After yesterday’s adventure of attempting to listen to Trump’s Aug 8 Emergency Press Conference while wading through his 162 lies (averaging an impressive rate of one lie or falsehood every 23 seconds) I decided it was perhaps time to look into the proposed policies, as outlined in the Project 2025 book – all 887 pages of it. I did this in part because of questions that I have been getting from some of my “conservative” friends about how the policies of Trump differ from those of Harris. Their comments usually go something like, “Sure, his personal ethics and presentations are disgusting, but his proposed policies are great.” First off, I have heard almost nothing about Trump’s proposed policies from Trump, he just spits hate, insults and vitriol when he speaks, and he doesn’t seem to write more than a few rather incoherent words at a time in his tweets. In his speeches he very seldom stays on topic long enough to describe any part of his proposed policy (assuming he even has one). Given that his utterances are just looping “stream of consciousness” rants about anything, and nothing – we have to look elsewhere for what he might actually attempt to do once in office. The far right present their “Mandate for Leadership the Conservative Promise 2025” (i.e., Project 2025) as the definitive description of changes that will be implemented once he is back in office. He says he agrees with them, hence I assume that document represents his “policies.”

I wonder how many of my conservative friends have read or understand the contents of this huge policy statement? I wonder if any of them have any actual knowledge of its contents beyond “it must be great” because it is endorsed by Trump and the conservative talking heads. I should confess that I also haven’t read all of it, I could only stand looking at it for three hours before I became totally disgusted with the insanity of what I was reading – similar to my actually only listening to about half of the 64 minutes of Trumps emergency press conference before I just got disgusted and tired of wasting my time listening to a moron blathering on about nothing meaningful. In both cases, I did my best to “skim” the material to make sure I wasn’t missing something valid that I might agree with.

I found the Forward section in the Mandate to be quite interesting because it describes many of the problems facing us in the United States today, problems that we are all concerned about. They discuss issues such as poor and unaffordable medical care, problems caused by the wildly unequal distribution of wealth, problems with the wealthy getting too much control and political power, problems with vastly unequal educational opportunities based upon race and address – the thing that they didn’t mention was that almost the entire set of issues they were discussing where the direct result of Republican actions. They are correct, all of those bad things exists – and they almost all exist in large measure because the “Conservatives” created them or blocked actions to solve or mitigate them. Conservative should read this and say to themselves; “We have met the enemy and he is us.” We can all agree that there are many injustices that should be righted, there are many holes in our support for the less fortunate among us, homelessness is a serious problem, deaths from drug overdose is a huge issue, and we squander money where we could be making real improvements. We need to work hard toward fixing these glaring problems. However, it is not at all clear that the suggestions offered in the remaining 850 pages or so would do much more than exacerbate the existing problems. We agree with some of the problem identification; we disagree with how to find the best solutions.

Of course there are also many parts of the “forward” that do NOT align at all with my more liberal view of the world. This book was created and supported by the Heritage Foundation, an extremely influential think tank promoting far right conservative agendas. When they talk about “family” they really mean more government funding for Christian schools while cutting funding for public schools. When they speak of family values they actually mean eliminating all rights for LGBTQ individuals, and outlaw family planning and abortion rights. When they talk about reduction of taxes, they mean reduction of taxes to the very rich while eliminating or reducing value for the rest of us. When they speak of reforming government they mean firing existing merit based employees and replacing them with “loyal” political appointments.

Once I managed to grind my way through the Forward, I was faced with more than 800 pages of details, often very high level recommendations, interspersed with very detailed specific changes including things things like curriculum changes aimed at eliminating any references to ideas or considerations such as “black matters,” “woke”, “LGBTQ,” or considerations of the current impacts of past transgressions (e.g., slavery).

It sounds like they are proposing a total rearrangement and realignment of all government agencies. They are proposing a new set of “agencies” that rule over existing semi-independent agencies with the intent of making them all political positions based upon loyalty to the “administration” (President) and the President’s interpretation of the Constitution. They are promoting changes that give the President complete control over loyalty based hiring and firing decisions impacting individuals deep within the agencies, allowing complete control over the staffing and actions of government employees. They are hoping to create a vast new system of government totally under the control of the President, answering to no one else – and with no requirements that positions be filled with those who are qualified for the job as long as they are loyal to the President.

What could go wrong with this??? How anxious would the Heritage Foundation be in supporting this approach to governance if, accidentally, Kamala Harris wins the election?

There are so many horrors outlined and described in this tome that it is impossible for me to respond in anything like a comprehensive and meaningful way. It would take for more than 900 pages of response to discuss the likely impacts of all of the recommendations for “small” changes such as moving the placement of the FBI from its current position to one completely under the oversight and control of the President. Has anyone contemplated the impacts of these recommendations should they be implemented? Each of their “simple” recommendations open up topics that would take many pages for an adequate response of why it would be a very bad idea. The overall proposal is set up to create a whole new class of oligarchs at the beck and call of the new dictator/President. Good idea – we should all feel better knowing that Trump would be free to implement any action or rules that he wants without oversight or control – enforced by his finger being on the “Big Red Button.”

I know it sounds like I am overstating the dangers of their “Mandate for Leadership.” Perhaps I am. I can only recommend that you get it (it is freely available to download) and check it out. When doing so, think about what impacts might be generated by implementing their thousands of recommendations for changes to the government and legal system. For you conservatives, I suggest reading it from the point of view of what happens should these changes be made and a liberal gets elected. Would that be such a perfect world for you? Would you really like all of the proposed changes if leadership was to become liberal instead of conservative? Perhaps it is a good time to consider what you are asking for.