Donald Trump's presidency sucked. Everyone agrees.
For you, it may have sucked because he bumbled us into the worst response to the worst pandemic in a century. For the vast right-wing conspiracy, it sucked because we still have pretty much the same government we had before he took and refused to leave office.
That's why the Heritage Foundation has brought together the GOP establishment to craft both a plan to unwind democracy and a growing personnel database of loyalists willing to help stomp out freedom.
Historian Thomas Zimmer has been explaining what's behind Project 2025 in his Democracy Americana newsletter and on the "Is This Democracy?" podcast he co-hosts. We talked to him about Project 2025 and how the right plans to exploit the presidency should Trump grab it, again.
This time they will be ready. And so must we. That's why we started Project 2024.
So thank you, Project 2025.
Thanks to you we know for sure that the right plans to criminalize porn, track every abortion in America, fire just about every expert in the U.S. government...
And that's just the beginning.
Check out previous episodes with Marcy Wheeler, Carol Anderson, and Jennifer Mercieca. Catch up on all the episodes of “How are you feeling about democracy?” here. Special thanks to members of this Patreon for sponsoring and sharing this podcast. If you want to back what we’re doing, please join the earlyworm society – free or paid, your support matters.
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TRANSCRIPT
Jason Sattler: So if you had one minute to talk to someone who hadn't done any of the reading, which, as a professor, you've probably come across before, about why they should care that Project 2025 exists, what might you tell them?
Thomas Zimmer: To me, Project 2025 matters for two big reasons. First of all, this would have a massive impact on people's lives. Project 2025 is evidence that the right has actual plans to take over and transform American government into a machine that serves only two purposes: exacting revenge on the enemy and imposing a minoritarian reactionary vision on society. This would undoubtedly transform America into a much nastier, much more dangerous, much more hostile place for anyone who dares to deviate from the white Christian patriarchal order. That's number one. And secondly, it matters because it is really helpful in clarifying the stakes in the 2024 election.
This isn't actually about Biden versus Trump. It's basically a referendum on whether or not an effort at achieving a democratic pluralistic multiracial society should be continued or abolished altogether. It's basically thumbs up or down on, on democratic self government and the civil rights order.
And you know, it can be difficult to convey that to people who don't pay much attention to politics because they have their own lives to live and their own stuff to take care of. This is, I don't mean this as a criticism. It's a. Hmm. Not everyone gets gets paid to do this. Like, like I do. So in this respect, I think Project 2025 is actually really helpful because the people behind this could not possibly be clearer about their reactionary vision and how they want to impose it on the country.
This is telling us exactly where the American right is, what, what their vision for American society is. And I think that is extremely clarifying. And it, it really tells you what the stakes are in November.
So in that sense, I'm almost grateful. They put it all down to paper and we can, we can read it.
Jason Sattler: I used to believe that everything in the GOP is about vengeance for Nixon resigning, but that seems to be like the old Reagan GOP. Trumpism seems to be about vengeance for Joe McCarthy combusting.
Part of Project 2025 and from your podcast, there seems to be a real belief in McCarthyism as a governing philosophy, just in kind of a haphazard way that you could punish people that you don't agree with.
Who are the 50,000 government employees that the Project 2025 would like to fire unceremoniously, for no cause? And how would that look in reality? Is it even possible?
Thomas Zimmer: This is sort of the part of what they want to do here is they came in in 2017 and they just didn't have the people, right? They didn't have the people to do to sort of implement the kind of plans they, well, they also didn't have any plans, but they had ideas about what they wanted for America. But they had no idea how government worked. They had no people to actually do anything with this vast machine that is the American government. And so they had to rely on...
Jason Sattler: Omarosa..
Thomas Zimmer: Exactly. Or, or it's more quote, unquote, normal Republicans, right?
Jason Sattler: John Bolton eventually...
Thomas Zimmer: And then also within the broader structure of the American executive, they had to rely on all these career bureaucrats and experts and all these people who are just again doing their jobs. And they don't like that right. So this time they have a different plan. They want to execute Schedule F. That's the executive presidential executive order that would basically convert tens of thousands of civil service positions into political appointees, which would make them fireable. That's what this is about. They would take away the job protections that come with civil service status and then they can be replaced by ideological loyalists.
So what this basically is, they hate expertise. They hate any kind of like people just doing their normal government job. They want proper "conservative warriors" is the term they use. So that's sort of underlying the policy agenda and the concrete plans that they have for what they want to do with each department and each agency and each commission is this idea that they will purge from government tens of thousands of people and replace them with these loyalists that they are looking for right now. So they are engaged in this massive vetting operation. They're using like an online questionnaire thing. They call it the presidential personnel database.
Yeah, they're trying to come up with basically a list of vetted names where they could be sure those are proper, like "our people." So they ask, "How do you stand on, I don't know, like abortion, where do you stand on this and that?" Right. And give us access to your social media profiles and then we'll check who you are.
I think it was Axios had an anonymous quote from one of these people behind this kind of stuff that said, "We just want to make sure that we're not getting any like George W. Bush people. We want people who listen to Tucker." They mean Tucker Carlson. So none of this RINO (Republican in name only) stuff, right? That's over. We want proper, again, "conservative warriors" in those positions. And do what they were not able to do in 2017 and really implement those plans and use American government as a tool to impose their vision on American society against the will of the majority. That is the plan.
Jason Sattler: There's an EPA office just down the street from my house. Are these are the people that they're talking about getting rid of, the people who've spent their lives learning something and applying it to the government?
Thomas Zimmer: Every administration when they come in and they bring in about 4,000 political appointments across U.S. government, right? So again, think of all these departments and agencies and federal commissions. About 4,000 are political appointees. Not every administration replaces all 4,000 of them. They usually replace a thousand or so. But look at everyone and can we live with this person or maybe do we want to replace that person? So that's the normal sort of new administration coming in. So obviously these people want to go way beyond that.
So the political appointees are at the head of these departments. And then below that, you have several levels of civil servants who have civil service protections. They're supposed to be insulated from this kind of political control. Because they're supposed to be just professionals doing a professional job. And they basically say, we will convert everyone who is "policy adjacent" or something like this. This is just a fig leaf. 50,000, again, this would go several levels beyond these political appointees. I'm not sure what that would mean if you break it down to every, like to a specific agency or if you break, if that would mean to, for the EPA. But it would absolutely mean people who have never been on the radar of any kind of new administration and just normal, like, "I am a federal employee. I do my job. That's what I do." Those kinds of people, "No, you're out. And you'll be replaced by a proper Trumpist sort of loyalist."
Jason Sattler: Because expertise is bad. Diversity is bad. It has to just be loyal. And is it loyalty to the, I think you called it the white Christian patriarchal order, or is it loyalty to Trump? I know that that seems like the same thing, but who are they loyal to?
Thomas Zimmer: This is where we get into sort of a bit of a difference, maybe a bit of a friction, between the different factions on the right. If you ask Trump, it's about personal loyalty to him, right? To the great leader. Clearly. If you look at Project 2025, which is not coming from Trump, then I think it's more ideological conformism, right? So basically people who are fully on board with this idea "We need to restore and entrench white Christian male dominance in America." And that is not necessarily personal loyalty to Trump. This Heritage Foundation-led operation, Project 2025, they're looking for ideological conformism. But how big of a difference is that in practice? Because again, like when they explicitly say we are not looking for like George W. Bush. kind of Republican people. We are looking for people who listen to Tucker Carlson. What is it you're going to get? What you're going to get is people who are at the very least very much on board with Trumpism as a political Project. There's no question. So I think in practice, you're getting MAGA people or people who are very much on board with MAGA.
And, and you're absolutely right. This is not just sort of politically and ideologically terrible. It is also an absolute catastrophe in terms of, it would make American government so much less efficient less again, expertise and all that is out. They wouldn't just take it in a different ideological political direction. They would just make it so much worse.
Jason Sattler: You described the first Trump administration as “malevolence hindered by incompetence.”
It was pretty bad, but you look at that and you go, how could this be worse?
How could this be different?
Because we all survived the Trump administration because we've all lived through different presidential transitions. We have a hard time imagining what this. could look like. Is there an example of a complete transformation of a government under one new presidential administration in recent American history.?
Thomas Zimmer: Hmm. That's a good question. This type of vetting operation, that seems pretty unprecedented. If we're talking about the established, post-New Deal modern American state, this is pretty unprecedented.
Who knows if they would be able to do this? I don't know where they stand on how many people they have identified, how many people are in this kind of database thing that they're building. I know that towards the end of last year I believe again, Axios had something about, Oh, they're at 5,000-ish or so. That's obviously far away from 50,000. But we're also still far away from the election. So who knows if they would find enough people who satisfy what they're looking for.
But it's not a good way to look at this as. " Are they going to be able to implement Project 2025 exactly the way they have outlined it on paper?" No. Right. The answer is that will be no, because that's just not how reality works ever. But the idea that they will not be able to implement any of this and this is all just hot air because, "We've seen it before and, well, Trump in 2017, he also had like big proclamations and announcements and whatever, this is all just forget it..." That to me would be a complete misunderstanding of how much the right has changed, how different this planning operation is from anything that was going on in 2016, 17.
This will be a completely different ballgame, not at all like the first Trump presidency.
Jason Sattler: Maybe the test case for this as the RNC. Which was somewhat of a functioning organization and now the Trump family has taken over it and turn it into one of their casinos.
One of the things we've kind of successfully exercised from the government is the president having to deal on the personal level with all of these office seekers. When everything in government becomes a bidding war or a loyalty test, is this basically replacing the civil service with a Mar-a-Lago membership?
Thomas Zimmer: That is, I think, the only way Trump can conceptualize and conceive of ruling. That's his understanding of how anything works in life, right? This sort of personal loyalty ties. Some of it is like a pre-modern understanding of courtship, and some of it is a sort of Mafia-like structure. Somewhere along those lines is I think his conception of how power works. No question. And that is combined here with what you always see from authoritarian movements: they lust for purity. So if they take over any kind of institution or government, they will purge.
I think we have to strike the balance between focusing on Trump and not focusing on Trump too much, right? Because this is about Trump. And it's not just about Trump.
Because, the Project 2025 is not coming from Trump. It's not coming from the Trump campaign. This is as conservative establishment as it's as it gets, right? So this is not the MAGA fringe. This is not the Trump weirdos. And so we're looking as a kind of a fusion between those forces in a very dangerous, very threatening way.
Jason Sattler: They definitely seem to want to make Trump more effective. But at the same time there also seems to be an implicit kind of threat. They're trying to say this is the minimum. This is what we expect. They're trying to kind of put some kind of demands on Trump. Because last time for instance, Schedule F which would take away civil service protections for a lot of government employees it didn't happen till the last year of his term.
Thomas Zimmer: The very end, towards the very end of the...
Jason Sattler: That would be the first thing that happens this time around. Is that part of it? Is it, is it part of it to try to say to Trump that we weren't happy necessarily with the performance of the first time.
Thomas Zimmer: I mean, 100%, like no one is clearer about the fact that they didn't get what they wanted from that first Trump presidency than the people who are in charge of the American Right.
There's different factions engaged in separate planning efforts. And they've all come up with their own plans. The Trump campaign has its own plans. There's like the America First Policy Institute, all these Trump administration alumni doing their own thing, they have I think they call it Pathway to 2025. And there's Project 2025. So different factions engaging in this planning effort. But it all starts, all of them start from the same diagnosis. That diagnosis is we were not ready in 2016/ 17. We didn't have the plans. We didn't have the expertise and we didn't have the personnel. And this must not happen again, right?
The two big lessons they have drawn from this experience is a) we need to have more of this planning operation beforehand. We need to have our plans ready. We need to have the personnel ready. But also b) we need to purge everyone who put the brakes on what we wanted to do the last time around. That means these government bureaucrats, but it also specifically means lawyers, people in the DoJ, White House legal advisors...
This is one of the bigs of frustrations in Trump world. Trump is extremely frustrated that he didn't get to use the Insurrection Act in the summer of 2022 to suppress the George Floyd protests. And I think a lot of these people think that was just a massive mistake. They should have done that. But they let some lawyers talk them out of this. And that that's not going to happen again.
They're very specific. They're very clear. Next time around, no more place for people who have any qualms about legality or precedent or norms or any of that nonsense.
And was is that trump's beef with Leonard Leo was you know, were the federal society? Were there they saying you can't do that in in the summer of 2020?
So so apparently this is before this is even before that. The beef I think with leonard leo is about that I think So, so Leonard Leo, for people who don't know, is sort of the, one of the key figures in the, the Federalist or the key . Yeah, the key figure in the Federalist Society. And basically one of the architects of sort of the conservative legal movement's takeover of much of the federal judiciary and, of course, much of the Supreme Court. He's absolutely instrumental in getting us to the point where we have to contend with this six to three reactionary majority on the court.
Apparently, they had a falling out... For some reason, Leonard Leo had dinner at Mar a Lago, because that's the kind of stuff you do now. You go to court and kiss the feet of the king or something like that. And then Trump came out and berated him for something. But that was about officials in the DOJ, something to do with Trump's special counsel investigation against Trump,. And Trump was like, "I thought the people you recommend would protect me from this kind of nonsense." I believe this happened in early 2020.
But it is all part of the same story. The story here is, and what is really quite scary, is even these types of Federalist Society lawyers -- and I can guarantee you those are properly conservative people -- that's not going to cut it this time.
There's not going to be any more autonomous DoJ. No, no, no. Next time around the Department of Justice, the entire law enforcement apparatus, the FBI, That's all going to be a tool to enact the regime's agenda. That's what it's going to be for. And so we are looking for lawyers who are providing the kind of pseudo-legal justification for whatever we want to do.
That's not Trump. That is Project 2025.
I think they're very much on the same page on this kind of stuff.
They looked at Bill Barr who se the sole accomplishment is protecting donald trump from any sort of consequence and say this guy did not do enough to weaponize the Department of Justice.
That should be scary, right? Because I don't think anyone can look at Bill Barr and think rhino secret liberal or whatever. By the way, I mean, Bill Barr, to my knowledge, still someone who says he would vote for Donald Trump...
Jason Sattler: And he wishes he had looked at Hunter's laptop more. He even acknowledged that he didn't go far...
Thomas Zimmer: Barr is an interesting figure to me because he's kind of a Reactionary Catholic. So he stands for the kind of rise of Reactionary Catholicism. Remember that all six of the conservative or right wing Justices on the Supreme Court are Catholics. And he subscribes to this idea I think it's sometimes referred to as of Catholic Integralism. Religious norms and morals as understood by these reactionary Catholics are sort of the highest good and the government needs to be used to implement that.
If you ask yourself, how are these people who were formerly looked at as establishment conservatives, how are they giving themselves permission to radicalize and go with Trump, Bill Barr is the perfect example. Because while he will say that Trump is "mad and crazy" and that January 6th was "awful," he will then turn around and say, "Yeah, I would still vote for that guy. Because Joe Biden is the bigger threat to America because of the quote leftist agenda to kind of destroy real America.."
That's how they give themselves permission.
Jason Sattler: The one thing I think the right may end up regretting most about this report if they're end up regretting it at all i s how far they would go to prevent and prosecute abortions.. It's complete surveillance of every abortion in America. Imagine a government big enough to actually carry that out and how entangled into people's personal medical histories you would have to be. It's on par or bigger than deporting the over tens of millions they want to deport it. It's just watching anyone who's capable of getting pregnant for any reason whatsoever... Can't see how that could ever be abused.
There was always a libertarian strain in the GOP that just conveniently disappeared whenever abortion rights came up. But this is beyond all of that. How can they justify the the creation of this kind of a surveillance apparatus while at the same time claiming to care about the Constitution.
I know they have no fear of hypocrisy. They take being called a hypocrite as a compliment because they have the power to carry out what they're trying to do. But I want to know how they justify it in their head.
Thomas Zimmer: Just to clarify, this is from this 920-page policy agenda Project 2025 put out. They go department-by-department. There's a section on the CDC and what they want to do is basically create this unified data bank with comprehensive data on every abortion in America. That that would be in the hands of this of patriarchal regime lusting for control over the bodies of women.
Who could possibly object to that?
And yeah, I mean, so I think it's very important to be, to be clear here. Sometimes they say, "Oh, we want to dismantle government and dismantle the administrative state and all that. And there is an element to that, to some of what they do here, right? There is a deregulation agenda here.
That's part of what they want to do.
Jason Sattler: When it comes to polluters, for instance.
Thomas Zimmer: They want to dismantle certain parts of government, certain parts of the administrative state while simultaneously mobilizing and weaponizing others.
They're being very specific. Everything that can be used as a tool to create a fairer, more democratic society needs to go. But everything that can be used as a tool to implement a reactionary order on society will be mobilized and weaponized.
The overriding concern is to impose this sort of reactionary white Christian patriarchal order on society. And again, they do that by dismantling some parts of government, but also mobilizing and weaponizing others. Now it is true that on paper, this is a tension. Like the conservative legal movement, they always talk about dismantling the administrative state and then small government and all that kind of stuff. And then you have this authoritarian vision of the state imposing a vision of society.
In some sense, this tension has always been very much part of modern conservatism. When it was formed as a political Project and sort of the middle decades of the 20th century, it was always very broadly speaking an alliance between these more market fundamentalist libertarian forces and these more reactionary traditionalist and also religious right kind of forces. And what brought them together was an anti-communist, but more broadly speaking, an anti-left kind of project that that sought to prevent any kind of attempt at leveling the established hierarchies, hierarchies of race, gender, religion, wealth. Any attempt to level those hierarchies, right? That was communism, that was socialism and that was the evil left. That's what brought them together.
This has not been entirely without tension. And this sort of alliance is not static. There has been a bit of a realignment, I think, on the right in this relationship between this more reactionary traditionalist wing and the more market fundamentalist wing. And lately there have been forces on this of more reactionary traditionalist wing who want kind of out of this alliance because they feel like, "Hey, the market fundamentalists, they have always gotten what they wanted. And yet we have let all these, like, woke, liberal secular forces advance too much. So no more of this small government nonsense, not even rhetorically, not even on paper. We're gonna properly embrace the authoritarian state to impose our vision on society.
Again, there's always been this tendency to embrace the coercive powers of the states as long as they were deployed in service of the right-wing agenda. But that has sort of radicalized and escalated. You see this a lot now on the right. "Conservatism is no longer enough." That's what they talk about. So they explicitly reject the label "conservatism" and adopt a more sort of counter revolutionary terminology. This goes against a broader public understanding, conservatism should not be revolutionary, right? And I think Project 2025 oozes exactly that embrace of radicalism. There is in this worldview, no more room for moderation, no more room for compromise, no more room for retreat. And then that all is channeled into this policy agenda.
Because again, they just want to dismantle the parts of the state that could be used as a tool to advance egalitarian goals while at the same time mobilizing others that will help them stem the tide of quote unquote "woke leftism."
And I think again, the right is not a monolithic block. There are different factions here in different camps of vying for supremacy. Look, no matter how much they dislike or despise, despise each other. They hate The Left -- The Leftist, egalitarian, pluralist idea of America -- more. And that's what actually has always kind of been what helped this coalition together. And it's holding this coalition together again. There is friction here, but I do not have much hope that this would prevent these plans from being implemented or prevent this kind of stuff from causing real harm. I I think it would be foolish to hope that they will just shoot themselves in the foot here.
That's not going to happen.
Jason Sattler: Yeah, there's a flexibility to right wing thinking that I just never saw growing up. They can be against bail reform but they don't want Donald Trump to have to pay a bond for anything. It just fits the situation. If it's about helping the rich and the powerful, no problem.
The thing that I keep kind of marveling at that you noted was how clear they are about this. The comparison you had was to Christopher Rufo, who if people don't know, he's this activist who kind of moved now from to first attacking critical race, race theory to going after just black academics in general and calling it DEI.
This desire to kind of state where you're going. This seems to be very new in modern conservatism. This is all behind the scenes stuff that used to happen in the past. What do you think it means that they're so public about this and so blatant what they want to do?
Thomas Zimmer: There is a Trump effect here. Definitely Trump has demonstrated the power of being explicit, the power of not leaving it to the subtext.
When Ronald Reagan talked about "welfare queens," there was always subtext. We call it dog whistling, sometimes. It seems pretty easy to hear. So let's not kid ourselves.
But some of this is also circumstances having changed
Until the end of the Cold War, some of the radicalism that was present on the right was contained by America presenting itself to the world as this beacon of freedom and liberal democracy. And that set certain boundaries for what you could say and still be considered part of the mainstream political spectrum. It's not a coincidence that we have seen this rise of what we sometimes call "right wing populism," a more openly anti-democratic right wing extremism that has moved to the center of conservative politics. It's not a coincidence that that very much happens in the early nineties. After the end of the Cold War is when someone like Pat Buchanan comes out of the "America First" tradition... We have come to call this a paleo-conservative tradition that comes from the 1940s. Buchanan flat out says, "Now that this whole Cold War thing is over, we can turn our attention to the real enemy. The real enemy is this whole liberal democracy thing. That needs to go."
The other thing I want to say is that this is also a manifestation of the siege mentality on the right, the sense of being under siege from these quote unquote "woke radical" anti-American forces. This was always a thing, right? In many ways it has always been five minutes to midnight in conservative rhetoric. This is sort of an established trope. " The American Republic is about to be overrun by The Left wing hordes and the barbarians." All that kind of stuff. But it's also true that this sense of being under siege has radicalized over the past few decades, and specifically the early 21st century. There is this general sense that we don't have time anymore for any kind adhering to norms and precedent and being polite and playing by the rules of establishment and blah, blah, blah." That's over for these people. Again, this, this goes to this whole, what I said earlier, this whole sense that conservatism is no longer enough. This is the real thing. Normal conservatism, quote unquote, normal Republican Party stuff just wasn't enough.
This is what you saw in 2016. When you look at why people on the intellectual reactionary right who initially said, "Trump is despicable. We don't like Trump," came around to Trump, they said, "Look, we've tried it with normal Republicans." Think Marco Rubio. "We've tried for decades with this kind of person and look where it's got us."
Real America -- as they conceive it, white Christian patriarchal domination -- is on the brink of being overthrown. "We need something else now."
There's this famous or infamous piece in a Claremont Institute publication. It was called Flight 93 Election by Michael Anton, who compared the 2016 election to the United Airlines flight captured by Al Qaeda terrorists where the passengers decided to storm the cockpit,. The plane crashed in Pennsylvania. Michael Anton is like 2016 election is our Flight 93. We have to storm the cockpit. And so we need someone who is willing to storm the cockpit for us, throw caution in the wind, take the gloves off. We need a bruiser. We need a brawler.
In this piece is Michael Anton is saying, "Trump is despicable, he's disgusting. And this is exactly what we need right now. We need someone who doesn't play by the rules, who doesn't care about norms and precedent and forbearance. Someone would just take the gloves off and get dirty to defeat the enemy, right?'
This is the prevailing sense on the American Right. It's basically Flight 93 politics all the time. This is how you get this more open embrace of authoritarianism, this more open embrace of radicalism, this counter-revolutionary zeal on the American Right.
That really tells you something about where they are.
Jason Sattler: And I understand why Donald Trump feels that way. I can see why he thinks the walls are closing in. But the conservative movement, as we've noted in this conversation, has completely captured the Supreme Court if it's not just my lifetime, it's my kid's lifetime at this point. And the federal judiciary is in quite similar shape. That has not calmed them down one bit whatsoever. They are more intense than they were in 2016, it seems.
Thomas Zimmer: Oh, yeah. I mean, 100%. Obviously the election of Barack Obama was a big radicalizing factor on the right. But another big radicalizing moment was the summer of 2020, the bigs of mass protests in the wake of the murder, murder of George Floyd.
On the Right, they will tell you, " That was the moment for us."
This has become a big part of. right wing political identity to see that as the moment when supposedly The Left started its full on violent assault on America. Every time you mention something like "The right is embracing political violence," you will get flooded with right-wing people tell you, "Where were you when these people burned down..."
Jason Sattler: Which cities? We're not sure, but they all burned down.
Thomas Zimmer: Portland, apparently. This goes back to how are they giving themselves permission to radicalize so much and go with whatever Trump does? This is a big thing. The has already started its violent assault on the American Republic. So, of course, we're going to embrace violence in supposedly in response to that, right? And, and yeah, I mean, This, this goes, Trump is, Trump is in so many ways more a manifestation of all of this stuff rather than the cause, he is just the perfect, he's the perfect embodiment of this kind of sense of grievance and being under siege.
You're absolutely right. It's ridiculous in many ways is ridiculous. But this to bring it back to Project 2025, because it's so instructive, the Heritage Foundation united the whole conservative machine behind this idea of "next time we're going to be ready." So let's start planning. The president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, wrote the foreword for this 920-page policy agenda that they put out. They call it Mandate for Leadership. Project 2025 is telling us, "Here's what we're going to do department-by-department, agency-by-agency, 920 pages.
By the way, I really recommend people should go online. They should Google "Project 2025" and it's up there. They have it as a PDF, the whole 920 pages. I don't, I don't know...
Jason Sattler: it's unbelievable. It's just sitting right there on the internet.
Thomas Zimmer: You should read this forward by Kevin Roberts, the Heritage Foundation president. He calls it his "Promise to America." It's just 15, 16 pages long. And what you get there is this unbelievably radicalized sense of being under siege and the sense of grievance.
And he constantly talks about the enemy is this elite, the woke elite. And it's a term that is entirely detached from any sort of socioeconomic reality. He doesn't talk about power. He doesn't talk about wealth. Donald Trump in this understanding is absolutely not elite. Clarence Thomas is not elite. "Elite" is anyone who, adheres to the quote unquote "woke ideology." So any kind of campus activist is absolutely part of this sinister elite that is taking over all spheres and institutions of American life. This is so driven and fueled by this disdain for this again, quote unquote "woke elite" that is supposedly in cahoots with like communist China, because it's all the same thing, like communism and "woke elitism." It is so instructive to read that.
And again, I want to emphasize this, this is not the MAGA fringe. This is not some, some kooky right wing, whatever. Kevin Roberts gave an interview with The New York Times in December. And it got quite a bit of attention because in that interview, he is so open about all of this kind of stuff, including like, "Did Joe Biden win the 2020 election? No. McCarthy was right." McCarthyism, the anti communist hysteria in the 50s, was right because, he flat out says in The New York Times in December 2023, there is a massive communist conspiracy in American government today. So he flat out says this and then he has this line where he says, "Look, this is Heritage. This is not like some fringe a group on the right. And he's absolutely right. This is not the fringe. This is as conservative establishment as it gets. This is as close to the power centers of the American right as it gets. That's exactly why it is so scary when you read what these right wing leaders, these conservative leaders, how they see the world, how much they are driven by this sense of, again, being under siege and how much they feel justified in radicalizing and embracing extremism.
It's been a long time since I've read something that was such a such a distillation of everything that's been going on on the American Right.
I really think everyone should read this Forward to this Project 2025 . And then I know if you read this and you feel like, "Yeah,, that's awesome. I like this kind of stuff." Then we can't be friends, but at least you've read it, right? But make sure that you make sure that you read it so that you actually know what what American democracy is up against.
Jason Sattler: And how unafraid they are of us knowing. I mean, they are afraid of a lot of the things you notice, but they're just unafraid of people knowing what they're up to.
And that is the most shocking part of it.
Thomas Zimmer: Again, he said this to The New York Times, there is a massive communist conspiracy in the American government. There is no again, no more subtext. That that is over. They want you to read this report. That's why they put it up on the Internet.
Jason Sattler: In Michigan, the whole idea of defending democracy actually really means a lot to me. My vote was almost stolen in 2020. My family's votes were almost stolen. A lot of people kind of mocked the idea that democracy is at stake in the 2024 election. Joe Biden made an excellent case in Philadelphia in 2022 why it is actually at stake.
You've tied the storyline together of where Joe Biden has started to bring this campaign to 2024. What do you think he's doing well when it comes to saying what we need to defend democracy and why does it matter?
Thomas Zimmer: It's interesting, right?
So Joe Biden has oscillated in his, in his approach to this question of, defending democracy and what that means and how much it should be foregrounded in his message to the American people. I think that this administration came in thinking we should not talk about this very much. We should not center our pitch to the American people around this idea of defending democracy, because we should be a competent government and focus on socio-economic issues and not focus on the quote unquote "culture wars." That will bring the country back together and unite the country and restore normalcy. So "restore pre-Trump normalcy, that sort of thing.
I think this is also very much in line with Biden's personal instincts that I think point him in the direction of, you know, quote, unquote, "Bidenomics." So don't get bogged down focus instead on the pocketbook.
So interestingly, if you remember the State of the Union address in 2023, last year, there was actually very little on abortion rights and civil rights. It was all about the pocketbook.
Now, interestingly, you already brought up the Philadelphia speech.
(Clip of the Joe Biden's "Soul of America" speech)
Thomas Zimmer: So that was September 1st, 2022, often referred to as his soul of the nation speech. And that was the other end, of the spectrum of how he has dealt with this kind of stuff. That was all about no American democracy is under threat. And he was very clear and precise about who is threatening it. He said, "It's the MAGA Republicans. He was very clear. It's not all Republicans. But Trump and everyone who is with Trump is a direct threat to American democracy and you need to defend it. That was his key message throughout the midterm elections.
But again, by February, 2023, he was kind of back to, "Let's talk about Bidenomics and not so much about this democracy thing." And so he has been oscillating.
Where I see something interesting happening more lately is in his latest State of the Union a few weeks back. He once again centering it around the idea of defending democracy. And he was once again clear with the diagnosis. But previously Biden had a tendency to speak of America as inherently democratic. The soul of the American nation is inherently and incorruptibly democratic. And so in that sense, Trump and MAGA is just some kind of weird aberration, like a weird sort of accidental wrong turn . And of course, if that were true then the right way to deal with that would just be to restore the pre-Trump, pre-2016 quote unquote "normal." just restore previously was a functioning, liberal, stable democracy.
That to me is not very plausible.
In his latest State of the Union, he did something very different. He talked about not the soul of the nation being incorruptible, democratic and or egalitarian. He talked about America being always having been defined by an ongoing struggle over who gets to define the soul of the nation.
That is something very different. That is acknowledging, "No, we have always had two very different ideas. One is sort of that sort of egalitarian principle. All people are created equal, but the other idea is, "No, America is a land in which white Christians have a right to define what does and does not count as as American. And then he said, "Look, this idea of all people are created equal. I think he said something like we've never actually lived up to it. But we've also never walked away from it either."
I really liked this. Because this telling, it's no longer this of insisting on America being exceptionally democratic and incorruptibly egalitarian and Trump just being an aberration. It's an acknowledgement that Trump is not just an aberration. Trump is a manifestation of something that has always been a big part of the American story that might actually win of that more egalitarian idea of America. And if that is the case, then just restoring the pre-2016 "normal" is not good enough. Then we need a more transformative vision of what it means to defend democracy, something that takes America forward.
If you think about what the more left wing critique of the Biden coalition and the center left and centrist liberalism has been that "Isn't this whole defend democracy thing just a fig leaf behind which you have a basically a coalition of restoration that just wants to take us back to this deeply deficient pre 2016 system?" That's a big part of The Left wing critique, right? Which I kind of share. And I think what Biden hinted at here is kind of a shift in the liberal imagination that says, "No maybe you're right. Maybe this whole pre 2016 thing wasn't good enough. And we actually do need something transformative, something that not just restores a situation that gave us Trump in the first place, something that takes us forward closer to again," as Biden said, "to that ideal that we have actually never lived up to."
And I kind of like that. Let's see if it holds. Let's see if it sticks. This was a very noticeable shift in the way he outlined the American story. And then what should follow from this. So again, I got from, from a more restorative vision of what it means to defend democracy to a transformative vision.
I think that's meaningful.
Jason Sattler: Mean, Joe Biden is interesting in himself as he's in it. He embodies the conflict on the demo on The Left. Like he is like the Project 2025 Project incarnated, but for The Left in the sense that he, he lived in represents 50 years of the kind of compromised democratic politics and coming along at a moment where he's recognizing that that is not Even a winning argument perhaps right to get a second term I think one of the real challenges here is as you presented the pieces It seems to me what people are saying is then what yeah is just we're store row enough I mean, are we he's he's not even come out for the end of the filibuster I think the challenge then becomes then what and I think that that's where he is kind of a fundamentally honest person His reluctance come from it's I think he realizes that he is not a then what kind of guy so I I I that's what I what I kind of was left with is he's made a brilliant argument for expanding the Supreme Court, but he is just not the guy who wants to then go call for the expansion of the Supreme Court.
Thomas Zimmer: Wherever the center of the Democratic coalition has been is where Biden has been, which is also why the fact that he is so far left of where he himself was in the nineties tells you something about where the Democratic coalition has moved. I want to be clear. That doesn't mean that Joe Biden is like a super progressive lefty. I'm just saying relative to where he was in the nineties.
Jason Sattler: He was for Hillarycare. He was for whatever the center was.
Thomas Zimmer: Yes. Absolutely. But now he is significantly more progressive and significantly to the left of where the Barack Obama presidency was. I think that that is very meaningful. But I agree with you, it's probably more meaningful as an indication of where the Democratic coalition has gone rather than as like Joe Biden will be the trailblazer to the next thing. Maybe that's also like just not a realistic expectation of a president in general and this specific president. I share many of the criticisms of the Biden administration and Joe Biden personally. I'm not the biggest Joe Biden fan, but I do think that it is important for people maybe more on the Left to look at the Democratic Party's party platform from the nineties on immigration, on welfare reform, on criminal justice reform. It's terrifying. It's awful. In many areas, they've moved significantly to the Left to a more progressive position.
But again, this is this has been a very open question. What is it actually when Joe Biden says he wants to defend democracy? What is it he wants to do? Does he just want to restore that sort of pre-Trump status quo ante? Or, or again, is there a more transformative vision behind all this? And and I again, I think there's a shift happening to acknowledging that just restoring the conditions that brought us Trump in the first place is just not going to be good enough.
That's just not going to cut it. That would be quite something if we could actually get the power centers of American liberalism to agree that justice restorative defending democracy thing is not good enough, that would be something.
Jason Sattler: And if the Left can understand the power they have to pull the center, if you, the more you pull the center and you make a court expansion seem like it's the moderate centrist thing to do, it's something that Joe Biden increasingly will embrace.
Just, just historically that's been the result over and over again. And I think that that's part of rhetorically is where he's headed is he's showing us that he gets where the party is.
Thomas Zimmer: This is the perfect example, right? In a purely restorative understanding of what it means to defend democracy, you talk about things like, "OK, restore trust in the institutions."
Okay. But what do you do in a situation in which one of the country's main political institutions, the Supreme Court, is acting as the spearhead of the anti-democratic assault, right? Then, oh, just restore trust in the institutions is just not gonna be good enough, right?
Jason Sattler: Just Restore Roe and know that the Supreme Court will just say, "Hey, that's actually not, that's not constitutional."
Thomas Zimmer: Exactly right. I think in a vacuum, restore, and preserve trust in institutions sounds totally fine and plausible. But we're not in a vacuum. We're in a concrete situation in which this institution is not just part of the reactionary mobilization against multiracial pluralism, it's the spearhead of that assault. And so, yeah, you can't just sit there and say, How about we restore blah, blah, blah. It's not going to cut it. You need something else. You need again, you need a transformative vision. Look, I am unfortunately not the person to tell you how exactly that's going to work.
I can't pretend to have that kind of expertise or expertise or insight or experience. But I am very interested in how there seems to be more of an acknowledgement on the center left at the power centers of American liberalism and the Democratic party, that this vision with which the Biden administration probably came in, which was more of a restorative, let's restore pre-Trump normalcy and leave all that behind. Well, I mean, three years later, over three years after Biden coming in, where are we now at that? That just wasn't good enough. Right. And so we need something else.
Jason Sattler: One last thing I've been thinking about. Project 2025 really seems to see their opportunity here. I think they don't think they get another Donald Trump. This document seems to set a floor of what they expect from him, but it's also kind of saying, "Hey. We want to take advantage." You know, the old saying. "Never waste a dictator."
Thomas Zimmer: Oh, yeah. I totally agree. I've encountered this a lot when I talk about Project 2025, people saying, "Who cares? Trump doesn't care about this kind of stuff. He doesn't read this kind of stuff. He's not interested in this kind of stuff. Like, look what happened in 2017. He doesn't have the discipline to enact any kind of comprehensive agenda like that. So this is all just. Nonsense. This is all just hot air."
And I look, I get it. In some ways, Trump seems like a less-than-ideal vessel for the kinds of ambitious, comprehensive plans that are coming out of the right, right now. He is erratic. He's lazy. He's volatile. He's certainly not sitting down and reading a 920-page policy memo.
Jason Sattler: He's not reading the foreword, I guarantee.
Thomas Zimmer: No, no, no. But you know, in other ways, I think he's especially suited to lead this kind of crusade that Project 2025 envisions, because he is animated by the spirit of vengefulness and grievance. He is extreme. He's not restrained by norms or by forbearance and all that kind of good stuff. And that is precisely why they united behind him in 2016.
In the first place, they didn't want a normal Republican, but someone who would take the gloves off. And in Trump, they have someone who will not reject Project 2025 because he thinks it's going too far or because he has qualms about questions of legality or precedent. It takes a properly radical president in the White House to implement extremist plans like these. And that's Trump, right?
And just to be clear, if you compare these plans that are emanating on the right Project 2025 and all that stuff with what Trump himself says he wants to do. There is a lot of overlap there . The general thrust of Project 2025 is entirely in line with what Trump wants to do with power, because Project 2025 ultimately envisions: They want to purge the centers from government. They want to replace them with loyalists. They want to expand presidential power over the executive and make the executive into a tool for whatever the regime wants to do.
And I don't think it takes a super sophisticated analysis of like politics to explain why that would appeal to Trump. Right. He wants power.
He wants impunity. He wants the ability to plunder. And he again, he will not sit down and read these 920 pages or whatever. But Donald Trump, someone with aggressively autocratic instincts and sensibilities, I think this kind of vision that is outlined in Project 2025 will absolutely appeal to him. And so I don't, again, once again, I think I said this earlier, there are people that right now looking at all these plans saying, Oh well, they're just, there's just going to be so many rivalries between these people and Trump's not going to care and all this kind of stuff.
Yes, there's friction. No, the American right is not a monolithic block. Yes, there's different factions, but the idea that this will sort of. They will outmaneuver themselves and we don't have to worry about this kind of stuff because they will again, sabotage their own plans. I do not see this at all. I think again, the general thrust of all of these plans is very much in line with what Trump himself wants to do. And there's no question that this would cause tremendous harm.
Jason Sattler: And one thing we can never say is that we haven't been told. So Thomas Zimmer, thank you so much for your time. And thank you for the homework. I will definitely read at least the whole forward.
Thomas Zimmer: Thank you so much for having me.
"Thank you, Project 2025" with Thomas Zimmer