Project 2025 was supposed to boost Donald Trump's campaign, but it could well backfire

When Project 2025 was released, a number of progressives expressed surprise that Donald Trump’s army of authoritarian plotters would boldly release their plan to destroy the American government as we know it. The 900-plus page document, commissioned by the people expected to lead a new Trump White House, is a list of the far-right’s most politically toxic ideas, from a nationwide abortion ban to mass firings of federal workers who believe in protecting public health and safety. You’d think Trump and his allies would try to keep their sinister plans out of the public eye. Instead, Trump’s team has posted their fascist plan on a website for all to read. They even proudly display the ominous label “Project 2025” on the front page.

But in reality, it’s not so surprising. The MAGA right learned years ago the importance of hiding its evil plans in plain sight. Authoritarian thought leader Christopher Rufo is the most prominent example. He often speaks out loud about his machinations, as when he boldly announced on Twitter that the right was trying to eliminate birth control, saying that women shouldn’t have “recreational sex.” Recently imprisoned Trump ally Steve Bannon has openly gloated about his plans on his podcast. Before going to prison, he bragged to the New York Times, “This is a military headquarters for a populist revolt.” Kevin Roberts, whose group the Heritage Foundation helps run the 2025 Project, recently spoke about how Trump will use violence to impose the MAGA agenda on the public.

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Trump himself regularly employs this strategy, giving speeches declaring his goal to “punish” his political opponents, promising pardons for the January 6 insurrectionists, and calling anyone who opposes him “scum” who must be eliminated. This strategy works because it relies on the fact that most Americans don’t pay attention to politics. They will never learn that Trump and his allies say such vile things. MAGA’s goal with this villainous posture is therefore twofold: First, to get their base pumping. Second, to cause panic among the progressives who do pay attention. Trumpists then portray the people who speak out as a bunch of liberal lunatics who are exaggerating MAGA’s threat.

I often compare this to a man pinching a woman's butt at a bar and, when she protests, laughing and insisting that she's just a crazy person making it all up. We saw this strategy with the recent Supreme Court decision on presidential “immunity.” True, it gives Trump the license to kill, but anyone who states this fact is accused of “Trump derangement syndrome” and “insanity” by Republicans.

This strategy works to a large extent because less politically engaged Americans assume that “both sides” are exaggerating. The uninformed are willing to believe false accusations that liberals are “deranged” when they warn of Trump’s plans to become a dictator. The 2025 Project seems to have been launched with the assumption that “normies” would never hear about it, and that the few who did would dismiss such fears as exaggerated nonsense.

But instead, there are promising signs that people who aren’t political junkies are starting to hear about Project 2025. Better yet, these people aren’t immediately dismissing it as progressive theatrics, but may be genuinely alarmed.

Actress Taraji P. Henson took a break from hosting the BET Awards on Sunday to talk about Project 2025. “Project 2025 is not a game. Educate yourself!” she told viewers. “I’m talking to all the crazy people who don’t want to vote. You’re going to be crazy about a lot of things if you don’t vote.”

The clip went viral, amplified by other celebrities like Mark Ruffalo. MAGA forces swung into action on social media, accusing Henson and Ruffalo and other progressives of making it up. “Is the 2025 Project in the same room as you?” one blue-checkmark user sneered under Ruffalo’s tweet. But these efforts to manipulate people run into a real problem: The 2025 Project’s writers are trying to promote their authoritarian strategy. A simple Google search, for example, yields a slew of explanations from various news organizations, and more are popping up quickly, in response to the growing number of people asking, “What is the 2025 Project?”

“We’ve received a flood of inquiries from our readers asking whether Project 2025 is a genuine effort,” Snopes’ fact-checking team wrote in its lengthy explanatory document published Tuesday. Google Trends confirms that searches for “Project 2025” have spiked dramatically in recent days.

Henson’s speech boosted search rates, but this data shows that interest levels were rising before his speech last Sunday. Earlier this month, John Oliver did a segment on the 2025 Project on his HBO show, though the resulting increase in interest was modest. His audience tends to be people who are already politically engaged and have heard about the initiative through the media. Perhaps more importantly, President Joe Biden’s campaign has launched a major media campaign to raise awareness, starting with a website last week that offers “a sneak peek at Trump’s 2025 Project” with key points like “Eliminates reproductive freedom nationwide” and “Ends the Constitution.” The campaign projected a QR code around Atlanta on Thursday that directs people to the site.

There have also been a few TikTok videos garnering millions of views that explain what Project 2025 is and what threat it poses to ordinary people.

@briantylercohen everything you need to know about project 2025 #politics #project2025 original sound – briantylercohen

Perhaps one of the most telling signs of what’s happening is how MAGA supporters are starting to panic on social media. As Democratic activist and researcher Will Stancill has pointed out, MAGA supporters who are masquerading as leftists to sow confusion online are busy making it seem like the 2025 project is a Biden thing.

The right’s mistake may have been to give this initiative the name “Project 2025,” which sounds like something out of a dystopian science fiction novel. Trump’s internal team wants the same thing, as does “Agenda 47,” a watered-down version of the same fascist game plan. Trump’s campaign probably chose scary names on purpose, both to thrill his sadistic foot soldiers and to provoke a fear response among liberals. But the names also make them memorable enough to sink into the consciousness of people who aren’t paying attention. Undecided voters and those who aren’t yet sure whether they’ll vote are starting to hear about this “Project 2025”—and they’re not liking it.

This is not how it was supposed to work.

Even in early June, polls showed that only a quarter of Americans had heard of Project 2025. For a while, it worked as intended: motivating die-hard MAGA supporters and alarming partisan Democrats, all without being noticed by ordinary people who still haven’t made up their minds about who or whether to vote.

The polls aren’t in yet, but this renewed interest suggests there’s a good chance things are moving. If rumors of Project 2025 continue to circulate in the press and on social media, knowledge of Trump’s plans could start to influence the election—and in ways he won’t like. Trump can’t win without a significant percentage of voters supporting him under the false belief that he’s “not that bad.” The more they know about what he plans to do during his presidency, the more likely they will be to risk another Trump term.

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about the 2025 project

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