this post was submitted on 03 May 2024
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141
[Serious] What is project 2025? What kind of risk is involved? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 6 months ago by Sunsethughes@sh.itjust.works to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
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I'm Canadian and we have our own issues with far right nutjobs but I've heard the phrase "Project 2025" thrown around and the little I've seen about it frightens me. I don't follow the news for the sake my mental health but could someone explain it in depth? What kind of a shit show are we looking at? Unfortunately Canadian politics would probably follow because of the huge cultural influence the US has.

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[–] dhork@lemmy.world 118 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (5 children)

There are lots of Federal agencies under the Executive Branch, The heads of those agencies are often political appointees, who are appointed directly by a President and are not expected to remain in their roles if the party in power changes. However, the actual work is done by career civil servants, who are hired based on merit and not their political connections.

Conservatives see this as a problem, because these career civil servants may have been hired by prior administrations, and they see every appointment by the opposition as tainted. They want to wreck the merit-based system that these people are hired under, subject all career government workers to loyalty tests, and fire the ones who don't meet those tests.

This is, of course, a recipe to decimate the functioning of these agencies and make them totally ineffective. But that's the whole point. This "deep state" they keep railing about are simply people who put their commitment to the country over their commitment to any one party or one President. So they must go. And it will shrink all these agencies in the process, which they see as a win.

This is an analysis from a Liberal advocacy group but I think it is an accurate description of what these chuckleheads are really up to:

https://www.citizensforethics.org/news/analysis/faq-the-conservative-attack-on-the-merit-based-civil-service/

[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 37 points 6 months ago (2 children)

It's not even just about the fact that it's going to wreck those agencies, it also means that there will be substantially less whistle-blowing, and there will be virtually no one working for the government who will raise an alarm or put a stop to anything. When everybody is on board, that creates a substantial amount of power for the executive branch.

What makes it so frightening is that the discussion starts to slide away from the actual functioning of our democratic system and the workings of the executive branch, and starts getting into matters of where power is derived from in a government.

What we have seen is that our Congress is infected by too many friends of fascism, if not fascist themselves. Unless the Democrats have a supermajority in both chambers, Republicans can successfully derail every single thing Congress ever tries to do to reign in an executive branch that's out of control. Trump was impeached twice, and painfully, obviously guilty both times, and nothing happened because the system has been so fundamentally broken.

Knowing now that Congress can do nothing to stop him, and of course knowing that the court system is captured at this point, Trump will be completely and utterly unafraid of doing anything. The systems in place that would protect us from a renegade executive office will fail to stop him.

Having the entire executive, and every seat in every department filled with loyalists, with nothing in his way that can effectively stop it, is basically a precursor to dictatorship.

[–] snownyte@kbin.social 14 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

And it is something he has spent 4 years trying to do. We've seen him cycle through so many people in his administration, that is Trump's we're talking here. He'd bring this guy in, he'd last 2 months, then he'd leave. Some people he acquired, lasted just a week and few a day.

It's because he was wheeling around to find the loyalists he needed that won't challenge him or feels that they aren't up to snuff with his requirements. That's a dangerous precedent to be functioning under as a president. Normally, presidents stick to who they have because they've picked carefully and they pick bright minds in the right places. Not a lot of presidents had a lot of great people, but they can say that they were far, far more qualified than anyone Trump has personally assigned.

Even George W. Bush's administration was better than Trump's.

But yeah, the 4 years with Trump, will exactly be repeated here in Project 2025. Except, far worse than ever and it'll all be unchallenged. This isn't even about trying to play into people's fears. The 4 years with Trump, he turned this country into his playground. If we have 4 more years of him, he's going to turn it into his amusement park.

And no I don't want to hear arguments from people going like "well, it's only 4 years of him and once it's over, he can't run again!". How the fuck would you know? Has anyone not, by now, seen how he behaves towards laws and rules? He acts like none of those exist to him but exist for others. If impeaching the bastard twice didn't do anything, do you think he's going to abide by term limit rules? He might just override that and make himself dictator for the rest of his life.

[–] Icalasari@fedia.io 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's scary enough that I could see the EU possibly consider striking the US before the fascist war machine can get momentum

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

The EU can't even handle Ukraine or keep the UK leaving. There is no one out there to save the US. It goes down it goes down. Might as well have an opinion about the orbit of the moon

[–] sramder@lemmy.world 15 points 6 months ago

Honestly the best summary I’ve read so far and I actually downloaded the PDF 😬

[–] neidu2@feddit.nl 4 points 6 months ago

Pretty much this.

Also, say what you will about NY Times, but they had a pretty good summary of this dismantling farily recently, and its implications.

[–] Sotuanduso@lemm.ee 3 points 6 months ago

Thanks for this. I had read up on it some time ago, and it seemed like par-for-the-course "paint the government our color once we're in power" except for a couple concerning points, so when people around here were talking about it like it was literal fascism, I dismissed that as misunderstandings and exaggeration. I hadn't realized that civil servants were hitherto untouched by the government switching colors.

So it sounds like it's not literal fascism, but it's more like... how in some fantasy worlds, higher powers will avoid getting involved in mortal affairs because doing so will give their enemies license to do the same and then the world becomes a mess. It sounds like if Project 2025 happens, then blue's going to retaliate in kind when they get power back (because otherwise they're at a major disadvantage,) and it keeps going, majorly hampering the government's operations. Who wants to get a job that you're gonna be fired from in 4 years? There's a chance that blue's just going to try to hit the undo button, but if red keeps knocking the block tower over and blue keeps rebuilding it, that's still not going to go very well.

But at the same time... they've already stated their willingness to do this. So the damage to the unwritten contract between parties is already done, and the only way to avoid the consequences is to keep blue in power until red redacts, and hope blue doesn't decide to do it first (which they probably won't, unless they say something like "the only way to defend against red doing it is to make sure they don't have their own people in there when they get the power.")

I don't like that, though. Sure, blue is generally more reasonable than red, but that's because they have to be in order to secure votes from reasonable people. If all they need to be is more reasonable than the guys who are literally planning to destroy the government, that's going to let them get away with some pretty undesirable things. I think a better move would be to try to address the deteriorating two-party dynamics we have. My money's on Literally Anybody Else.

[–] AmidFuror@fedia.io 2 points 6 months ago

Well, hopefully since they're trying to apply this first to the RNC they will run an incompetent campaign and lose.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 82 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Tl;dr

Fascist want to turn the US into a dictatorship

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

[–] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 41 points 6 months ago (1 children)

And, scarily, there's a non-zero chance they will have the opportunity to try. Like, we may literally have a civil war on our southern border come November.

[–] Sunsethughes@sh.itjust.works 12 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Largest undefended border in the world with one of the largest militaries in the world. I don't know what to think, I'm scared for my family in southern ontario

[–] cerement@slrpnk.net 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Southern Ontario? You mean Northern New York right?

[–] Sunsethughes@sh.itjust.works 11 points 6 months ago (3 children)

That's the thing! So many people live within an hour of the border. Canada has a fifth of the world's fresh water resources. What happens if the largest dictatorship in the world decides it needs a sippy sip? We've got 38 million people, tf would we do?

[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

If 1812 is any indicator, call the brits to take care of it for you and then take credit for it afterwards because someone nailed an American redneck with a plate of poutine when they tried to cross the border thinking they could totally solo cap Calgary.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 months ago

It would be far cheaper for the US to just trade us for the water compared to invading. Invasions are expensive.

[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 4 points 6 months ago

Actually, the areas where the millitary are based at will probably be the safest since there's like a zero percent chance that they will be siding in significant numbers with the likely instigators of this hypothetical civil war.

It'll less be "the trenches have come across the atlantic" and more "The troubles but instead of centuries of religious differences and legacies of imperial oppression and division, it's clem and the boys becoming domestic terrorists because they'd rather die than go back to the world where they knew shame."

[–] TheUncannyObserver@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Don’t be scared? I mean, even if there’s a full on civil war, which isn’t likely, why would it spill into Canada unless your nation picks a side?

What’s more likely is that democrats would do what they always do and back down, cementing our slide into facism while preventing a civil war.

What you should really be worried about is having a violent monarchy forming on your southern border, because you’ve got some socialist tendencies, and conservatives hate that.

[–] cerement@slrpnk.net 4 points 6 months ago

why would it spill into Canada

the only time US has payed attention to borders is when it involves non-white immigrants …

[–] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I strongly doubt a civil war would spill over but if there is massive unrest it's likely that arms smuggling through ports of entry would sky rocket and we'd see violence from both sides in the area trying to protect and disrupt shipments.

As their neighbor we'd also probably get appeals from both sides for open support and a lot of our border faces really conservative areas in America.

[–] Icalasari@fedia.io 1 points 6 months ago

Plus, Alberta exists and I have lived here long enough to know that the idiots here would be itching to use a US civil war as the reason to start one in Canada

[–] Boozilla@lemmy.world 14 points 6 months ago

Nightmare fuel.

[–] Sunsethughes@sh.itjust.works 12 points 6 months ago

Jesus fucking christ

[–] RedStrider@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

oh wow, that's... horrifying.

[–] snownyte@kbin.social 1 points 6 months ago

It's already bad enough that Florida is practically a small fraction of this in practice.

[–] RGB3x3@lemmy.world 62 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Here's the document:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24088042-project-2025s-mandate-for-leadership-the-conservative-promise

AT LEAST READ THE FOREWARD. It very meticulously lays out their 4 goals:

  1. Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.
  1. Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.
  1. Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.
  1. Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution calls “the Blessings of Liberty

In plain language they want to:

  1. Effectively make LGBTQ+ persons illegal, unable to marry, adopt, or even exist openly, nationally ban abortion, ban education about black history and systemic racism;
  2. hamstring or eliminate a bunch of government agencies like the Department of Education, the EPA, the DOJ, Department of Homeland Security, and to eliminate many positions within the federal government or install loyal puppets;
  3. close our borders completely, pull out of NATO and the UN, invest heavily in oil, coal, and natural gas while divesting in renewable energy and removing environmental regulations, and exert extreme control over tech companies and universities;
  4. create school voucher programs which very much are to allow parents to segregate their children and use tax dollars to fund conservative, religious, private schools at k-12 levels, and eliminate social welfare programs. Also includes the contradiction of "champion the dynamic genius of free enterprise" and "include antitrust enforcement against corporate monopolies."

The whole thing is full of conservative buzz words, "anti-woke" rhetoric, and contradictions about free enterprise while wanting to exert control over people and "big tech."

But it's also dangerous because they're going to attempt to consolidate power to the next Republican president. There are complicated and far-reaching consequences to the things they're proposing that would take an academic paper to get into. For example, Ron DeSantis just signed a bill making lab-grown meat illegal because of the "global elite." It doesn't make any sense, but it's part of the reactionary, anti-leftist, culture war bullshit the Republicans are on right now.

That summary should be enough to show why this is so dangerous.

[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 7 points 6 months ago

Thank you for actually answering the question.

[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Someone read The Handmaiden's Tale and thought it was a societal model narrative instead of a warning.

[–] ChaosCoati@midwest.social 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)
[–] Ioughttamow@kbin.run 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Then we should do enough kegels to crush them

[–] exanime@lemmy.today 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'm like you OP, a fellow Canadian

And we should be worried... We are governed by children and, as such, the company they keep is extremely influential

We are about to elect a PM who has never had a real job outside of government and, somehow, has no political record to speak off.

PP has been leader of the opposition for years now and still has not proposed anything, shown any solution, discussed any alternate path to improve anything.

Like Trump, all he does is lie to the camera and play victim

[–] voracitude@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Ah fuck, I haven't been paying attention. Trudeau fucked it that badly that Poilevre is tipped to win?!

[–] exanime@lemmy.today 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Pretty much... Trudeau has been the embodiment of mediocrity but then PP and whatever forces turned that into a meme

[–] voracitude@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Bleh. I'm sorry to hear that bud. Good luck - it's looking like we're all gonna need it.

[–] exanime@lemmy.today 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Absolutely... I've already reshaped my budget the best I can to brace for the next 4 years..

If we are lucky he'll only get a minority but doubt it

[–] snownyte@kbin.social 10 points 6 months ago

In my own words...

Project 2025 is a blueprint of what Republicans (particularly Trump) have in mind in what they want to do to this country if they get power again.

It's literally the ultimate plan of all of the collective Republican psychopaths. This is the ultimate dream a lot of those white-trash supporters would want.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

It's mostly a conservative fantasy. The idea is to bring back the spoilage system and executive order everything they want. The risks are huge there is just so many systems that no one besides a small number of civil servants and industry insiders know about. The FAA was shutdown the 737 Max got snuck in. Now there is plenty of blame to go around but we can't ignore that government inspectors weren't at work when this happened.

No, I don't think we are going to see soldiers on the streets, what I think will happen is random stuff will break.

With that said I am actively working to get my kids dual citizenship partially because of this.