VOTE Blue in 2024!
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00:00We are going to be prepared day one, January 20, 2025, to hit the ground running as conservatives
00:08to really help the next president. This task in 2024 is too big for any one think tank.
00:14This has to be a movement. And what we've done is use our convening power here at Heritage
00:19to bring the entire movement together. But what we're doing is systematically preparing
00:25to march into office and bring a new army of aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized
00:33conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state.
00:41The Heritage Foundation and dozens of right-wing dark money organizations have come together to
00:46formulate Project 2025, which is a set of personnel and policy recommendations intended
00:52to guide the next Republican administration through their first 180 days in office.
00:58And if they successfully pressure the president to adopt everything on their wish list,
01:02America would look like a completely different country. They would dismantle the administrative
01:07state, expand the power of the executive, enact nationwide internet censorship, ban porn,
01:13and politically imprison LGBTQ plus people potentially. And should the next Republican
01:19choose to pursue this unconstitutional agenda, he'd have the backing of the Supreme Court most
01:24likely. Now, all of this is moot if A, a Republican loses the 2024 election, or B,
01:30a Republican wins but chooses to ignore this agenda entirely. But if the Federalist Society
01:36has taught us anything, it's that Republicans always listen to well-funded right-wing think
01:41tanks because those are the organizations that their donors send money to. So why wouldn't they
01:47listen? And Ed Corrigan, who's one of the architects of Project 2025, casually explained
01:52why they're very confident that this is not going to be ignored. No presidential campaign or
02:10president is going to be able to ignore it. And he's right about that. He said it in a very
02:15nonchalant way, but it's still very ominous nonetheless. But let's break it down. What is
02:21Project 2025? Well, the first order of business would be for them to expand the power of the
02:26presidency in order to lay the groundwork for unconstitutional policies that they really want
02:32to implement. As Bryn Tannehill of Dame Magazine explains, the mandate for leadership is a 920-page
02:38document that details how the next Republican administration will implement radical and
02:42sweeping changes to the entirety of government. This blueprint assumes that the next president
02:48will be able to rule by fiat under the unitary executive theory, which posits that the president
02:52has the power to control the entire federal executive branch. It is also based on the
02:57premise that the next president will implement Schedule F, which allows the president to fire
03:02any federal employee who has policymaking authority and replace them with a presidential
03:07appointee who is not voted on in the Senate. The president would directly manage and influence
03:11Department of Justice and FBI cases, which would allow him to pursue criminal cases against
03:16political enemies. Environmental law would be gutted, and states would be prevented from
03:20enforcing their own environmental laws. So there's a lot to this, and it's pretty complicated, so let
03:25me try to parse this out for you. What this basically means is that federal agencies which
03:30currently operate independently would lose that independence. Many federal agencies that they
03:36don't like would just be abolished or weaponized to their own liking. For example, they plan on
03:41gutting the EPA predictably and shifting them away from their focus on climate change entirely
03:46while directing other agencies to expand fossil fuel infrastructure, like the Department of Energy,
03:51for example. And you're probably thinking, well, couldn't the president already effectively do that
03:56by just appointing a steward or industry plan? I mean, we've seen this again and again, so why not
04:01just make somebody who is a fossil fuel CEO, for example, the head of the EPA? Well, the president
04:07could do that, but this is different because it goes further than that. Because once they
04:12reimplement Schedule F via executive order, they also plan to clean house, which is very different
04:17than last time. Because as Salon explains, by replacing federal employees with like-minded
04:23officials, Trump-era conservatives are planning to remove federal employees whom they perceive as
04:28obstacles to the president's agenda early on. This would avoid the pitfalls of Trump's first years in
04:33office and eliminate the possibility of any resistance a Republican president would encounter,
04:38the AP reported. And what this would do is create a sort of organizational harmony,
04:44so you wouldn't see the pushback that we saw in Trump's first years in office, for example,
04:50because remember, he wanted to do a lot of really terrible things, but he couldn't. There are limits
04:54to the president's power, but this is kind of the answer to that. It's a way to address these
04:59obstacles that he had encountered and remove them. And think about it this way. So, remember
05:04when Bill Barr was attorney general and he contradicted Trump's lies about the election,
05:09and he said that he's not going to open up a probe into the FBI's investigation of Trump's
05:132016 campaign? Like, he openly defied Trump, essentially. Well, Barr was able to do that
05:20because as the attorney general, as the head of the Department of Justice, you have independence,
05:26you have autonomy, right? Trump can't influence what you do. He could simply fire you and replace
05:32you with somebody else who's more loyal, but even that power is limited because Trump tried to do
05:37this. Remember when Justice Department officials threatened to resign en masse when Trump considered
05:42replacing Jeffrey Rosen with Jeffrey Clark when he was trying to steal the election? I mean,
05:46that was really important. That stopped Trump from proceeding forward with his attempt to steal the
05:522020 election. But I mean, think about what would happen in that scenario if the president assumed
05:58direct control of the Department of Justice and worse, replaced every legacy employee with Trump
06:04loyalists who would be less likely to defy him. I mean, you start to kind of see how this would
06:09become a threat to democracy directly and why this would be much worse than last time. Because those
06:14existing checks that limit the president's power would simply not exist anymore under this
06:20philosophy, which they want to embrace. It would give him virtually unlimited power over the entire
06:25executive branch and every agency. And that is a problem. And Trump had authoritarian ambitions
06:32before, right? But the problem is that he didn't have the power or the know-how to actually pull
06:37off his dictatorial ambitions. But this time would be different because many of the 300 plus
06:42conservatives involved in Project 2025 came from Trump's administration and they would likely return
06:48for round two if he were re-elected. And what's scary is that Trump has already embraced this
06:53vision for the executive. So if he's re-elected, this will likely become a reality. So what they're
06:58doing is they're looking back at the obstacles that he faced the first time he was in the White House
07:03and they're trying to eliminate all of those obstacles going forward so that way he can do
07:09all the terrible things that he wants to do. But once they consolidate presidential power,
07:14they then move on to the second order of business, the implementation of policy. And a lot
07:20of that includes deregulation, giveaways to their donors that fund this network, the traditional
07:27conservative things that you would expect. But there's also a component regarding conservative
07:32social policy and it's a sort of wish list that would basically transform the United States into
07:38a Christian theocracy. And they're pretty explicit about this. So Dame explains,
07:44the social conservative wish list calls for ending abortion, diversity and inclusion efforts,
07:49protections for LGBTQ people, and most importantly, banning any and all LGBTQ content. In fact,
07:55the mandate for leadership makes eradicating LGBTQ people from public life its top priority.
08:02Its number one promise is to restore the family as the centerpiece of American life
08:06and protect our children. They are explicit in how they plan to do so. As you'll see in the
08:11paragraph below, they plan to proceed by declaring any and all LGBTQ content to be pornographic in
08:16nature. And this is a direct quote from Project 2025's document. Quote, pornography manifested
08:22today and the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of
08:27children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims
08:34about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation and child welfare. It has no claim
08:39to First Amendment protections. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of
08:45women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive
08:51as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be
08:56imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex
09:02offenders and telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be
09:08shuttered. That is absolutely chilling. But the question is, what would this look like in practice?
09:14And to be honest, nobody knows for sure, but at best, it looks like a nationwide implementation
09:20of don't say gay in all schools and a likely ban on gender from occurring in all 50 states.
09:25But at worst, this also could look like the literal imprisonment of anyone who is openly LGBTQ.
09:32Dame speculates it's also arguable that LGBTQ parents would be subject to arrest, imprisonment,
09:38and being put on sex offender registries for exposing children to pornography
09:42simply by being LGBTQ and having children. It could be argued as well that people who are visibly
09:49trans in public are pornographic or obscene because they might be seen by a minor. This
09:54understanding of intent is in line with the call to eradicate transgenderism from public life.
09:59So this is genuinely terrifying because we are looking at a situation where every single queer
10:04person and arguably queer allies would no longer be safe in this country. They could all be subject
10:10to imprisonment or being on a sex offender list just because they're gay or trans. I mean, many
10:19people would be forced to leave, especially if they're in red states with governors not willing
10:23to protect them. This would create an LGBTQ refugee crisis of mass proportions. And that's
10:31what they want. But it gets worse because they want a crackdown on the internet. Now, first,
10:37let's talk about the way that that would affect LGBTQ plus people and their allies. So with
10:42pornography being outlawed and all queer related content being designated as porn, well, anyone
10:50who disseminates said pornographic material like myself, apparently, and the website that allows
10:56for said dissemination, like YouTube, apparently, as well as the internet service provider that gives
11:02users access to this website that disseminates pornographic material would all be subject to
11:08punishment or imprisonment at worst. In other words, if YouTube doesn't cleanse their website
11:13of pornographic LGBTQ plus content, then internet service providers would be forced to cut them off,
11:19which would effectively kill off all of these websites unless they comply. And LGBTQ content
11:24isn't the only thing that they would designate as porn. Let's be clear about that. Think of all of
11:30the movies and video games that would be censored if this all came to fruition. I mean, we're looking
11:36at a censorship regime here that's far worse than China's and more similar to Saudi Arabia's
11:42and the Taliban's. That's where we're at. That's what they're openly saying that they want. But
11:47if they try to do this, there'd obviously be extreme pushback from blue states. But of course,
11:53they've thought about that too, and they have a plan. Game continues. The organizations that
11:57drafted the mandate for leadership understand that blue states, which have sanctuary laws for
12:02transgender people are unlikely to comply. It's difficult to imagine California arresting and
12:07prosecuting teachers, librarians, doctors, therapists, bookstores, virtual or physical
12:12LGBTQ parents, and especially LGBTQ people merely for existing in public. This is why they include
12:18the following paragraph, quote, where warranted and proper under federal law initiate legal action
12:24against local officials, including district attorneys who deny American citizens the equal
12:29protection of the laws by refusing to prosecute criminal offenses in their jurisdictions. This
12:33holds true, particularly for jurisdictions that refuse to enforce the law against criminals based
12:38on the left's favorite defining characteristics of the would-be offender, race, so-called gender
12:43identity, sexual orientation, etc., or other political considerations, e.g. immigration status.
12:49This is calling for the executive branch to use the Department of Justice to threaten prosecution
12:53of any local or state officials if they do not charge LGBTQ people and their allies with crimes
12:59under the pretense that they are breaking federal and state laws against exposing minors to
13:03pornography. If people at the Department of Justice refuse to go along with this, then they can simply
13:08be replaced under Schedule F. And we're really not even scratching the surface, because remember,
13:12this document is 900-plus pages long, and we're just looking at the LGBTQ policies. But think
13:19about the ways that they'd hamstring states' ability to provide women with abortions. Think
13:23about how this will impact people on welfare, people getting Social Security, Medicare,
13:28employment. I mean, the possibilities are endless, and every possibility ranges from
13:36a threat to democracy from an outright violation of democracy. And the only check
13:43on the president in this scenario would be Congress and our far-right Supreme Court.
13:49Don't really like those odds, right? Even if Congress tried to rein in the president's power
13:53and pass some sort of a law to stop this from happening, well, the Supreme Court could go along
13:59with it. They could embrace unitary executive theory and strike down that law on grounds that
14:04it's unconstitutional, and the president could continue to do this. It's a literal nightmare
14:09scenario. Like, imagine, do you think that Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito would not go along with
14:15this? Of course they would. But having said that, though, before we get a little bit too down,
14:21this is only a wish list. Odds are, they're not gonna get 100% of the things that they ask for,
14:27but what if they get 50% or 25%? I mean, certainly if they tried this, there would be
14:35a massive legal battle with, you know, judges striking it down initially and making its way
14:40to the Supreme Court, so there would be time for us to prepare how we're gonna respond to this.
14:46But regardless, even if they got 10% of it, and Trump just did what he says he's going to do,
14:51which is expand the power of the executive, that is still very troubling. Consolidating executive
14:56power is not a new phenomenon because each president has continued to expand power.
15:02Everyone, Democrats and Republicans alike, Obama, Bush, Trump. But we're talking about a massive
15:08expansion of presidential power that gives the president virtually unlimited authority
15:14over the entire executive. But even if, in the best case scenario, they get nothing,
15:20none of this comes to fruition, and Trump doesn't even do what they say he should do with regard to
15:25taking control of the executive, well, I still think this is worth our attention because this
15:32is the vision of 50 right-wing think tanks. Think tanks that have a lot of sway over Republican
15:39politicians. That's huge. They are telling us that this is what they want for our country,
15:47an end to US democracy, a dictatorship with the Republican on top. And I think that they
15:54wrote Project 2025 with Trump in mind, but they'll take anyone. They'll take DeSantis,
15:59they'll take Nikki Haley, they will take anyone who is willing to do what they want to do.
16:05And if maybe they say, we're going to endorse a candidate, give them lots of donations,
16:10if they pledge to support Project 2025 in their first 180 days in office, well, then
16:16this could give a little bit more teeth to this authoritarian manifesto, right?
16:23But the fact that this is what they want, as soon as a Republican comes back into the White
16:28House means that we have to fight that much harder to keep a Republican out of the White House
16:34for as long as we can, to at least buy us some time, right? So,
16:38you know a little bit about Project 2025, do with this information what you will.