The Republican Manifesto

Project 2025 Is Just A Warm Up

Historically, despotic political types like to write. From Karl Marx to the Unabomber, they all have one particular thing in common- manifestos. They love to map everything out and get their political licks in.

Definitions vary, but Marx’s ‘Communist Manifesto’ example dominates- an emotional political complaint, insulting an oppressor, decrying the damage they’ve done, and demanding loosely articulated actions to fight back.

So, what about our current-day despotic hopefuls?

Yes, unfortunately, I mean Republicans.

Everything they’ve been doing for the last three decades has been slowly edging towards autocracy. With Trump, a true despot if there ever was one, they have begun barreling towards it at breakneck speed.

We’ve gotten a few blurbs here and there, and lots of speeches and social media posts with veiled meanings- right wing talk radio has pushed culture war stereotypes nonstop since the 90s- but mostly Trump’s rambling word salads have been only coyly hinting at right wing fascist control as a moral strategy. But, no outright admission of an organized plan or anything.

No manifesto, per se.

Well, it turns out there is one.

I know. You’re shocked. Shocked, I tell you. Shocked.

The Republicans have their own on-line manifesto for how to rule the world.

Mhuahahahaha!

Ok, how to rule the US, anyway.

It’s called the ‘2025 Presidential Transition Project’.

We know it casually as ‘Project 2025’.

It’s been up on a website since 2023. It’s a long-term, all encompassing screed with detailed plans for execution.

Critics and liberals say that it’s a blueprint for a Christo-fascist takeover of the US beginning on the first day of a new Trump presidential term.

It is.

No, that’s it.

It just is.

It reads like a virtual parody of the Communist Manifesto. It’s overflowing with patriotic and victim grievance cliches. It frequently names liberals and Democrats as the problem, accusing them of trying to destroy the country, while, ironically and then some, advocating policies and actions that are antithetical to the Constitution and even to the Bible.

But, is it really a ‘manifesto’?

Oh, yea, you betcha.

It says Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act the first day, possibly even during his inauguration, and use martial law to quell all liberal protest. That would also suspend the Constitution and make him the sole judge of if and when there would be another election. And the government agencies in the Executive Branch that have traditionally operated independently will be subject to the will of Trump, personally.

Under Trump, the DOJ will be tasked with arresting and jailing his enemies, without those messy, time-consuming trials. The FCC will stop policing conservative media outlets and start banning liberal ones. The FDA will relax its standards and people will start getting sick. And abortion drugs will be banned. 50,000 government employees will be fired if they don’t pass Trump’s loyalty bar. And the EPA, IRS and Board of Education would be dissolved. And that’s not a fraction of it.

It’s over 900 pages of decrying ‘liberal crimes destroying America’ and what they’re going to do to eliminate Democrats, the Deep State, Marxists and fascists (?), which will amount to restricting or banning LGBTQs, banning teaching about Civil War slavery in schools, banning all abortion, and even contraception, rounding up immigrants into concentration camps to deport and making Christianity the national religion (or, at least, trying.)

And, its juvenile phrasing can be maddening to read. Political slang like ‘woke’, ‘wokism’ and ‘radical left’ is employed constantly- another technique lifted from Marx- always demonize the opponent.

The stated goal is to achieve this control and changeover in 180 days. If Trump is president on Jan 20, 2025, they intend for us to cease to be a democracy completely by the end of July.

And, again, there is their website you can go to and read it. And, you don’t have to ‘read between the lines’ to understand ‘Project 2025’. It says it plainly and directly. Trump will control the government completely under the ‘Unified Executive’ theory- like a fascist dictator.

I mean, as a fascist dictator.

Hyperbole? Exaggeration? Political persecution? Liberal propaganda? Am I just blowing anti-GOP smoke?

Hardly.

They’re saying these things out loud now. The quiet parts. Out loud. There is no more filter, not even a pretense. The Republicans are launching an autocratic takeover of our government, and they’ve even published their game plan.

It usually doesn’t matter much which way an election goes- new policies and initiatives take time. The differences are almost always relatively minor- the US government’s normal function doesn’t usually change drastically with each administration.

This time, it could.

And, make no mistake- it takes no spin at all to see the parallels between ‘Project 2025’ and the Nazis, and the Marxists, for that matter. And Trump is even speaking that way, basically calling immigrants ‘vermin’, a term Hitler used for Jews.

It’s their new fascist manifesto, and it’s as bad as anything Marx, Hitler or even Unabomber Kasinsky wrote.

Fascism is coming. And it is, indeed, wearing a flag and carrying a cross. And orange spray tan on just its face. And, a bleach-blonde dead weasel on its head.

Too much?

Okay, strike the weasel.

“Hello? Oh, PETA. No. No actual weasels were struck. No, it was already dead. You’re welcome.”

Anyways……

A manifesto is a manifesto, and this one’s a doozy. ‘Project 2025’ was written by a coalition of right wing groups led by the Heritage Foundation, because, of course it was. Who else would propose a reactionary systemic government change based entirely on dogma and culture war ideology?

That is not hyperbole. I mean, when I say it’s practically fascism out loud, that’s not hyperbole, or when I say it’s christian nationalism combined with racist overtones, it’s not hyperbole- I mean, I’m not even exaggerating about it.

But, the things ‘Project 2025’ says to support its reactionary autocratic themes- that’s hyperbole.

Again, it invokes ‘wokism’, the ‘Radical left’ and ‘Marxist Democrats’ often. It reinforces tropes like LGBTQ indoctrination and pedophilia, immigrant replacement theory and abortions after birth. I know. They’re even whinier than Marx.

Even the infamous Adolf didn’t quite telegraph so literally what he planned to do in 1932. This is more like 1938, just before he started actually taking things and killing people. We are farther along the scale than anyone should be comfortable knowing.

But, it can still be stopped at the ballot box if enough people realize that it’s not just Trump trying to be another Hitler/Mussolini- it’s the entire Republican Party cowering to him because they want this, too.

Democrats were the conservatives from the Civil War era into the 20th Century. They managed to turn liberal, and their confederate contingency went with the now-conservative Republicans. Since then, big business has turned the Republicans autocratic. They are convinced they must remain in power despite the vote, and if the system has to be breached to allow it, so be it.

Republicans have, in the past, been successfully steered towards accepting the liberal spectrum and their role as its conservative wing.

We can bring them around again. We must. After all, we’re the icon of the left side of world politics. Our entire government is based on liberal ideals and our conservatives used to be on the right within that spectrum. Autocracies-, from monarchies to empires- are to the right of that, fascism and communism at the far right of that.

When one’s nation is based on liberal foundations, ‘conserving’ means protecting them.

“So, Republicans, it’s no sin or mistake to be ashamed of- it’s not a fault. You can go back to being Lincoln/Teddy Roosevelt/Eisenhower conservatives. You can be for the environment, civil rights, workers well being, fair law and order, you can respect and admire the old ‘melting pot’ attitude towards immigration and still be conservative. Nothing Democrats have asked for requires you to not be ‘conservative’.”

Only the modern MAGA mindset requires this level of dogmatic rejection of liberalism, because autocracy can only control through deceit, fear and oppression.

So, it needs a political voice, and Republicans have jumped on board with zeal.

But, your average liberal can see what’s coming. If the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin taught us anything, it’s that once the party heads and leader have control, everybody below them is expendable and no one’s freedom is assured. Any mistake, and any may become targets.

Right now, though, pre-election 2024, we still have a chance to stop this at the ballot box.

The GOP needs to lose big, both, so that they don’t get the keys to the car again and crash it, and so they are forced to wise up and abandon their extremist and cultural discrimination platforms.

If they lose enough elections, maybe Republicans will realize that they can follow the Constitution, the law, the Gospels, and the will of the people, even use the word ‘democracy’ out loud without saying ‘Marxist’- and still be conservative.

No manifesto required.

C. 2024 Cousin B