Project 2025: Roadmap for Fascist Consolidation

Project 2025: Roadmap for Fascist Consolidation

Refuse Fascism Episode 179

Sun, Nov 19, 2023 7:00PM • 49:21

Wendy Via 00:00

With a lot of the stuff Project 2025 wants to do, the powers will be invested in the presidency and into the executive branch. There will be very little recourse. Even if Trump doesn’t win, this is still in writing. This is the plan; this is the far right, the extreme far right, the Christian nationalist plan. I don’t want people to be afraid, I want them to work. I want them to be informed. Do not put your head in the sand. Once you get to a certain point, there’s no going back.

Sam Goldman 00:47

Welcome to Episode 179 of the Refuse Fascism podcast, a podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers and host of the show. Refuse Fascism exposes analyzes and stands against the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in the United States. Today, we’re talking about Project 2025, and sharing an interview with Wendy Via, co-founder of the global project against hate and extremism.

Thanks to everyone who goes the extra step and rates and reviews the show on Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen. If you appreciate the show and want to help us reach more people who want to Refuse Fascism, be like a rock star, go write a review and drop five stars, wherever you listen to your pods. Go tell the strangers out there in podcast land, why you listen and they should too. Subscribe/follow so you never miss an episode. And of course, keep up all that great commenting and sharing on social media and the YouTubes. Thanks to everyone at Patreon for supporting the show for $2 or more a month.

Thanks, patrons! As a special thank you and opportunity to be part of the Refuse Fascism community, live together, Wednesday, November 29, at 8pm, Coco Das, Paul Street and I are going to be holding a patron only ask us anything — within limits — Zoom chat. Patrons, there’s a post with a signup link, so make sure to RSVP. It’s not too late to join. Sign up to give $5 a month or more and you’ll get an invite. Become a patron over at Patreon.com/RefuseFascism.

Before we get to the interview, a few developments from this week that I just want to highlight. I want to first shout out Stephen Colbert for his monologue on Tuesday, November 14, where he said regarding Trump: “As much as all of us talk and think about this numb nut every so often, and, it’s really important to, let’s say metaphorically, jam the sharpened stick of knowledge into the soft inner thigh of your mind and just grind it around a little bit to try to reawaken the horror of what our country would be like if this hate filled dingus and his soulless goons ever got a hold of power again. Because, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Donald Trump is a fascist.”

Colbert then goes on to dispense corroboration for his analysis, including Trump’s calling of his opponents vermin. He then says: “Trump has long toyed with the language of fascism, but is now openly cribbing from Hitler and Mussolini.” In response to such comparisons, Trump’s team released a statement: “Those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything, and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.” Colbert then quips: “Furthermore, anyone who says I’m a cannibal is a liar. And if they say it again, I will eat their delicious face.”

Several states have filed lawsuits seeking to bar Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot under section three of the 14th amendment which disqualifies people from running for office if they’ve engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” against the United States. In the latest installment of the courts will not save us from the fascist threat: Colorado State District Court Judge, Sarah B. Wallace, held this week that: Yes, Trump, “engaged an insurrection on January 6 2021, through incitement, and that the First Amendment does not protect his speech” and that he “acted with the specific intent to disrupt the Electoral College certification of President Biden’s electoral victory through unlawful means.”

And, also, yes, yes to Trump staying on the primary ballot in the state because the court holds that section three of the 14th Amendment does not apply to Trump because it’s unclear whether barring insurrectionists from public office applies to the presidency. You can’t make this shit up. Yes, the case is being appealed. Whether an appeal from Colorado or from another state you, let’s remember where this is going to end up. The Trump stacked fascist majority Supreme Court.

Chris Lehmann for the nation made this really essential identification regarding Trump and the MAGA movement: “The movement’s maximum leader no longer bothers to conceal or downplay his determination to throttle the last vestiges of formal democratic conduct in American public life.” There are now, as Lehmann writes, “serial reports on how Trump intends to remake the federal workforce in his strongman image, deploy the federal justice system to revenge on political enemies and invoke the insurrection act to criminalize dissent, and adopt new and far more draconian versions of his first term immigration bans.”

Ever since their exit from the White House, the fascists have been crafting their plans for once they re-seize power. Schedule F, Agenda 47, Trump’s own fascist policy bucket list, and today’s topic, Project 2025, which is championed by, facilitated by, the Heritage Foundation, to be ready day one with a full roster of MAGA loyalists to replace all those the regime will purge. Project 2025 calls for dismantling the federal civil service system, filling the federal government with those who are beholden only to the fascism, unbound by the rule of law, and purging any who are unwilling to carry out illegal orders, massive deportation and detention camps, and enacting again, a Muslim ban, weaponizing the justice system, pardoning those who participate in the coup attempt and locking up any who try to resist.

Here we are November 19, 2023. And Trump continues to be the front runner, by a longshot, to be the GOP nominee in 2024. His goals and the entire Republi-fascist party that backs him have a clear, public, and consistent mission to unleash the full power of the state to exact revenge on all who are perceived to have wronged them and all they hate. This time around, ardent loyalists only. Not those who care about any of those pesky norms, constitution or rule of law, including being supported, protected advanced by legion of pitbull MAGA lawyers, like Mike Dash, who recently gloated: “We’re gonna deport a lot of people, 10 million people, and growing, anchor babies, their parents, their grandparents…”, going on to say “we’re gonna put kids in cages, it’s gonna be glorious. We’re gonna detain a lot of people in the D.C. gulag and Gitmo.”

Mike Dash has also talked about indicting Biden and every other Biden and helping to pardon January 6th, insurrectionists. As Paul Street wrote this week, “The path forward looks shockingly strong for the orange tinted Amerikkaner retribution candidate, felonious Don, and this time, he has a vast neo fascist policy network in place to implement a Christian white nationalist agenda like folks have never seen in this country, to be protected by a federal judiciary he has stocked with cold blooded revanchists.” It’s worth noting, at long last, how, post Trump’s vermin speech, more people, including those in the media, are using the ‘F’ word, fascism, and making the comparison — many more so than did eight years ago.

I also need to note that there’s a serious danger here and that those same people are deluding themselves and you into thinking that the most meaningful, the best and only action, our only recourse, is to vote. Essay after essay with powerful exposure on the very real threat and danger, immediately followed by the incessant and erroneous claim that there’s only one way to stop him — him being Trump — on Election Day. Trumpism is leading the way, setting the terms on the national political stage and throughout society at large. Fascists are on the march and all of them, whether they personally like Trump or not, are marching behind him and what he made possible; the tearing up of norms, clearing the warpath, stoking his base to be even more white supremacist, misogynistic, patriarchal and murderously and genocidally lunatic.

When faced with a fascist menace who led a coup, is backed up and defended by a fascist GOP prepared to see his power by hook or by crook, including violence, already declaring any loss illegitimate and a bloodthirsty armed to the teeth base, do you seriously think relying on elections is a winning strategy, given that the last few years has not abated that threat, but merely postponed it? If we were right, which we were, about the analysis that what we’re facing is fascism, just, I don’t know, perhaps we continue to be right about what’s needed.

The Democrats are bound by terms established by the system. A system which birthed this fascism, and more and more, they are locked in on the terms the fascist set. They continue, and are increasingly dogged, in their attempt to find a resolution from the very norms and institutions these fascists don’t give a shit about, are defying, tearing up, or have remade as fascist instruments. Case in point, see the courts. And I kind of wonder, y’all, will we continue to allow our outrage and hopes to be diverted into the very channels that are being eviscerated, and away from the kind of deep mass society wide struggle that is needed?

Coco Das came on the show last spring, and believe me, she had recently written about the Democratic strategy, and this quote from her remains really true to me, and I think it’s really important for us to think about and continue to discuss and get to work on. She wrote and said: “An opposition party relying on Trump and all the terrible things he has unleashed to help them win the next election will continue to stop you from doing what humanity needs. They will keep you off the streets, they will urge you to use your vote as your voice. They will tell you to swallow your rage until the next election, they will kill your moral determination to resist with every fiber of your being. They will keep you in a web of ignorance and passivity.

The road to fascism is paved with fake opposition and honeyed words. The only force that can be a real match for Trump and Trumpism is us, the people in our millions, sounding the alarm and the danger we face, calling out dead end strategies like relying on the Democrats to stop this threat and building a nonviolent mass movement of real resistance — refusing to accept these terms, and flooding the public square and public discourse with our moral conviction, no matter what the Democrats tell us.” With that, here’s my interview with Wendy. The Republi-fascists are fighting for a permanent win. One that eliminates for good, all of their political enemies, and all of the people who they think have destroyed, “their country.” This comprehensive blueprint for fascist consolidation is outlined in Project 2025, which, as I mentioned before, has barely been covered by the media, despite the five alarm fire it represents; blatant dictatorship in which the unchallenged domination of these fascists will be enforced at every level, and by every means at their disposal.

To get into what Project 2025 is, who’s behind it, its implications and more, I am so glad to welcome Wendy Via. Wendy is the Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. Their mission is strengthening a diverse global community committed to exposing and countering racism, bigotry, and hatred. They have authored an extensive report: Analyzing Project 2025, the Far Right Playbook for American Authoritarianism. Welcome, Wendy, thanks for coming on.

Wendy Via 13:29

Thank you for having me.

Sam Goldman 13:30

I guess, let’s start with the big: What is Project 2025? in broad strokes.

Wendy Via 13:39

In broad strokes, they’ve been putting out plans for years for conservatives and conservatives in politics and leadership. This is their latest iteration of that. How you described it in your opening, it’s very deep into sort of our government and society, and it’s endorsed right now, more than 80 other pretty powerful organizations and I know that they are planning to grow that endorsement.

Sam Goldman 14:06

What do we need to know in terms of who is behind this effort? You’ve mentioned the Heritage Foundation, and that they’ve been coming up with plans or visions for their ideal world for some time, what makes this different for them than previous attempts? So that it’s not something that we can just dismiss, but it’s something that we have to take seriously.

Wendy Via 14:31

Yeah, I think the difference is obviously the possibility of a Trump re-election. When we do our work, we talk about extremism, we don’t pretend that it’s something new. It’s not. Hate and extremism has been around, you know, as long as people have been around, but what happened when Trump became president was sort of the normalizing of these very radical ideas, the normalizing of bigotry. All of these things that any politician who wanted to be elected would not say. No matter what party you’re from, there were certain lines, you just simply didn’t cross, and being racist was one of them. In this new plan, saying that you’re going to take away the independence of the Justice Department — these are things that you just would not say, but now they are completely acceptable.

So, what’s different this time is that there is a chance these things can be implemented, and they can be implemented to a degree that these organizations might never have dreamed could happen. Now there’s a real opportunity so they are sort of doubling down on what it should look like. One thing that’s interesting is that in recent days — I’d like to think that we’ve brought attention to this Project 2025, and that others are doing so now, because it hasn’t received nearly enough attention, but in recent days — the Trump campaign has tried to distance itself from some of these plans. Which is laughable, because they are so in bed with so many of them. So many of the organizations and the authors, and they used to be in his former administration, and on and on and on. It’s a completely incestuous situation and they’re now they’re trying to distance themselves from it. Only because it’s, you know, in my opinion, it’s true.

Sam Goldman 16:20

I was reading, as I’m sure you were, more about what this is, and who’s behind it. And there was a report put out this week by Jim Vanderhull and Mike Allen for Axios that I found to be a really helpful breakdown. One of the things that it was saying, in summary was that hundreds of people are spending tens of millions of dollars to install a pre vetted pro Trump army of up to 54,000 loyalists across government to rip off the restraints imposed on the previous 46 presidents, and I thought that that was a helpful drill down look at what this is going for.

In this article they had also talked about that this “government and waiting” is, as you had talked about, the brainchild of the Heritage Foundation. It’s incredibly well funded, Project 2025, which has already, please correct me if I’m wrong, come up with a policy book that’s over 900 pages long. [WV: That is correct]. So this is like a big deal. 400+ contributors. It includes their President, Kevin Roberts, talking about this being bigger than anything that they’ve ever done before. Paul Dans, the director of Project 2025, had told reporters that what makes this different is that “Never before has the entire movement banded together to construct a comprehensive plan to deconstruct the out of touch and weaponized administrative state.” So, there’s the Heritage Foundation in this. Who are some of the other players that stick out to you as groups or movements that you think people need to be paying attention to?

Wendy Via 18:12

Now, remember, I said there were over 80 right now, and there were people joining as we were writing this analysis. One of the main ones that I would be concerned about or that I am concerned about, is the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). They have enormous power. Let me back up just a minute. I wanted to emphasize something you said about this movement being well funded. It is completely funded, which almost never happens in policy, advocacy, civil society situations. This level of advocacy on the right, their resources outweigh or outshine, the more progressive policies or more progressive organizations. I don’t even know to what degree. It is astonishing.

And of course, we don’t know where that money comes from. We have some idea. There’s four or five billionaires who put up a lot of the money, but because almost all of it is done through different organizations or donor advised funds, we don’t know. But what we do know is that the Alliance Defending Freedom, several years ago, had a budget of $5 million. And most of their lawyers were volunteer; working with firms and volunteering. Now, they’ve got more than 200 staff and $60 million budget. And that’s just what is reported. They also have an entire international arm that is doing the same thing in other countries in Europe, mostly that they’re doing in the United States.

They are the organization that is behind the Dobbs decision overturning Roe, behind the abortion drug, [SG: mifepristone.] Yeah, the FDA thing. They are behind the wedding cake case — the wedding website case — that just came. Basically, what the Supreme Court did was said: It’s okay to discriminate if your faith tells you that you must. They have been to the Supreme Court, I think, more times than any other civil society organization and have won almost every time. We’re talking about 13 or 14 times, and every one of those times a community’s rights — women, LGBTQ people, people of other faiths — they’ve lost something; they’ve lost a bit of their American rights. And they don’t get nearly enough attention.

We need to do more about exposing who they are, why they do it, how long they’ve been there. Our new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, was a lawyer for them. He was early on one of the staff people. They have something called the Blackstone fellowship, where Senator Josh Hawley was one of those, Amy Kony Barrett, our Supreme Court Justice was one of them. So you can see how well connected they are. It’s interesting, because they were actually not going to get on board with Trump’s campaign in 2016, but reportedly, time went on, he became clearer — that he was going to be the nominee — they agreed to get on board, basically because Trump told everybody he’d give him the judges that they wanted. And that’s exactly what has happened. In just six years, we’re already seeing the effects of that, and the effects on people’s human and civil rights.

So that’s the one group that jumps out at me. And they’re also rabidly anti LGBTQ. In my opinion, they’re also anti woman. It is my view that their work to stop abortion will evolve into making contraceptives difficult to find or get difficult to get. There’s already a network that will prevent no fault divorce. So you see the path they’re going on. Yes, it’s starting with LGBTQ people and abortion like it always does. But there’s always a bigger picture. And so Alliance Defending Freedom is somebody I do worry about. Another one that first comes to mind is the Family Research Council. They’ve been around for years and years and years. Originally out of Louisiana, run by a man named Tony Perkins, they have recently gone from a non profit sort of civil society organization to being designated as a church. They also are rabidly anti LGBTQ, even more vocally and offensively than some of the others.

Sam Goldman 22:27

I appreciate you walking through the huge role that ADF has played in shaping American politics, from the Supreme Court to what is it the second in line for presidency now, Mike Johnson. How significant that is, and how determined a force they are to really take people all the way back — women, back in the kitchen, you know, and barefoot and pregnant and basic rights taken away from whole sections of people, LGBTQ community, erased from public society, this is what they’re going for. They have made a lot of wins and inroads. So I really appreciate you getting into that.

Looking through the partners, you look at Turning Points USA is part of it. You look at Mom’s for Liberty is is in there, the Conservative Partnership Institute. [WV: Don’t forget Eagle Forum, Phyllis Schafly…] Oh, it really is a wide grouping that really has united around this. Even if you have the Trump campaign saying that their only plan that speaks for them is Agenda 47. Well, take a look at Agenda 47 and take a look at Project 2025, and if you don’t see a match, I don’t know, get your eyes checked. Because a lot of those things are right in line with Project 2025. If you listen to what Trump has said recently, he is advocating and articulating, very clearly, messaging that is outlined in Project 2025. There’s great unity in that. For example, his Veterans Day speech the “we will root out the communist Marxist fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”

Fascism’s designation of all competing parties, any opposition, as the enemy is like just classic. This idea of dehumanizing and demonizing to justify the elimination of all opposition to the authoritarian leader is classic. His quips about expanding the death penalty, the talking about those who aren’t loyal to him. He’s very open and so are those who speak for him. The other thing that he said, I guess it was earlier this fall, he talked about non-white immigrants, “poisoning the blood of our country”, pulled directly from Mein Kampf. These are not hyperbole, these are just things he’s said recently. So Trump’s top domestic policy adviser, Stephen Miller, he told the New York Times recently in their report about his plans that “They’re planning an extreme expansion of his first crackdown on immigration if he returns to power in 2025, including preparing to round up undocumented people the in the United States on a vast scale, and detain them in sprawling camps, while they wait to be expelled. The plans would sharply restrict both legal and illegal immigration in a multitude of ways.”

And then he went on to talk about speeding up mass deportation, not having due process hearings, building “huge camps” to detain people while they wait deportation, basically “unleashing the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown.” [WV: Yeah] It’s just startling to me how their language is extremely consistent with what they are trying to distance themselves with. Their plan, and what they’re advocating for and saying, is completely in line with Project 2025. So I just wanted to get any of your thoughts that you have on that?

Wendy Via 26:27

Well, the idea of distancing themselves — it’s speculation — but it probably has more to do with the fact that Trump wants to be the one to take credit for it as opposed to being out there that somebody is telling him what to do or making recommendations; that he doesn’t already know all these things. That’s my opinion of it. If he is elected, he will try to do these things. Now, whether or not that court that he sort of handpicked or allowed the same advisors to pick for him goes along with it, we’ll see. They certainly will on some issues, they won’t on others. But a lot of the stuff that he wants to do or that his Project 2025 wants to do, the powers will be invested in the presidency and into the executive branch. There will be very little recourse.

One thing I do want to make clear is something that we think is a very important point, is that this is being written, they themselves are saying this is the farthest we’ve ever gone, this is the most ambitious, you know, we ever, and it’s for the next conservative president; that’s how they define it. Even if Trump doesn’t win, this is still in writing. This is the plan. This is the far right, the extreme far right, the Christian nationalist, plan. Yes, it would be easier if the President was on board with it, but this isn’t dependent upon the presidency. This plan is in place. It’s already moving forward. So I just want to point out that it’s also about the narrative, the story that’s being told about the United States and it’s, in their view, decline, and how it can be resurrected — and I say resurrected purposely for the Christian reference. It isn’t Make America Great Again. It’s bigger than that, this movement.

Sam Goldman 28:13

I really appreciate that last part. I think that that’s extremely important that people grasp. We’re having this conversation in November, and soon we will be up against the third anniversary of the January 6th coup. The leaders of which still have not been held to account. And Trump continues to be the front runner, embraced and backed by now a thoroughly fascist GOP. Trump and his party are literally, as my friend Paul Street recently wrote on his Substack, “screaming it off the rooftops ever since. They are a fascist magnets to what’s left of us democracy. And now they may well come to power in 2025, with a fully worked up plan for Christian white nationalist takeover of the US state.”

That is, as you were mentioning about the me not covered at all in terms of the stakes; what it means to have mapped out plans to use the power of the federal government to penalize opposition critics, to purge any loyalist that in some way, held him back the first go — him being Trump. The level of planning to deploy the military against domestic protests, that would shred whatever fabric of democratic governance that this country likes to say that it has, I really think that that grasping of the gravity is just not there. Let’s not forget what he did do and did accomplish. And I’m not saying that in a positive way, in case anyone’s confused. Let’s go not forget that he had talked about terminating the Constitution in December 2022 so that he could go back to power, or his putting kids in cages and mass detention and deportation.

We shouldn’t forget all of his talk over and over again about putting his opponents in jail, targeting the media so viciously, how he had a list of basically targets that included people like head of the FBI or his opponent at that time, Hillary Clinton. He has experience testing the limits of presidential power. He tried to ban Muslims. He built the border wall. He did these things, but he met setbacks. I feel like there’s been this reevaluation period of: Okay, we couldn’t consolidate before, how can we do this differently? So that it’s not about gaining another four years, and then a transfer of power, but so that they’re in and power is for ever transformed so that their opposition never holds power again, and that they become an unquestionable power.

I wanted to dig more into what this danger is. In your report, you identify 13 kind of key elements: The role of Christian nationalism, gutting the civil service, ending racial equity efforts, eviscerating LGBTQ+ rights and equality, restricting sexual and reproductive health and rights, immigration policies, climate change efforts, ending “woke” military policies, “reforming” public education, restricting human rights and existing international bodies. I want you to take it wherever you want to take it in terms of what does this mean? What are the implications here? Why is this so dangerous?

Wendy Via 31:57

I want to go back just for one second, and add to what you were saying, in that people are not grasping the gravity. People continue to fool themselves. Even the smartest, brightest, most experienced, sophisticated, whatever, even common sense people, they continue to tell themselves that x, y and z, can’t happen again. Trump can’t get elected again, there won’t be another insurrection at the Capitol, there won’t be another Charlottesville, there won’t be another George Floyd. You know, that all of these things are not going to happen, or they can’t happen, I should say. We saw the dangers of it, and nobody’s gonna let that happen again. Well, that’s just false. I certainly hope it doesn’t happen. Nobody wants that.

But the idea that it can’t happen, that’s how we got Trump to begin with, right. As you know, it just couldn’t happen. It didn’t make any sense. It was just a ridiculous thought that this man could be President of the United States. Two years ago, it would have been a ridiculous thought that he would get up in front of thousands of people and call his political enemies vermin, and say straight up that he’s going after them; that he’s going to take control of the DOJ and the FBI, and he’s going after them. This is what I would encourage people to take in. I don’t want people to be afraid, I want them to work. I want them to be informed. Do not put your head in the sand. The only reason that this is being written, this Project 2025, to this degree, is because there is a general feeling that it could very well come to pass.

Now, if it does come to pass, the people who are in civil servant positions, who have workplace protections just like any other employee, are going to have those protections stripped away from them, so that they can be fired at will as if they’re an appointed person. What about people who’ve been working for 30 years? Now, as a citizen, do you want an experienced person? Or do you want somebody who has an agenda? And then they ask you to believe that of the tens of thousands of federal employees, the vast majority of them have bought into this “woke” agenda, and are deliberately thwarting these religious based conservative principles that are really how it’s supposed to be, as opposed to these are tens of thousands of people who have worked for decades in their particular field, and they’re just doing their job.

So much of this is based on conspiracy theories. It’s based on irrational thinking that our civil servants are actually banded together to push an agenda, as opposed to their work being driven by the legislation; by the laws by the court decisions. Another thing is this thing about education. The idea that all educators have banded together to encourage young children to question their identity, to question what it means to be white, or Black, or Asian or Latino, to inject these racial elements instead of teaching about them. So they want to take all thought out of teaching.

Additionally, they want to make sure that taxpayer dollars go for religious schools — and of course, in this case, it means Christian based schools — Where the appropriate lessons will be taught, where children will grow up, and will marry and have 2.5 children and go to church every Sunday. Preferably, there’ll be white. If you can shift the narrative just enough and shift the dollars enough, then you’re going to achieve it, and it’s like you said: Once you get to a certain point, there’s no going back, or it’s generations before you go back.

Sam Goldman 35:48

It made me think, when you’re talking about, how do you get people to accept something so drastic and outside anything that we’ve seen before? And how you need to obliterate truth and reason to do that. When I look at, and I think about, the thread here that connects these different parts of Project 2025, whether it is in terms of climate change, or immigration, or LGBTQ, or the different specific aspects that are targeted, there’s this theme of the radical re-conception of the scope and size and role of the government. This is something that is very much in the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism’s report, how the executive branch is elevated, as we saw already in Trump’s first but this is a whole new level into creating what would be Trump’s personal fiefdom, and imposing on all of society, the most vicious xenophobia, the most vicious patriarchy, white supremacy.

The overt forcing of “traditional values” — which really is biblical literalism of the Christian theocratic variety — on all of society. And that being what shapes public policy and law, which in doing so would strip these protections of people of color, women, immigrants, LGBTQ people, probably, in the direction they’re going, the rights of children to learn, in my opinion, what childhood is — stripping all that, and stripping away the agencies that, in whatever way, currently act as a recourse to defend those rights, or to monitor something like the environment protection, and really dismantling the federal government’s ability to do any of those protections or provide any services. You had talked about earlier, making sure that everybody in power is an absolute loyalist. You’re talking about [getting rid of] people that have been doing their job for decades and decades.

Regardless of who’s president, it has nothing to do with that. Now, suddenly, that would be no more. And anything that would track or monitor, as I said, would be shut down. Just think of what it would mean, if they had been able to do that during COVID, where people weren’t able, even with all the repression of science and the anti-vax lunacy, and all that we did with this, if there hadn’t been a CDC at that point, that was an independent institution, just think of what that would mean. Those are some of the things that this brings up to me.

Wendy Via 38:45

Well, yeah. I think the society is built on a set of checks and balances, just like our government is. The idea of dismantling the government or infusing all the power into the executive branch is the same thing as upending society. Because people begin to have a different outlook. What does it mean? These ideas of open dissent, then this society begins to shake. Like, what are we talking about here, Sam? It’s like, we’re talking about the 1950s and before. That’s where we had segregation.

Sam Goldman 39:21

I think that they want to go back further. I think that they actually want to go back further, and I think that they want to go to a place that we actually haven’t seen before. [WV: chuckles] Because while they’re going back further on one hand, on the other hand, they have a whole surveillance state that didn’t exist before. [WV: laughs] And they have nuclear weapons that didn’t exist before. So it’s like going back and with more power than the state has ever had before.

Wendy Via 39:46

You’re absolutely right. Forget 2025. we have lots of work to do to bring equity to this country. Don’t get me wrong. There are plans, there are blueprints. There are model legislation. These same groups that are supporting this 2025, they have best networks in all the states to get this legislation passed. It is about the power, but the one thing that’s missing — I’m not a lawyer, I’m certainly not a constitutional lawyer, but — there was more attention paid to the separation of church and state.

Now, it’s become something that is to be debated, as opposed to a foundational principle of our country. The very clear and increasingly open acknowledgement of their desire to infuse Christianity into our government, into our schools, into our daily lives, it’s becoming that much more open and evident. And how do you get people to get on board? You find the thing that they’re afraid of. You make it personal. You say your eight year old child’s teacher is mandated to read some book and explain gender identity and orientation. The thing about this extreme far right, is that they never ever take their eye off the ball. They are willing to invest for decades. That’s how long they’ve been doing this. I mean, it started in the 60s.

As soon as the birth control pills and desegregation and civil rights movement, there was an immediate pushback, but there was not the power. Now, over the years, the power has been reattained, and now the opportunity to increase it and become authoritarian — even though that’s what they would never say — and that’s what feels new, because it’s going to be done with Christianity as a part of it. I respect all people of faith. The difference here is that these guys want to tell people what to believe, how to believe it, how to act on it, and they want to make sure that the government is on board with that, which is an entirely different thing than people’s rights to religious freedom.

Sam Goldman 42:00

I think that this was really important, and we’re gonna need to keep talking about this. This is a conversation that isn’t a one off, this is something that is going to need to continue. I guess one thing before we close and I let you talk about where people can find out more and connect with you and your work: How do you see, in this moment — there’s the work that you all have done in writing this report to sound this alarm to make sure that people know about this danger. For people listening, I know that you’ve done work on, on how we we are better storytellers of the danger that we face, and I guess without a culture of “fear mongering” or something like that, what do you hope that those of us who are listening to this conversation, where do we go from here, in terms of helping others understand this threat?

Wendy Via 42:53

Obviously, that’s a good question. It’s also a difficult thing. One of the challenges that we face as a society as communities is being able to talk about some of these issues without it devolving into anger or rejection. It can be tough. Depending on where you live, maybe it’s not as tough in some areas, but where I live, the idea that I saw somebody today who actually knew what Project 2025 was, was amazing, here in Alabama. I think that people need to be sensitive, and not accusatory if they’re trying to explain why they believe that this shift to authoritarianism is a danger, and why it’s not necessarily about one candidate or another or one policy over another, it’s the big picture.

I think that is where people should start. Educate yourselves — and that means, don’t just read what your social media feeds you. Go seek out other points of view. If you’re on social media, you’re only getting what they think you want, or what they want you to get. Don’t be afraid to engage in genuine and respectful conversation about these issues. Because one of the things is that there is a polarization that’s kind of settled over our society, and we’re only going to get past that if people can find a way to discuss these matters. Having said that, then you also have to draw a line, right.

Because there is no acceptable situation where Black people are discriminated against. There is no acceptable situation where LGBTQ people are not affirmed. It’s hard because that’s what the right has done to us. They’re good at what they do, and they’ve brought it down to a couple of issues that people find it very hard to discuss — especially those who were brought up saying: Don’t ever discuss politics and money in public, you know, all that. We’re in a different world where people have to be willing to say what they think, but they also have to be willing to do it in a way that can be heard. But then there’s me that will scream it from the rooftops, so I don’t know, maybe we just need all of it.

Sam Goldman 44:57

Well, I want to thank you so much for taking the time. to chat with me, to share your insight and perspective and the work that you are doing. We’re gonna put a link in the show notes to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism’s, Project 2025: The Far Right Playbook for American Authoritarianism Report, so that folks can read it and share it. If people want to learn more, get in contact with you follow your work, or be part of what you’re doing, where should they go? What should they do?

Wendy Via 45:31

They should please go to our website, which is GlobalExtremism.org. On our website, we have lots of resources; reports we’ve written on these and ancillary issues around Project 2025. We would love for people to go and read them. And you can contact us we have a contact form. We’re on Twitter @GlobalExtremism, and I’m on Twitter, @WendyVia.

Sam Goldman 45:53

Thank you so much, Wendy, it was a real pleasure. [WV: Thank you.] If we have to talk about these really troubling things, part of what we need to do is build a network of people who are engaging with this with substance as part of struggling against it. So if we have to fight this, I’m glad to be fighting it with you.

Wendy Via 46:10

Thank you so much.

Sam Goldman 46:12

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