Trump's authoritarian game plan is breaking through to people who haven't heard of it — and it's scaring them

The over 900-page document, commissioned by the people expected to run another Trump White House, is a laundry list of the far-right’s most politically toxic ideas, from banning abortion nationwide to mass firing federal officials who believe in protecting public health and safety. One would think that Trump and his allies would try to keep their sinister plans out of public view. Instead, Team Trump published their fascistic blueprint on a website for anyone to read,. They even proudly display the menacing “Project 2025” label on the front page.

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On Sunday, actress Taraji P. Henson took a break during the BET Awards, which she was hosting, to speak out about Project 2025. “The Project 2025 plan is not a game. Look it up!” she told viewers. “I’m talking to all the mad people that don’t want to vote. You’re going to be mad about a lot of things if you don’t vote.”

The clip went viral, amplified by other celebrities like Mark Ruffalo. So the MAGA forces swung into action on social media, accusing Henson and Ruffalo and other progressives of making it all up. “Is Project 2025 in the room with you?” a blue-checked user sneered under Ruffalo’s tweet. These efforts at gaslighting people run against a real problem, however: The drafters of Project 2025 seek to promote their authoritarian playbook. Thus, a simple Google search generates a slew of explainers from various news organizations, with even more coming out rapidly, as a response to the rising number of people asking, “What’s Project 2025?”

“We received a flood of reader inquiries asking if Project 2025 was a real effort,” the fact-checking team at Snopes wrote in their lengthy explainer published Tuesday. Google Trends confirms that the number of searches for “project 2025” has grown dramatically in recent days.

  • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
    615·
    6 months ago

    And, here’s the thing: If they lose this one, they will keep trying every election from now until they win or are found to be breaking the law and sentenced to heavy time or death. So, it’s not just this election folks need to vote–it’s every election.

    And the reason they keep not getting sentenced to heavy time or death is that enlightened-centrist liberals keep refusing to vigorously apply consequences (see also: Biden refusing to even consider SCOTUS reform, despite them literally just handing him the power to do anything he could possibly think of, up to and including having the fascist justices killed off and replaced). It’s almost like they get off on edging fascism.

    • Fedizen@lemmy.world
      131·
      6 months ago

      I think more dems are seeing that reforms need to be made. If democracy is expanded -especially in some way that abolishes gerrymandering or the two party system - the funds tying all these republicans into a single party will collapse for a time.

      You see people like AOC willing to create consequences for the supreme court and people pushing constitutiomal amendments again. I expect if Biden wins again the next dem primary will be interesting. If he loses well, there’s a good chance we’ll become a one party system like russia at the federal level.

      • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13·
        6 months ago

        Sure, progressives/leftists see it, but they’ve been seeing it the whole time.

        The trick is getting liberals to see it, and that shows pretty much no indication of happening despite the fact that the fascists are now even going so far as directly threatening to persecute them.

        • gh0stcassette@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          4·
          6 months ago

          I wouldn’t be so sure. I think the calls for Biden to step down are evidence that DNC-types (at least some of them) are realizing the gravity of this situation.