Here’s the thing about “Project 2025”
For months now we’ve been hearing about something called Project 2025. It’s increasingly being portrayed as the secret evil genius master plan that’s going to allow Donald Trump to magically do whatever he wants in 2025. I haven’t bothered to write about Project 2025, because it’s really not anything. But since I keep getting panicked questions about it, let’s talk about what’s really going on heare.
In a nutshell, Project 2025 is a plan whereby Trump becomes President in 2025 and then replaces a bunch of government officials with loyalists. That’s it, really. It’s pretty much just what everyone already knows Trump would do if he ever retook power. There’s no magic wand aspect to it. It’s just a fancy name for Trump being his power-mad self, for the benefit of corrupt right wingers like the Heritage Foundation.
So why is this being portrayed as such a big scary deal? Because right wing leaders want it to be seen as a big scary deal. This isn’t some secret evil plan. It’s a publicly announced strategy. They even have their own official website. The entire point is to scare the living hell out of you, so that you’ll think Trump and the right wing have a magic wand for taking over in 2025, so you won’t bother to put in any effort to win in 2024. It’s the same old trope that drives everything right wingers do: if they can convince you that you’re going to lose no matter what, why would you bother trying to fight and win?
Of course the major media outlets (including your “friends” at MSNBC) never pass up an opportunity to try to scare the living hell out of you for the sake of boosting ratings. So they’re naturally playing up Project 2025 as if it’s a secret evil genius master plan that means we’re all doomed, because that’s the most surefire way to keep you glued to your screen.
What you have to understand is that “Project 2025” itself isn’t the strategy. It isn’t anything different than what Trump was already doing the last time he was in power. The strategy for right wingers is to hype “Project 2025” as a secret evil genius plan that’s going to work no matter what, knowing that the media won’t be able to resist overhyping it for ratings, which will make all of you too petrified and pessimistic to even bother putting in the work required to get President Biden reelected.
What’s the solution? Stop panicking. Stop cowering. Stop gullibly playing right into the hands of people like Trump and the Heritage Foundation, who are trying to get you to stupidly run around and hype “Project 2025” as if it means we’re all doomed and all hope is lost. In short, stop acting as their publicist.
Will Trump do terribly corrupt and abusive things if he ever gets back into power? Of course he will. There’s no code name or secret plan required for that. Also, when right wingers do have a secret plan up their sleeves, the key word there is “secret.” They don’t make a website and advertise it. When they do that, it’s just so plainly obvious that they’re trying to get you to panic yourself into paralysis, so you’ll give up and presume you’re going to lose, instead of trying to win.
I’ll put it another way: if you don’t want “Project 2025” to happen, then step one is to stop sitting around fretting about it, which accomplishes nothing. Step two is to put in the work to make sure President Biden wins in 2024, which would ensure the demise of any “Project 2025.”
In fact, come to think of it, let’s stop talking about Project 2025 and instead start talking about Project 2024: the plan where we volunteer and donate for the Biden 2024 campaign and amplify the Democratic Party’s messaging and win.
