenticity. To the contrary, his ascension abruptly illuminated our ever-expanding tribal gulfs.
“The presidency of Barack Obama offered the surest test to date of the proposition that whiteness had separated itself from its supremacist past. [3] Though some initially hailed Obama’s election as proof that the US was entering a new post-racial phase, it took just a few months for the Tea Party, a conservative movement ostensibly [favoring] small government, to suggest that the opposite was closer to the truth. [3] The white backlash to Obama’s presidency continued throughout his two terms, helped along by Rupert Murdoch’s media empire and the Republican party, which won majorities in both houses of Congress by promising to obstruct anything Obama tried to accomplish. Neither project kept Obama from a second term, but this does not mean they were without effect. Though Obama lost white voters by 12% in 2008, four years later he would lose them by 20%, the worst showing among white voters for a successful candidate in U.S. history…“Far more [noteworthy] was the version of white identity politics that appreciated the advantages of whiteness and worried about them slipping away, that saw in immigration an existential threat, and that wanted, more than anything, to ‘Take Back Control’ and to ‘Make America Great Again.'” [3]
A PROJECT FOR YOUR A$$
Project 2025, in the words of its Program Director Paul Dans, “[Consists of] more than 50 [and growing] of the nation’s leading conservative organizations joining forces to prepare and seize the day…[We aim] to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State.” [4]
The Conservative Promise manifesto is a blueprint for whomever—conservative—attains squatter’s rights within the Oval Office. This arrangement consists of four pillars: policy, a personnel database (dubbed the ‘Conservative LinkedIn’), training (a certificate program to become the consummate ‘Conservative Appointee’), and the playbook. Its objective concisely stated: overhaul the rule of law based on “Christian” values and gutting “the administrative state.” [3] It plays into conservative fears. This abstraction is far from its incipient stage, and those currently orchestrating it are salivating at the opportunity to take this nation back to the early 20th century.
“This latest volume—The Conservative Promise—is the opening salvo of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, launched by The Heritage Foundation and our many partners in April 2022. Its 30 chapters lay out hundreds of clear and concrete policy recommendations for White House offices, Cabinet departments, Congress, agencies, commissions, and boards…This book, this agenda, and the entire Project 2025 is a plan to unite the conservative movement and the American people against elite rule and woke culture warriors…Soon after President Donald Trump was sworn in, his Administration began [implementing] significant parts of the 2016 Mandate. After his first year in office, the Administration had implemented 64 percent of its policy recommendations.” [5]
Decades prior, the Mandate for Leadership (an official plan of action for conservatives) was conceived in the fall of 1979. After Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, “On January 21, 1981, at the first meeting of his Cabinet, President Reagan distributed copies of the Mandate, and many of the study’s authors were recruited into the Administration to implement its recommendations.” [6]
An edition of the manual has been produced every four years since then. Read the protocols at your leisure. Pick them apart, take notes, recap, summarize, understand and acknowledge that it’s real.
THE CHOICE IS YOURS
Conceivably, Trump has never even opened the book or at least completed the foreword; however, he is an ardent proponent of its cruxes and policies.
“Reagan enacted roughly half of the recommendations his first year in office. But Donald Trump bearhugged Heritage’s agenda: In 2018, just one year into his administration, Heritage boasted that Trump had already implemented two-thirds of their policy recommendations, the most of any president since the organization’s founding.” [7]
Their strategy for the restriction—via a “de facto federal abortion ban”—on terminating pregnancy is hazardous. It swarms this right from every conceivable angle. Now is not the time for anyone to stand inert on the sidelines.
“The attacks on mifepristone and resurrection of Comstock [Act] stand out as particularly harmful proposals, but they are only two of the dozens of ways the Republicans behind Project 2025 envision restricting access to abortion and contraception if they win the White House next year. Elsewhere in the document, there are proposals to eliminate the morning-after pill from the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate under the rationale that it is a “potential abortifacient” to revoke a
Biden-era rule that allows members of the military and their dependents who are stationed in states with abortion bans to seek medical care in other states; to prohibit Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds; to punish states that require insurance to cover abortion; and to end the requirement that hospitals provide medically necessary abortions under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act and, separately, use the law to “investigate” hospitals and doctors who provide abortions.” [8]
COUNTERPUNCH
In the future, we could be turning a new leaf in history. Democracy, as we have deciphered it in this experiment called the United States, may cease to exist. There’s no need to become disillusioned, however, because all it will take is some introspection, analysis, and subsequent action as a means to counter. Sitting at home during elections, not just the presidential election but the primaries and local ones is anathema and out of the question. Everyone must be involved in dealing with Donald Trump and his supporters at the polls. Lethargy in November will eventually make the domestic terror acts of Jan. 6 look like relative child’s play.
At every given interlude–without fail–the devil will be there to address you in the substrata of your mind. He will remind you of all derelictions, proferring that you are desolate. He’ll insinuate that you haven’t accomplished X, Y, or Z and insist you have no hope. He is a mythomaniac. But likewise, he is a staunch, mulish adversary.
As we enter 2024, a certain cabal strives to triumph—having permitted their ruse to marinate for quite some time insidiously—and bring it to fruition swiftly, billowingly. The roadmap, predicated on the long game, is not some trivial crapshoot; this is a project for your a**. It impacts everyone. After a latency period, those who know right from wrong but relish the proximity to power will soon discover they’re not exempt and, thus, up next on the docket. Eventually, many regarded as club insiders will ascertain they are not considered part of the so-called “preferred” class. The day will inevitably arrive when the previously admitted–based on their station on the census “skin-tone” spectrum–ironically become “vermin”; the lust, pride, and facade of “security” will evaporate in a nanosecond. When their need expires, the wake-up call will be nothing short of sobersided and perplexing.
It’s all about the “professionalization” of the last Trump administration, backed by this Machiavellian segment of the Republican party. The Heritage Foundation is their initiative’s think tank and driving force. It will involve the actual implementation of the destruction of the current administration. In essence, the aim is to stave off any government employee who is not a full-fledged Trump aficionado or zealot regarding right-wing ideology. Their Conservative infrastructure will be ready to take hold from day one for the next victorious Republican presidential candidate. At that juncture, dusk will have besieged democracy.
A MAGA throng will reinforce the new government. Its 920-page document outlines that over 50,000 federal employees will transform into (unprotected) Schedule F workers. Next, a conglomerate of aligned, trained, and weaponized converts help usher in unitary executive theory. This concept gives the president much more power than usual. Under this doctrine, formerly independent, long-standing alphabet soup agencies become moribund: no EPA, no DOJ, no FBI, no Department of Labor, no Department of Human Services, no Department of Education, and so on. The application and errant interpretation of Biblical “values,” anti-LGBT rhetoric, criminalization of abortion, the privatization of Social Security, outlawing of same-sex unions and open and wanton discrimination will occur all without any mode of checks and balances obtainable. An analysis of interracial marriage is undoubtedly inevitable. Already the epitome of “Jerry Springer” in some municipalities, school board meetings will become even more fervent. It is all scheduled to commence within 180 days of any Republican candidate getting sworn into the most potent governmental appointment in the land. Trump, if he is to eschew incarceration, is all-in for this suppositional American fascist state.
All will feel the brunt of the aftermath, excluding straight white males. Women will lose their rights in more ways than one. The country will be under the rule of a six-time bankrupt bigot with over 91 felonies. At his whim, Trump can invoke the Insurrection Act. He will have the former executive branch of the government under his unabridged jurisdiction. Hate crimes will become both commonplace and codified.
This coalition of the Republican Party pulled no punches: there’s no ambiguity or sugarcoating. Although it is apparent that “45” may not comprehend the entire book/game plan, it is, indeed, tailor-made for him. Other prospective conservative contenders (including those reluctant to acknowledge the role of slavery in the Civil War or inclined to spew about its “benefits”) are mainly requisitioning for the V.P. slot.
The clay–the czar’s manual–has been spun, molded, shaped, deliberately refined, placed in the kiln, bisque-fired, and glazed for over 40 years. If the GOP is allowed to run roughshod, the final project will be on full display. Hence, in 2024 and beyond, they warrant assertive contestation at every turn.
Humanity–synergistically—has the dominion to annihilate Heritage’s pipe dream.
Words by Dr. Hawk (@MDHawk on Twitter)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Wittes, Benjamin. “Trump and the Powers of the American Presidency.” Brookings.edu & Legacy. November 14, 2016, & May 25, 2016, Trump and the Powers of the American Presidency (Part I) | Lawfare. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/trump-and-powers-american-presidency-part-i
2. Trump: Ukraine drama could give Democrats no choice but to impeach President | The Boston Journal.
https://bostonjournal.net/trump-ukraine-drama-could-give-democrats-no-choice-but-to-impeach-pr esident/
3. The invention of whiteness: the long history of a dangerous idea | Race | The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/apr/20/the-invention-of-whiteness-long-history-dangerou s-idea
4. Project 2025 Continues to Grow With 60 Partners Preparing for Next Presidential Administration | The Heritage Foundation.
https://www.heritage.org/press/project-2025-continues-grow-60-partners-preparing-next-president ial-administration
5. Jim Miles – jimmiles.org. https://jimmiles.org/author/jim/
6. The (Real) Hollywood Secret Agents | Counter-Currents.
7. Stuart, Tessa. “Inside the MAGA Plan to Attack Birth Control, Surveil Women and Ban the Abortion Pill.” Rolling Stone. December 22, 2023.
8. April 18, 2019 – LAW AND RELIGION FORUM. https://lawandreligionforum.org/2019/04/18/