We have all heard of Project 2025 by now. Democrats on the Biden campaign are getting awareness of it out on social media and news sites. That's a good thing. But some of the information which is out there is inaccurate or unsourced. Which could lead, on one hand, to it not being taken seriously by voters, or on the other hand, to its importance being exaggerated.
For one thing, the document is nearly 1000 pages long. If it were shorter, people could just download the PDF and read it. As it is, hardly anyone (including, I guarantee, Donald Trump) is going to read the whole thing. I don't know, maybe that's by design, taking Steve Bannon's suggestion seriously of just "flooding the zone with (excrement)."
So it is helpful to have some ''Cliff Notes" type of summaries to get an idea of what Project 2025 is. There are a couple good ones I have found. One is this 7 and a half minute Youtube video by Dan Zimmerman which gives a good overview: What is Project 2025? Project 2025 Explained | 5 Criticisms of Project 2025 (youtube.com)
Another summary is this one from Snopes, which I am going to explore in more detail: What's Project 2025? Unpacking the Pro-Trump Plan to Overhaul US Government | Snopes.com
The Snopes article isn't long, I would recommend reading the whole thing.
From the article:
- Project 2025 is a conservative coalition's plan for a future Republican U.S. presidential administration. If voters elect the party's presumed nominee, Donald Trump, over Democrat Joe Biden in November 2024, the coalition hopes the new president will implement the plan immediately.
- The sweeping effort centers on a roughly 1,000-page document that gives the executive branch more power, reverses Biden-era policies and specifies numerous department-level changes.
- People across the political spectrum fear such actions are precursors to authoritarianism and have voiced concerns over the proposal's recommendations to reverse protections for LGBTQ+ people, limit abortion access, stop federal efforts to mitigate climate change — and more.
- The Heritage Foundation — a conservative think tank operated by many of Trump's current and former political allies — is leading the initiative. President Kevin Roberts once said the project's main goals are "institutionalizing Trumpism" and getting rid of unelected bureaucrats who he believes wield too much political influence.
- The Trump campaign's goals and proposals within Project 2025 overlap. However, the former president has attempted to distance himself from the initiative. In a July 5, 2024, post on Truth Social, he wrote: "I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them."
- In other words, it's unknown if, or to what extent, Trump's campaign is talking to leaders of the initiative. Many political analysts and the Biden administration believe Project 2025 is a good indication of Trump's vision for a second term.
Project 2025 has four parts, according to its website:
- A roughly 1,000-page document titled "Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise." That report details supporters' proposals for federal departments, as well as their overall agenda for a conservative government.
- A purported transition plan for federal departments. Project 2025 leaders say they have a 180-day transition plan for each federal agency to quickly adapt to a Trump presidency should he win in November. As of this writing, the contents of that plan were unknown.
- A new database that aims to fill federal jobs with conservative voices. Spencer Chretien, associate director of Project 2025, once called the online system to screen potential new hires the "conservative LinkedIn." It's currently active on the Project's website.
- A new system to train potential political appointees. Called the "Presidential Administration Academy," the system aims to teach skills for "advancing conservative ideas" as soon as new hires join the administration. The lessons touch on everything from budget-making to media relations and currently consist of 30- to 90-minute online sessions. Project 2025 leaders say they will host in-person sessions as the election nears
"....The New York Times reported.
Among its numerous recommendations, it calls for the following (in no particular order):
- Changing how the FBI operates. According to the plan, the agency is "completely out of control," and the next conservative administration should restore its reputation by stopping investigations that are supposedly "unlawful or contrary to the national interest." Also, the document calls for legislation that would eliminate term limits for the FBI's director and require that person to answer to the president.
- Eliminating the Department of Education. The plan explicitly proposes, "Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated." The report also calls for bans on so-called "critical race theory" (CRT) and "gender ideology" lessons in public schools, asking for legislation that would require educators who share such material to register as sex offenders and be imprisoned.
- Defunding the Department of Justice. Additionally, the document proposes prosecuting federal election-related charges as criminal, not civil, cases. Otherwise, the document says, "[Voter] registration fraud and unlawful ballot correction will remain federal election offenses that are never appropriately investigated and prosecuted."
- Reversing Biden-era policies attempting to reduce climate change. The document's authors call for increasing the country's reliance on fossil fuels and withdrawing from efforts to address the climate crisis — such as "offices, programs, and directives designed to advance the Paris Climate Agreement."
"....in an interview with the conservative outlet The Daily Wire, a Project 2025 representative said the Trump campaign and Project are separate "for now." McEntee, a former Trump staffer and leader of Project 2025's personnel database project, said:
I think the candidate and the campaign need to keep their eye on the ball. They need to be totally focused on winning. We're totally focused on what happens after [...] Obviously, there will need to be coordination and the president and his team will announce an official transition this summer, and we're gonna integrate a lot of our work with them.
"That said, given overlap between Project 2025's proposals and the Trump campaign's agenda, political analysts and the Biden campaign believe the coalition's effort is a good indication of Trump's vision for a second term. Among the similarities are proposals to change how the administration fills tens of thousands of government jobs and overhaul the DOJ. According to The Heritage Foundation's own reporting, Trump adopted and seriously considered about two-thirds of the organization's policy prescriptions in 2018, for example."
In this Time Media article, Trump is quoted as disavowing Project 2025: Trump Disavows Project 2025 Transition Plan | TIME
“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump posted on his social media website. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
This is my comment now, but I don't know how to get rid of the bullet points format. I think we can conclude that Trump is being disingenuous about "not knowing anything about Project 2025" but it remains to be seen how much of it he incorporates into his campaign, and more importantly, how much he intends to implement it if he is elected.
We all need to stay tuned.
Trump has not even chosen his VP, let alone his cabinet. Those people might not have much effect upon Trump, but they will certainly have an effect upon the government.
ReplyDeleteWe are electing Senators and a House of Representatives. If the Democrats retain control of the Senate and regain control of the House, Trump will be limited in what he can do, even with the backing of the Supreme Court.
If Republicans gain the Presidency, House and Senate in addition to the Supreme Court we have to worry about a lot more than the Heritage Foundation. Our only hope will be that, like the House Republicans, they will spend so much time fighting among themselves that the results will be chaos rather than systematic.
I am extremely skeptical of the ability of think tanks to influence things, even though during our County's Health Planning decades ago, the Vice-President of a Hospital called me the "mental health board's one man think tank." I am sure he meant it as a compliment; I do have a talent for creating visions that capture people's attention. But all the plans that I helped our board create were very flexible. Everyone knew they were really what Pope Francis would call synodality, walking together. They did help us pass levies.
"I am extremely skeptical of the ability of think tanks to influence things..." Jack, I agree, I hope that is the case. To me it seems like Heritage has been over-the-top zealous and ambitious with their Project 2025. So much so that they're scaring people. Which is good. Because it really does seem like a plan to make the US something other than a democracy.
DeleteTrump really did outsource the selection of judicial nominees to the Federalist Society during his first term, so there is precedent for letting think tanks / advocacy groups have wide latitude. He has a short attention span and is bored by policy, so in the case of judicial nominees, I think he was happy to let them handle it.
ReplyDeleteHe's pretty clearly thirsting for retribution against his perceived enemies in the "deep state", so I think he'll absolutely be open to stripping away the independence of the FBI and DoJ.
Trump is trying to claim that he knows nothing about Project 2025. Rubio is trying to minimize their influence. Apparently some republicans might be worried that making people aware of Project 2025 would scare away some voters. Rubio was right when he criticized trump in 2016 but now he’s anxious to be the VP pick and is worried that the extremism shown by this blueprint for a second trump administration might dash his hopes. Which I assume includes hopes that if he’s VP he will then be able to become POTUS at some future time.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/07/rubio-project-2025-trump-00166718
I am so focused on the disarray in the Democratic Party that I sometimes ignore the shaky three-legged stool that holds up Trump.
ReplyDelete1. Conservative think tanks want Trump to be pres because they hope he will go along with their ideas about limited government. But Trump is not an idealogue. He's a demagogue and will embrace these ideas only if and so long as they are popular and get him big cheers at campaign rallies. If it's wonky, he loses interest, and Project 2025 sounds pretty wonky to me. Where 2025 might get traction is with GOP in Congress.
2. Yahoos want Trump to be pres because he is entertaining and doesn't confuse them with ideas. He just says words they like real loud: "Trucks! Big trucks! EVs weak! No wind turbines! Cancer! TV off if wind doesn't blow! Mexican disease! Executions! Shoot guns! Loud bang bang! Grab p*ssies! You're fired! YAY!" The Yahoos are his die-hard fans and those most likely to melt back into the woodwork and not bother to vote when he's gone.
3. White Christian nationalists want Trump to be president to impose a national abortion ban, let parents use tax money to support religious schools, reverse gay marriage, and make everybody learn that the nation was founded on white Protestant ideas. As far as I can see, Trump wants their votes, and feels he did enough by overturning Roe. Fractures seem to be forming in that leg of support. These folks are headed back to their redouts and religious compounds.
Trump has no loyalty to any of these groups. He wants to be pres so he can make foreign real estate deals and fill the coffers of Trump Inc, make sure his boys are taken care of.
Meanwhile, the far right in France - predicted to win a majority - crashed and burned. A new coalition of left wing types won big so Macron’s centrist party will no longer be in charge. I know very little about the leftist parties in France, but I am very relieved that LePens party failed again.
ReplyDeleteI don’t have any idea if there is any predictive aspect for American elections by the victories of the leftists in the UK and France or not. I do pray that MAGA will lose and sink below the waves.But our system is so different from the Europeans that I doubt we can expect a defeat of trumpism.
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240621-france-s-new-left-wing-alliance-unveils-ambitious-economic-programme-%E2%80%93-and-how-they-ll-pay-for-it
Anne,
ReplyDeletePerhaps from your perspective as a consultant, you could give us some idea of the role(s) of think tanks in the policy making process?
As usual, Jean is totally on target! Plus, for me a bonus - her astute summary made me laugh. A rare thing these days.
ReplyDeleteRe Jean’s point #1 - Jack, Jean nailed it. Especially her observation that it’s the GOP folk on the Hill who would be most likely to study the 2025 plan. The think tank studies, data, reports, analyses, policy proposals are often used by congressional staff to create briefings for their congressperson employer, Senator employer, committees that they work for etc, while drafting legislation, speeches etc. I’m quite sure that there are staff in the White House that are also expected to keep up with what the think tank folk are writing and pushing. I’ve never looked into who donates the big $ to the think tanks, but the think tanks do cover the political spectrum in terms of their work, and their stuff is used by the political class professionals across the spectrum also. Brookings is liberal, Heritage has always been conservative but seems to have gone off the far right edge, Cato is Libertarian, etc.
Trump does not care about policy, except for those (regulatory and tax) that most interest his billionaire donors. He may not care at all about the details, much less understand the mechanisms involved (such as with trade policy). He just knows his rich corporate friends wish only to maximize profits , so that means get rid of pesky regulations, reduce or eliminate taxes, and trash ideas such as raising minimum wages. Health and safety regs are the worst so Stanley will have to try to have hope even when trump trashes clean air, clean vehicles, and anything at all that might mitigate the dangers of climate change.
It sounds to me like Trump's donor meetings are like a big liquidation sale: everything must go. I'll support your drilling request for $100 million. Want weaker OSHA regs? $30 million. Want some nukes to shore up your dictatorship? Sold for a 100-year lease on prime beachfront real estate.
DeleteJean, re #3 . Trump has clearly read the tea leaves about abortion so has reversed course and now pivoted and once again favors legal abortion on demand through 15 weeks . Of course it’s all about the votes. He will remind the anti- abortion people that it was his judges who got rid of Roe v Wade for them, but now it’s up to them to get their own states to ban all abortion. Trying to work both sides because he knows that most Americans - even in red states - support keeping abortion legal.
ReplyDeleteThe Catholic Church is supporting too much of the white Christian nationalist agenda unfortunately.
Will a second trump term make Europe great again?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/06/trump-second-term-world-order-00164045
The French political system is very confusing. Apparently, there is power sharing between the President and the Prime Minister which is fine as long as they get along and apparently Bardella and Macron don't. Also, they now have a hung parliament. It has to be better than having the right wing in there. The only thing on which I agree with the French right wing: stop the support for Ukraine. Macron seems to be following the Biden route which is escalating confrontation with Russia. You don't have to like bears to know you don't poke them in the ass with a stick, especially nuclear armed bears. The fact that the Democrats support the Ukraine war shows that they are not really leftist in any way and any shadow of Eugene McCarthy or George McGovern has been completely expunged.
ReplyDeleteAnne, I know a Trump victory means death for climate change mitigation and possibly eventual global gigadeath. But nuclear war will also produce that. And climate change, as awful as it is, seems an abstraction compared to the videos of the bodies of shredded children which I cannot abide. I shouldn't have to accept genocide and war crimes to get the climate policies I want and I won't. But, obviously, in this country, voting is not enough to get the job done.
The French system is very confusing . And it’s different than the UK system which is also confusing. However, I will have to disagree about abandoning Ukraine. In the longer run, it is a very bad idea to let Russia take over the country for multiple reasons, including reducing the chances that nuclear devices will be used by Russia at some point. Russia wants to control Ukraine’s ports on the Black Sea.It also wants to control Ukraine’s agriculture, especially wheat. Ukraine is the “ bread basket” of Europe - the biggest producer of wheat in Europe.
DeleteLePen is very cozy with Putin and she has received extensive loans from Russian banks. So thank goodness her party didn’t win.
My son’s wife and her family in Poland ( they are there now) are very concerned about Russia’s apparent plan to recreate the USSR. One country at a time. Russia has moved weapons to the border, aimed at Poland. Poland also has a border with Ukraine and the Russians have occasionally “ accidentally” fired on
I know of at least one US military base in Poland. Our military presence there plus Poland's support for the Ukraine war makes them a Russian adversary. Poland has always been a western leaning country but I wish it could have maintained a more neutral stance. The US has been a very pushy entity ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union and I think a lot of this trouble is due to that. Whether or not Putin can reconstruct the Soviet Union, their GDP is very small compared to the European countries, although Europe has more problems now that they don't have access to Russian gas. One shock after another. And all the Ukrainian deaths. Was war the only path forward? We should not have interfered in the internal politics of a country bordering Russia. They should have negotiated a long time ago. We have fought many fruitless and costly wars over the last 35 years. Sometimes I think we're looking for another "good" war to get our self-confidence back. I don't think we're up to it. If China can make an electric car at a cost 80% less than we can, they can probably do the same with military equipment and ammunition. We broke the Soviet economy but China may be able to do the same to us. We need to rethink everything and tread more carefully. Is the Ukraine a proxy war with Russia or is it a proxy war with China? By the way, the Chinese have bought farmland adjoining many of our military bases. If our leadership is that dumb that it never prevented that, I really don't trust them to win all the conflicts they like to start.
DeleteWe didn’t start a war in Ukraine. Russia did.
DeleteIs the agricultural land which the Chinese have bought next to our military bases in the USA, or was it overseas bases? I know they have bought farmland in the contiguous USA. Without a change in our laws, I don't know they could have been prevented from doing so. At the very least we need more guard rails in place regarding foreign ownership of land.
DeleteAnne is right that Russia started the war in Ukraine. Maybe we shouldn't be involved. But where should the red line be when they try to take territory?
Gorbachev said that we should have given Russia economic help after the fall of the Soviet Union. Maybe he was right that some of the problems could have been prevented.
Re foreign takeover of natural resources, Iceland is a good cautionary tale. The Chinese have purchased or been given long-term leases on mines. It's a flash point in politics there. Chinese are also making "economic colonies" out of Africa and Australia. I think that's a way more concerning development than letting in immigrants who want to work here and raise families.
DeleteChinese ownership of American agricultural land isn’t among my big worries. They don’t own very much but some on the right are playing up the dangers. About 44 million acres of ( agricultural) land in the US is owned by foreign entities. Of that total, only about 400,000 is owned by Chinese entities - less than 1% of the total 44 million acres, which is about 3.4% of all agricultural land held by private parties in the US. So Chinese interests own 1% of the 3% privately held American land. The US has 2.2 billion acres.
Deletehttps://www.factcheck.org/2023/07/factchecking-haleys-claim-on-china-u-s-farmland-and-military-installations/
But even if Chinese owned land is only near two military installations, our security folk are on it.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-force-china-linked-firm-sell-land-near-us-missile-silos-2024-05-13/
Katherine - “Russia started the war in Ukraine. Maybe we shouldn't be involved. But where should the red line be when they try to take territory?”
DeleteWe don’t have to go back too far to see the dangers and destruction that resulted when Americans tried to embrace isolationism - it’s a tricky tightrope for us to have to walk, but abandoning countries to their more powerful enemy neighbors seldom ends well. Not just for the country being taken over by their enemy neighbor, but for all the neighbors of the country being consumed by the hostile, expansionist more powerful country.
The source might not be the greatest, but it shows the locations. If our security is on it (and who knows considering 9/11), it means that they are spending resources on something that shouldn't be a problem in the first place. The Chinese so far seem to have been smarter than we are. While we have been doing all this flailing around with futile foreign wars, the Chinese have been quietly gaining access to minerals and resources. Their only military projection has been in the South China Sea and around Taiwan. Meanwhile, we are everywhere militarily. If we seriously consider Russia a global threat (I don't), I think we better roll back our involvement in the Middle East, including Israel and Saudi Arabia and concentrate on one thing at a time. I'm sorry, but I don't see much competence or prudence in our fiddling with the politics of foreign governments. And everything comes around to bite us in the derriere especially in the case of messing with the Arab and Muslim world. Remember, we founded the Taliban to cause trouble for the Soviets. There's no way to get that world under control but maybe we can cut back the energy input. I remember dealing with physical nonlinear systems. If you pump enough energy in, they go nuts. I can't think of anything more nonlinear than the Middle East. Oh, to be clear of both Israel and Saudi Arabia, that extremist Wahabi nation whose government provided support to the 20 terrorists (19 being Saudi) who caused 9/11. I think we have already fallen off the tightrope.
Deletehttps://nypost.com/2024/06/20/us-news/chinese-owned-farmland-next-to-19-us-military-bases/
Well, as you note, the NY Post is not exactly a reliable source.
DeleteWe can agree to disagree. I do think Russia poses a threat to Europe and eventually possibly to us. The lessons of World War II should not be forgotten. Nobody thought Germany would invade Poland. The folks in Prague thought Germany would stop with Poland, that their country was safe - until it wasn’t. Austria, Belgium, France, Russia! They all thought Hitler would stop before his armies reached them. Poor Poland suffered terribly under the Nazis, and under the Russians. My son’s mother in law is fluent in Russian because all Polish children had to learn Russian. The Polish people have definitely not forgotten the dangers presented by a Russia who had them under their thumb for decades. Ukraine doesn’t want to be ruled by Russia again any more than Poland does.
Since I spent more than a dozen years working with a national security contractor who supported the multiple agencies in the national security community and their programs I guess I’m not as worried about China as some are. I’m fairly familiar with how the Intelligence Community operates and I can’t get too concerned about Chinese farmland in the US. They don’t threaten our own agricultural industry ( trump did a lot of harm to that sector though) because they own far too little of our agricultural land to be anything more than a blip. I think that probably any attempts to gather intelligence from a neighboring military base will yield too little to be a serious threat - just as their crops will yield too little to be a threat.That said, it’s always a good idea to prevent them from getting too close. Russia has always wanted to dominate Europe. China seems mostly to care only about getting Taiwan back under their thumb, but don’t seem to have the same territorial expansionist goals that Russia has - they would be happy to dominate economically (one of the reasons it was really dumb of trump to pull out of the Trans Pacific Partnership - a real gift to China)
Their biggest agricultural acquisition is Smithfield foods in Virginia, known primarily for their pork products. Smithfield hams are a big seller in the east coast states.The Chinese love pork - as my son who lived in China for a year will attest. Plus Smithfield products are high quality. The town of Smithfield is fairly close to our huge naval base in Norfolk, VA - home to the Atlantic fleet. But not really close enough to spy over the fence. The James River is in between Smithfield and the Norfolk Navy base.
I have no good insights about Ukraine, Gaza, or any of the other unfolding self-inflicted human tragedies we are eagerly muddling up. I would like to think there are better solutions than giving people weapons to keep it all going. But "helping our allies defend themselves" usually means giving them a nice array of stuff that blows people to smithereens. When the kids in Gaza turn out to be traumatized and shell-shocked, unable to learn or focus, we'll send them some golden retriever therapy dogs, I guess. There was a photo of a little girl in Gaza on a pile of rubble clutching a friendly stray cat I saw awhile back just clutching my heart. Proof that animals are better than whatever we've turned into.
DeleteWell, I think this is where we are now. When the plane loses cabin pressure, they tell you to put an oxygen mask first before you put it on your kid. You can't help your kid if you're unconscious. We need to spend more money at home, on education, on health, on children. Even if we should help these countries, we are not in shape for it. I hear stories here from all over, scary stories. It's as if, from the top leadership of this country down to the individual citizen, something has gone wrong. I think a lot of it has to do with brains connected to the internet. But we need to prioritize our domestic problems. We can't afford 800 military bases around the world. We need a rest. It must also be remembered that France and Britain have nuclear weapons. That makes them big boys. And Putin will have to take that into consideration.
Delete