Saturday, July 13, 2024
Don't Be Distracted From Trump's Existential Threat
On the same evening this week, the two major parties’ presidential candidates each gave a speech that revealed the fundamental nature of the man.
In Washington, President Biden assembled world leaders to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of NATO, which Biden has rebuilt and expanded over the last 3½ years. “The American people know that all the progress we’ve made in the past 75 years has happened behind the shield of NATO,”. . . “And the American people understand what would happen if there was no NATO: another war in Europe, American troops fighting and dying, dictators spreading chaos, economic collapse, catastrophe.” . . . Biden rallied his counterparts to accept nothing short of victory in Ukraine.
In Miami a few hours later, former president Donald Trump assembled supporters at his Doral golf club — another transfer of wealth from his campaign to his personal accounts — and ridiculed NATO partners. . . . He repeated his boast and said he told NATO partners that if they were “delinquent” (there is no such thing in NATO, which does not collect dues), “I will not protect you from Russia.”
Thus did Trump celebrate his willingness to squander the deterrence that has kept the peace for decades, and instead to abandon allies to the tender mercies of Vladimir Putin, who just bombed a children’s hospital in Ukraine. Trump says he’ll make Ukraine “settle” with the invading Russians, a surrender that Biden would never allow.
This is exactly what the presidential campaign should be about at this perilous moment: the choice between strong American leadership and appeasement, between democracy and dictatorship.
But this is no longer what the campaign is about. The heavy-handed attempt to force Biden to quit the race after his disastrous debate has, predictably, backfired. . . . And Republicans can hardly believe their good fortune, as they portray Biden as a zombie — with no good answer to their attacks.
Trump’s Doral rally was full of endless variations on the “Weekend at Bernie’s” theme. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), now in the final round of auditions to become Trump’s running mate, warmed up the crowd by identifying a “conspiracy” to hide Biden’s mental condition.
Then came Donald Trump Jr. “We’re running against a party that wants to take away your AR-15, but they gave a vegetable the nuclear codes,” he began. . . As for Biden’s (accurate) argument that Trump threatens democracy, Trump said Biden “doesn’t even know what the hell the term is.”
Alas, this is what the rest of the campaign is likely to be about if Biden remains in the race. Some of this is the fault of congenitally anxious Democrats and their allies rushing to force him from the race, which has understandably caused Biden to resist. Some is the fault of my colleagues in the news media, breathlessly keeping a deathwatch . . .
But this much is clear: As president, Biden has invariably acted in the best interest of the country. I suspect that, if he sees more data coming in showing that he no longer can beat Trump, he will graciously bow out. If he does so, he will be remembered for the most substantial record of accomplishment of any president in decades.
At the moment, it’s difficult to see the national discussion shifting back to where it should be: on Trump’s fitness for office.
This week, the MAGA-occupied Republican National Committee forced through a “platform” that looks more like one of Trump’s social media posts, in all caps and with curious punctuation. . . . It abolished any mention of the national debt and tiptoed around abortion.
Also this week, longtime Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka told Newsmax that Vice President Harris is “a DEI hire, right? She’s a woman. She’s colored.”
And this was the week in which Trump issued his comical denial that “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it.” The project, essentially an outsourcing of Trump’s policy operation, calls for banning abortion pills, eliminating the Education Department, deporting the “dreamers,” reversing support for renewable energy, dismantling independent agencies and firing vast numbers of nonpartisan federal workers to replace them with political operatives.
Were the nation’s focus not on what is going on between Biden’s ears, voters would be hearing more about the truly batty things coming out of Trump’s mouth, and those of his top allies. “It’s really a pretty simple question,” Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) said to the crowd at Trump’s Doral rally. “Was America better off four years ago under Donald Trump?” Four years ago, the economy had collapsed, hospitals were overflowing and hundreds of thousands of people were needlessly dying because of Trump’s handling of the pandemic.
The former president’s remarks could be charitably described as bizarre. He remarked on the looks of a “beautiful waitress” and again referred to Chris Christie as a “fat pig.” Gangster Al Capone was a “very nice gentleman, very fine man,” and fictitious serial killer Hannibal Lecter “was a lovely man.” His son Don Jr., who is engaged but not married, “has a great wife.” Tourists who go to see the Jefferson Memorial or the Washington Monument “end up getting shot, mugged, raped.”
He was as erratic as usual, at one point stopping in his speech for a full 10 seconds without explanation. He spoke of himself in the third person, asking if the United States can be “energy dominant” (it already is): “‘Yes, oh, yes, and quickly,’ says President Trump,” he said. . . . He garbled words, saying, “Our econo — we — er — our economy will be at a level that will equal and even surpass what it was four years ago.” Four years ago at this time, gross domestic product had plunged 31.4 percent and unemployment was 13 percent.
With eerie music in the background, Trump called the United States “a Third World nation” and “a joke.” Though the stock market has set repeated records amid 42 months of consecutive job growth, Trump declared that the “economy is collapsing into a cesspool of ruin.”
Less amusingly, he said those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were “hostages, unfairly imprisoned,” who “should be out soon” because of the Supreme Court. And he announced that “we have nuclear submarines and five warships in Cuba.” Was Trump publicly divulging the location of U.S. nuclear assets? Or when he said “we,” did he mean Russia? Neither one was a good look.
From beginning to end, it was disqualifying. But apparently this is not what the voters are going to be hearing about for the next four months. Will Biden, the Democrats and the commentariat really allow this to happen? As a shrewd political observer once said: C’mon, man.
Friday, July 12, 2024
Trump is Unfit and Dangerous in Word, Deed and Action
Next week, for the third time in eight years, Donald Trump will be nominated as the Republican Party’s candidate for president of the United States. A once great political party now serves the interests of one man, a man as demonstrably unsuited for the office of president as any to run in the long history of the Republic, a man whose values, temperament, ideas and language are directly opposed to so much of what has made this country great.
It is a chilling choice against this national moment. . . . . The Republican Party once pursued electoral power in service to solutions for such problems, to building “the shining city on a hill,” as Ronald Reagan liked to say. Its vision of the United States — embodied in principled public servants like George H.W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney — was rooted in the values of freedom, sacrifice, individual responsibility and the common good. The party’s conception of those values was reflected in its longstanding conservative policy agenda, and today many Republicans set aside their concerns about Mr. Trump because of his positions on immigration, trade and taxes. But the stakes of this election are not fundamentally about policy disagreements. The stakes are more foundational: what qualities matter most in America’s president and commander in chief.
Mr. Trump has shown a character unworthy of the responsibilities of the presidency. He has demonstrated an utter lack of respect for the Constitution, the rule of law and the American people.
Mr. Trump is animated by a thirst for political power: to use the levers of government to advance his interests, satisfy his impulses and exact retribution against those who he thinks have wronged him. He is, quite simply, unfit to lead.
The Democrats are rightly engaged in their own debate about whether President Biden is the right person to carry the party’s nomination into the election. . . This debate is so intense because of legitimate concerns that Mr. Trump may present a danger to the country, its strength, security and national character — and that a compelling Democratic alternative is the only thing that would prevent his return to power. It is a national tragedy that the Republicans have failed to have a similar debate about the manifest moral and temperamental unfitness of their standard-bearer, instead setting aside their longstanding values, closing ranks and choosing to overlook what those who worked most closely with the former president have described as his systematic dishonesty, corruption, cruelty and incompetence.
We urge voters to see the dangers of a second Trump term clearly and to reject it. The stakes and significance of the presidency demand a person who has essential qualities and values to earn our trust, and on each one, Donald Trump fails.
Those who know Mr. Trump’s character best — the people he appointed to serve in the most important positions of his White House — have expressed grave doubts about his fitness for office.
His former chief of staff John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine Corps general, described Mr. Trump as “a person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution and the rule of law.” Bill Barr, whom Mr. Trump appointed as attorney general, said of him, “He will always put his own interest and gratifying his own ego ahead of everything else, including the country’s interest.” James Mattis, a retired four-star Marine general who served as defense secretary, said, “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try.”
More than a dozen of his most senior appointees — those he chose to work alongside him and who saw his performance most closely — have spoken out against him, serving as witnesses about the kind of leader he is. . . . It may be tempting for Americans to believe that a second Trump presidency would be much like the first, with the rest of government steeled to protect the country and resist his worst impulses. But the strongman needs others to be weak, and Mr. Trump is surrounding himself with yes men.
The American public has a right to demand more from their president and those who would serve under him.
When America saw white nationalists and neo-Nazis march through the streets of Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 and activists were rallying against racism, Mr. Trump spoke of “very fine people on both sides.” When he was pressed about the white supremacist Proud Boys during a 2020 debate, Mr. Trump told them to “stand back and stand by,” a request that, records show, they took literally in deciding to storm Congress. This winter, the former president urged Iowans to vote for him and score a victory over their fellow Americans — “all of the liars, cheaters, thugs, perverts, frauds, crooks, freaks, creeps.” And in a Veterans Day speech in New Hampshire, he used the word “vermin,” a term he has deployed to describe both immigrants and political opponents.
What a president says reflects on the United States and the kind of society we aspire to be. . . . “A healthy democracy requires both political parties to be fully committed to the rule of law and not to entertain or even tacitly encourage violence or violent speech,” . . . . .
A large faction of one party in our country fails that test, and that faction, Mr. Trump’s MAGA extremists, now control the party and its levers of power. There are many reasons his conquest of the Republican Party is bad for American democracy, but one of the most significant is that those extremists have often embraced violent speech or the belief in using violence to achieve their political goals. This belief led to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and it has resulted in a rising number of threats against judges, elected officials and prosecutors.
This threat cannot be separated from Mr. Trump’s use of language to encourage violence, to dehumanize groups of people and to spread lies.
[W]ith his nomination by his party all but assured, Mr. Trump has become even more reckless in employing extreme and violent speech, such as his references to executing generals who raise questions about his actions. He has argued, before the Supreme Court, that he should have the right to assassinate a political rival and face no consequences.
Voters frustrated by inflation and immigration or attracted by the force of Mr. Trump’s personality should pause and take note of his words and promises. They have little to do with unity and healing and a lot to do with making the divisions and anger in our society wider and more intense than they already are.
The Republican Party is making its choice next week; soon all Americans will be able to make their own choice. What would Mr. Trump do in a second term? He has told Americans who he is and shown them what kind of leader he would be.
When someone fails so many foundational tests, you don’t give him the most important job in the world.
Thursday, July 11, 2024
Message to the Media: Stop Soft-Pedaling the GOP’s Extremism
The idea that Donald Trump is forcing the Republican Party to moderate its extreme positions on abortion and LGBTQ rights would make for an interesting story. So interesting, in fact, that the story was all over the mainstream press. The only problem with this very interesting story is that it didn’t happen.
On Monday, a draft of the GOP platform began circulating ahead of the Republican convention. The coverage of the platform’s position on abortion was remarkable in its uniformity. . . . These headlines could not be more misleading.
[A]lthough the new platform omits language from the 2016 version opposing marriage equality, it is silent on equal rights for same-sex couples, and certainly does not endorse them. That omission is meaningful, and should not be interpreted as moderation. The Trumpified right-wing majority on the Supreme Court has already taken quiet aim at the decision that granted same-sex couples the right to marry, and some of the sitting justices, such as Samuel Alito, have denounced that decision outright. Once the right-wing bloc on the Court has the numbers and the right case, that decision will likely be overturned.
In other words, the removal of the previous opposition does not amount to a recognition of equal rights for same-sex couples. It is a strategic silence asserted in the belief that the Roberts Court will narrow those rights in its own time without the GOP having to pay a political price for making that happen.
Other language in the new platform refers to being able to “act in accordance with those [religious] Beliefs, not just in places of Worship, but in everyday life.” This is about justifying religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws, which will target LGBTQ Americans and women, among others. This is an agenda that contemplates second-class citizenship for anyone who is not a right-wing Christian, and elevated status for those who are.
Second, if the party’s stance on marriage equality is a matter of strategic silence, the media coverage of the abortion language amounts to strategic illiteracy. . . . . The key language here is “We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights.” The actual language of the Fourteenth Amendment, plain to anyone who has read it, says, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
The doctrine that a fetus is morally equivalent to a fully born child is called “fetal personhood”; it asserts that a fetus obtains constitutional rights at the moment of conception, and therefore, ending a pregnancy is identical to murder. In its 2016 platform, the Republican Party made this claim by saying that the Fourteenth Amendment’s due-process protections guarantee that “the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed,” and calling for a constitutional amendment to enshrine this understanding.
The wording of the platform restates the same radical position that Republicans took in the 2016 platform, but makes it more confusing. There is no softening of the GOP’s position on abortion here, just a garbled reiteration of the party’s position that abortion for any reason should be illegal everywhere in the United States, hidden behind an irrelevant aside about states’ rights. . . . In the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment adopted by the Republican Party in its platform, abortion rights are unconstitutional because a fetus is a person and therefore entitled to those constitutional protections.
The point, presumably, of the muddled and contradictory language adopted by the platform was to get the media to run with a bunch of headlines announcing that the party was moderating on abortion, while allowing the language to serve as a promise to anti-abortion activists, who fully understand that Donald Trump intends to follow through on their agenda while in office. That includes, as my colleague Elaine Godfrey reported in February, banning abortion through novel enforcement of the 19th-century Comstock Act without any need for Congress.
Trump and the Republican Party have records on abortion that show what they would do with federal power. Trump appointed three of the six justices who issued the decision overturning a national right to an abortion after he promised to do just that. Republican-controlled states acted swiftly to ban abortion as soon as they could, not just enacting draconian bans and restrictions on speech and movement related to abortion, but seeking to criminalize leaving the state to get an abortion or providing information on how to get one.
If Trump returns to the White House, the power of the federal government will likely be focused on restricting Americans’ rights to free expression, travel, and bodily autonomy in the name of preventing abortion. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation blueprint for a second Trump administration, which Trump has unconvincingly attempted to disavow despite the plan having been written by veterans of his first administration, details possible avenues for such restrictions. The Project 2025 agenda contemplates allowing employers to deny health-care coverage for contraception to their workers, allowing hospitals to refuse to provide abortion care when someone’s life is at risk, and otherwise limiting access to abortion medication and contraception.
Project 2025 also wants to use the Department of Health and Human Services to force states to track abortions in order to crack down on what it calls “abortion tourism,” that is, women being forced to leave their home state to obtain medical care that they are prevented from getting where they live.
The GOP platform is an obvious bait and switch, and it doesn’t even try very hard to hide the switch. As the writer Jessica Valenti notes, “The platform doesn’t change a single thing about what Trump would do if elected, nor does it mean that there’s an actual rift between his campaign and the anti-abortion movement. This is political theater, and the mainstream press is handing out programs.” The GOP platform on abortion does not show Trump or the GOP “softening” or shifting on abortion rights; it shows them trying to avoid the political consequences of their position on the matter by hiding them in plain sight.
It has been clear from the beginning that Trump regards abortion rights as a political vulnerability for Republicans and would seek to seem moderate on the issue, just as it’s clear that the anti-abortion camp understands that Trump will do its bidding when in office, as he did last time. One reason he may get the chance is mainstream press organizations’ embracing the narrative of Trump as an abortion moderate—despite all available evidence to the contrary.
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
Tuesday, July 09, 2024
The Double Standard in Trump-Biden Coverage
After President Joe Biden’s disastrous recent public appearances, he and his supporters are attacking media outlets for a double standard in coverage of him and his opponent. They’re right, but that double standard is structural and, unfortunately, will not end during this campaign.
Biden released a letter he sent to his Democratic colleagues, in which he threw punches in multiple directions at those suggesting that he step down: “press,” “pundits,” “big donors,” and a “selected group of individuals.”
The president’s crisis is of his own making. Biden is clearly no longer up to any kind of prolonged extemporizing, but his campaign gambled first on a debate and then on a hastily arranged interview, both of which went badly. Many of Biden’s supporters are blaming members of the media for a pile-on of negative coverage, but there is no planet on which Biden’s behavior isn’t a major and continuing news story.
But critics of recent media coverage of Biden are dead right about one thing: Many outlets have for years been employing a significant double standard in covering Biden and his opponent, Donald Trump. When Biden stumbles over words, we question his state of mind; when Trump acts like a deranged street preacher, it’s … well, Tuesday. If Biden had suggested setting up migrants in a fight club, he’d be out of the race already; Trump does it, and the country (as well as many in the media) shrugs.
The structural issue is that in an open society, almost all views may be expressed in the public square—even outright falsehoods. This principle of liberal democracy leaves Trump free to lie and propagandize, which he and his footmen do confidently and effortlessly. These tactics have been highly effective among a GOP base whose senses have been pounded into numbness by relentless propaganda, a daily barrage of Bullshit Artillery that leaves a smoking, pockmarked no-man’s-land in the mind of almost anyone subjected to it for long enough.
Media outlets cannot counter this by responding with a similar “truth barrage,” in part because there are simply not enough hours in the day. But it is also inaccurate to say that media outlets have not recently tried to cover Trump’s bizarre behavior. The NYU professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who regularly warns about Trump’s fascistic plans, posted in frustration yesterday that the top stories in several national publications were all about Biden, and not about “Trump and Epstein, Trump and Putin, Trump telling us to inject bleach, Trump wanting to deport up to 20 million.”
The real double-standard problem is not about coverage, but about interpretation. This is not “bias” in the political sense. It is, as Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg put it, a bias toward coherence, the inability to accept—and say—that one of the presidential campaigns is completely bonkers. “Trump overwhelms us with nonsense,” Jeff notes, and so, when confronted with Trump’s obvious mental instability, we work backwards: “Trump sounds nuts, but he can’t be nuts, because he’s the presumptive nominee for president of a major party, and no major party would nominate someone who is nuts.”
The result of this bias is that the press too often continues to present what should be appalling, even horrifying information as if it is just part of the normal give-and-take of a political campaign: Trump goes to Las Vegas and rants about sharks, and the press, likely trying to appear unbiased, instead pulls out a dull nugget about Trump’s mention of not taxing tips. Trump vows to destroy the American civil service, and the headlines talk about his “plans to increase presidential power.”
Why? Because it is not in the American journalistic tradition to say: Today in Las Vegas, one of the two major candidates said things so rabidly toxic and incoherent that they raised doubts about his sanity.
Media outlets should stop embracing the bias toward coherence; this is now a struggle between a free press and a would-be dictator. But people cannot expect journalists to provide a daily flood of truths about Trump—and they are sorely needed—while also ignoring grave questions about Biden’s presidential fitness. A free and honest press committed to the truth doesn’t work that way.
Trump’s allies would love for major news outlets to call on him to drop out: They’d reprint it and fundraise off it. Instead, the media should report on Trump’s behavior and emphasize that American candidates—and normal people—do not refer to their fellow citizens as “vermin” or muse about having them prosecuted by military tribunals. A steady recounting of Trump’s ravings and his hideous plans is important—not because it is political, but because it is true, and the public needs to know about all of it.
Setting up a defensive perimeter around Biden won’t change the fact that Trump stands at the head of a cult completely sealed in its own information bubble. Americans, including those who work in the media, can walk and chew gum; we can see that Biden’s campaign is in crisis and also recognize that Trump is a dangerous autocrat. Many Americans are sophisticated enough to discuss multiple worrisome issues, but a fair number refuse to pay attention to politics at all. . . . They are especially not interested in abstract debates over fascism. I remain convinced, however, that seeing a fascist every day, along with a reminder that this is not the American way, will have an effect on them. Indeed, understanding that Trump is an unhinged menace is what makes Biden’s future such a crucial story for all of us.
Monday, July 08, 2024
Trump Is An Enormous Threat to U.S. Economy
Not long ago, one of us was having lunch with someone who manages a multibillion-dollar fund when the subject turned to the prospect of a second Trump term.
This person was disturbed by many of Donald Trump’s actions and concerned about what the November presidential election could mean. But when it came to one issue — the economy — he was untroubled. “We didn’t do so badly last time,” he said. “There are some things I don’t agree with, but I don’t think it will matter that much.”
We fear this is an increasingly common view. . . . . We strongly disagree. The two of us have been involved in business, government and policy for many years — more than a century of experience between us. We’ve worked with elected officials and business leaders across the ideological spectrum. And we believe a straightforward assessment of Mr. Trump’s economic policy agenda — based on his public statements and on-the-record interviews, such as the one he recently conducted with Time magazine — leads to a clear conclusion.
When it comes to economic policy, Mr. Trump is not a remotely normal candidate. A second Trump term would pose enormous risks to our economy.
At a time when our country was already on an increasingly risky debt trajectory,
PresidentTrump’s first-term tax initiatives added an estimated $3.9 trillion to the national debt, according to Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute. Mainstream analyses concluded that the result — increasing demand in an already full employment economy while having a negligible effect on business investment — added very little benefit in the shorter term and virtually nothing in the longer term.And Mr. Trump’s second-term agenda would further harm our fiscal picture. A Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget report said that extending the 2017 tax cuts alone would add another $3.9 trillion to the federal debt and increase our debt-to-G.D.P. ratio by approximately 10 percent.
Mr. Trump would also reduce legal immigration at a time when our economy needs additional workers at all skill levels. Companies are already moving some operations outside of the United States in order to find needed staff. Ordering the military to deport millions, as he has threatened to do, would not only lead to widespread social instability but also fail to approach the issue of undocumented workers in a way that meets our economic needs.
On trade, raising tariffs across the board — as Mr. Trump has promised repeatedly to do — would increase prices for American producers and consumers, reduce our global competitiveness and likely lead other countries to retaliate against our exporters.
Mr. Trump has made clear that his regulatory approach will not be driven by cost-benefit analysis, in which potential social and economic benefits are weighed against potential concerns. Instead, he says he will use regulation to reward loyalists and punish perceived enemies.
In his first term, Mr. Trump personally directed the Justice Department to block a merger between AT&T and Time Warner because he was reportedly unhappy with the coverage of him on CNN, which was owned by Time Warner. In a second term he’s promised to take this approach further, for example, by pledging to reward political allies in the oil and gas industry by throttling renewable energy, one of the world’s fastest growing industries, and one where we are in fierce competition with China.
Mr. Trump has said he would like to withdraw from NATO obligations and has threatened to abandon our allies in Europe if they are attacked. Such threats would immediately shake confidence in America’s defense commitments and could embolden our adversaries to act in hostile ways, increasing global instability that threatens our supply chains and our markets and increasing the risk of armed conflict. Of course, if Mr. Trump were actually to follow through on these threats, the damage would be far worse.
The rule of law is an essential underpinning of our economy. Mr. Trump’s proposed plans would undermine the rule of law in multiple ways, including using the F.B.I. and the Justice Department to target his adversaries, likely doing the same with the I.R.S., firing United States attorneys if they refuse his order to prosecute a political enemy, using his pardon power to immunize political allies from the consequences of lawbreaking and continuing to reject the fairness and freedom of our elections.
Mr. Trump would also fill his cabinet and senior staff with people whose primary qualification is loyalty to him. In such a scenario, the White House and federal agencies would be expected to make decisions not on the policy merits but in order to satisfy Mr. Trump’s ego, angers, whims, personal business interests and political vendettas.
Nearly every element of Mr. Trump’s second-term agenda would create great risk of economic harm. In aggregate, there is a high likelihood that his agenda would lead to chaos and unpredictability, including global instability, in that way reducing investment and business activity. Meanwhile, inflation would be increased by tariffs, immigration restrictions and larger fiscal deficits.
Some may feel that we made it through one Trump term and are thus likely to make it through another. But a more apt analogy is that after surviving one round of economic Russian roulette, Donald Trump is asking us to take another spin — only this time with many more bullets in the chamber.
Trump must be defeated and people need to wake up to the harm his policies would do to all but the 1% and Trump cronies.
Sunday, July 07, 2024
Project 2025 May Be Backfiring on the GOP
When Project 2025 was released, a number of progressives expressed surprise that Donald Trump's army of authoritarian schemers would boldly publish their plan to destroy American government as we know it. 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.
But really, it's not that surprising. The MAGA right learned years ago the value of hiding their wicked plans in plain sight. Authoritarian thought leader Christopher Rufo is the most prominent example. He frequently speaks loudly of his machinations, such as boldly announcing on Twitter that the right is trying to take away birth control, claiming women should not have "recreational sex. . . . . Kevin Roberts, whose group Heritage Foundation is helping run Project 2025, recently spoke about how Trump will use violence to force the MAGA agenda on the public.
Trump himself regularly employs this strategy, giving speeches where he declares that his goal is "retribution" against political opponents, promises pardons for the January 6 insurrectionists, and characterizes anyone who objects as "vermin" who need to be eliminated. This strategy works because it depends on the fact that most Americans don't pay close attention to politics. . . . . the MAGA goal with this bad guy posturing is twofold: First, get the juices flowing in their base. Second, cause those progressives who are paying attention to panic. Trumpists then paint the people speaking out as a bunch of liberal crazies who are exaggerating the threat of MAGA.
I often liken 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. We saw this 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 Republicans.
The strategy largely works, because less politically engaged Americans assume that "both sides" engage in hyperbole. Low information people are ready to believe the false accusations that liberals are "deranged" when they warn of Trump's plans to be a dictator. Project 2025 seemed to be rolled out with this assumption that "normies" would never hear of it, and that the few who did hear would dismiss the fears as overheated nonsense.
Instead, however, there are promising signs that people who aren't political junkies are starting to hear about Project 2025. Even better, those folks aren't immediately dismissing it as progressive theatrics but may be genuinely alarmed.
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." . . . . So the MAGA forces swung into action on social media, accusing Henson and Ruffalo and other progressives of making it all up.
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?" . . . Google Trends confirms that the number of searches for "project 2025" has grown dramatically in recent days.
Perhaps more importantly, President Joe Biden's campaign has started a big media push to raise awareness, starting with a website last week that offers "a taste of Trump’s Project 2025" with bullet points like, "Takes Away Reproductive Freedom Nationwide" and "Terminates the Constitution."
Perhaps the right's mistake was giving the initiative the name "Project 2025," which sounds like something out of a dystopian sci-fi novel. Trump's in-house team has the same urge, as they have "Agenda 47," a lighter-weight version of the same fascistic game plan. Trump's campaign likely went with scary-sounding names on purpose, both to thrill their sadistic foot soldiers and to cause liberals to react fearfully. But those monikers also make them memorable enough to break into the consciousness of people who aren't paying close attention. Swing voters and people who aren't sure yet if they're going to vote are starting to hear about this "Project 2025" — and they do not like it.
There hasn't been new polling data yet, but this spike of interest suggests there's a strong chance that the sands are shifting. If the chatter about Project 2025 continues in both the press and social media, the knowledge of Trump's plans might start to influence the election — and in ways he will not like. Trump cannot win without a large percentage of voters backing him under the false belief he's "not so bad." The more they find out about what he intends to do in office, the more will have second thoughts about risking another Trump term.
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