Project 2025 was supposed to boost Donald Trump's campaign — but now it may be backfiring
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 Dems are cancelling abortion, planning massive deportations, taking away tans kids healthcare. Shut the fuck up Russian.
Biden could issue an executive order requiring hospitals in red states to perform abortions or else lose their medicare funding, but won't.
Biden could reverse his position on deportations, instead he issued an executive order to reject all asylum requests by undocumented immigrants.
Biden's attempt to apply Title IX to trans folks like myself has been nice, but it's not nearly enough to make me forget what he's spending my tax dollars on.
Biden could start doing good and incredibly popular things like ending our support for genocide, but that would piss off AIPAC and those lobbyists opinions' mean more than those of voters.
You can tell yourself that I'm a russian bot if that makes you feel better. I hope the comfort of dismissing all criticism as foreign influence is worth the consequences of repeating all the mistakes made in 2016.
I interpreted "Dems are aiding and abetting genocide" as Gaza. If not, my point is irrelevant and I misunderstood you in the first place.
My response was that they aren't actively bringing active domestic genocide like Trump and P25 have proposed.
If I understand your point correctly, neither have anything to do with your response about Dems doing nothing proactive to be progressive. That's a separate problem with which I agree with you.
That's only the most egregious example, I have to be nonspecific because of how many ethnic groups the Democrats are helping wipe out. Between letting the Navy poison Hawaii's water supply and supporting the ongoing economic blockade of Puerto Rico, you're spoiled for domestic options.
Right on cue!
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.
It's because in their mind Nazi = bad guy.
They cannot see themselves as "bad guys," so the association is immediately dismissed without further consideration. The leftists are the bad guys, so obviously Nazi maps onto those people.
But it's not really about truth, it's about "winning" the argument.
Also National Socialism means they were socialists, much like the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a democratic republic.
It just shows a total lack of understanding of what the NSDAP platform was. Nazi Germany was a corporatist (in the political science sense) and authoritarian capitalist country, and they eg. specifically privatized a lot of functions that had been public before, absolutely loathed the idea of welfare or supporting "unworthy" people in any way, and were quite enthusiastically supported by business interests starting from their early years. Socialism, ie. social ownership of the means of production and strong public services, is about as opposite as can be to what the economics of fascism are, not to mention the social side. Fascists literally murdered sick or infirm people rather than support them, because weakness has to be weeded out of society.
Like this contemporary caricature puts it, the NSDAP – the National Socialist German Workers' Party – presented itself as the "Socialist Workers' Party" when appealing to workers, and as the "National German Party" when appealing to "financially solvent circles".
All of this is just completely beyond many conservatives' capability to internalize – understanding any of that would mean they'd have to think some very uncomfortable thoughts about their own ideology, and the vast majority of them are fundamentally incapable of that sort of self-reflection.
It doesn't help that Nazi is a truncation of National Socialist. Anybody with a lick of sense would know that they weren't socialists in any way, shape or form, but a lot of people don't have a lick of sense.
If you go far enough right, you buffer overflow around to the left.
If you go far enough left, you buffer underflow around to the right
Authoritarian leftists have a lot more in common with fascists than liberal leftists, that's for sure.
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:
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.
Oh I have no doubt there will be violence if Biden wins, but they've already said there will be violence against opponents if Trump wins, so I think all anyone can do is be prepared.
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.
More to get people riled up and ready for the fight that will most likely be coming. These stories about how the right is losing steam are puff pieces meant to make non voters complacent. People need to be angry and ready, not being placated and lazy.
Okay, I'll trust that you're being sincere. In that case, though, I think your tone/messaging could use some tweaking because (as you could probably tell) I did not read it that way initially.
Yes, it was a bit over the top. It was early in the morning and I hadn’t had my coffee yet. Brain wasn’t working lol
Hey at least your brain starts working eventually, some of us aren't that lucky 😅
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.
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.
Is it even veiled at all?
Not a bit. I took it as a direct threat
The heritage foundation is an anti-american cancer that definitely needs to be cut out.
The good news is that none of those CHUDs are immune to bullets. They can be stopped by exploiting that vulnerability. The best time to be prepared was already, but there's still time left to become prepared.
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.
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 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.
I wouldn't be so sure. I think the calls for Biden to step down are evidence that DNC-types (at least some of them) are realizing the gravity of this situation.
Patience grasshopper, patience
WHICH, my dear potential voters, is why we need to stop fucking arguing with one another and come together, dammit.
It's REALLY easy:
Stop being idiots.
Pressure Biden to use the recent Supreme Court decision to OUR advantage.
Vote Biden into office for another 4-years.
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.
Pressure him with what?
Your voice. You can literally call your representatives.
That doesn't appear to apply any meaningful pressure.
You still do it. Its part of the process. The alternative is violence
They're throwing your letters in the trash.
Then at least we have a garbage heap to point to when forcing them to pen the Magna Carta 2
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.
It's not "turning your nose up" to refuse to support authoritarianism, even if it aligns with your ideals.
Biden's cooked, he needs to step down and let Literally Anyone Else take the nomination. Other than that, I agree completely
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.
Exactly this. There is infrastructure to these kinds of moves. The right has been moving on it and the left has mostly not. However, there are some things the left could do, and they should get on that ASAP.
I think the Heritage asshole yelling about shooting people who resist hopefully gets people's blood up.
Biden may be old, but he is head and shoulders above a fascist government that will literally shoot you if you voice any concerns or complaints about it.
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.
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.
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.
If Trump wins, this will go into effect and a white house backed coup will violently remove career employees that keep the government functioning.
This will end democracy and our nation as we know it. We'll overnight become Russia and probably start militarily supporting them. With the recent supreme court ruling, it gives the presidency carte blanche to commit any crimes while in office.
This election could be the end, people. Please vote.
Egad. Why are my fellow Americans so slow on the uptake?
Lemmy: This is rhetorical. I know a lot of the reasons.
McDonald's and Walmart are still open and PlayStation Network is still running.
Reminds me of the Korean zombie movie Alive, where the recluse gamer doesn't realise for days that there has been an apocalypse. Only when he loses connectivity does he look outside and realise.
At least it's before the election that they're getting the uptake. Might actually be in time to help something for once.
Too many people still don't realize Project 2025 is Mein Kampf 2.0
It contains every reason everyone would need to vote against him. At this point, its existence makes the decision a no-brainer.
Also, take note how the usual suspects that are always urging you to not vote against Trump are mysteriously absent on posts like this.
Interesting observation.
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.
https://www.wdbj7.com/2024/07/04/conservative-leading-pro-trump-project-2025-suggests-there-will-be-new-american-revolution/
Here's the vid from CNN
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FznbfmZ0JZE&pp=ygUnaGVyaXRhZ2UgZm91bmRhdGlvbiBwcmVzaWRlbnQgYmxvb2RsZXNz
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'.
Again,
The thing to remember about Project 2025 is that it has a 180 day execution window. This stuff will happen so fast it'll make your head spin.
You’re forgetting though that Trump isn’t a religious nut job, he is just using them to get what he wants. While he’ll happily be elevated to the level of a king he isn’t likely to outlaw adultery and having children out of wedlock.
If we want to go next level conspiracy theory, wait for the vice president to be announced. If its an ultra conservative, middle aged white man, Trump may only have minutes in office before he is tragically assassinated, and then Project 2025 will really kick off.
I feel like that's a bit backwards. The religious but jobs are using Trump to get what they want. He'll say or do anything if the price is right and a literal cult who'd eat the shit from his diaper if he told them to. He's the perfect puppet to enact Project 2025 with little pushback.
Trump is too arrogant to be a puppet president, especially for a cause that he doesn't believe in. For that to work, they would need some way to control him and now he cant be charged with any crimes blackmail isnt an option. If they push him too far he might use Putin's playbook and have people accidentally fall out of a window.
Don't forget that in addition to giving the president immunity, the Supreme Court also made bribery legal. Trump has absolutely zero integrity or critical thinking skills, he just reads whatever is on the teleprompter. If someone offers him enough money he'll do anything.
It doesnt look like 2025 is assiciated with trump at all, just googling around. It looks like theyre endorsibg pence though
Absolute cope and lie, unless you're using a different Google that none of us have access to. This didn't just happen. They've been talking about this for a while. Do more research or leave the conversation.
To try and be helpful to you and others not as aware, here is some light reading.
AP: A conservative leading the pro-Trump Project 2025 suggests there will be a new American Revolution
And here is some background of the past cooperation between Trump and the Heritage Foundation, as of their review of their shared agenda as of 2018. I selected something from back in his time as president to show actual cooperation with their agenda.
Heritage.org: Trump Administration Embraces Heritage Foundation Policy Recommendations
I recommend reading both those full short articles and using that as a jumping off point for further reading into points most relevant to you and your ideological goals. I hope that is helpful to you and anyone else.
Either you're absolute shit at even basic information retrieval or you're fucking lying. So which one is it, are you incompetent or malicious? (And no, that's not an exclusive "or")
There's plenty of articles saying he is, but neither one actually says there's a link.
Project 2025 can't outright endorse Trump because it'd be illegal you fucking cabbage, but anybody with more than two neurons to rub together should be able to piece together the fact that yes, Project 2025 does in fact fully back Trump and generally comprises of hardcore Trumpists.
Jesus fuck I don't even know why I bother, it's not like any of this is going to get through to you.
You bother because if you don't, this shithead might actually convince some people who if they were any dumber they'd need to be watered twice a week of his shitty lie.
That sort of intellectual dishonesty just really fucking activates my almonds. Like, I have absolutely no problem with ignorance, because not knowing something doesn't mean you're stupid or let alone malicious, just that you haven't had an opportunity to learn about it, but this sort of "well I looked into it and turns out that black is white and up is down" twaddle is just… argh.
The reality of what Project 2025 is about is on full public display (they even have their own domain) and it's so blatantly obvious that it's essentially "institutionalized Trumpism". Yeah there's apparently been some friction lately, but anybody who thinks those people don't fully back Trump is lying to themselves and others so much that it's not even funny.
The Heritage foundation wants results. Trump has been their boon since he let them lay the groundwork for judges. They are opportunists. If he's in office, he's their man.
Pro-tip: Pence is not running, and none of Project 2025 happens if Biden wins.
What on earth makes you think it's not about Trump?
You’re either willfully ignorant or actively pushing misinformation.
Edit, just for good measure: stop pushing misinformation
Project 2025: Next time a Republican gets Control of the White House we're Destroying this Country!
You: There's no link to Project 2025 and the Republican Nominee!
So every drunk at a bar with a trump hat is controlling Trumps admin?
Yeah. Kind of scary that he is that easily led.
It is a document produced by his official transition organization. Every campaign has a transition team, separate from the campaign.
They don't usually give it a name. They don't usually get it up and running this far ahead of the election. And it's never before been a fascist playbook to end liberty in America and sell out democracy on this earth.
Its not a document, its a think tank, and its not Trumps transistion team
Edit: link https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/trump-distances-himself-project-2025-i-have-nothing-do-them
They have a literal playbook. That they've openly published. And they are openly recruiting for the transition they are planning. Look any of this up before acting like it's not a problem.
See if you can stick your head further in the sand, we don't need wastes like you stealing our air.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.