The over 900-page document, commissioned by the people expected to run another Trump White House, is a laundry list of the far-right’s most politically toxic ideas, from banning abortion nationwide to mass firing federal officials who believe in protecting public health and safety. One would think that Trump and his allies would try to keep their sinister plans out of public view. Instead, Team Trump published their fascistic blueprint on a website for anyone to read,. They even proudly display the menacing “Project 2025” label on the front page.
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On Sunday, actress Taraji P. Henson took a break during the BET Awards, which she was hosting, to speak out about Project 2025. “The Project 2025 plan is not a game. Look it up!” she told viewers. “I’m talking to all the mad people that don’t want to vote. You’re going to be mad about a lot of things if you don’t vote.”
The clip went viral, amplified by other celebrities like Mark Ruffalo. So the MAGA forces swung into action on social media, accusing Henson and Ruffalo and other progressives of making it all up. “Is Project 2025 in the room with you?” a blue-checked user sneered under Ruffalo’s tweet. These efforts at gaslighting people run against a real problem, however: The drafters of Project 2025 seek to promote their authoritarian playbook. Thus, a simple Google search generates a slew of explainers from various news organizations, with even more coming out rapidly, as a response to the rising number of people asking, “What’s Project 2025?”
“We received a flood of reader inquiries asking if Project 2025 was a real effort,” the fact-checking team at Snopes wrote in their lengthy explainer published Tuesday. Google Trends confirms that the number of searches for “project 2025” has grown dramatically in recent days.
Bull shit. The MAGAS are foaming at the mouth to have this authoritarian regime rise to power with bloodshed. Chomping at the bit to be able to kill for their god king. This is no joke, 2020 was a test run, to see what they could get away with. Now they are ready.
John Oliver did a good job explaining Project 2025 as well
The backfiring isn’t because Republicans are upset about it. It’s because other people are finding out about it and are rightly horrified. It may (hopefully) convince more people to vote that might have stayed home otherwise.
Exactly. It’s all of the quiet parts, but out loud, typed out, indexed, and easily accessible.
I’m not getting my hopes up.
Republicans are openly planning for genocide, sure, but the Democrats are actively aiding and abetting genocide right now.
They will not suddenly find their principles and start treating the Reublican party like the existential threat they are. They will not take any action which might ensure Trump loses the election. They are more afraid of losing their campaign financiers than the campaign.
Yeah, non-conservatives (mainly liberals) really need to get it into their heads that every single conservative either actively wants an authoritarian state that murders “woke” people and minorities, or if they’re not outright for it they think that surely the leopards won’t eat their face because they’re on the right side.
Ultimately even a “moderate” conservative has fewer disagreements with literal neo-Nazis (oh wait, except the Nazis are leftists according to reich-wingers) than they do with anybody left of the fucking Strasserites. Even if a conservative is not calling for the extermination of {CURRENT_HATED_MINORITY}, they’re still more than happy to support parties that either have fascist members or collaborate with fascists.
This is on clear display here in Europe; the “moderate” conservatives are lining up to kiss Meloni’s ass, and they don’t mind at all that FdI (Meloni’s party) is a literal offshoot of the original Fascist Party and a huge percentage of their MPs and “lay members” have voiced their love of Mussolini.
The whole “Nazis are leftists” thing really blows my mind but I’ve seen people saying it unironically.
I really think The Reactionary Mind should be required reading by leftists. It really helps to understand why conservatism is actively opposed to individual liberty and how they sell these regressive ideas to a population primed for them:
Conservatism, then, is not a commitment to limited government and liberty- or a wariness of change, a belief in evolutionary reform, or a politics of virtue. These may be the byproducts of conservatism, one or more of its historically specific and ever-changing modes of expression. But they are not its animating purpose. Neither is conservatism a makeshift fusion of capitalists, Christians, and warriors, for that fusion is impelled by a more elemental force- the opposition to the liberation of men and women from the fetters of their superiors, particularly in the private sphere. Such a view might seem miles away from the libertarian defense of the free market, with its celebration of the atomistic and autonomous individual. But it is not. When the libertarian looks out upon society, he does not see isolated individuals; he sees private, often hierarchical, groups, where a father governs his family and an owner his employees.
No simple defense of one’s own place and privileges- the conservative, as I’ve said, may or may not be directly involved in or benefit from the practices of rule he defends; many, as we’ll see, are not. The conservative position stems from a genuine conviction that a world thus emancipated will be ugly, brutish, base, and dull. It will lack the excellence of a world where the better man commands the worse. When Burke adds, in the letter quoted above, that the “great object” of the Revolution is “to root out that thing called an Aristocrat or Nobleman and Gentleman," he is not simply referring to the power of the nobility; he is also referring to the distinction that power brings to the world, If the power goes, the distinction goes with it. This vision of the connection between excellence and rule is what brings together in postwar America that unlikely alliance of the libertarian, with his vision of the employer’s untrammeled power in the workplace; the traditionalist, with his vision of the father’s rule at home; and the statist, with his vision of a heroic leader pressing his hand upon the face of the earth. Each in his way subscribes to this typical statement, fromn the nineteenth century, of the conservative Creed: “To obey a real superior… is one of the most important of all virtues- a virtue absolutely essential to the attainment of anything great and lasting."
As stated in another comment, the vote is not what is foreboding about this. Enough crazy, radically charged, people believe and want Project 2025 and have been hearing calls to violence for years now, if the vote doesn’t go their way, not to sure they will be peaceful about it.
Irrelevant fearmongering. Seriously, what’s your purpose in making that comment? To discourage opposing them? To capitulate without a fight?
Fuck that! I say, “let them come,” and then they can get what they deserve just like the Confederates and NAZIs did.
That’s true, but there aren’t enough of them to carry the election by themselves. They need enough moderates/swinging voters who will back them because they feel meh and it’s time for a change, and for this they need to avoid spooking them.
It’s not the election I’m worried about. It’s afterwards. The republicans have been charging their base up with a culture war, calls to violence are larger and louder. Even if Project 2025 pisses 80% of the population off to vote, there will still be those people charged and ready to go… I hope I am wrong, and they all pussy out and it’s a big nothing burger, but I can’t expect that in this crazy, fucked up timeline.
The republicans have been charging their base up with a culture war, calls to violence are larger and louder.
You are absolutely correct and it is fully intentional. The Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, the authors of Project 2025, said in an interview a few days ago, “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless ― if the left allows it to be.”
This is a thinly veiled threat. Let us have out way, or there will be blood. All the alt-Reich and MAGAts know exactly what he’s telling them and they will not hesitate to bloody up anyone who gets in their way.
Yeah the MAGAs are a lost cause.
2020 was not a test run. It was a run. They failed, barely.
Even then, they had the 1776 Plan, a precursor to Project 2025, which called for violently seized in control of the state department and Supreme Court, in addition to the Capitol building. January 6th was an intentional, violent coup attempt that barely failed. And it failed for stupid things like, that one cop that led the mob away from the chamber, Mike Pence refusing to get into the car with secret service agents loyal to Trump, Andy Capitol Police refusal to remove the metal detectors from the mall. The 1776 Plan called for and had on hand multiple caches of weapons stashed in hotel rooms around the mall. Trump screamed at the secret service to the crowd to let the crowd bring their guns on that day.
It would have been interesting to see if the vote was not certified on January 6th. Whether the joint Chiefs letter from a few days later would have been sent. If you recall, The joint Chiefs letter made clear that on the constitutional end of term, Joe Biden would be the new president and Trump would be leaving the White House, one way or another.
Project 2025 is it attempt to make sure the sort of things that thwarted the coup attempt on January 6th cannot happen again. For example, Trump intends to fire anyone in the secret service or national security apparatus that is not a drooling Trump loyalist. Maybe next time the vice president’s secret service will force him into the car. Maybe the next time the president won’t have to tell Capitol Police not to take the metal detectors out of the mall because some stoogy will have already made sure they weren’t there.
I mean the kind of dumbass fucking conspiracy theories that conservatives believe about Walmart being part of a federal government plan to round people up, and here you have it written out on paper that they plan to gut the public health apparatus to literally let millions of people die from diseases, because if we are all sick and dying, we will be much easier to subjugate.
We need to be better at getting the word out, but that costs money. The far right has unlimited money.
What this story reveals is the stunning level of ignorance amongst Americans at large. This is a bona fide fascist manifesto, published by the handlers of the current leading presidential candidate, over a year ago. Nothing rattles me to my core quite like being confronted by the harsh reality that a lot of people out there are just going about their lives like everything is fine.
These are the people we need to organize with in order to ― at this point ― basically survive, so I’m very glad something was able to spur them into some level of action before election day.
That said, and please excuse the momentary lapse into doomerism, but if we have to rely on Hollywood and celebrity culture to bring something of this magnitude into public awareness, we might be more thoroughly cooked than it was previously thought to be possible.
Germans under the Nazis mostly went about their lives like everything was fine until quite late in the war when it became impossible to do so. By that time Hitler had been in power for more than a decade, terrorized Europe, run the Holocaust, and started a world war. There’s no guarantee that most Americans will notice what’s happening even after they start living under a fascist dictatorship. America is almost Russian in the way the general population simply avoids politics and considers it not their problem, even as they suffer directly as a result of their leaders’ politics. In that sense they’re pretty well primed to live under a dictator already.
I have been spreading this to people I know since it was published. Every single one with an R tag on their ear took it to the face and said it wasn’t serious or he wouldnt actually do it. Or that it was fucken good.
Edit: should probably mention its anecdotal, but extremely frustrating experience.
Too many people still don’t realize Project 2025 is Mein Kampf 2.0
And, here’s the thing: If they lose this one, they will keep trying every election from now until they win or are found to be breaking the law and sentenced to heavy time or death. So, it’s not just this election folks need to vote–it’s every election. This hasn’t been stated, but the natural direction is that they will try to get folks into any position of power where they can further disenfranchise anyone who doesn’t vote their way. I know that has been happening, but Project 2025 hasn’t focused on that yet (to my knowledge).
And, here’s the thing: If they lose this one, they will keep trying every election from now until they win or are found to be breaking the law and sentenced to heavy time or death. So, it’s not just this election folks need to vote–it’s every election.
And the reason they keep not getting sentenced to heavy time or death is that enlightened-centrist liberals keep refusing to vigorously apply consequences (see also: Biden refusing to even consider SCOTUS reform, despite them literally just handing him the power to do anything he could possibly think of, up to and including having the fascist justices killed off and replaced). It’s almost like they get off on edging fascism.
I think more dems are seeing that reforms need to be made. If democracy is expanded -especially in some way that abolishes gerrymandering or the two party system - the funds tying all these republicans into a single party will collapse for a time.
You see people like AOC willing to create consequences for the supreme court and people pushing constitutiomal amendments again. I expect if Biden wins again the next dem primary will be interesting. If he loses well, there’s a good chance we’ll become a one party system like russia at the federal level.
Sure, progressives/leftists see it, but they’ve been seeing it the whole time.
The trick is getting liberals to see it, and that shows pretty much no indication of happening despite the fact that the fascists are now even going so far as directly threatening to persecute them.
WHICH, my dear potential voters, is why we need to stop fucking arguing with one another and come together, dammit.
It’s REALLY easy:
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Stop being idiots.
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Pressure Biden to use the recent Supreme Court decision to OUR advantage.
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Vote Biden into office for another 4-years.
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Continue to be fucking geniuses by holding hands and using those 4 years to fix shit.
If those on the Left actually stopped verbally measuring one another’s dicks and stood united, they would be a force that the Right could not reckon with. The problem is so many of you keep strutting around, beaks in the air, making damned goose calls while collectively peeing into the wind and complaining that your pants keep getting wet.
Agreed. We don’t have to agree on everything. We could get away with blocking this fascist shit and fixing some underlying problems that are preventing the majority of Americans from what they want–living comfortably (rights, wages, etc.). I know it’s not necessarily simple, but it’s surmountable.
If by using the scotius decision to our advantage, you really mean that we should become the authoritarian fascists we hope to defeat, then no - that’s not what we should do.
Keep turning your nose up just like Democrats have been doing for 40 years.
There is a point we shouldn’t cross. This doesn’t mean we should never take steps towards it. Controlled. Planned. Done with cause. For a better tomorrow. We are at that cusp.
I am worried about this entire dynamic.
So from now until infinity the Dems will (rightly) say Repubs are an existential threat, and that’s all the reason you need to vote D. Then the Dems no longer need to aspire to anything for their voters, promise anything to their voters, and as long as the Dem voting base remains scared shitless, the Dems are no longer accountable.
The world that this creates is unappealing to say the least.
Anyone saying I just need to wait is going to be ignored.
Also I don’t want to protest in sweltering climate changed heat while my foes fuck me over from their comfortably air-conditioned rooms.
I need strategies where my foes suffer more than I.
If the Dems no longer have to compete with Republicans during generals, the focus needs to be on primarying bad candidates with better Dems too, we shouldn’t just be pushing generals every four years. We need to be getting out the vote for primaries and midterms as well
Yes, we can’t be complacent and let Dems, or whoever is opposing the Right, sit comfortably on their stacks of cash. This country needs real change or it will fall.
That’s exactly what I fear. The strategy to vote D solely to stop the existentially threatening R will in my opinion at best work for two more cycles. Then the public face of the Democratic Party will be ruined beyond repair. Not only that, but the public face of our electoral system itself will be ruined beyond repair.
This only postpones fascism for two cycles, but at an insanely high cost to the public institutions.
If the DNC decides to cancel all the primaries, then there are NO polite and civil methods left to get any accountability from the system.
We are NOT solving our fascism problem by simply voting D. We’re rolling out red carpet for fascism in two cycles.
Isn’t this like leaving your team playbook on the hood of your car before the big game? Why can’t or don’t the parties opposing this use it to construct their game plan to systematically remove all the loopholes and methods that this “project” is using to promote their agenda? I’m the furthest thing from a politician, so ELI5.
To fully prevent most of what’s laid out there would require supreme court rulings, which isn’t going to happen under a conservative court. The only way to prevent it is for Democrats to win (Biden needs to step down imo) and then pack the court and/or impeach a couple of conservative justices.
The guy from the Heritage Foundation that was seemingly in charge of writing the whole thing up recently said something along the lines of :
“This is a second American revolution, and it will remain bloodless, so long as the left allows it to.”
I’ll edit this in a bit with a source.
EDIT: I’m sorry, it was the President of the Heritage Foundation.
Here’s the vid from CNN
And here’s Sam Seder and Emma covering it:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-OdM4_WO2wk
EDIT 2:
Anyway, it is in no way backfiring. As with any (proto?) fascist movement looking to firmly establish itself within government, they need mainly to keep enthusiasm up amongst their core demo, while lying about what they are doing and plan to do to anyone who isn’t friendly.
Throw in some mild criticism and voila, this provides, apparently, enough statements that it tricks professional journalists into thinking ‘cracks are showing’.
