Project 2025 Team Picture: NAJ screen shot

By Glynn Wilson – 

CATOCTIN MOUNTAINS, Md. – While hunkered down in the mountains at the presidential retreat of Camp David last week preparing president and candidate Joe Biden to “debate” Republican challenger Donald Trump, what appears in retrospect to be a bad plan that went horribly awry, some members of the Biden campaign came up with another plan to help Biden get reelected.

Hours before the so-called “debate” on Thursday, the Biden campaign launched a website targeting Project 2025, a policy and staffing playbook assembled by allies of former President Donald J. Trump, first thought up by conservatives at the Heritage Foundation think tank and supported by dozens of aligned groups.

It proposes an overhaul of the federal government under a new Republican administration that would fundamentally change the United States of America from a democratic Republic into a crypto-fascist dictatorship overnight, although none of the groups admit that’s the actual purpose of the plan. They couch it in terms about a different kind of democracy, one that favors white nationalism and infuses Christianity into every department of government at all levels and every aspect of American life – literally destroying the wall of separation between church and state the founders insisted was necessary. The First Amendment’s establishment clause on freedom of religion was meant to protect all forms of worship, not just Christianity.

“Project 2025 is the plan by Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican allies to give Trump more power over your daily life, gut democratic checks and balances, and consolidate power in the Oval Office if he wins,” the opening statement says. “Trump’s campaign advisors and close allies wrote it – and are doing everything they can to elect him so he can execute their playbook immediately.”

According to initial breaking news coverage in the New York Times, which got lost in all the negative publicity about Biden’s halting performance, Project 2025 is not Trump’s official platform. His campaign instead points to Agenda47, which focuses on substantially curtailing immigration, reducing government regulations and encouraging economic growth by cutting taxes on corporations and the rich.

“But Project 2025 has nonetheless raised Democratic fears about what a second Trump term would look like,” the Times says, perhaps an understatement considering the traction the right-wing conspiracy is getting on social media.

Memes about Project 2025 have nearly taken over the Facebook pages of many Democrats and their groups, especially those who vow to back Biden for president no matter what, in spite of plans on the part of many Democrats in the government to try to urge Biden to step back and consider allowing a replacement at the party’s convention in August.

Part of the reason for the conservative plan is that right-wing policy groups were largely unprepared for Trump’s surprising and shocking victory in 2016, although the Federalist Society had been working behind the scenes for years to transform the courts, including the Supreme Court, a goal they accomplished thanks to Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Senate.

Announced in 2022, these groups had prepared a 920-page document outlining a radical transformation of the executive branch, proposing to replace many federal civil servant jobs with political appointees who would be loyal only to the president. The plan also proposes a crack down on abortion rights, a part of the plan already implemented by the conservative super majority on the Supreme Court. It would also criminalize pornography, cut climate research funding and federal regulations to protect the environment, roll back women’s rights and gay rights, and among other things, eliminate the Education and Commerce Departments and gut the Environmental Protection Agency, again, as Trump did in his term.

Sarafina Chitika, a spokeswoman for the Biden-Harris campaign, said that Project 2025 underscored the stakes of the 2024 election.

“The American people are tuning in to just how extreme and unpopular Donald Trump’s second-term playbook is — and they’re ready to stop him this November,” Chitika said in a statement.

While many of us have been anxiously waiting to see if any of the pressure on Biden might get him to consider a replacement candidate, because it was always going to be his decision along with First Lady Jill Biden, we woke up on the Fourth of July, with many anticipating a muted Independence Day celebration this year, to an email from the president himself.

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“Glynn, I know the past few days have been tough. I’m sure you’re getting a lot of questions. I’m sure many of you have questions as well,” Biden says in the email blast. “So, let me say this as clearly and simply as I can: I’m running. I’m the Democratic Party’s nominee. No one is pushing me out. I’m not leaving, I’m in this race to the end, and WE are going to win this election.”

We will see, won’t we, in November.

Then he asked for supporters to “pitch in a few bucks to help Kamala and me defeat Donald Trump in November.”

He continues: “I’ve been knocked down and counted out my whole life. I’m sure the same is true for many of you. But my father had an expression. He said, ‘Champ, it’s not how many times you get knocked down. It’s how quickly you get up’. As a country, when we get knocked down, we get back up. When we get counted out, we just work harder. That is exactly what I am going to do, and it’s what I need you to do as well.

“Just as we beat Donald Trump in 2020, we are going to beat him again in 2024. But it won’t be easy, and I need YOU behind me to get it done. Each and every one of you. This campaign is bigger than me or you. Everything we believe in, everything we stand for, and everyone we are fighting for are at risk in this election.”

He goes on to say he would not be running again “if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul that I can do this job. That I could finish the job that Kamala and I started on January 20, 2021. My word as a Biden. There is no other team I would rather go into battle with than this one. Let’s link arms and get this done.”

Project 2025

According to the Biden campaign, Project 2025 would take away reproductive freedom nationwide, a plan that is already being implemented all over the country after the Supreme Court overturned a half century of precedent and struck down Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey.

The Biden campaign says the plan is to use the presidency for revenge on Trump’s political and personal enemies, a plan that is no secret. Trump has talked about it publicly himself.

The Biden campaign says the plan basically “terminates the Constitution,” and “consolidates power in the Oval Office.” They go on to say it “guts democratic checks and balances on presidential power,” and part of that plan was also just put into place by this Supreme Court when it basically granted Trump immunity from prosecution for official presidential acts and sent the Jan. 6 case back to the lower courts to decide which of Trump’s actions of engaging in a seditious conspiracy and inciting a violent insurrection against his own government were “official” or “private” acts.

This is madness, if you actually believe in American democracy, where no one is supposed to be above the law.

The Biden camp says the plan would give handouts to the “ultra wealthy” and be “paid for by working families.”

“Where did Project 2025 come from? The highest levels of the MAGA Trump elite wrote Project 2025 as a blueprint for Trump to implement if he wins a second term,” the Biden campaign says. “This same group of advisors and allies got Trump to adopt most of their agenda in 2017, but this time their Project 2025 agenda is even more extreme and dives into almost every aspect of Americans’ daily life. And they’ll be able to accomplish it by firing civil servants and installing loyalists into the federal government to do their bidding. Fortunately, we have access to it in time to warn America and stop their power grab.”

We wrote about this plan back in November, 2023, as did the Washington Post and other news outlets. We urged people to share it all over social media. It went largely ignored at the time. Maybe people are more ready to pay attention now? We will see.

The Emerging ‘Come Retribution’ if Trump Sidesteps Jail and Gets Elected President Again

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It even has its own Wikipedia page now.

Project 2025

Oh, and before there was Project 2025, there was the Powell Memo. We wrote about that too back in 2014.

The Powell Memo Formed the Basis of A Call to Arms for Corporations

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