One of the more astute political essays I’ve read this past year comes from Sam Young. Sam is well-read and knowledgeable. He is a good, thoughtful political writer who takes his readers away from the beaten political paths. He can make you think.
On October 13, 2023, he wrote an article on why Hamas attacked Israel a few days earlier.
My apologies: this link is unlikely to work unless you are a Medium member.
Sam has no experience in the back rooms of political power. His essay did not rely on the knowledge of experts on Israel/Palestine politics. Rather, Sam just used his current understanding and applied some human nature. He logically analyzed why Hamas attacked its enemy, knowing losing the war was the most likely outcome.
Since Sam’s essay, I have read other essays on Medium for the “reason” for the October 7 attack. I have followed some rabbit trails from Mastodon and listened to experts on the TV news channels. Sam’s essay still holds the most water.
In these days of alternative facts, it’s harder to prove the truth. To get around this, I believe logic can be the better arbitrator. We should be asking, “Why would they do this?” in a few more matters. I’m going to use Sam’s technique in this essay.
Why would they do Project 2025?
Last January, Caren White introduced me to the Heritage Foundation. I spent an hour with its website, and came to the conclusion that it has a “Christofascist, white nationalist, and moneyed interest”* agenda. Towards the end of my sojourn with this website, I came across an online form where you could submit your name, contact information, and life experiences to the Heritage Foundation. They said they were looking for qualified people to work in the next administration.
Maybe this was just a gimmick to get an email address for fundraising. Or maybe it was a conscious attempt to find right-thinking people to take over the work of senior civil servants who could stall the Republican agenda. Or maybe it was the start of a list of Americans who would get preferential treatment when dealing with the next American government.
*Thanks to Garrett Snedaker for this neat phrase that succinctly and accurately describes the political coalition known as MAGA. I would add “generally normal conservatives that just don’t like Democrats” to this list.
A couple of weeks later, Caren introduced me to Project 2025. I spent an hour with this website. The site was more direct with where the next Republican administration would take their country — not good for people who were not on the list.
Here is my one-hour analysis of Project 2025. Making it public knowledge was not a good political move for the Republicans. Those Americans who like the ideas around Project 2025 are already voting Republican. There’s no new votes here. Project 2025 would give many of the 78M Americans who did not vote in 2020 a reason to vote against the Republicans. Not much political upside here, from what I could conclude.
So why would the Republicans make Project 2025 public knowledge?
I’m not in the back rooms of the Republican Party as they formulated their long-term strategy. I haven’t heard any analysts espousing any knowledge on this matter. I’m just going to use my logic as to why the party pulled this “political blunder.” Maybe my logic has some degree of truth. Maybe there is better logic.
The Republicans have Plan A and Plan B to effect Project 2025. Plan A means winning the election in November legitimately. The polls have been saying a 50/50 race almost since 2020. So it’s not hard to believe a legitimate victory is possible. With such control, Project 2025 can be implemented democratically.
Plan B is to resort to violence in an insurrection way. Many Republicans will not follow this path. But the more Republicans who do, the more likely the insurrection will be successful. In my opinion, Project 2025 was designed to convince those Republicans on the edge to take the violent path, if that path becomes needed to acquire power. They would read Project 2025 to understand what they were fighting for.
If nothing else, the release of Project 2025 so early shows the confidence the Republicans had for “winning” back the White House and Congress.
I’m not done yet
I need to take this situation and Sam’s technique in a different direction. So now, I will ask:
Why would the American media not report on Project 2025?
It seems that Project 2025 has been active since April 2023. Does it not seem logical to you that the left-leaning media outlets, like CNN and MSNBC, should have been all over this manifesto from Day 1?
Admittedly, I don’t watch those media outlets anymore. To get my American news, I try to catch PBS News Hour every couple of weeks, but I heard nothing about the project from this media either. It’s not hard to understand that my Canadian news outlets would not give this website attention when the American news outlets did not think it was important.
In other words, Project 2025 was out there for a long time — and little was happening to expose it.
Why?
My logic says to look at history. As the Nazis were ascending to power in the 1930s, the brownshirts were vandalizing newspapers who were too critical of the Nazis. In the wee hours of the morning, the brownshirts would break into an unfriendly media building and ransack offices and presses. Affected newspapers could not print anything for a few weeks. Some never re-opened. The brownshirts only had to do this a few times for the rest of the German media to get the message.
Methinks the same thing has happened to the American media.
With the polls suggesting a legitimate Republican victory is possible and an insurrectionist victory as a backup, the owners of these media outlets want their investment to survive the next Republican administration: a 10% return with some censorship is better than a truly free press outlet being shut down, right?
Whether the threats were assumed, implied, or actual is not important. These threats sway the media outlet to not be too critical of that future administration. Attacking Project 2025 was likely a line not to cross. After all, it is only a website, right?
But the word got past the self-censored gatekeepers. In late May, Project 2025 started buzzing on Mastodon. A week or two later, Project 2025 appeared with more frequency on Medium. From my vantage point, the first prominent person to mention Project 2025 was Kamala Harris, just a day or two after the Biden resignation. I don’t think this timing was a result of the Democratic back rooms just finding out about Project 2025. For whatever reason, it is now OK to criticize this manifesto.
Conclusion, Part 1
Using the logical technique “Why are they doing this?” allows us to speculate on a reason, rather than wait for some expert to proffer up his or her comments. In this way, we get around the various versions of alternative facts.
If my logic is faulty, then someone else should explain why it is faulty. If my position leads to further discussion to find the truth, that is OK.
If someone in the Republican Party would like to explain how Project 2025 was going to get them more votes and the Democrats fewer votes, I would like to hear about this.
If someone in the mainstream media had good journalistic reasons for not reporting on Project 2025, I would like to hear about this.
Until then, I shall assume my reasonings are reasonably sound: (1) Project 2025 is designed to find more fighters for the insurrection, and (2) the mainstream media is scared of these fighters.
From there, we can infer that the Republicans have successfully scared our media. Putting out Project 2025 in April 2023 was a test run for how far they could push things. Only a fortuitous change of political leadership seems to have foiled this plot.
Conclusion, Part 2
Do we really have a democracy when the direction of where a political party wants to take the country is not “allowed” to be discussed?
Is this not another sign that we need a new democracy?
If so, when do we start building it?
Published on Medium 2024
USA's Newest Political Messiah
Addendum 2025
Well, the Republicans won the election. I was not expecting them to implement Project 2025 to the extent that they are implementing it. Another case of political forecasting not being right.
