Trump 2025

Trump, who lies, denies knowledge of Project 2025, the conservative plan to Make America Bleak. “I know nothing about Project 2025,” he avowed. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal...”

If he stops speaking only to his mouthpiece media, he should be asked to specify with which abysmal parts he disagrees. And how he can disagree but "know nothing." But “journalists” are too busy ignoring the issues and calling for President Biden to withdraw, when, given his status as a convicted criminal, liar, star of the Epstein tapes, and day-one dictator, it’s Trump who should.

He can’t be unaware; attempting to distance himself from it proves the point. Several members of his inner circle are behind the Project. He and his policies are mentioned in it numerous times. Incurious, unwilling to work hard, he’ll do whatever they tell him. Because it’s over 900 pages, dense, and irreducible to cartoons, we’ll accept that he hasn’t read it.

I have. Some is anodyne proposals for streamlining government agencies. But even those are littered with Trumpic references to “Marxism,” and “wokeism.” Enormous defense spending is called for: more ships, nukes, planes, drones, missiles. No mention of paying for it. Fire transgender troops; reinstate, with back pay, those discharged for refusing vaccinations. “Eliminate Marxist indoctrination and divisive critical race theory programs...” Religious indoctrination, though: Yankee-Doodle-dandy.

“Require completion of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Department of Defense —the military entrance examination—by all students in schools that receive federal funding.” It’s reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s “Young Pioneer” schoolchildren, whom I saw during language study there.

Student loans would be privatized; forgiveness would be disallowed. The Department of Education would be dispersed and eliminated. All departments would be filled with political appointees answering directly to “the next conservative president.” To deploy the agenda quickly, Senate approval for high-level appointees would be delayed by naming “acting” leaders.

Particularly the State Department, where “large swaths of [its] workforce are left-wing... The next Administration ... should both accept the resignations of all political ambassadors and quickly reassess all career ambassadors... No one in a leadership position on the morning of January 20 should hold that position at the end of the day.” Sweep away experience. Uncritical fealty to the president is the prime directive.

NPR and PBS would be defunded, because incurious MAGAs don’t tune in. “... [E]ducation is publicly funded but education decisions are made by families.” Monies should go directly to states, with tax dollars spent on private and charter schools, “Empowering families to choose among a diverse set of education options...” Goodbye fact- and history-based public education.

At all levels, “gender” will refer only to that assigned at birth. References to “sexual orientation and gender identity,” along with equity rules, should be expunged. “The next Administration,” it says, should note “how radical gender ideology is having a devastating effect on school-aged children today—especially young girls.” How, they don’t say. Documentation, they don’t provide. “Ideology.”

As to children of low-income families, “Over a 10-year period, federal spending should be phased out and states should assume decision-making control over how to provide a quality education to [them].” Also, eliminate Head Start. Good luck, poor kids in poor red states.

The next president should “stop the war on oil and natural gas,” which isn’t a war. As with the majority of their proposals, many of which are akin to “clean air is nice,” specifics are lacking. Per its main spokesperson, that’s deliberate. Hide the darkest details before the election.

Many related regulations are to be abolished. Gone, too, are energy efficiency standards. Electric grid improvements are defunded. Climate- and energy-related initiatives are called “partisan” and “political.” Enabling red state efforts to disenfranchise Democratic constituencies, the FEC’s power would be diluted. Likewise, the EPA’s. The CDC is “the most incompetent and arrogant agency in the federal government,” it says, and the FBI is a “bloated, arrogant, increasingly lawless organization.” Also, it must stop fighting the spread of disinformation and lies. Arrogant! That there’s some ironical irony.

P2025 would gut labor protections overseen by the DOL, other than, because “God ordained the Sabbath as a day of rest,” requiring time-and-a-half pay for working on that day. (Which one?) Christianity would be prioritized everywhere. Accreditation requirements for religious colleges would be removed. “Abortion is not healthcare.” No Medicaid funds for Planned Parenthood. Ban abortifacient drugs.

The surface here is barely skimmed. There’s plenty more. The best summary of Project 2025 comes from its prime mover, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, who’d previously said its purpose is to institutionalize Trumpism. "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

Trump’s America: Submit or bleed. Voting against it is incalculably important, no matter the Democrats’ nominee.

Debatable

 

Nothing can be said about last week’s presidential debate (debacle, more like) that hasn’t already been. So I will.

Trump lied with every word, avoided questions, made weird faces and no sense. Had President Biden performed as in years past, that would have been fatal for Trump. But he didn’t and it wasn’t. I wish the “moderators” had called out Trump’s lies and diversions; more, I wish President Biden had. But they didn’t and he didn’t.

I wish President Biden had announced, a year ago, that he wouldn’t run again. He didn’t and, so far, he is. I wish Trump had been asked about Project 2025 and said how he’d implement it. He wasn’t, so he didn’t. Because it’s the blueprint for enshrining the clear threat to democracy about which Democrats have been warning since Trump promised, “I am your retribution,” not asking was journalistic dereliction. By dismantling government, protective regulations, public education, separation of church and state, minority protections and making voting harder for them, and curtailing social programs, it’s an authoritarian manifesto that serves only the wealthy.

I wish I knew who has the best chance against Trumpism’s multifaceted threats. Whether the Democrats’ nominee will be President Biden or someone else, I’ll vote for that person without reservation. So should everyone who values democracy and competent, Constitutional governance, who’d rather not live in a far-right theocracy, who thinks science and quality public education are vital to our future. Who prefers safe water, food and consumer goods, breathable air, and a livable climate.

The deba-whatever-it-was didn’t change the stakes. Instead, it confirmed that Trump should never again be within wrecking distance of the Oval Office. No matter President Joe Biden’s acuity, we know he would continue to surround himself with the kinds of experts who helped him end the pandemic, create millions of jobs, begin rebuilding infrastructure, and lots more. And we know he’d respect the law.

Based on what he’s promised, openly, and on Projectile 2025, Trump would do the opposite. First time around he chose incompetents who ended up indicted. The few competents he let slip through ended up leaving and now warn against voting for him. This time he’d replace qualified government employees with people whose only qualification is willingness to help punish the people and entities he resents.

No matter his opponent, assuring Trump’s defeat is a patriotic duty. Don’t believe me? Listen to former MAGA, current conservative Joe Walsh’s NSFW declamation. Nothing is as important. Nothing. Dead people have won elections. We could do worse.

But Trump isn’t the only threat. SCOTUS’ decision about government agencies’ regulatory authority can be summarized in Chief Justice Roberts’ own words: “... [A]gencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do.” Unless Congress spells out every regulation and future need in precise, specific detail, he ruled, experts in government agencies can’t be allowed to define them. Only judges can. They’ll decide which chemicals are dangerous, what medications you can take, whether pollution is bad or climate change is real. Time was, conservatives eschewed that kind of judicial legislating.

Another SCOTUS judgment enshrines government corruption. A bribe, they said, is an illegal gift given before the giftee takes action. The same transaction, completed after gifters get what they want, is a permitted gratuity; a tip. “I’ll do what you want. Just don’t hand me the cash until after.” By no coincidence, Trump has promised to end taxing tips. In the presidential immunity ruling, Alito and Thomas expressed their gratitude.

With no basis in the Constitution, the Roberts Court invented rules saying anything a president does is above the law if defined as an “official act.” Compare and contrast: in my surgical practice, if I made a correct diagnosis, chose the appropriate operation, and carried it out properly, if the patient had complications it’s not, to me, anyway, malpractice. If, however, I chose the wrong operation and did it carelessly, causing harm, it is, no matter how “official.”

If Trump were to accept a “gratuity” in exchange for a pardon, or one from Putin for outing embedded agents, is he “officially” immune from prosecution? Trying to overturn a legitimate, fraud-free election? Stealing critical documents and lying about it? Yes, say John Roberts and his accomplices, arrogating to themselves the power to distinguish official from non-official acts. “Total immunity,” brayed Donald the First, regally.

Could Biden have SCOTUS’ Slaughterous Six arrested now? Guess so. But they understood that’s not who he is, so, casting their gaze upon a man who’s promised dictatorial abuse of power, they told him, “Go forth and subtract.”

The only, and likely the last chance to thwart this double-team attack on democracy is to vote for every Democratic candidate everywhere, sweep both houses of Congress, and then, enlarge the Court with four honest and ethical people.

Paraphrasing Pogo, we have met the remedy and it is us.

Indictment, Shmimdictment

Tuesday’s long-awaited, overdue, thoroughly justified indictment for Trump’s crimes against the Constitution and all Americans, including conservatives, won’t change minds. Unconvinced? Then you haven’t watched interviews at his rallies. Actual quotes:

“He could murder someone on the White House steps and it wouldn’t bother me.” “He loves America. (Except for its form of government.) No president has done as much for us.” (True, if, by “us” is meant people given permission to hate the LGBTQ community, Jews, Muslims, immigrants, Democrats, and wokeness (whatever that is). “The election was stolen.” Then why is there no proof? “Because the deep state (whatever that is) covered it up.” “I don’t like Biden’s economic policies.” Which ones? “I can’t think of any right now, but...” Spoken by a finance-major president of Young Republicans. “I love his Christian values.” No examples given. “He never lies.” Said a parentally-groomed pre-teen. Truth, as they say, is still putting on its pants.

Including discussions of using the military to stay in power, little in the indictment was unknown. People able to discern facts and separate them from 24/7/666 lies recognized long ago that Trump was and remains a danger to democracy. He’s announced it, after all, promising to rid the country of “Marxists, radical leftists, and communists,” the definitions of which and distinctions between remain undefined. “Democrats,” is what he means. People who resist him. Rectifying his January 6 failure, consolidating power, he’ll eliminate fraud-free mail-in voting and all dedicated public employees, too.

Like the quoted royalists and millions of MAGAs not interviewed, those that haven’t seen through Trump’s lies never will. The results of the 2024 elections are already carved in stone. Not yet revealed, they’re nevertheless as solid as Mount Rushmore, to which Trump will add his likeness if he wins, after subtracting the liberties of half of our fellow Americans.

Which is why the happier half loves him: Their awareness of the implications is as tenuous as ten-pound line reeling a whale. Example: a recent NYT/Sienna poll indicates that ninety-one percent of Republicans who get their news from Fox "news" believe Trump has committed no crimes. His validation of their victimhood and hoped-for vengeance eclipses all else, no matter how impactful on their own lives: climate change, wealth and opportunity inequities, educated children, a healthy future for their descendants. Doesn’t matter.

Given the indicated immutability of the inevitable, let’s address other issues. Worried that Trump’s delusionals are outnumbered by Biden’s rationals, House Republicans, despite recurrent rake-stepping, lacking anything else to offer, continue to focus on clearly troubled, never White-Housed (cf: Javanka) Hunter Biden. Their latest witness, an indicted felon and, unrelated, former partner of H. B., offered testimony that deflated every claim of collusion with and bribery of President Biden. No problem: Republicans simply claimed the opposite. And why not? Amplified by their disinformative media, it works.

Grabbing opportunity like Trump does genitalia, they claimed testimony of several phone calls between father and son after the death of son and brother proves perfidy. In the party of family values, family supporting family through tragedy is, evidently, unimaginable. 

Remember when, pre-insurrection, Trump wanted to order the US military to attack protesting US citizens, but was thwarted by generals who believed in the Constitution? Senator Tuberville (R-Football) is currently blocking military promotions at the general officer level. Could it be collusion with Trump to allow him to appoint ones who’d agree to command what would amount to a dictator’s private army? Michael Flynn, maybe?

Not unrelated is Trump’s increasing disparagement of Ukraine, attended by his followers’ increasing support for Russia. A quid for another round of Putin’s pro-Trump election quo?

Undaunted by serial investigatory fiascos, House Republicans are still talking impeachment of President Biden. Clueless, impervious to embarrassment as House Democrats meticulously stripped credibility from each of their previous witnesses, they might still realize what will happen if they go through with it. Let’s hope not. Their speculative accusations, still free of credible proof, will be shredded by Democrats and the witnesses they call. Like Rudy Giuliani’s former go-fer, Lev Parnas, who has intimate knowledge of the falsehood of Republican mythology of Burisma/Biden/Biden bribery, and has said so. Oh, please don’t fling Joe into the briar patch! 

Re-speaking of climate change, about the daily record-breaking planetary heat of which leading Republicans have said, “It’s called summer,” here’s what to expect if they take charge: “Project 2025,” likely backed by their flagitious fossil fuel financiers, would “block expansion of the electrical grid...; slash funding for the EPA...; shutter the Energy Department’s renewable energy offices; prevent states from adopting California’s car pollution standards; and delegate more regulation of polluting industries to Republican state officials.” 

It covers undoing limits on presidential power, too. You have to really hate democracy and not care about your children and grandchildren to be okay with that. Which, as we’ve seen, perfectly fits the “MAGA” mentality.