Originally published at: Trump’s Chaos Draws Directly From Project 2025
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation. In his first few days back in office, President Donald Trump engaged in a whirlwind of executive actions, from exiting the World Health Organization, to deploying military personnel and National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.…
Petulant, scattershot, unrepentant, self-righteous, immature, reckless, dangerous.
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This requires only one comment -
Well, duh. We all saw this coming.
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As someone who studies these places, Mr. Albert, why are there never any defections or tell-all books about what goes on in the tank? Seems like there would be a ripe book market for defectors. Is it all about the money? Or loss of social status? NDAs? I keep thinking there must be a sub-group within these right wing institutions that chafes under the big intellectual lie of climate change denial. When will they surface?
Heritage was pretty public but it’s AFPI’s blueprint that laid down many of the specific operational markers and mostly on the QT too; e.g., that big wad of executive orders came out of the gate really fast didn’t they, just like they were ready made (but not necessarily by Heritage).
"It feels like we are watching a game of national Jenga; a piece gets removed daily and all we can do is wait to see when and where it falls." – AnonymousFounded by three wealthy Texans in late 2020, the group, known as A.F.P.I. [America First Policy Institute], has quickly inserted itself into nearly every corner of Mr. Trump’s political machine, and is closer than any other outside player in his planning for a second term.
Mr. Trump chose one of its leaders, Linda McMahon, a former member of Mr. Trump’s cabinet and a longtime friend, as co-chair of his official transition team. ...
Like Project 2025, the institute developed a plan for staffing and setting the policy agenda for every federal agency, one that prioritizes loyalty to Mr. Trump and aggressive flexing of executive power from Day 1. ... A.F.P.I. has already drafted nearly 300 executive orders ready for Mr. Trump’s signature should he win the election. ...
“It [America First Policy Institute] understood what Heritage [Foundation] didn’t: Transition work is always best kept very quiet,” said Heath Brown, a professor of public policy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who studies presidential transitions. ...
– NY Times (10/24/2024)
That feeling needs to change; now. If it doesn’t then public reaction to the massacres is not going to matter much. American politics and reportage thereon has been treated as spectator sport for quite long enough,
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There’s always been a huge missing piece to Project 2025
What is the objective?
All the stupid shit Diaper Don is doing, all the chaos, the shuttering of the Dept of Education, pulling out of the WHO, Paris Climate Accord, etc are all tactics. But what is the point? What are they all leading to? What is the objective.
All the mindless nattering fools in the media keep repeating the same thick regurgitation by saying that Project 2025 “advances the conservative agenda.” At best that’s a strategy, but it’s not the objective, the overall goal.
So what is the overall goal? That’s not stated in Project 2025 because I believe if it had been included Fat Donnie would be in a prison cell right now. That objective is the reason they freaked the fuck out and refused to talk about it seriously.
I think the objective is obvious - a complete overthrow of democracy to be replaced by a theocratic regime in the image of Iran. A state that derives its powers not from the consent of the governed, but from those already in control. Thus the economy would be controlled by the handful of men who already own 50% of the wealth, while society would be controlled by religious leaders, who already control the way their people think and behave.
Those of us who refuse to go along, will be deemed unnecessary.
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All Trump needs to know about Project 2025 is many folks will be hurt and maybe deaths.
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And just to let everyone get calibrated as to the harm this is causing the US, Canadians are absolutely, thoroughly and completely motivated to resist this dipshit, with literally everyone I’m in contact with asking how to make sure that they don’t buy US products, Boycotts are absolutely the way to go. Someone has even thrown up a website that lets folks confirm that the thing they’re looking to buy doesn’t originate from a US company.
Now, some flex is being allowed - Costco has an excellent reputation here, what with its willingness to preserve its DEI initiatives, grant its employees a living wage, etc but the website I mention still lets folks opt out of buying anything from them that originates from the US.
And this reaches deep, deep into the culture. My local supermarket sends me a weekly “Buy This!” email, and today’s was all about “How to make sure you aren’t buying American”. TSF just cut the US off from a pretty well off 40 million person market with his bullshit! 
Is it just me, or is this dipshit truly, truly stupid? 
(That reminds me - time to order more “rolled eyes” emojis…)
And for the record, here’s how you check if it’s Canadian, from another country or from the “Eveel Umpire” to the south…
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Of course it does, they are the ones writing out his paper masturbations.
For your Trump II/Project 2025 research, an LLM filled with…well check it out for yourself. Ask it to timeline the “180-Day Plan” by week. Make sure you’re sitting down. The Trump II/Project 2025 GPT