HERITAGE FOUNDATION’S PATRIMONY, A BLOODLESS 2025 COUP?

We are hearing, and learning, much more about Project 2025, also misleadingly called ‘Mandate for Leadership,’ as the presidential sweepstakes progresses. This ‘Mandate’ is a collection of conservative and right-wing policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation, written to reshape the US federal government and consolidate executive power for the Republican winner of the 2024 election, and to bring to fruition all those items not accomplished by the first Trump administration. Ruth Ben-Ghiat of Substack says, “They got a slow start, so their codeword is ‘day one,’ forming the basis for the potential Trump term number two.” Ben-Ghiat, authoritarianism expert and history professor at New York University who authored ‘Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present,’ comments, “Already politically-vetted people are in place to immediately implement the plans if Trump wins the election,” though the former president has claimed to have no knowledge of the project’s purpose nor who, or what, is behind the handbook! Mass deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants is one facet in the 970-page guide with Ben-Ghiat warning, “One thing that’s very important for people to realize is that undocumented immigrants won’t be the only ones who end up being targeted. It’s always more people. They use one group to have the justification to build the repressive infrastructure like the transit camps, whatever they are going to do; but be assured, and this is the history of authoritarianism, many groups of people will be targeted to be in that.”

MSNBC anchor, Joy Reid, launched into Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation, after an interview on ‘Real America’s Voice,’ a right-wing fringe network, after he said, “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the Left allows it to be.” So, to avoid violence Americans should simply accept his group’s ‘Mandate.’ Reid called him a “coward,” contending that he won’t do anything violent since he’ll be in the country club after golfing, as the violent and armed people such as the Proud Boys-types will be doing the dirty work. She asserts, “So that man is a coward, and he likes to talk a lot of crap, but it is still a threat. And I took it as a declaration of war against the rest of us.” Reid’s guest, Sherrilyn Ifill, a law professor and former president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, remarked, “The gloves are off. They are no longer afraid to say what their true intentions are. They don’t get the American Revolution. They are the Confederacy, bent on destroying this country.”

Progressives were astonished that the authoritarian conspirators were so bold in publishing their ‘Mandate’ to destroy the government, a plan so malevolent it seems they might wish to hide it; yet, there it is on a website open to all, fascist flag a’flying. But MAGA adherents have never been terribly secretive about their agendas, Trump being candidate number one when he calls for “retribution” against opponents, or promises “pardons” for J6 rioters, or calls anyone who objects to his strategies “vermin” who should be eliminated…or deported. This tactic works because most Americans aren’t paying attention, never learning that such heinous things are being advocated…except for the ‘base’ who will get their hackles raised, and some progressives who will absolutely panic. The panic-stricken then get called out for being a pack of liberal crazies prone to exaggeration. Amanda Marcotte, senior political writer at Salon, likens it to “a guy who pinches a woman’s butt in a bar, and when she protests, laughs and insists she’s just a crazy lady making it all up.” Marcotte continues, “We say this about the strategy with the Supreme Court’s recent presidential ‘immunity’ decision…it’s factually correct that it gives Trump a license to kill, but anyone who speaks this fact is accused of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and “madness” by the Republicans.”

Marcotte believes the MAGA strategy is successful because less politically engaged Americans assume that both parties engage in hyperbole, with the low information individuals being quick to believe false accusations that liberals are “deranged” upon hearing their accusations of Trump’s dictatorial plans. The Heritage Foundation revealed Project 2025 in assuming normal voters would never learn of it, and those few who heard would dismiss fears as “overheated nonsense”  – if it’s so evil, why would they disclose it? Recently, on the Black Entertainment Television awards show, host Taraji P. Henson managed to speak out against Project 2025, when she said, “The Project 2025 plan is not a game. Look it up! 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.” From there it went viral, being picked up by other celebrities, spurring the MAGA squads into action with their gaslighting efforts against those who are starting to see that the ‘Mandate’ may not be hysterical progressives theatrics, but a valid threat. MAGA’s fake leftists are busy sowing confusion online by saying Project 2025 is a Biden undertaking, but the Biden campaign has begun to raise awareness on its site with bullet points to highlight the dangers in the right’s efforts. Marcotte says the initiative’s name sounds like something out of a dystopian sci-fi novel, as does the Trump team’s “Agenda 47,” which it uses in-house, and is only a light-weight version of the same fascistic game plan. These scary-sounding names may thrill the sadistic MAGA base, but liberals react with fear and caution, and the tide may be turning as Trump’s schemes come to the fore. Marcotte believes Trump can’t win without a large percentage of voters backing him under the false belief that he’s “not so bad,” and that as they discover his intentions, a second term will spur second thoughts. Good bumper sticker: Second Term? Second Thoughts!

Heritage Foundation’s President Kevin Roberts may wish for a bloodless second American Revolution, but North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, now running for governor, had a different take as he recently told the congregation at Lake Church in White Lake, North Carolina, “Some folks need killing! It’s time for somebody to say it. It’s not a matter of vengeance. It’s not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It’s a matter of necessity!” Of course, the authority in pronouncing judgement rests on Mark Robinson and the MAGA base…being kind and benevolent, naturally!

Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to his lips, 
Like Death in the Apocalypse. 
And he wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw –

‘I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!’

Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Masque of Anarchy
(Thanks to Asha Rangappa/The Freedom Academy)

California’s Representative Jared Huffman is leading a group of congressional Democrats in a task force aimed toward examining, preempting and counteracting the Heritage Foundation’s dystopian plot to undermine our democracy, which plainly states its intent to abolish our checks and balances, to chip away at church-state separation, and impose far-right agendas infringing on basic liberties in violation of public will. Huffman warns, “This is an unprecedented embrace of extremism, fascism, and religious nationalism, orchestrated by the radical right and its dark money backers. We need a coordinated strategy to save America and stop this coup before it’s too late. Donald Trump and those behind Project 2025 are ready to turn America into a theocratic regime if they get the chance – and we are going to be ready to stop them.” Two prominent lawmakers involved are Representatives Jamie Raskin and Pramila Jayapal, who are ready to stand against the MAGA agenda, to never see the light of day. Right-wing groups backing Project 2025 have received tens of millions of dollars in funding from dark money networks led by Leonard Leo, co-chair of the Federalist Society, and billionaire oil tycoon Charles Koch. Despite his claim of lacking awareness of the plot, Trump has openly embraced its objectives, vowing to gut climate regulations in exchange for Big Oil donations, and launching the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history, and threatening to weaponize federal agencies against his opponents, while deploying the US military against protestors.” Undoubtedly, the new 4th of July will be J6 from here on out.

Trump would begin his second term by purging nonpartisan civil service workers who prevented some of his most glaring excesses in his first term, replacing them with unqualified toadies. Project Sovereignty 2025 is taking names of “anti-American bad actors burrowed into the administrative state” by trawling through backgrounds, social media posts, and statements from high-ranking civil servants as they prepare for the massacre of reclassifications, reassignments or outright firing, with the immediate goal of sowing fear and menacing federal employees. “Flooding the zone with conservative personnel,” is on tap according to Kevin Roberts, in a fashion that they weren’t prepared to do in 2017, this time with their lists at the ready, the ducks in a row! That list would affect around 50,000 federal workers, though former Trump director of the OMB, Russell Vought, has plans to cut up to 68% of staff, from senior attorneys down to admin staff all over the country who had nothing to do with policy-making. According to Robert Reich, Inequality Media Civic Action is preparing to launch videos across every major social media platform to sound the alarm, because the mainstream media has yet to begin the clarion call for action. Even Fox News is hiding from its viewers the GOP assaults on IVF and contraception as described in Project 2025, because these policies are highly unpopular among the electorate, even as Trump and his base have begun to downplay their previous opposition to reproductive freedom…which only muddles the picture for both progressives and supporters of the Trump candidacy. The Fox News pattern of glossing over, or ignoring, coverage of the topic, contrasts with the Christian right’s moral panic, revealing of how anxious the GOP is about American voters discovering their extreme agenda. Republicans know the vast majority of the population take contraception and IVF for granted, as a normal and morally accepted practice (82%), second only to birth control (90%). As Sarah Posner of MSNBC says, “By now it is clear that the GOP’s 2024 strategy depends on evasions and prevarications about the right’s ambitions to restrict reproductive freedom. Any claims that Project 2025 envisions a Republican program for Americans’ ‘self governance’ is yet another rhetorical bait and switch in this cynical campaign of misdirection.”

Andy Borowitz satirically reports, “In a lawsuit filed on Monday, millions of Americans asked the US Supreme Court to grant them immunity from Donald J. Trump. The lawsuit argues that the Constitution was intended to protect the people from Trump, unlike the Court’s recent actions, which have protected Trump from the Constitution. ‘The Constitution was designed to shield the people from domestic tyranny and foreign threats,’ the filing reads. ‘Trump represents both.’ In a separate filing, the American people asked for protection from violent insurrections enabled by Supreme Court justices’ wives.”

Interesting post on The Nation’s website: “We’re not Leninists here at The Nation – we’re apostles of small-d democracy. But right now it is impossible to deny the salience of the Russian revolutionary’s observation that ‘there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.’ This has clearly been one of those weeks. Just as some of us thought it might be safe to come out from under the covers where we’d been hiding from reality, the Supreme Court dropped a decision on presidential immunity that – while not wholly unexpected – will have both immediate and long-term effects every bit as bad as we had been dreading. Real progress requires clarity of vision as well as energy and direction. So to those still mired in self-delusion, whether by Joe Biden’s mental acuity or the benevolence of our Supreme Court, I offer Marx’s challenge: ‘Who are you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?’…Chico, not Karl.”

Ascension Catholic Church in Chesterfield, Missouri had to issue an apology for running an ad in its bulletin, which read, “We are calling all young men back to Church to form a militia dedicated to protecting the Holy Eucharist, our congregation, our clergy, and the church grounds.” The proposed name for the militia, ‘The Legion of the Sancta Lana Council,’ was to be made up of young men between the ages of 18-29, to be trained in strict physical fitness standards, classroom study, and instructions in military operations. A QR code was printed for scanning for those who have experience in military, fitness instruction, Latin, business or medicine, which brought up the application for membership with ties to the Ascension parish. The application said that the church “has been chosen as the testing ground for the militia and, if successful, we hope to establish platoons at parishes around the world.” According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the church has retracted the announcement, apologizing for the “error and the anguish it has caused,” clarifying that the activity does not have its support, nor is it tied to the parish, and that the ad was “sort of a mistake…it slipped through the cracks of the review process, being inappropriate and unhelpful,” since no threats have been made against the community. They are everywhere!

And, THEY are certainly in Louisiana, as proven by Governor Jeff Landry’s signing of an educational bill requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in every classroom, while also removing requirements for vaccinations…tailor-made action for a truckload of lawsuits. The package as signed will give more money to private schools, weaken teacher standards, and eliminate preferred pronouns, while giving more power over school curricula to a new state board which will determine what, and how, teachers can teach. Landry said, “If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses. And I can’t wait to be sued.” Four civil liberties organizations immediately obliged his call. No state funds will be used to display the Big Ten on posters or plaques, as they will rely on churches to voluntarily provide the goods. It is not out of the question to think that the current Supreme Court will find a way to make the Louisiana law acceptable…and perhaps the law of the land? Mark Sumner posts on Daily Kos, “Regarding claims about the ‘original lawgiver,’ someone might want to inform Landry about Hammurabi or Ur-Nammu. Not only do these expansive lists of laws predate any version of the Ten Commandments, but those ancient vengeance- and retribution-based legal systems would likely appeal to Republicans. Of course, the intention of putting the Ten Commandments in every classroom from kindergarten through college doesn’t have anything to do with education. And it’s certainly not about respecting the rule of law.”

As Rudy Giuliani continues in his devolution from the treading water stage into the slime in an amoeba state, we can find comfort in that he is finally gainfully employed! Sure, having been unsuccessful in his courtroom experiences, filing a declaration of bankruptcy, and being barred from practicing law in New York are hardly résumé highlights; but, now this announcement from MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell on Steve Bannon’s WarRoom show, “Speaking of Rudy Giuliani…we hired him over at FrankSpeech.com. He’s on my network now. He follows Steve Bannon, Lou Dobbs and then myself.” Lindell told Newsweek that he hired Giuliani after his suspension from WABC for lying on his daily show about the 2020 election, so now he’s host of a daily podcast. The free fall from mayor of New York City to podcaster will gain him no respite from his creditors who are hot on his trail, as he spouts his election lies from the pillow fort of co-conspirator Lindell.