Project 2025: A Bit of Context

Is it as bad as people are saying? Is it worse? What can we do?

US voters need to keep in mind that “Project 2025” isn’t some kind of special pro-Trump conspiracy concocted just for this election cycle. The Apocalypse-seeking Dominionist/Christian Nationalist think tank propaganda mill and campaign funds laundry facility that calls itself the Heritage Foundation—and every organization like it—comes up with a detailed roadmap every four years detailing all of the little incremental and achievable ways that every tier of bureaucrat and official, elected or appointed, can help push the government closer and closer to the Evangelical Dominionist-controlled authoritarian fascist end-zone.

Project 2017 was just as detailed. And about 62% successful. That wasn't because of Trump per se. Because what did he do besides golf and hide and schmooze? He just signed stuff that was put in front of him when they could get him to concentrate and sit still.

This was the sort of stuff he signed. These were the people who drafted it and got it into his hands via his handlers. These were the people who fluffed his ego and praised him for his masterful leadership when he spelled his name close enough to right on the line at the bottom of the page.

There will be a Project 2029. And a Project 2033.

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There was a reason that prior to Reagan the GOP—annoying as they were—wanted nothing to do with the John Birch Society Libertarians, the NRA Gun Nuts, and the Religious Lunatic Fringe, and this is why:

[ waves hands around generally ]

Not even Republicans—as they existed prior to 1978 or so—wanted this fascist nightmare.

Up to then, these documents would get drafted and passed around and marked up with little humorous caricature sketches of stick figures and genitalia and thrown in the garbage where they belong. But now that current elected officials rely on these global domination death cultists for votes and campaign funds, they have to take these agendas seriously, or they'll get kicked out of their sinecures and replaced by someone who will.

Because of the money laundry part.

Because of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision specifically, unlimited amounts of dark money from all over the world can flow into their bank accounts and be distributed with glee to the campaigns of anyone greedy enough or fanatical enough to not need a Silkwood shower after being in the same room with any of their lobbyists. It's the money. Just the money.

Remember how annoying Hugo Chavez got when the price of oil was so high that Venezuela was actually wealthy, including the expensive dog-and-pony show of joint naval exercises with Russia in the Atlantic? Remember how he faded like a salted slug when the price of oil dropped again? It's just the money that makes these lunatics dangerous.

The Heritage Foundation has collected a ton of it from billionaire donors who control networks of separate funds from their paper empires so no single chunky donation stands out. The foundations aren't required to disclose their donors despite funneling cash directly into politics. We only have lists of US donors because anyone who wants a tax break for a donation has to report it to the IRS, and those records are public. We don't know what comes in from abroad, or when, or why, or who or what it is earmarked for. We only get a glimpse of how much in total when they file their own annual tax forms.

According to those forms, their permanent assets are on the order of a third of a billion $US. Lately they take in about half a billion over the course of four years and spend most of it exactly how you'd think.

And they have very close ties to the State Policy Network and the Council for National Policy, both of which you should look up when you get the free time.

And the Heritage Foundation is by no means the only one of its kind.

I'm not trying to paint these foundations as enormous unassailable giants. They're big complicated machines with many weaknesses, and some of those weaknesses are the human beings that run them, whose names are listed on public documents and whose addresses are a matter of public record, whose businesses are traded on public exchanges, whose assets are listed in public IRS filings. Whose yachts are moored at public marinas. You know what I'm saying. If we cut off the money and make the seats of control too hot to sit in, they will grind to a halt. If we make them a laughingstock, via good old satire, they will wither and rust. Just sayin'. Every giant is killable.

But we really should get to work at it before they do too much more damage.

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