Project 2025 is definitely not going anywhere. These people are hard-core. Kevin Roberts of Heritage Foundation has said that Hungary is not just a good model, it is THE model. Hungary, under Viktor Orban, has gone from being a democracy to a dictatorship of Christian Nationalism, and while they still have elections, they are fake elections (just like in Putin’s Russia). Orban has been to the US twice in the last 4 months, and not once did he meet with the current administration - he met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago both times, and also met with the Heritage Foundation. Trump and his campaign are just trying to appear to distance themselves, because it is currently dragging him down politically, but if he gets elected, it will be a different story. They also have a 180-day Playbook that has not been made public, but supposedly includes hundreds of executive orders that he would sign on Day 1. And he has a running mate who believes that a president should have the right to ignore Supreme Court rulings.
The timing of P2025 “going dark” is so obviously political. They have been feeling the heat, and I predict that this fall they will lie low and try to stay out of the spotlight. But if Trump is elected, they will be front and center ready to roll..
One thing you gotta admire about conservatives; they play the long game. Project 2025 will be back, no matter how many people say "they don't really mean it" or "they said they've separated from that" - remember Roe v Wade? The other thing about Project 2025 that Americans (and, really, western societies) have to remember is that it explicitly appeals to Christian ego. The mentality that underwrites Project 2025 is that the most conservative and rule-bound version of Christianity is what gave rise to western society and western civilisation, what makes the USA (and to a lesser extent, other countries) "great". It is the codification of White Christian superiority, and a great many Christians who might otherwise believe in a liberal democracy will tell themselves that something like Project 2025 is for the good of the country/society, and maybe we could all do with a little more punishment for those who don't follow the rules. So, no, Project 2025 is not about to lie down and die.
AND, I would add, it’s also nothing new. These ideas have been percolating since the Reagan administration, though they have become far more mainstream and accepted by wider swathes of the party since the Tea Party took the national stage. I *do* think it’s fair to say that this has not always been the policy driving the Republican Party (Bush senior, Richard Lugar, even Will Hurd these days and plenty of others come to mind who were/are Republicans in the traditional sense) and the party will go through additional iterations in the years to come, but the Conservative populist Christian nationalism energy is by far the loudest voice in the room right now and will continue to dominate for at least the next decade imo.
In my experience, both as a voter and as a former Federal Government employee in DC, I've noticed two kinds of policy makers: the Talkers and the Thinkers.
- The Talkers seem most focused on sticking to set talking points, automatically deflecting anything that contradicts, and sharing their stance anywhere and everywhere.
- The Thinkers, or "policy wonks", mainly focus on drafting policy that is practical/usable within the current system, are more attuned to nuance, and stay mostly anonymous.
(This is obviously an oversimplification -- not every Talker doesn't think and not every Thinker doesn't talk, and both positions can be utilized for both good and malicious purposes.)
Much of Dans' language in your interview made me see him as a Talker, which I have a tendency to quickly dismiss. I'm curious, based on your interview, where on the Talker/Thinker venn diagram you would place him. Was he the "talking head" for more policy-focused players that still remain working on Project 2025? Or was he actually more of a Thinker/key policy driver than his language would let on?
I think this is an interesting question, and would certainly be particularly poignant if Dans was the only connection between Trump and P2025. But out of 140 Trump staffers working on the project, surely some are thinkers that will put in efforts to get this off the ground, whether Dans is there or not.
And whether an admin gets P2025 off the ground or not, SCOTUS is already well on their way to building the road there, what with the striking down of the Chevron deference and granting presidential immunity. It’s disheartening to watch, that’s for sure.
We talked about this a bit in the comments on one of Sharon’s first posts on the project, particularly the difference between Dans- a UVA-trained lawyer- and Don Devine- an academic- both of whom Sharon interviewed. Neither are talkers, even if Dans has been more of a spokesperson than Devine. More noticeably, the difference is that Devine, as an academic, is a “policy wonk” in the traditional ivory tower sense: an academic who is- at his own admission, no less- not directly operating in the real world.
Dans is the much angrier, vindictive, boots on the ground policy crafter who actually believes Project 2025 is the right policy choice for America and his self-interest.
My good friend Kelly Jensen has been writing on the book censorship beat for years at Book Riot. She recently wrote a Substack post saying Project 2025 is already here in some red states - book bans, rolling back child labor laws, and public school closures: https://wellsourced.substack.com/p/youve-already-been-living-the-project
Our elected officials regularly ban books, attempt to pass child labor laws, allow vouchers to defund public schools, and we have the most extreme abortion law with no exceptions unless you are actively dying. We have had an R supermajority for 20 years, and have no D’s in statewide office. We are the canary in the mine. But we are not giving up.
To be clear, I am not villainizing one party. This is what happens when we don’t have two healthy parties to balance each other. This is what complete control looks like.
Sounds very much like South Dakota. We had 12 D's in the last legislature! The state is rewriting the history curriculum to go in affect in 2025 with guidelines from some ultra conservative college by Noem's directive. Strict abortion laws. Noem is banned from the 9 tribal lands because she claimed cartels from the border were infiltrating the reservations!!
All I want is the South Dakota like we used to have where we send Democrats to Washington but can have a Republican Governor (Gov. Mickelson comes to mind).
This reminds me of what's been going on in Tennessee with its Republican supermajority. On April 03, 2024, Istvan Kiss, a representative from the Danube Institute (an Orban-friendly think tank), was invited to speak to Tennessee's Senate.
It's interesting that he named the hotel where he was staying and invited senators to come visit and speak with him.
Also, Kiss gave condolences for those gunned down in the Covenant shooting (which took place the week before).
Ten days after the shooting and three days after the speech, in the lower chamber, two Black men -- Rep Justin Jones and Rep Justin Pearson -- were ousted from the Tennessee legislature for protesting. What were they protesting? The lack of gun control in the great state of Tennessee.
I'm not saying the speech and the ousting are directly connected. Their timing, though, reflects the politics of Tennessee's legislature.
Thank you for sharing that. I knew about the shootings, the Justins, and Gloria Johnson. But I did not know about Orban’s influence. I will watch for that in MO.
“Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.”
Maybe this is bluff, but why does everything need to be a threat? Is this strongman appeal? I mean, if Trump and P2025 were not linked, how would he have the power to make Dans step down?
I wondered about his "it will not end well for you comment" too. It's obviously meant to sound like a threat. I wonder what communication behind the scenes is like and how potentially confusing and frustrating it must be for Project 2025 people.
Just like "We will have a bloodless 2nd revolution if the left allows it to be bloodless."
Two things I took from that statement:
1) Bend the knee and let us do whatever we want or else there will be violence.
2) And this is the most important, what does he mean by the left? He means anyone who doesn't agree with him 110% of the time. Similar to how staunch conversatives that aren't Trump sycophants are now labeled RINO's.
Are people really naïve enough to think this “distancing” puts an end to real threat of an extreme conservative agenda? Trump is strictly an opportunist, willing to do and say whatever necessary to feed his ego and push the agenda that will best serve his own power and wealth. He’s a liar that lies. We’re supposed to believe him now?
If it's not Trump it will be someone else. These people are patient. They will keep infiltrating churches school boards, local government, state government on up. We who do not want an authoritarian government need to be vigilant everywhere.
Just had my brother-in-law bring this up last night when I was speaking with my sister about Project 2025. So yeah, there are those who will convince themselves that Trump is an honest and godly man.
People believe what they want to believe. And right now, life is so difficult on so many fronts that people will take the flimsy word of those who've lied to them before because confronting the truth is discomforting and hard.
What do you think of Vance writing the forward for Roberts’ new book? It was at the end of the AP article when this news broke. I wonder if he regrets it now??!!
Since 2016 I’ve been saying this about Trump: he doesn’t want the job. He just wants the title, the perks, and takes all the credit in the end. He lets everyone else do the work and in this case Project 2025 is their playbook. He can denounce it, deny it, pretend he knows nothing about it all he wants. I don’t believe him or his campaign spokespeople.
Chilling to learn more about Project 2025, the underlying energy behind it AND as another example of where lies continue (who's connected, who's not, etc...). The scarcest part to me is that a group of people, probably way more than will admit, actually believe this is a good thing! I remember Sharon saying many of these types of extreme actions are fear-based and how this gives people some kind of justification to double down on their approach. My hope is that not even a few parts live on, but as Ashley notes above, SCOTUS does seem to be building the road there, at least partially.
Thank you, Sharon for shedding light on the fact that Project 2025 is not gone, but just distanced from Trump (in word, only) to try to gain favor from voters. I truly hope people research this to realize the ideals in this document are not going anywhere, especially if he wins the election. Also, kudos to this anonymous person who spoke about the details!
Trump will say anything to get people to come to his side and vote for him and then reverts right back to his true colors. His chameleon-like positions change so fast it’s impossible to keep up without experiencing whiplash. He is a dangerous entity at this point because he is losing his grip.
I just reread some of your earlier articles on 2025. I noticed that the language and framing used is very similar to what one would hear on Fox especially in describing teachers and federal workers on generally anyone who might disagree with their world view. It leads me to think that there is a significant portion of the public who would support most of what's in the document and are likely to be motivated voters. There are also a number of people who never heard of project 2025. I wonder what public sentiment is.
Has anyone watched "Bad Faith" on Tubi (free) or Prime Video? The beginning of Christian Nationalism started in the 1980's (the Reagan administration) and certain talk radio hosts. I can name one, Rush Limbaugh. The man behind the movement is Paul Weyrich. He co-founded The Heritage Foundation,[5] the Free Congress Foundation, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and coined the term "moral majority," the name of the political action group Moral Majority that he co-founded in 1979 with Jerry Falwell. The seeds have just kept growing from there.
Project 2025 is definitely not going anywhere. These people are hard-core. Kevin Roberts of Heritage Foundation has said that Hungary is not just a good model, it is THE model. Hungary, under Viktor Orban, has gone from being a democracy to a dictatorship of Christian Nationalism, and while they still have elections, they are fake elections (just like in Putin’s Russia). Orban has been to the US twice in the last 4 months, and not once did he meet with the current administration - he met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago both times, and also met with the Heritage Foundation. Trump and his campaign are just trying to appear to distance themselves, because it is currently dragging him down politically, but if he gets elected, it will be a different story. They also have a 180-day Playbook that has not been made public, but supposedly includes hundreds of executive orders that he would sign on Day 1. And he has a running mate who believes that a president should have the right to ignore Supreme Court rulings.
In the words of Pete Buttigieg: "Trump disavows a lot of things, but I don't believe him because he lies all the time."
Project 2025 isn't going anywhere.
The timing of P2025 “going dark” is so obviously political. They have been feeling the heat, and I predict that this fall they will lie low and try to stay out of the spotlight. But if Trump is elected, they will be front and center ready to roll..
It’s “ Stand Back and Stand By,” all over again.
Exactly. Well said
Amen!
This.
One thing you gotta admire about conservatives; they play the long game. Project 2025 will be back, no matter how many people say "they don't really mean it" or "they said they've separated from that" - remember Roe v Wade? The other thing about Project 2025 that Americans (and, really, western societies) have to remember is that it explicitly appeals to Christian ego. The mentality that underwrites Project 2025 is that the most conservative and rule-bound version of Christianity is what gave rise to western society and western civilisation, what makes the USA (and to a lesser extent, other countries) "great". It is the codification of White Christian superiority, and a great many Christians who might otherwise believe in a liberal democracy will tell themselves that something like Project 2025 is for the good of the country/society, and maybe we could all do with a little more punishment for those who don't follow the rules. So, no, Project 2025 is not about to lie down and die.
Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, “Roe is settled law.”
AND, I would add, it’s also nothing new. These ideas have been percolating since the Reagan administration, though they have become far more mainstream and accepted by wider swathes of the party since the Tea Party took the national stage. I *do* think it’s fair to say that this has not always been the policy driving the Republican Party (Bush senior, Richard Lugar, even Will Hurd these days and plenty of others come to mind who were/are Republicans in the traditional sense) and the party will go through additional iterations in the years to come, but the Conservative populist Christian nationalism energy is by far the loudest voice in the room right now and will continue to dominate for at least the next decade imo.
In my experience, both as a voter and as a former Federal Government employee in DC, I've noticed two kinds of policy makers: the Talkers and the Thinkers.
- The Talkers seem most focused on sticking to set talking points, automatically deflecting anything that contradicts, and sharing their stance anywhere and everywhere.
- The Thinkers, or "policy wonks", mainly focus on drafting policy that is practical/usable within the current system, are more attuned to nuance, and stay mostly anonymous.
(This is obviously an oversimplification -- not every Talker doesn't think and not every Thinker doesn't talk, and both positions can be utilized for both good and malicious purposes.)
Much of Dans' language in your interview made me see him as a Talker, which I have a tendency to quickly dismiss. I'm curious, based on your interview, where on the Talker/Thinker venn diagram you would place him. Was he the "talking head" for more policy-focused players that still remain working on Project 2025? Or was he actually more of a Thinker/key policy driver than his language would let on?
I think this is an interesting question, and would certainly be particularly poignant if Dans was the only connection between Trump and P2025. But out of 140 Trump staffers working on the project, surely some are thinkers that will put in efforts to get this off the ground, whether Dans is there or not.
And whether an admin gets P2025 off the ground or not, SCOTUS is already well on their way to building the road there, what with the striking down of the Chevron deference and granting presidential immunity. It’s disheartening to watch, that’s for sure.
We talked about this a bit in the comments on one of Sharon’s first posts on the project, particularly the difference between Dans- a UVA-trained lawyer- and Don Devine- an academic- both of whom Sharon interviewed. Neither are talkers, even if Dans has been more of a spokesperson than Devine. More noticeably, the difference is that Devine, as an academic, is a “policy wonk” in the traditional ivory tower sense: an academic who is- at his own admission, no less- not directly operating in the real world.
Dans is the much angrier, vindictive, boots on the ground policy crafter who actually believes Project 2025 is the right policy choice for America and his self-interest.
Chilling. Horrifying. May my children and grandchildren never have to ask “How could you?” We know quite enough to say no to this. Loudly.
My good friend Kelly Jensen has been writing on the book censorship beat for years at Book Riot. She recently wrote a Substack post saying Project 2025 is already here in some red states - book bans, rolling back child labor laws, and public school closures: https://wellsourced.substack.com/p/youve-already-been-living-the-project
That is true in Missouri!
Our elected officials regularly ban books, attempt to pass child labor laws, allow vouchers to defund public schools, and we have the most extreme abortion law with no exceptions unless you are actively dying. We have had an R supermajority for 20 years, and have no D’s in statewide office. We are the canary in the mine. But we are not giving up.
To be clear, I am not villainizing one party. This is what happens when we don’t have two healthy parties to balance each other. This is what complete control looks like.
Sounds very much like South Dakota. We had 12 D's in the last legislature! The state is rewriting the history curriculum to go in affect in 2025 with guidelines from some ultra conservative college by Noem's directive. Strict abortion laws. Noem is banned from the 9 tribal lands because she claimed cartels from the border were infiltrating the reservations!!
All I want is the South Dakota like we used to have where we send Democrats to Washington but can have a Republican Governor (Gov. Mickelson comes to mind).
This reminds me of what's been going on in Tennessee with its Republican supermajority. On April 03, 2024, Istvan Kiss, a representative from the Danube Institute (an Orban-friendly think tank), was invited to speak to Tennessee's Senate.
Here is a video of Kiss' speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP6fJtHRAA8.
It's interesting that he named the hotel where he was staying and invited senators to come visit and speak with him.
Also, Kiss gave condolences for those gunned down in the Covenant shooting (which took place the week before).
Ten days after the shooting and three days after the speech, in the lower chamber, two Black men -- Rep Justin Jones and Rep Justin Pearson -- were ousted from the Tennessee legislature for protesting. What were they protesting? The lack of gun control in the great state of Tennessee.
I'm not saying the speech and the ousting are directly connected. Their timing, though, reflects the politics of Tennessee's legislature.
Thank you for sharing that. I knew about the shootings, the Justins, and Gloria Johnson. But I did not know about Orban’s influence. I will watch for that in MO.
“Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.”
Maybe this is bluff, but why does everything need to be a threat? Is this strongman appeal? I mean, if Trump and P2025 were not linked, how would he have the power to make Dans step down?
I wondered about his "it will not end well for you comment" too. It's obviously meant to sound like a threat. I wonder what communication behind the scenes is like and how potentially confusing and frustrating it must be for Project 2025 people.
Just like "We will have a bloodless 2nd revolution if the left allows it to be bloodless."
Two things I took from that statement:
1) Bend the knee and let us do whatever we want or else there will be violence.
2) And this is the most important, what does he mean by the left? He means anyone who doesn't agree with him 110% of the time. Similar to how staunch conversatives that aren't Trump sycophants are now labeled RINO's.
Great point about how does he define "the left." Liz Cheney is a perfect example.
"... If the left allows it to be..."
I also found those words chilling and threatening.
I found that wording to be bizarre as well… so threatening!
Are people really naïve enough to think this “distancing” puts an end to real threat of an extreme conservative agenda? Trump is strictly an opportunist, willing to do and say whatever necessary to feed his ego and push the agenda that will best serve his own power and wealth. He’s a liar that lies. We’re supposed to believe him now?
If it's not Trump it will be someone else. These people are patient. They will keep infiltrating churches school boards, local government, state government on up. We who do not want an authoritarian government need to be vigilant everywhere.
Just had my brother-in-law bring this up last night when I was speaking with my sister about Project 2025. So yeah, there are those who will convince themselves that Trump is an honest and godly man.
People believe what they want to believe. And right now, life is so difficult on so many fronts that people will take the flimsy word of those who've lied to them before because confronting the truth is discomforting and hard.
What do you think of Vance writing the forward for Roberts’ new book? It was at the end of the AP article when this news broke. I wonder if he regrets it now??!!
Since 2016 I’ve been saying this about Trump: he doesn’t want the job. He just wants the title, the perks, and takes all the credit in the end. He lets everyone else do the work and in this case Project 2025 is their playbook. He can denounce it, deny it, pretend he knows nothing about it all he wants. I don’t believe him or his campaign spokespeople.
Chilling to learn more about Project 2025, the underlying energy behind it AND as another example of where lies continue (who's connected, who's not, etc...). The scarcest part to me is that a group of people, probably way more than will admit, actually believe this is a good thing! I remember Sharon saying many of these types of extreme actions are fear-based and how this gives people some kind of justification to double down on their approach. My hope is that not even a few parts live on, but as Ashley notes above, SCOTUS does seem to be building the road there, at least partially.
Thank you, Sharon for shedding light on the fact that Project 2025 is not gone, but just distanced from Trump (in word, only) to try to gain favor from voters. I truly hope people research this to realize the ideals in this document are not going anywhere, especially if he wins the election. Also, kudos to this anonymous person who spoke about the details!
Trump will say anything to get people to come to his side and vote for him and then reverts right back to his true colors. His chameleon-like positions change so fast it’s impossible to keep up without experiencing whiplash. He is a dangerous entity at this point because he is losing his grip.
His only real convinctions are about what benefits him. Everything else, he is fluid on.
I just reread some of your earlier articles on 2025. I noticed that the language and framing used is very similar to what one would hear on Fox especially in describing teachers and federal workers on generally anyone who might disagree with their world view. It leads me to think that there is a significant portion of the public who would support most of what's in the document and are likely to be motivated voters. There are also a number of people who never heard of project 2025. I wonder what public sentiment is.
I meant to say the framing used in the document itself and not what you wrote about it.
I’m in a Republican controlled state, Texas. Trust me, it’s already happening here.
Has anyone watched "Bad Faith" on Tubi (free) or Prime Video? The beginning of Christian Nationalism started in the 1980's (the Reagan administration) and certain talk radio hosts. I can name one, Rush Limbaugh. The man behind the movement is Paul Weyrich. He co-founded The Heritage Foundation,[5] the Free Congress Foundation, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and coined the term "moral majority," the name of the political action group Moral Majority that he co-founded in 1979 with Jerry Falwell. The seeds have just kept growing from there.