2,784 words

On July 4, Americans celebrated their supposed (now former) independence as the land of the free and the home of the brave. The very next day, Trump unequivocally disavowed Project 2025.

So, what is Project 2025, what is the group’s goals, and who is behind it?

To begin, the stated goal on their website is:

It is not enough for conservatives to win elections. If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on Day One of the next conservative Administration.

While they cannot legally advocate for specific candidates, this is a clear reference to the fact that Trump failed to deliver in his first term in large part because he was surrounded by establishment swamp creatures who constantly sabotaged his efforts. Due to the vast size of the modern executive branch that oversees the American Empire, the modern American presidency is of necessity a team effort. For example, Biden currently has 564 White House staffers. Even if a President is as energetic as Napoleon, he must delegate power. Directly supervising an entire legion of staffers is impossible, so they must possess a high degree of integrity. Trump’s previous staffers generally had none.

This was evident in the way in which Trump’s first term was plagued by leaks. He was also spoon-fed bad advice. While his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was a major offender in this area, he was far from alone. Too many staffers were loyal to the DC establishment rather than to Trump, let alone America. This was a large part of the reason why we wound up with “artistically-designed steel slats” instead of a proper border wall.

Instead of merely complaining about this debacle, certain people decided to learn from the mistakes of the past and to do something productive about it. They then created Project 2025, which aims to provide “a policy agenda, Presidential Personnel Database, Presidential Administration Academy, and playbook for the first 180 days of the next Administration.”

So, who is behind Project 2025? It is spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, but they are only one out of a vast coalition of over a hundred conservative organizations on its advisory board. Notable members include Turning Point USA, the Claremont Institute, the National Rifle Association (NRA), Gun Owners of America, Moms for Liberty, Protect Our Kids, and America First Legal.

I have some constructive criticisms of some of these organizations. For example, the NRA was lukewarm in supporting Kyle Rittenhouse, and I even wrote an article blasting America First Legal. Mainstream conservatism certainly has its problems, but it is obvious that Project 2025 represents the better part of American conservatism. This is evident in the policies they advocate.

Project 2025 proposes abolishing the Department of Education, which would end federal meddling in schools, which according to an originalist interpretation of the Constitution should be entirely a state matter, anyway. While Project 2025 does not mention it, doing this would also incidentally get rid of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, which is widely despised, especially in regards to math.

According to the Leftist media, another policy the group favors is the deportation of illegal immigrants, holding them in camps while they are pending deportation, and using the military to help round them up. Given that illegals aren’t known for keeping their court dates of their immigration hearings, there’s nothing extreme in this. And while using camps may not be popular, mass deportations of illegals certainly are according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, the results of which were substantially replicated in a Homeland Institute poll. Furthermore, many countries use their military for internal policing, especially to fight narcotics. Given that mass immigration is a form of invasion that also facilitates drug smuggling, violence, and human trafficking, deploying the military for the limited role of organizing mass deportations is certainly warranted.

The 887-page Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership Playbook is available in full online, and in it, a search for the word “camps” only yields four hits, two of which are about foreign humanitarian aid backfiring. “Deport” only shows up four times. Perhaps the Left is drawing on quotes from elsewhere, or has accidentally or purposefully conflated Trump’s talk of mass deportations with Project 2025. However, on page 177, Project 2025 does suggest sanctioning countries that refuse to accept deportees by refusing to issue their citizens visas until they comply. This shows they have no qualms about playing hardball on immigration.

Other proposed policies concern reforming Medicare and Medicaid, or else cutting them, at least according to the media. How much of what they propose is reform rather than cutting is open to debate, but these programs indeed drive government spending. They are also in favor of reducing climate protections (climate change is a farce), and are pro-fossil fuels (that hydrocarbons are probably not generated solely by fossil fuels falls outside the scope of this article). Project 2025 also seeks to rein in the FBI and terminate any activity related to policing so-called “misinformation” that isn’t connected to criminal activity. I would prefer to abolish the FBI outright, because its willful and continuous misconduct mean it is probably past redemption, but nothing is perfect.

Its best policy proposals are ending affirmative action and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and using the Department of Justic to prosecute “all state and local governments, institutions of higher education, corporations, and any other private employers” who use them to discriminate against whites.[1] Civil rights for white people too? An establishment that could manage that is one I could make peace with.

Why did Trump disavow Project 2025? It is because they are loyal to Trump’s original vision of America First that he sold to us in 2016. With great prescience, Nicholas J. Fuentes remarked in part on June 13, 2024 that “[t]he media seems to be far more concerned about Project 2025 than they do about a Donald Trump presidency.” Fuentes observed that the media might not be pro-Trump, but they are not terrified of him to the same degree that they are of Project 2025, probably due to the fact that Trump’s first term was objectively milquetoast. This reveals that Project 2025 is more America First and more of a threat to the DC swamp than Trump.

Trump has clearly betrayed his own America First agenda ever since 2016 through both his acts and omissions. Today he has dropped all pretense and is openly doing it with his words. Through a likely combination of carrots (cash from Zionist and corporate megadonors) and sticks (unending lawfare), Trump has made his peace with the America Last establishment. Given the degree to which he has sold out, one can’t help but wonder if he ever really believed in America First at all. I suspect that Trump merely cynically used populism as a weapon because he had been excluded from high society as a result of being from “new money.”

Let’s consider the argument that Trump’s disavowal was justified because Project 2025 has bad optics, is extremist, or is not focused on the right issues.

Admittedly, a basic search in the Playbook for the word “immigrant” only brings up 13 hits, while “immigration” appears 154 times and “deport” only four times. “Abortion” yields 199 hits, “porn” five hits, and “contracept” 11 hits. So yes, they are anti-pornography and anti-contraception, which might be off-putting to some people. This basic search seems to show that abortion outshines immigration in their eyes — but only by a little. Immigration was the hallmark of Trump’s first campaign and is far from a minor issue for Project 2025.

As I have previously discussed in relation to the special elections that were held in November 2023, abortion and Zionism are losing policy focuses. Trump and the United States Supreme Court have decided to turn abortion over to the states, which, frankly, is where it belongs according to an originalist interpretation of state versus federal regulatory power. The states, not the federal government, is where abortion should be fought over — not that abortion should be a priority for conservatives in any event, due to the fact that it doesn’t really affect us.

I doubt that Project 2025’s stance on abortion is the real reason why the Leftist media recoils from them or why Trump disavowed them. But by making abortion so prominent, Project 2025 has made it easier for the media to undertake a coordinated smear campaign and for Trump to distance himself.

In stark contrast to abortion’s prevalence, “Israel” returned only ten hits, one of which was a person’s name. In conservative politics, Israel is usually front-and-center, to the detriment of all other issues, thus a mere nine hits compared to a combined total of 167 for immigration is a refreshing indeed, almost unheard of — reprioritization of issues in mainstream politics. Project 2025 is at least following my advice in regards to Zionism.

This at last brings us to what is probably the principal reason Trump and the media have so viciously attacked Project 2025. In regard to balancing the importance of our borders versus Israel’s borders, it is thoroughly America First.

Furthermore, the argument that Trump didn’t want to be tainted with guilt by association with the organization fails to stand against even cursory scrutiny. Trump has been smeared so many times in so many ways, including guilt by association, that another smear simply wouldn’t matter to him. And after Sleepy Joe blew the first presidential debate to the degree that many on the Left are frantically demanding a replacement, Trump has surged ahead in the battleground states.

Furthermore, Trump could have chosen not say anything at all. He could have at least said something to the effect that he agrees with some of the organization’s positions and disagrees with others. As President, he would be free to pick and choose from Project 2025’s policy buffet. Instead, he issued a wholesale and vicious condemnation.

Admittedly, some of the people behind Project 2025 have said some incendiary things. In early July, Kevin Roberts, the leader of the Heritage Foundation, said that “we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the Left allows it to be.” Paul Dans, the project’s director, further said in April 2023 that Project 2025 is “systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army [of] aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the Deep State.” But this is no more inflammatory than the sort of rhetoric Trump already frequently employs.

Speaking in Waco. Texas — of all places — Trump said that “I am your warrior, I am your justice . . . for those who have been wronged and betrayed . . . I am your retribution,” and “either the Deep State destroys America or we destroy the Deep State.” Trump’s Waco remarks were made in March 2023, long before the Leftist media’s attacks had intensified. As such, Kevin Roberts and Paul Dans were agreeing and amplifying Trump’s rhetoric. Besides, the federal government is the most unpopular level of government, as revealed in a Homeland Institute poll in which only 19.5% of white registered voters said that the federal government cares about their interests. Thus, it’s a popular target to beat up on.

Trump’s alleged playing of “five-dimensional chess” likewise needs to eventually manifest in the real world. Trump has failed to deliver when he has talked big in the past, so why should we expect him to deliver when he is already caving in due to media pressure?

Trump’s disavowal, much like his talk of stapling green cards to diplomas, also naturally raises doubts about whether he will keep any of his election promises. If he caves this easily to donor carrots and media sticks before he’s even in office, its unlikely that he will be staunch supporter of any of the more attractive policies he’s suggested at all, and especially not mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

Conservatives have failed to conserve anything because of their cowardice and incompetence. But if more conservatives shared Project 2025’s militancy, then they would have been successful and America would not presently be slouching toward becoming a pastel Soviet Union with third-world demographics. This is why the Left has been so alarmed by Project 2025. They are terrified of facing a real enemy for once instead of an impotent punching bag.

The establishment GOP has failed to defend America because they were successful in their true mission. They are a form of controlled opposition designed to facilitate the Left, not counter them — especially in regard to the Great Replacement. This makes them an objective enemy. If Trump chooses to become a pillar of the establishment rather than a wrecking ball, then he is an objective enemy as well.

This is why Trump lurks in his stagnant ghetto of Truth Social rather than posting on Twitter/X, despite the fact that he used to use the platform as his primary mouthpiece to such a degree that he was practically synonymous with it, and that Elon Musk has at great personal expense transformed it into a platform that (relatively) protects free speech. This is extremely insulting to Musk and also deprives Trump of a major weapon. The reason is because Trump knows that he would be held to account on Twitter/X. If he had disavowed Project 2025 there, Nick Fuentes and others would have ritualistically ratioed him in the public square.

This flows into the broader issue of Trump’s disrespect for a wide swath of both the conservative elite as well as its rank-and-file. Project 2025 has a $22 million budget, which had to come from somewhere. From young potential staffers to megadonors and everyone in between, Trump merely stomped on them like a dumb brute smashing a beautiful sand castle they were building — and moreover, building for him. I take this personally, because were I still undoxed, I would be a potential Project 2025 staffer who just had his hopes and dreams destroyed. It is also reasonable to assume that there are more than a few of /our guys/ on their list.

I would encourage these disgruntled conservatives to consider going rogue. The establishment disavows well-meaning people on the Right, whether they wear skull masks or suits. This includes Trump. They say that every radical must make his peace with the establishment. But perhaps the reverse is true, and the time has come for mainstream conservatives to make their peace with us. We all want what is best for our people, which has become materially disadvantageous for the interests of the donor class and the Deep State. This was always the case, but it is now undeniable.

Unlike Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, and yes, Donald Trump, we won’t betray you. We have withstood years of anarcho-tyranny, hit pieces from the fake news media, censorship, deplatforming, and on and on. All those from the old Alt Right who were too weak to stand the pressure has either long since disappeared or surrendered like Trump. Those who join us now do so knowing full well the gravity of the fight. The crucible of history has made us strong and committed. We won’t disavow you because of some journalist who barks about you.

Furthermore, our democracy has devolved into rule by money, as it invariably does. Project 2025’s $22 million budget was surpassed by Miriam Adelson’s pledge of $100 million to the Trump campaign with the clear intention of putting Israel, rather than America, First. Even if you think you can outspend the Deep State and the establishment, would that be an efficient solution? And would it even matter if weapons such as blackmail and lawfare are being used against candidates?

What power can defeat such an entrenched system? In The Decline of the West, Oswald Spengler writes that

[t]he coming of Caesarism breaks the dictature of money and its political weapon, democracy . . . A power can be overthrown only by another power, not by a principle, and no power that can confront money is left but this one. Money is overthrown and abolished only by blood.

The only solution is therefore a Caesar figure wielding the vital forces which can only be found in blood. Today, this takes the form of nationalism. With our dedication and strength along with your expertise, connections, and money, we could do great things. If the better half of mainstream conservatism continues to work with rotten establishment conservatism, they will only be betrayed yet again, just as Emmanuel Macron and the center-Right have delivered France into the hands of literal antifa Communists rather than let the supposed “far Right” take the power they won fair and square in the recent election.

Project 2025 says that “[t]he next conservative President will enter office on January 20, 2025, with a simple choice: greatness or failure.” Trump has already chosen failure. But perhaps by working together, we can build a brighter future.

Note

[1] See page 562.