Republicans are gross and weird

They really must have thought no one would read it.

I think some of those wish list items are placed in there to cut out “by reaching across the aisle” during negotiations

But for a lot of the culture war bullshit, they genuinely seemed to have fallen for their own lie about there being a “silent majority” which wanted those things

They want Saudi Arabia in America because they desire the absolute control and power the royal family in SA has over its people. The culture war bullshit is just a means to an end

Edit, case in point https://www.advocate.com/politics/mark-robinson-wife-abortion-north-carolina-republican

But there are many other examples of hypocrisy

It was fine until the SC immunity ruling. Nobody was reading the 900 page policy book, and it sounded like conspiracy theory crap to normal folk.

This was actually very clever, since there’s so much braying about conspiracy bullshit everywhere, most not-terminally-online people just react with eyerolls to anything that sounds too outrageous, which this did. Remember that the prevailing wisdom out there is that politicians are liars and both sides exaggerate to score political points, with us calling them fascists and them calling us communists, etc etc.

But then the SC came around and said Presidents get to commit crimes. This is a simple principle everyone can understand, so it can be communicated very easily, and that’s exactly what happened. And lo-and-behold, it was not an exaggeration, that is exactly what the SC said.

This made everyone take the proj 2025 thing much more seriously, turning what had been fodder for supporters and under-the-radar for everyone else into a pretty big across-the-board loss. John Roberts and his more “moderate” conservatives essentially torpedoed the Heritage Foundation. lol

The real question for future historians will be: Did he do it on purpose? Before that ruling, the nation was largely sleepwalking towards authoritarianism. Now it’s a fight, and that SC ruling was the tipping point, a bit of an “is this what you want?” sort of wakeup call. I don’t think so personally, but it’s a fun question. Either way, the two things combined into a collosal self-own for the authoritarian movement.

I worry that they felt confident laying this out because they believe the fix is in, and that no popular resistance is going to stop it.

If Harris/Walz want to pull large swaths of people to their side, all they need to do is focus on VA cuts and how anti-union it is. Have Walz pop into a could IBEW halls and outright say “this organization will cease to exist if you don’t vote out P25”.

We are absolutely BLESSED that Paul Dans, the author and architect of the 2025 plan resigned publically. I get that he was falling on his sword for displeasing his orange Lord, but for the rest of us it lent legitimacy to the document that up until then, republicans denied even existed. With his headline resignation, it just fucking CONFIRMED everything we’ve been warning people about.

Small blessings. Let us appreciate them.

The difference being that the contents were only publicly espoused by a small number of people. But Project 2025 looks like the official gameplan for the Trump Presidency. Which is far more frightening.

We’ll be lucky if he disappears for 4 years when he loses (more likely Johnson will refuse to certify election results or enough red states will claim irregularities to move to a contingent election where he wins even having significantly lost the electoral college), but there’s a 0% chance he won’t be back in 4 years to try again even if he does actually shut the hell up for 4 years after losing.

EDIT: Oh look, they’ve already started making it super-legal in battleground states: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/06/georgia-local-election-boards-allowed-withhold-vote-certification

I’d love to believe that he and his supporters would just vanish. But I don’t see them going quietly. It seems like his “first” term was a learning experience for him. With him being more prepared for a second term. He really had no clue about how to do an administration change in 2016 and was back tracking from policies immediately as soon as he won the election. Going from “Lock her up”, to it was just a campaign slogan in a couple of hours. If he loses this time. It really is the end for him and perhaps the Republicans. So they’ll be better prepared for a January 6th like event. With the Supreme Court being in his pocket.

I don’t think that they wanted to run on it. As it’s completely toxic, just appealing to a few nuts. I think it was almost supposed to be a secret game plan for after the election. But the authors couldn’t keep their mouths shut about it.