Project 2025

On July 3 the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, said that the U.S. is “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

Roberts and the Heritage Foundation (a staunchly conservative right-wing think-tank) have been increasingly visible over the last month or so — and especially since the nightmare debate on June 28 — as more and more of the public becomes aware of Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project, an initiative of the Heritage Project (website project2025.org).

At the core of Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation’s book, “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” an 887-page comprehensive collection of conservative policy proposals. Published last year and billed as a ninth edition, the book is a rewrite of the Heritage Foundation’s 1980 manual by the same name (a free PDF version is currently available at tinyurl.com/Project2025Book).

The intent of “Mandate” is to position Donald J. Trump — should he be re-elected in November — to move with unprecedented speed to essentially replace our democracy with an authoritarian Christian state, starting on day one: January 20, 2025.

The Project 2025 advisory board, listed in “Mandate,” includes 53 organizations, including Liberty University and three hate organizations identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

Though Donald Trump has denied knowing anything about Project 2025, the authors, contributors, and board are packed with Trump allies — and hyper-conservative Virginians including former attorney general Ken Cuccinelli and a member of the transition team for Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R).

I will write more about the specific policies outlined in “Mandate” more in the weeks to come.
What Project 2025 does with “Mandate” — and what the conservatives have done to some degree at least since Reagan — is deploy textbook manipulation tactics. Human communication has been around for hundreds of thousands of years. Though psychology, like any scientific field, is constantly evolving, the fundamental tactics of manipulation are pretty well-defined.

Love Bombing and False Flattery: claiming that their supporters are the only true patriots (or “real people,” which the book implies liberals are not on page four), an overwhelming focus on motherhood.
Projection, Gaslighting, Diversion, and Blame Shifting: presenting a totalitarian view as a democratic response to a foil. Claiming January 6 was a peaceful protest, while screaming about a “woke mob” that doesn’t exist. Whataboutism to a pathological degree. Yes, the border has issues, but most people coming over are families, not criminals — and with unemployment at a record low, is the border really to blame for our current economic woes?

What is often overlooked is how the digital age has affected human interaction. In nearly every fundamental aspect of our lives — media, shopping, dating, news, friendships, working, etc. — the digital age has snapped our attention to new online formats. Though the whiplash is still fresh, the effects are starting to come into focus.

Working from home is great — but some are more motivated by being in the office than they realized, and less friendships are formed between coworkers. Free online news is great, but AI is cheapening content while disinformation runs rampant, while community newspapers shutter. News channels regularly run the “Breaking News” chyron, pressured to keep viewers’ attention for advertising revenue. Automated spam and political warfare bombards our social media, text messages, voicemails, and inboxes — causing many to change or abandon accounts, or stop looking entirely. Incessant rage bait, AI-generated images, amateur memes, and viral disinformation regularly confuse and trick the unsuspecting and elderly. “Dating apps,” according to Psychology Today, “are a breeding ground for dark personalities.” Amazon is the ultimate in convenience, but Main Streets around the world are suffering.

Technology has also brought with it abusive credit cards, predatory lending, astronomical healthcare costs, rising obesity and suicide and gun violence, and increased hate-fueled violence and extremism.
The hard truth is… well, we’re a big part of our own problems. Corporate greed only works with customers, right? I’d love to buy local every time, but I often cave and instead choose overnight delivery with the click of a button while in my pajamas.

But the thing is, we all have to eat and sleep to survive (and to function in society, work and wear clothes and use transportation) — and in any given place there are only so many options. Faced with choices, we typically go with the most convenient or least expensive options. Employers try to pay less, employees want to get more. There are some things that will absolutely happen without regulation.

Not behind society’s problems, however, are kids using the bathroom they feel safe in, or a drag queen reading “The Little Caterpillar” to a bunch of toddlers (and parents).

Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, begins “Mandate” with a 17-page foreword, called “A Promise To America,” where among other things he says:

“Inflation is ravaging family budgets, drug overdose deaths continue to escalate, and children suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries.”
One of those things is not like the others.