This week we talk about the Heritage Foundation, Agenda 47, and the Democrats in turmoil

We also discuss Christian Nationalism, France’s surprising election outcome, and authoritarianism.

Recommended Book: Filterworld by Kyle Chayka

Transcript

The world is awash with interesting elections this year—there are a record number of people participating in democratic activities, from Indonesia to the EU's 27 governments—and we've just seen the UK's citizenry topple their long-governing Conservative Party in favor their Labour Party, while in France, the far-right party, which was previously relegated to the outskirts, has taken a huge number of parliamentary seats—not dominating the government as some had anticipated, but grabbing a convincing third place, after the first place far-left party, and the current government's second-place, none of which has a majority, which will likely make it difficult for anyone to get anything done in the country until some of these groups figure out a way to work together with each other, which isn't something they've had to do in recent history.

The US election, which arrives later this year, in November, is being especially closely watched by pretty much everyone, even those in far-flung, barely connected to the US, in a practical sense, portions of the world, because the stakes are very high—the US remains the most powerful nation on the planet according to most metrics, and it sets the tone for a lot of geopolitical happenings, as a consequence. It's also being watched because the visions of the two leading contenders, and their respective parties, couldn't be more different.

We've also seen a recent wave of pushback against current President Biden, who's 81 years old, currently, and who has been showcasing some of the consequences of age in a very public manner in recent weeks: perhaps most notably during a debate with his opponent, former President Trump, in late June.

Biden seemed visibly not well during that debate, stumbled and mumbled and lost his train of thought near-constantly, and this brought to the forefront a till-then simmering discontent with his advanced years, and all the potential ramifications of those advanced years, when it comes to running a country like the US, from supporters within his own party.

At the moment, as of the day I'm recording this at least, Biden is saying he'll remain the Democratic candidate and that those murmurings will die down, because that was just a bad night, and he's committed to regaining everyone's confidence.

But there are folks within his loyalty base, including those on the editorial board of the New York Times, and some of his most prominent campaign funders, who have called for him to step aside to make way for someone younger who can continue to carry the torch for the things he's done while in office.

It's time to allow someone like his VP, Kamala Harris, or possibly someone else from within the party, though Harris seems like the obvious choice for many reasons right now, to step in while there's still time to shift the narrative and get people used to the idea of someone else leading the ticket—that's the dominant argument right now, at least.

It's anyone's guess as to whether that'll happen—some prediction markets indicate the odds are something like 33-50% that the Dems will oust Biden somehow, or that he'll step aside willingly, but that would be a significant and historical decision, and it's likely that if it happens, up until the very last moment he'll continue to say he's running, because there would be no upside to doing otherwise.

Interestingly, though, while Biden-related drama has dominated a lot of headlines and airwaves in recent weeks, Trump has had his own, currently smaller, but possibly growing drama to deal with, this one related to a manifesto of sorts written by a collection of some of his most powerful and influential backers.

And that's what I'd like to talk about today: the Project 2025 plan, what's in it, and why Trump has been going out of his way to distance himself from it.

—

Donald Trump's official proposal package—the jumble of policy ideas most campaigns put together and publish as a sort of "here's what we believe and what we'd like to do" document that they can point while running for office—is called Agenda 47, and as tends to be the case with these sorts of documents it contains all sorts of ideas about all sorts of things, including but not limited to implementing universal tariffs on all imported foreign products while lowering taxes on all American people and businesses, cutting federal funding for any school or educational program that teaches Critical Race Theory, increasing the President's ability to fire whomever they want, and negotiating an end to Russia's invasion of Ukraine within the first 24 hours of Trump stepping into office.

Some of these policies were met with general, widespread favor, like implementing term limits on Congresspeople and keeping federal employees from taking jobs with the companies they regulated while working for the government, both of which could tamp down on various sorts of corruption and regulatory capture by business entities.

Others were met with general happiness with folks on the right side of the US political spectrum, like cutting federal expenses, killing off policies that allow gender affirming care, and labeling news entities that don't toe the political line, saying anything that goes against what Trump's people say, basically, as misinformation or disinformation.

Still other policies have been criticized even by some people on the right because they basically seem to serve Trump's desires, but don't necessarily align with the broader movement's ambitions—giving Trump the ability to investigate and potentially imprison his political enemies and folks in the press who say things he doesn't like, for instance.

Agenda 47 was getting a lot of promotion from Trump and his campaign up to the early months of 2023, when they were still releasing video clips of Trump talking about specific aspects of these policies, but following that last push, they seemed to step away from it, apparently deciding it was better to keep their specific policy ideas vague—as otherwise their opponents, and the press, could call them out on specifics, and in some cases because their own people wouldn't like something they were proposing, and keeping things fuzzy allowed them to talk around those ideas in the moment: it's much more difficult to criticize and critique if a campaign doesn't say anything concrete, and seems like they're willing to bend on just about everything they do say, depending on who they're talking to.

That pivot toward a blurrier vision of the future of the country seems to be part of why Trump's campaign has been trying to distance itself from another policy document—this one called Project 2025, and penned by folks working with the conservative think-tank, the Heritage Foundation.

Trump even went so far as to say, unprompted, that he didn't know anything about it, the former President posting on the Twitter-clone he partially owns, Truth Social, "I know nothing about Project 2025. 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. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them."

This statement—as has been pointed out by numerous in-the-know political analysts—is riddled with let's call them fabrications.

More than 200 of Trump's former officials and current campaign employees and allies have worked on elements of Project 2025, and the Heritage Foundation, and many of the people who run or are otherwise aligned with it, are his biggest donors: he knows these people, hangs out with them, relies upon them for campaign funds and to rally his base, and many of his policies from when he was in office, including some of his statements and other specific details, were proposed and even written by folks at the Heritage Foundation.

So while there's a chance that Trump genuinely doesn't know anything about this document or the people who wrote it, that would imply he's either so far disconnected from his campaign and the administration he ran while in office that he can barely be said to have been in office at all, or he's so far gone mentally that he actually can't remember, in which case his state of mind would arguably be the bigger scandal here.

Assuming that he does know about this document and who's pushing it, though, it makes sense that he might want to distance himself from it, in part because of that aforementioned strategy of keeping things blurry enough that everything's deniable, and in part because of what it is: 900-plus pages of plans for installing what most independent analysts are calling some version of an authoritarian regime, or a Christian Nationalist kingdom, in the United States.

It proposes doing this rapidly, providing instructions for how Trump could whip into office following a 2024 election victory, and within 180 days or so basically restructure the whole of the government so that he would wield near-absolute power, do away with the systems of checks and balances that could prevent him from doing whatever he wants, and would thus be able to implement the Heritage Foundation's far-right, fundamentalist Christian-oriented plans.

The document doesn't mention Trump specifically, because the Heritage Foundation is technically a non-profit, and thus can't be directly, demonstrably involved in supporting one political party or another, lest it lose that tax-free status.

And in the eyes of the folks writing these policies—many of whom have been involved in past administrations, and who thus have a solid understanding of how the government works and how to get things done within that system, this isn't an instruction manual for an overthrow or gutting of the democratic system, it's a battle plan for good, Christian soldiers who want to see their country revert to its (in their minds) Christian roots, after generations of straying from path.

To most non-partisan, outside analysts though—folks who know what they're looking at with this sort of thing—Project 2025 amounts to a guide, specifically aimed at Trump and his people, for how they can enter the White House, post electoral victory, strip the system of any means it has of fighting him and his whims, and systematically wipe out all opposition, including those within the government, but also political opposition, journalists, and other outside entities that typically serve as a check on those in power.

And they've done this, seemingly at least, because they see Trump as their way into government.

Christian Nationalist political candidates, with rare exceptions, don't win many elections, and when they do, they're often successfully challenged in the next election. This approach to governance would allow them to bypass the democratic system and take control of the reins of government, and that, in turn, would allow them to work their version of fundamentalist Christianity into US federal law; to reshape law in their preferred image.

Again, this is a more than 900-page document, so there are a large number of policy proposals and plans, but they almost all orient around implementing fundamentalist Christian ideology as law, including banning all types and methods of abortion and contraception, criminalizing the production and consumption of pornography, removing protections for groups that have been traditionally discriminated against, including people of color and folks from the LGBTQ+ community, and removing the separation of church and state, making the US, formally and in a legally binding and enforceable way, a Christian nation.

These plans would allow Trump's administration to essentially get rid of the so-called "administrative state," do away with a slew of government bodies and agencies, including the Department of Education, while also allowing the Republican Party to take full, partisan control of the Department of Justice, the FBI, the FCC and FTC, and the Department of Commerce by firing everyone and replacing the whole of these agencies with people hired based on their ability to pass ideology and loyalty tests, and they would do away with the Department of Homeland Security and other bodies that have been keeping an eye on right-wing extremist militias and other groups that the Heritage Foundation considers to be freedom fighters, not terrorists.

They would use the military to round up undocumented immigrants, placing them in interment camps, while also having soldiers act as police, to keep folks from protesting as their plans are implemented, the government gutted and public servants replaced by people who are Trump and Heritage loyalists; those soldiers instructed to use violence to keep protests from arising and spreading.

The National Guard in red states, those that consistently vote Republican, would be deputized as immigration enforcement officers and deployed to blue states, those that consistently vote Democrat.

These policies advise doing away with renewable energy programs and projects, protecting the fossil fuel industry indefinitely, and incentivizing the production of more oil and gas and coal, while making the production of more wind, solar, and similar types of energy nearly impossible.

They want to restart nuclear weapons testing programs, build a lot more nukes, and only extend the US nuclear umbrella, which is the country's promise to basically use nukes to protect sovereign, allied nations from invasion and being nuked, to NATO countries, and to only respect the US's NATO responsibilities for NATO nations that spend at least 2% of their GDP on their military.

There are guidelines for how to privatize essentially everything, and for removing the government's power to influence or regulate the free market almost entirely. It would do away with most social programs, and taxes would be reformed to dramatically reduce those applied to businesses and wealthy people, while also reforming how congress works so that increasing taxes in any amount and for any reason is a lot more difficult, in the future, creating what they call a "wall of protection" for businesses and the wealthy to whom these reductions would apply.

Again, that's just a brief cross-section of what this document calls for, but I think it gets the general point across.

And the response to this document has been telling, as some sub-section of the country has been positively thrilled by it, considering most of its tenets to be obvious and wonderful, and seeing the blitzkrieg-like implementation of these policies, whipping into Washington DC alongside Trump, passing as many of these things as possible within mere weeks of his inauguration, to be one of the most beneficial things that could happen to the US—a country that they, almost universally, see as a failing, flailing state that has wandered too far to the left, been taken over by the secular and woke, and which has thus lost what made it great to begin with.

The opposite response is that of concern and even horror that something like this is being considered, and that it's being so brazenly and publicly proposed by some of the most politically powerful people in the country.

When Trump first came into office, he was seemingly unprepared for the task, and a significant portion of his time in the White House was spent just getting his government set up—something that by some estimates never really, fully happened.

And part of the idea here is that the Heritage Foundation is offering to do all that work for him, having handpicked and trained people for this task for years, giving him a pop-up government from day one, that would, in practice, make him something closer to a monarch than a President, and all he has to do is say yes, and allow them to implement their vision for America through his administration.

In doing so, in the tradeoff, he would be empowered to take revenge on the people he believes have wronged him: and there's apparently a list of such people—his former Chief Strategist Steve Bannon recently said, on a podcast, that the former President is "dead serious" about getting revenge on his enemies, especially political opponents and members of the media he feels have mistreated him.

Former US National Security Council Adviser under Trump, Kash Patel, on the same podcast episode where Bannon made that threat, said “We will go out and find the conspirators—not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.”

It's worth mentioning here, too, that the leader of the Heritage Foundation, on Steve Bannon's podcast, the War Room, recently said that the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity, which is broadly seen as favorable to Trump's position in the various court cases he faces, will reinforce a "second American Revolution," which he says will "remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be."

The unconcealed implication being that the right, under Trump's banner and with the support of Heritage and similar groups, is launching a revolution, intending to remake the American government in their image, and if the left, their political opponents, stand in their way at the ballot box, keeping them from doing this peacefully, physical violence may be necessary.

The ruling he was alluding to, which said the US president couldn't be prosecuted for things done while in office, while working on presidential things, would allow Trump, if he returns to office, to get away with just about anything, as long as he could say he was doing it as part of his job.

So the argument is that these Project 2025 plans could be implemented relatively easily, as long as Trump is willing to do a bunch of illegal stuff, which wouldn't be illegal because he would be president, and could systematically strip the government of its ability to fight back—its authoritarian immune system—all while enjoying that legal protection.

The degree to which this will matter, in the immediate future, at least, comes down to who wins at the ballot box in November, though there's a good chance Heritage will continue to push this agenda in the future, as well, either way.

Leading up to the election, Trump may successfully convince those who don't like these policies and the movement behind them that it's nothing to do with him, and that he'll be doing his own thing if and when he returns to office.

The heat may also stay on Biden, or whomever replaces him, if someone ultimately does, stepping in for him on the Democrat's ticket.

In that latter case, the Project 2025 people have said they will hold up the election and nomination process if Biden decides to step down, flooding the zone with lawsuits and other legal challenges in order to keep the Democrats from focusing on the election and the issues they'd like to keep at the forefront of the conversation. So there's a chance this group could influence the election from that angle, as well.

It's possible, of course, that Trump will genuinely push back against this group, rather than just seeming to, as Heritage, in many ways, would become a second power loci within the government, challenging his own power even as they position him as a figurehead for their activities.

They would reinforce his position, grant him new powers, and thus allow him to pursue whatever agenda he likes—include a revenge tour, if he so chooses—and that could prove to be too compelling to ignore, but he could also resent their support, realizing that they hold a lot of cards he doesn't hold, and that could keep him from fully embracing their vision and offerings, maybe giving them a little leeway, but otherwise doing his own thing.

Again, at the moment, Trump seems to be distancing himself from a group that's pitching broadly unpopular policies that the majority of the US electorate would not support, and there's a chance he'll continue to distance right up to the moment he has the presidency again, at which point he could allow Heritage to partially or fully move forward with their plans.

All of this is very new, though, and in addition to it not being clear that Heritage's theories on how to change the government would work, it's also not clear Project 2025 would be implementable, even most of it, without a majority in both the House and Senate.

So this could turn out to be an ambitious dream and nothing more than that if a lot of things don't go really well for the Republicans in November; but it could also end up sparking a huge, anti- small-d democratic movement, as well, if enough cards turn up their way, in the coming months.

Show Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_47

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation

https://www.axios.com/2024/07/05/trump-project-2025-heritage-foundation

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/18/trump-has-unveiled-an-agenda-his-own-he-just-doesnt-mention-it-much/

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/21/magazine/heritage-foundation-kevin-roberts.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/donations-surged-groups-linked-conservative-project-2025-rcna125638

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/26/what-is-project-2025-trump

https://apnews.com/article/america-first-trump-biden-russia-ukraine-policy-54080728c6e549c8312c4d71150480ba

https://thehill.com/homenews/4344065-bannon-patel-trump-revenge-on-media/

https://newrepublic.com/post/182797/steve-bannon-exposes-trump-revenge-list

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/05/donald-trump-project-2025

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/05/trump-project-2025-disavowal/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/03/heritage-foundation-trump-revolution/

https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/07/03/project-2025-trump-us-government/

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/09/19/project-2025-trump-reagan-00115811

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-seeks-disavow-project-2025-despite-ties-conservative-group-2024-07-05/

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4757210-heritage-blowback-bloodless-revolution/

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4753439-heritage-leader-second-american-revolution/

https://x.com/alaynatreene/status/1809250958251077983

https://thebulletin.org/2024/07/trump-has-a-strategic-plan-for-the-country-gearing-up-for-nuclear-war/

https://archive.ph/liWg9

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

Scott Levi, "The Bukharan Crisis: A Connected History of 18th-Century Central Asia" (U Pittsburgh, 2020)