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I saw Stewart’s show last night. Stewart states he’s not a doctor, and then proceeds to give medical opinions. 30 minutes of whining about Biden, which to be fair, included 15 seconds about how Trump is much, much worse. I think Fox calls that fair and balanced, although Stewart is funnier.

Stewart’s solution is have a convention where candidates who believe they can beat Trump give a speech, the Democrats vote on who is best, and then there is a big group hug and they all sing kumbayu and go out and beat Trump. Of course, this conveniently overlooks the fact that, to date, no other candidate has said they can beat Trump. Minor detail.

And who was it that said “I don’t belong to any organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”?

Hint: Will Rogers.

If you want real understanding what this election is about, I highly recommend this 30 minute clip from the brilliant (and very funny) John Oliver. It’s from the previous week’s show. Yes, he has problems with Biden, but he is laser focused on the real issue. It’s real education about Project 2025, Schedule F, and the bat guano crazy radical right extremists plans for America. Warning: It includes many adult words.

Everything Trump touches dies. That includes America.

Be woke.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gYwqpx6lp_s

Yes, I saw that. It alerted me to the existence of Project 2025, and motivated me to look a little further. Oliver summarized it extremely well, based on the independent reading I've done so far. As I've said before, it doesn't matter who is in the White House if they support/implement Project 2025. Biden, convict Trump, Harris, Bernie...anyone implementing those plans (especially reclassifying jobs under Schedule F) would be dooming this country to cronyism and plutocracy.

It’s real education about Project 2025

Project 2025 reminds me very much of Agenda 21.

It will be very effective it getting the base super-concerned. After all, a super-conservative group has put together a proposal to implement super-conservative policies. Progressives deeply dislike those policies in general; but now that they've been collected in a thing with a title ("Project 2025") that's identified with a specific organization, there's now a convenient label to make those policies scarier and more tangible. The conservatives used Agenda 21 (an otherwise anodyne set of UN proposals) to some effect that way, even though there was no real mechanism by which the UN writing those goals down made them any more or less likely to be implemented in any way at any level of American politics. The same is likely true of the Heritage Foundation - while they have the ability (like the UN) to give an enormous platform to any set of policy proposals, and they have some influence within domestic politics, they don't have any real mechanism for implementing it unless it's something that Trump already wants to do.

So while I think that Project 2025 can be an enormously effective tool at getting base Democrats super-riled up to donate and volunteer, I can't see that it's at all and effective issue for persuading "normies" outside of the base to change their vote.

Yes, he has problems with Biden, but he is laser focused on the real issue. It’s real education about Project 2025, Schedule F, and the bat guano crazy radical right extremists plans for America.

Interesting that you think so. In the debate, seen by 51 million people, he never mentioned it once. Didn’t even allude to it.

In the ABC interview, seen by 8 million people, he never mentioned it once.

At the meeting at the Black church last week, where there was a perfect opportunity to talk about the end of Head Start, or School lunches, or public education, he never mentioned it once.

He is not campaigning . He’s on what I will politely call “the wheelchair tour”, nothing strenuous, nothing challenging, just … nothing.

And he’s losing, bigly.

they don't have any real mechanism for implementing it unless it's something that Trump already wants to do.

But I think this is what makes Trump so dangerous. Trump doesn’t really want to do anything that doesn’t involve making money for Trump or having people shower him with accolades. Specifically, I don’t think he has much interest in actually governing.

Now in comes the Heritage Project with an actual plan for governing. They will do all the hard work of finding people to fill all of the posts that a President needs. Cabinet secretaries. Department heads. Ambassadors. Judges.

Keep in mind that the Heritage Project, along with the Federalist Society, have been wildly successful in helping Republican administrations find USSC and lower court nominees over the last two or three decades. So this isn’t anything new for them.

Of course, those people will be aligned with the Heritage Project ideas for governing. And that is exactly how they will govern unless Trump intervenes. As long as those individual appointees toss accolades on Trump from time to time, he will likely let them do what they want.

So I strongly disagree that Project 2025 would proceed only if Trump wants it to. They WILL proceed, except in places Trump stops them.

—Peter

The same is likely true of the Heritage Foundation - while they have the ability (like the UN) to give an enormous platform to any set of policy proposals, and they have some influence within domestic politics, they don't have any real mechanism for implementing it unless it's something that Trump already wants to do.

I remember how Ann Coulter set fire to Trump in a criticism and suddenly he was all over the border wall. It sure was effective, a good show and kept his voters intact.

So while I think that Project 2025 can be an enormously effective tool at getting base Democrats super-riled up to donate and volunteer, I can't see that it's at all and effective issue for persuading "normies" outside of the base to change their vote.

The border is characterized as a dog whistle for brown hordes are coming for your daughter. Replacement theory is almost mainstream. We don’t have a comparable message that appeals to the fear, desire to be safe, with food on the table, and no war.

Trump is bad worked last time, but not this time.

The border is characterized as a dog whistle for brown hordes are coming for your daughter - Lambo

---------------

Being dismissive of the security problem and financial drain on our cities resulting from Joe's open border is one of the primary reasons you guys are losing. You have lost touch with the normies.

PS - calling us racists or xenophobes or cultists for expressing these concerns doesn't help your cause one bit.

But I think this is what makes Trump so dangerous. Trump doesn’t really want to do anything that doesn’t involve making money for Trump or having people shower him with accolades. Specifically, I don’t think he has much interest in actually governing.

But he also has no interest in picking fights that don't concern him, either. He's very keen on keeping his "political capital" entirely and totally to himself and the issues he cares about.

Hence the gutting of the party platform earlier this week, much to the dismay of vast swathes of movement conservatives. Gone are the calls for any national anti-abortion measures - no federal statute banning abortion, no constitutional amendment for pre-born life. Bye-bye to planks calling for free trade, replaced by enthusiastic support for tariffs. This also included getting rid of calls for trimming down the "entitlement state," replaced by a full-throated defense of Medicare and Social Security - an express rejection by Trump's team of part of Project 2025.

Trump doesn't give a rat's patootie what Heritage wants to do with the federal government. He's not going to launch a full-scale war with the civil service just because Kevin Rogers has a fever dream about how much better life would be if the Pendleton Act hadn't passed. He's not going to try to cut popular programs like Medicare or Social Security, or stick his hand in the hornet's nest of federal abortion access, merely because Heritage thinks that would be peachy. Trump doesn't care about Kevin Rogers, and isn't going to let Kevin Rogers hijack his administration.

Trump went along with Federalist Society recommendations on judges because he doesn't care about the judiciary and because appointing conservative judges and getting rid of Roe v. Wade is something his base cared passionately about and because it didn't cost him much political capital. His base doesn't give a fork about Schedule F or the Pemberton Act, certainly doesn't want him to cut Medicare or Social Security, and absolutely doesn't want him to start criminalizing pornography. He's not wasting his favors in Congress to fulfill Heritage's vision of completely reorganizing half the cabinet agencies or repeal the Posse Comitatus Act.

Project 2025 is a fever dream wish list of the Heritage Foundation. Some of the things on it will get implemented, but only because they're things that Trump wants to do any way - things like draconian border enforcement are his core issues, and other measures like tax cuts and walking back from climate change regulation have been popular in the GOP base for decades. Eliminating the traditional - but not statutorily required - independents of DOJ and the law enforcement agencies is certainly something he has a keen interest in doing, with or without Heritage. The other stuff? Trump's not going to bother with any of that just because Heritage has some pencil-necked poindexters who think that's how government should be run.

Project 2025 is a fever dream wish list of the Heritage Foundation. Some of the things on it will get implemented, but only because they're things that Trump wants to do any way - things like draconian border enforcement are his core issues, and other measures like tax cuts and walking back from climate change regulation have been popular in the GOP base for decades. Eliminating the traditional - but not statutorily required - independents of DOJ and the law enforcement agencies is certainly something he has a keen interest in doing, with or without Heritage. The other stuff? Trump's not going to bother with any of that just because Heritage has some pencil-necked poindexters who think that's how government should be run.

At last :)
Thank you.

and absolutely doesn't want him to start criminalizing pornography.

This made me chuckle. :)

Being dismissive of the security problem

Nobody can show us there's a big security problem there, but your criminal fearless leader dropped the best package to address it. Enjoy your fear, you own it. I define a big security problem as the violent criminal rates go up, and they are descending. Logically, those coming across the border are reducing all the native crime. :)


and financial drain on our cities resulting from Joe's open border <

There's no open border and what problem is there is all due to TRUMP, and you, not leaving you out.

is one of the primary reasons you guys are losing. You have lost touch with the normies.

I'm a normie. What you really think is probably interesting, but what you do is spew talking points.

PS - calling us racists or xenophobes or cultists for expressing these concerns doesn't help your cause one bit.

Never called YOU a racist, but you know d@mn well there's a lot of MAGA racists. And, the characterization that its a dog whistle issue is apt. Even I don't like it that we aren't dealing well with what is coming across the border, but there are laws that need to be changed -which WAS HAPPENING TILL YOU PUT THE KBOSH ON IT. So enjoy it, it's all yours. And when Trump is elected enjoy seeing families ripped apart, enjoy seeing all the ruined lives.

Being dismissive of the security problem

Nobody can show us there's a big security problem there, but your criminal fearless leader dropped the best package to address it. Enjoy your fear, you own it. I define a big security problem as the violent criminal rates go up, and they are descending. Logically, those coming across the border are reducing all the native crime. :)


and financial drain on our cities resulting from Joe's open border <

There's no open border and what problem is there is all due to TRUMP, and you, not leaving you out.

is one of the primary reasons you guys are losing. You have lost touch with the normies.

I'm a normie. What you really think is probably interesting, but what you do is spew talking points.

PS - calling us racists or xenophobes or cultists for expressing these concerns doesn't help your cause one bit.

Never called YOU a racist, but you know d@mn well there's a lot of MAGA racists. And, the characterization that its a dog whistle issue is apt. Even I don't like it that we aren't dealing well with what is coming across the border, but there are laws that need to be changed -which WAS HAPPENING TILL YOU PUT THE KBOSH ON IT. So enjoy it, it's all yours. And when Trump is elected enjoy seeing families ripped apart, enjoy seeing all the ruined lives.

Logically, those coming across the border are reducing all the native crime. :) - Lapsody

-------------

See right there, illegals coming here and taking jobs that should go to citizens. If I am going to be assaulted or burgled, I have a right to be a victim of a crime perpetrated by a fellow citizen. end of story.

Nobody can show us there's a big security problem there...

Regardless of the actual murderers and rapisists - and I, like you, believe those are fewer or the same as natives, per capita, crossing the border illegally is a misdemeanor. That IS a security problem. Every little kid or a woman who is crossing "undocumented" are committing a crime nonetheless, likely unwittingly.

We can't have open borders. Ask the Native Americans.

Obviously the legal immigration process is extremely burdensome and needs to be more efficient by 1000% of what it is now.

Also - if the few illegal immigrants who are murderers and rapists (and burglars etc) ate stopped, overall crime will go down even if not per capita, right? At least one 12YO little girl will still be alive. Shouldn't that be a consideration?

And when Trump is elected enjoy seeing families ripped apart, enjoy seeing all the ruined lives. - Lapsody

----------------------------

Most of the video of the steady flow is 90% young military aged men traveling alone, sometimes even 100% when it is the chinese flowing into CA. The ruined lives mostly occur as a result of the cities being unable to cope with the flow and a government that doesn't care.

Also - if the few illegal immigrants who are murderers and rapists (and burglars etc) ate stopped, overall crime will go down even if not per capita, right? At least one 12YO little girl will still be alive. Shouldn't that be a consideration?

------------

A big concern are the events flowing from the would be jihadists that have infiltrated our country so far and the next thousand or two working their way here right now. Their mass casualty crimes have yet to reveal themselves but will be with us for decades once they start.

A big concern are the events flowing from the would be jihadists that have infiltrated our country so far and the next thousand or two working their way here right now. Their mass casualty crimes have yet to reveal themselves but will be with us for decades once they start.


I think you are underestimating the American law enforcement agencies quite a bit. This is not 9/10/2001. They have really stepped up.

See right there, illegals coming here and taking jobs that should go to citizens.

This is a not so and was demonstrated under Covid, farmers were losing their crops because they had no hands to pick them. Americans don't want to pick lettuce? But it is a Trumpee talking point.

Oooooh, Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be busboys. 🎶

They take the work Americans don't want and we understand why. I have been diagnosing problems in my new house and figured out the well pump was just sucking air due to PVC connections that had lost their dope, so I used J&B PVC Epoxy stick and sealed them. Pumps water fine now.
One head on the driveway side was a gusher. So I dug some out and changed heads, but I noticed the pressure wobble afterwards. The back lawn sprinklers use more water, have some bubbling but they work fine.

So I figure I have a pressure leak in the line which needs to be dug out.

My next-door neighbor asks me if I speak Spanish and I respond in a little Spanish, but know how to use a translator. I have two phone numbers of likely illegals that will dig up my line for about $40.

Now if I call a Sprinkler man, they’ll bring out a trenching machine, want to rebuild the lines and charge $600 or more. It’s the American way. 😊

A big concern are the events flowing from the would be jihadists that have infiltrated our country so far and the next thousand or two working their way here right now. Their mass casualty crimes have yet to reveal themselves but will be with us for decades once they start.

We are the great Satan and I am familiar with recent arrests, but you are extrapolating from nothing and this is just fear mongering.

My next-door neighbor asks me if I speak Spanish and I respond in a little Spanish, but know how to use a translator. I have two phone numbers of likely illegals that will dig up my line for about $40.

Now if I call a Sprinkler man, they’ll bring out a trenching machine, want to rebuild the lines and charge $600 or more. It’s the American way. 😊


First off, Mike was joking!

Anyway, that's why Republicans won't ever actually stop illegal immigration. Rich white guy businesses in the South run on illegal labor. Go to a meatpackibg plant.
Plus, if they fix the problem, whom can they use as a bugaboo to scare other white people? Blacks as scary monsters is passé. Nobody is scared of Asians 😀

You do realize that most immigrants don't com in at the border? A lot fly in and overstay their Visa, etc

Fewer than 1 percent of immigrants were under age 5 in 2021, compared to 6 percent of the U.S.-born population. Children and youth ages 5 to 17 accounted for 5 percent of immigrants and 18 percent of the U.S. born. People of working age (18 to 64 years) comprised 77 percent of the immigrant population, a much higher figure than the 59 percent of those born in the United States. Approximately 17 percent of both immigrants and the U.S. born were 65 years and older.

What is the sex ratio of the immigrant population?

About 51 percent of all U.S. immigrants were female in 2021, compared to 50 percent of the native born. The share has fluctuated slightly over the past four decades, but immigrant women and girls tend to be a slight majority over men and boys. They accounted for 53 percent of the immigrant population in 1980, 51 percent in 1990, 50 percent in 2000, and 51 percent in 2010.

Also I've watched videos of the Darien crossing, women were there. Videos on the Guatemala Mexican border - women were there.



https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently...

First off, Mike was joking! - Kof3

---------------

Thanks, sometimes my humor is too subtle and is misunderstood. Like Trump's.

Also I've watched videos of the Darien crossing, women were there. Videos on the Guatemala Mexican border - women were there. - Lambo

--------------------

Fox filters those out...

You are talking to a greyling for me.

I caught the joke, obvious on the second sentence, but decided to address your first point anyway.

MAGA Bot: "Being dismissive of the security problem and financial drain on our cities resulting from Joe's open border."

Here's the reality...

Trump said, and I quote, "The Senate is better off not making a deal, even if it means the country will close up for a while." Effectively killing a bipartisan bill that would have addressed the border problem.

Life long Republican Mitt Romney summed up the situation nicely:
"The border is a very important issue for Donald Trump, and the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that
he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Joe Biden for it is really appalling."

Really appalling.

Do the MAGAs ever tire of people taking advantage of their gullibility?

For anyone interested in reality...
That border bill that Trump killed was endorsed by the National Border Patrol Council, the Chamber of Commerce, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and supported by 66% of Americans.

Don't like what you're seeing at the border?

TRUMP IS TO BLAME.

Project 2025 is a fever dream wish list of the Heritage Foundation. Some of the things on it will get implemented ... Eliminating the traditional - but not statutorily required - independents of DOJ and the law enforcement agencies is certainly something he has a keen interest in doing, with or without Heritage.

You say that like it's no big deal. So Trump will just weaponize the DOJ, using it to harass and potentially jail his political enemies. And implementing schedule F is just a political choice, like taxation and foreign policy.

No. Those are huge steps away from democracy towards autocracy and fascism. Combine that with the uncertainty resulting from the recent USSC decision on Presidential immunity, and we could end up with some serious damage done to the country. It's no longer "all men are created equal." It becomes George Orwell's "some are more equal than others."

Once you go down that path, its very hard to reverse course.

--Peter

You say that like it's no big deal. So Trump will just weaponize the DOJ, using it to harass and potentially jail his political enemies. And implementing schedule F is just a political choice, like taxation and foreign policy.

I'm not saying those policies are not a big deal. I'm saying that those choices would have virtually nothing to do with Project 2025, any more than local Democrats' efforts to implement various climate change responses or other progressive goals had anything to do with the UN's Agenda 21. There's overlap between what Trump would want to do and some of the things in Project 2025, as you would expect: Project 2025 is a sprawling right-wing populist policy document that offers opinions on virtually every aspect of government. But that doesn't mean that Project 2025 itself is a big deal.

Which is why I think that Project 2025 isn't going to be much more significant in these elections than Agenda 21 was in prior elections for Republicans. It's a useful tool for getting your base really angry and upset and scared, which helps with fundraising and driving engagement. But if you try to use that with normies or independents or persuadable voters, they're going to suss out - correctly - that the policy document itself isn't that big of a deal, and that the more outre proposals in that policy document aren't really going to be implemented.

You say that like it's no big deal. So Trump will just weaponize the DOJ, using it to harass and potentially jail his political enemies. And implementing schedule F is just a political choice, like taxation and foreign policy.

No. Those are huge steps away from democracy towards autocracy and fascism. Combine that with the uncertainty resulting from the recent USSC decision on Presidential immunity, and we could end up with some serious damage done to the country. It's no longer "all men are created equal." It becomes George Orwell's "some are more equal than others."

Once you go down that path, its very hard to reverse course.

The irony.

Which is why I think that Project 2025 isn't going to be much more significant in these elections than Agenda 21 was in prior elections for Republicans.

Given Trump’s already documented proclivity to try and weaponize government for his own purposes, I think Project 2025 will resonate with more than the Democrat base (to which I add, there isn’t much downside to firing up your base).

And Trump’s attempt to distance himself from P2025, given that his former staff wrote a good chunk of it, is not very believable.

Add into the mix the recent SCOTUS ruling on presidential immunity, your conclusion rests on an assumption of normalcy (and Trump ain’t normal).

Gifted WaPo article:
https://wapo.st/4eVycrk

Given Trump’s already documented proclivity to try and weaponize government for his own purposes, I think Project 2025 will resonate with more than the Democrat base (to which I add, there isn’t much downside to firing up your base).

Seems unlikely.

Again, Project 2025 isn't a Trump joint. Heritage undertook it as an effort to make themselves relevant again after Trump upended the party platform in his first term, and didn't end up going away. So they took a whole bunch of stuff that Trump was already in favor of (draconian immigration restrictions, lower taxes, general anti-regulatory stuff), and fused that in with a whole bunch of stuff they</b wanted even if Trump opposed it (a nationwide abortion ban, criminalizing pornography, cutting Social Security and Medicare), and published it as their organization's new creed.

It's not anything Trump signed off on, and I intensely doubt he was ever even aware it existed before it was done and Heritage started to try to drum up publicity about it so they could seem both: i) sufficiently Trump-y now; and ii) relevant again after their prior positions became apostasy.

So yes, there's stuff in Project 2025 that Trump supports - because the people who wrote Project 2025 wanted it to line up with stuff that Trump already supported. None of that is new or surprising or anything that Trump believes because he's following Project 2025 - it's completely the reverse, with Project 2025 cribbing from Trump's longstanding positions. The stuff that's in Project 2025 that's not stuff that Trump already believed and wanted to do on his own anyway has no real chance of changing Trump's thinking at all. Again, this isn't anything Trump was involved with or particularly wants, and he's not going to spend one iota of his political capital to help out Heritage (or anyone else not named Trump).

I mean, he literally just this week savaged the GOP party platform to move away from Project 2025 on a host of issues. He took out the nationwide abortion ban language. He put in a renewed commitment to social security and Medicare.

So, no - I don't think that there's much chance that the Democrats can use "Project 2025" as a useful political weapon, outside of enraging and alarming their base. Yes, that can be worthwhile as a tactic for winning elections - but it's not the issue that you want to center in your general election campaign outreach to the persuadable voters.

Given Trump’s already documented proclivity to try and weaponize government for his own purposes, I think Project 2025 will resonate with more than the Democrat base (to which I add, there isn’t much downside to firing up your base).

Seems unlikely.

Again, Project 2025 isn't a Trump joint. Heritage undertook it as an effort to make themselves relevant again after Trump upended the party platform in his first term, and didn't end up going away. So they took a whole bunch of stuff that Trump was already in favor of (draconian immigration restrictions, lower taxes, general anti-regulatory stuff), and fused that in with a whole bunch of stuff they wanted even if Trump opposed it (a nationwide abortion ban, criminalizing pornography, cutting Social Security and Medicare), and published it as their organization's new creed.

It's not anything Trump signed off on, and I intensely doubt he was ever even aware it existed before it was done and Heritage started to try to drum up publicity about it so they could seem both: i) sufficiently Trump-y now; and ii) relevant again after their prior positions became apostasy.

So yes, there's stuff in Project 2025 that Trump supports - because the people who wrote Project 2025 wanted it to line up with stuff that Trump already supported. None of that is new or surprising or anything that Trump believes because he's following Project 2025 - it's completely the reverse, with Project 2025 cribbing from Trump's longstanding positions. The stuff that's in Project 2025 that's not stuff that Trump already believed and wanted to do on his own anyway has no real chance of changing Trump's thinking at all. Again, this isn't anything Trump was involved with or particularly wants, and he's not going to spend one iota of his political capital to help out Heritage (or anyone else not named Trump).

I mean, he literally just this week savaged the GOP party platform to move away from Project 2025 on a host of issues. He took out the nationwide abortion ban language. He put in a renewed commitment to social security and Medicare.

So, no - I don't think that there's much chance that the Democrats can use "Project 2025" as a useful political weapon, outside of enraging and alarming their base. Yes, that can be worthwhile as a tactic for winning elections - but it's not the issue that you want to center in your general election campaign outreach to the persuadable voters.

Do the MAGAs ever tire of people taking advantage of their gullibility?

They are too clueless to understand how they are being used. Useful idiots.

I mean, he literally just this week savaged the GOP party platform to move away from Project 2025 on a host of issues. He took out the nationwide abortion ban language. He put in a renewed commitment to social security and Medicare.

Sure. I think that if there’s one thing that we’ve all witnessed time and time again, something we can take to the bank, it’s that Trump’s word is his bond.

Seriously?

Sure. I think that if there’s one thing that we’ve all witnessed time and time again, something we can take to the bank, it’s that Trump’s word is his bond.

You people really need to listen to al, who is laying it all out there for you.

Sure. I think that if there’s one thing that we’ve all witnessed time and time again, something we can take to the bank, it’s that Trump’s word is his bond.

Seriously?

Of course not.

His savaging of the platform isn't him giving his word. It's a revealed preference. One of Trump's most significant and overarching character traits is that he is selfish. To an extreme. In any interaction, any decision, any calculation, he is driven by a single assessment: what's best for Trump? So tearing out these longstanding planks of the platform isn't a promise of anything by Trump, but rather a clear indication that he doesn't think those policies are good for Trump.

He savaged the platform because he (correctly) intuited that advocating for a national abortion ban is bad for Trump. It is unpopular. He does not care that he only became President because the evangelical community put him there, and that this is a deep betrayal of them. Because he only cares - ever and always - about what is good for Trump. So a national abortion ban is out the door, even though that pains his supporters. Bye-bye entitlement reform as well, replaced with a full-throated commitment to Social Security and Medicare: because Medicare and Social Security are popular, so they're good for Trump. The fact that reforming those programs has been a core facet of conservatism for half a century doesn't matter to him. Conservatives aren't Trump, and what matters is what's good for Trump.

The Heritage Foundation has thoughts about what the federal government should look like, based on what Heritage thinks would be good at advancing the things that Heritage cares about. Donald Trump does not care what Heritage's thoughts about the federal government are. He only cares about what is good for Trump. Some of Heritage's policy choices are simply copies of what Trump has already said he wants to do. Since those policies have already passed through the "Trump thinks they're good for Trump" screen, we know Trump will pursue them - but their inclusion in Project 2025 has nothing to do with that.

Which is why efforts to use Project 2025 to tarnish Trump are doomed to fail. They rest on a premise that American voters know is false. Claiming that a politician won't actually follow their own platform, but will instead serve the shadowy aims of their true (but hidden and shadowy) masters is an old tactic. But that's not going to work against a candidate like Trump. No one's going to believe that he's going to do something that someone else wants. If America knows one true thing about Donald Trump, it's that he's a selfish narcissist. He's only, ever going to do what he adjudges in that moment to be what helps him to remain popular and in power.

Which isn't cutting Social Security because some think tank wants him to. Which isn't banning pornography because some cultural Christian thinks its bad. Which isn't burning his political capital on a national abortion ban when he doesn't even care about abortion and it won't win him a single extra supporter.

All Trump is doing is following a very simple maxim:

The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally - not a 20 percent traitor.
-Ronald Reagan

One of Trump's most significant and overarching character traits is that he is selfish. To an extreme. In any interaction, any decision, any calculation, he is driven by a single assessment: what's best for Trump?

Finally, something we can agree on again. But I'd add one additional tweak.

So tearing out these longstanding planks of the platform isn't a promise of anything by Trump, but rather a clear indication that he doesn't think those policies are good for Trump.

Here's the tweak:
He doesn't think those policies are good for Trump now. Because he is completely ungrounded by any moral code, the moment he judges one of those policies has become good for Trump, he will openly embrace it.

Combine that with his transactional nature - he'll give up something he doesn't care about to get something he does care about - things like abortion or entitlement reforms or pornography become bargaining chips. He'll gladly let republicans pass a ban on porn if that's what it takes to get a tax cut for himself and his wealthy ... ummm ... I was about to say "buddies", but I think campaign donors would be more correct.

So I don't see his abandonment of those planks as anything but what he is doing right now to get elected. Once elected, those planks can come back if they become helpful to get what he wants.

--Peter

He doesn't think those policies are good for Trump now. Because he is completely ungrounded by any moral code, the moment he judges one of those policies has become good for Trump, he will openly embrace it.

True, but it's incredibly unlikely that would happen. Trump doesn't need Heritage for much at all - so why would he care what they want? To help Kevin Roberts out with his project? I doubt it.

So why on earth would Trump lift a finger to help Heritage pursue their policy preferences?

Sure, there's some preferences they have in there that happen to be the same things he wants - because they copied a lot of his positions. That was part of the point of Project 2025, to bend the knee to Trump's policies. But anything else? If Trump decides he wants to do switch course on a policy because it's become good for Trump, it will be solely and entirely because it's become good for Trump. Not because it's in Project 2025.

Project 2025 might indeed be a blueprint for what the Heritage Foundation wants to see the federal government look like, and there probably isn't a politician in the Republican party who cares less what the Heritage Foundation thinks is a good or bad idea than Donald Trump.

Which is why efforts to use Project 2025 to tarnish Trump are doomed to fail.

This debate is becoming very meta meta meta.

Will "attacking" the content of Project2025 succeed in "tarnishing" Trump? None of those words mean anything.

Trump 1.0 demonstrated two fundamental problems with a person like Trump being in power. First, his very existance at the top of an Administration immediately reduces the number of people willing to serve in ANY appointed position of power by probably 75%. At this point, anyone with two brain cells who might get nominated to a Cabinet position or any other high profile role knows all of the following probabilities are SKY HIGH in a Trump led Administration:

* being asked to do something unethical
* being pressured to do something illegal
* being tossed out at the drop of a hat and being defamed by the President
* having your family attacked should you ever offend the Orange One
* needing hundreds of thousdands of dollars for legal counsel
* spending YEARS in seedy little rooms with lawyers and courtrooms with judges

Any person willing to face those risks and take a high profile position working for Trump is either a saint or a friggin' IDIOT or ZEALOT. Last time I checked the idiots to saint ratio has to be at least 1000:1 so the caliber of management that will be present in a Trump Administration 2.0 will easily be the lowest in US history (and that's including Trump 1.0).

Second, the Supreme Court has fundamentally distorted the balance of powers within government and thus grossly weakened government accountability to the public with its recent rulings. The court completely gutted a forty year precedent regarding administrative law and "deference" in what perhaps is the biggest rejection of the concept of stare decisis in western legal history. The court also fabricted a new power of Presidential immunity and matching "auto-tainting" of evidence related to anything the President claims to involve their decision making about official acts. These decisions will multiply the workload of administrative departments by orders of magnitude in order to justify any regulatory ruling they make. They will also make any corrupt actions taken within these departments (on their own corrupt impulse or at the direction of a corrupt President) nearly IMPOSSIBLE to INVESTIGATE, much less PROSECUTE. Trump's actions in his first Administration showed that a political strategy aimed at making people distrust government by nihillistically paralyizing it from doing anything to help anyone is much easier to execute than executing a strategy by which government actually helps the public good.

Project2025 identifies DOZENS of tactics that now can be pursued with far less accountability thanks to the Supreme Court that can inflict DECADES of damage to civil rights, voting rights, workplace safety, environmental protections, public health and long term economic improvements without relying on a single act of legistlation being passed. All of the required ingredients are already present:

* paralyzed legislative process controlled by big business special interests
* paralyzed executive branch departments now subjected to every decision being litigated
* a cadre of corrupt zealots eager to take the reins of those departments to add to the paralysis and chaos
* a public conditioned to assume government can't work because Republicans have purposely starved it of required resources

Arguing that opponents of Project2025's goals shouldn't devote time explaining its risks to America's future because it won't sufficiently taint Trump to block HIS election overlooks the fact that there is more than Biden versus Trump on the ballot. Until voters do something really stupid like not only voting for Trump over Biden but putting Republicans in the majority in the Senate as well as the House, there is still a chance at using existing checks and balances in our system to thwart Trump 2.0. If Americans put Republicans in control of the White House and both branches of Congress, it is OVER. Aggressive efforts to expose the ideas in Project2025 and explain their impact on every day life is perhaps THE best way to explain to average Americans how fringe the current Republican party has become and far backwards the country will slide if its supporters gain control.


WTH

Which isn't cutting Social Security because some think tank wants him to. Which isn't banning pornography because some cultural Christian thinks its bad. Which isn't burning his political capital on a national abortion ban when he doesn't even care about abortion and it won't win him a single extra supporter.

Trump's method of staying out of jail has been handed to him. He needs to win for everything to work out, and it looks like he is going to do just that. So why risk anything? The evangelical base isn't going to leave him. None of his base is going to leave that I can see. I'm not sure at all what messaging we can do to pick off any wobblers, but it's probably not P2025.

I posted the survey on P25 because it showed what people thought would really hurt, and none of that is on the MAGA platform that I know of. By taking abortion, etc., out of the platform we can't hit them with "Trump will make Doctors State Agents". Trump is blunting what we can throw at him because its good for him. We need a simple winning message.

So why on earth would Trump lift a finger to help Heritage pursue their policy preferences?

It wouldn't be to help Heritage pursue their policy preferences. It would be to help Trump pursue his own preferences.

Let's say Trump would like to enshrine his Schedule F executive order into law rather than just an EO. That is something I'm fairly sure he would like. Perhaps he needs a few more Republicans to back it, and they are holding out for a nationwide abortion ban. So he'll let them add the abortion ban to the bill to get their votes for Schedule F.

The Heritage foundation has given Trump a list of potential bargaining chips to use to get votes he might need in Congress.

Of course, don't get too worked up over my choice of issues to pair up. It's just an example. It could be any issue that Trump wants paired up with any issue he doesn't care much about but that other Republicans might care deeply.

The point is that there are a good number of Republicans who would back the various bits of Project 2025 that Trump is ambivalent about. And that could easily lead to a fair amount of Project 2025 coming to pass, even though Trump isn't advocating for it.

And that all comes back to Trump caring only about Trump. The parts of Project 2025 that aren't good for him now could easily become useful for him in the future - not necessarily because those are things he wants, but they can become the currency to buy votes or do favors in exchange for something else that he does want.

--Peter

PS. I'm going to continue pointing out that the worst parts of Project 2025 are also the ones Trump wants for himself. These are the parts that would put a severe strain on Democracy itself.

WTH,

Amen. A thousand recs, if I could.

Arguing that opponents of Project2025's goals shouldn't devote time explaining its risks to America's future because it won't sufficiently taint Trump to block HIS election overlooks the fact that there is more than Biden versus Trump on the ballot.

I'm not disagreeing that Project 2025's goals are bad. Rather, it's that we shouldn't care about Project 2025 - because they're not really significant.

I mean, there's countless random right-wing pundits that spout those kinds of horrible ideas all the time. Heck, Steve Bannon has a whole media show where he exudes vile policy ideas. But we don't feel any particular need to massively educate all the voters about the terrible ideas of any random right-winger. Just because someone's out there publishing terrible policies doesn't make it worthwhile to spend resources telling everyone about that specific iteration of those terrible policies.

Why not? Because regardless of how terrible the ideas are, the people spouting them are pretty irrelevant. They don't personally have any power to put any of these ideas into action. What you need to do in elections is to defeat the people who are on the ballot, because those are the folks who (if they win) will have power. Even a right-wing think tank with delusions of grandeur isn't that. Kevin Roberts isn't some Trump whisperer who has the ear of the mighty and powerful. He's not even a Grover Norquist.

Heritage doesn't have the ability to implement Project 2025's terrible ideas. There's no indication that Trump cares about them at all. He's got his own compilation of terrible ideas - Agenda 47. That's the collection of ideas that actually have traction in the party, because they're Trump's terrible ideas. They're also fascist and authoritarian and scary. There's a lot of overlap between them (again, Project 2025 has copied a lot of Trump's policies) - but Agenda 47 is the policy document that is Trump's agenda for the second term.

It certainly seems like a waste of time to focus on what Heritage thinks the agenda for Trump's second term should be, rather than focusing on what Trump thinks the agenda for his second term should be. Because Heritage has no power, and not even a lot of influence right now - and Trump is almost certainly going to ignore them and just do what he wants to do, and there's no indication he secretly wants to do any of the stuff that's on their list that isn't already on his own list.

The Heritage foundation has given Trump a list of potential bargaining chips to use to get votes he might need in Congress.

How? I mean, it is a list of things that conservatives like. But so what? Anyone who's spent a single day watching Fox News could come up with that list. It's not like it's a particularly useful thing to have a list that says that conservatives like tax cuts and dislike abortion.

The best way to find out the potential bargaining chips to use to get votes in Congress is to ask the Congressbeings what they want. Not to go out and buy Heritage's book on what Heritage wants. The second best way is to ask the Speaker and Majority Leader to find out what the Congressfolks want.

Again, it just reminds me of the UN's "Agenda 21," which conservatives got themselves into a lather thinking that it was the master framework for how liberals were going to run the U.S. When, in fact, it was just a list of policies promulgated by a group that had no measurable influence on U.S. policy....but because it happened to contain in that list of policies some things that progressives did want to implement, conservatives convinced themselves that Agenda 21 was the actual progressive platform. The master key to their agenda. When, in fact, actual Democratic lawmakers didn't care one bit what was in Agenda 21, and just pursued policies based on the specific politics for each of those policies.

One of Trump's most significant and overarching character traits is that he is selfish.

Brilliant analysis, suffused with common sense and insight.

I am reporting your post, as ot violates the mores of this board.

I am reporting your post,

What's the matter? Can't handle the truth?

Or are you just a fan of cancel culture?

--Peter

What's the matter? Can't handle the truth?

Or are you just a fan of cancel culture?

Dude! Don't be a bot.
I was complimenting albaby for not writing like 99% of stupid posts here. Maybe my sarcasm was badly presented.
No I am not actually reporting his post, to put your mind at ease.

>>I am reporting your post,<<

What's the matter? Can't handle the truth?

Or are you just a fan of cancel culture?

--Peter

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Another example of a liberal lacking a sense of humor being unable to detect humor. Pretty good humor in this case.

See right there, illegals coming here and taking jobs that should go to citizens.

I like how you changed Trump's theme, 'taking Black jobs,' to 'jobs that should go to citizens.'

That's very DEI of you.

Also - if the few illegal immigrants who are murderers and rapists (and burglars etc) ate stopped, overall crime will go down even if not per capita, right? At least one 12YO little girl will still be alive. Shouldn't that be a consideration?

Yet you support an orange rapist married to an immigrant whose veracity in obtaining citizenship is highly suspect.

Ah, but her photos... what a body!

I mean, he literally just this week savaged the GOP party platform to move away from Project 2025 on a host of issues.

I think what will be attractive to Trump is fealty, and being able to hire/fire civil servants based on that. And THAT is the scariest part of P2025. We already know Trump values "loyalty" to him over pretty much anything else.

>>See right there, illegals coming here and taking jobs that should go to citizens.<<
I like how you changed Trump's theme, 'taking Black jobs,' to 'jobs that should go to citizens.'

That's very DEI of you. - sano

--------------

And here we have another liberal who, lacking a sense of humor, cannot detect humor in others.

And here we have another liberal who, lacking a sense of humor, cannot detect humor in others.

Right wing humor isn't really funny... it's funny like Cheney shooting Attroney Whittington in the face with a 28 gauge shotgun; he meant to use the 12.

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