Recently, on social media, Donald Trump has spoken out about Project 2025. SciLight has posted about this the voluminous conservative blueprint for his putative next administration spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation with the participation of many other extreme conservative organizations and individuals. On Truth Social, Candidate Trump, in typically elliptical terms, has disavowed any knowledge of Project 2025 and also said it contains many ideas he doesn’t support.
I call this typically elliptical because Trump often opines authoritatively on issues he claims to know nothing about, and both parts of the statement can’t be true. But nevertheless, it is worth briefly considering what to make of this disavowal of essentially a platform for a second Trump Administration if that horrific possibility comes to pass.
Is Project 2025 Really a Blueprint for the Next Administration?
Well, according to many sources, even in conservative publications such as Forbes, that is certainly what it is intended to be. It was created by extremely conservative groups. It had many authors well known in conservative circles, many of whom served in or advised the first Trump administration. It was organized by many extreme conservative groups that have been working hard to put Trump back in the White House. It is so extreme that the head of the project’s leading organization has referred to the next Trump Administration as the second American revolution. So extreme that his caveat in the statement was that it would be bloodless if the “left allows it to be.” In other words, they intend violence against any opposition. How do you spell sedition again?
Leading up to every presidential election, various groups prepare recommendations for the next administration. I have been involved in such exercises multiple times. And in a few cases, some of the recommendations were acted on in some form or other by an incoming transition team or the new Administration once it is in place. A clear example is the recommendations that my SciLight colleague Jacob Carter led when we both worked for the Union of Concerned Scientists to advance scientific integrity policies following the last presidential election. I am happy to say that those recommendations did appear to influence the Biden Administration’s policies.
Prior to the start of the Trump Administration in 2016, the Heritage Foundation was also involved in putting together recommendations for an extremely conservative policy agenda. So, what makes Project 2025 different?
This time, many of the authors and promoters served in the previous Trump Administration and are likely to serve in the next. That includes the former head of the Office of Management and Budget, the former head of White House Personnel, the former Chief of Staff for the Office of Personnel Management.
This time, the positions are even more extreme. This time, Mr. Bannon’s oft-repeated call for the “destruction of the administrative state” is no longer a throwaway comment on Breitbart but seems to be an organizing principle for Project 2025. And, the former OMB chief, Mr. Vought, who is a leading figure in developing the project, is calling for infusing “Christian nationalism” into the policies of the next administration. If that happened, it would be a second American revolution indeed, tearing up the Constitution in the process.
But Should We Believe Candidate Trump and His Campaign Aren’t Connected to the Project?
As far as I can tell, using the word “believe” in any mention of comments by Mr. Trump is likely to end in tears, as the British say. It seems likely that the candidate himself isn’t really familiar with the specifics, because he never is. However, there seems to be a revolving door between Project 2025 and his campaign. Some of his campaign staff have been involved in promoting the project. The whole purpose is to be ready for a Trump presidency – and that sounds like something he would love….
So, no, I don’t believe the disavowal. And the risks are so great that a social media post saying in effect, “I know nothing” doesn’t inspire confidence. Those risks in broad strokes are:
· The destruction of the ability of federal agencies to serve the public interest
· The complete undermining of the federal civil service
· The exclusion of any but extreme conservative viewpoints in the policy process
· A president immune from accountability for the havoc wrought
· The transformation of our Constitutional Democracy into a Christian Nationalist state
And that’s not by any means a complete list.
I don’t believe Candidate Trump’s disavowal and the consequences are dire.
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