...And Shaming
Project 2025 doesn’t get enough coverage from the media and I don’t feel like I’ve done an adequate job explaining it either. Basically it’s a plan, shepherded by the Heritage Foundation and former members of the Trump Regime to reshape the entire government, starting with the Executive Branch. In short, Project 2025 aims to lay the groundwork for a future Republican regime— Trump’s— by building a conservative policy agenda, identifying and training potential appointees, and establishing rapid action plans for the first 180 days. Essentially, it seeks to maximize Republican influence and enact their desired policies as quickly as possible after a potential presidential victory in 2025.
It’s the ultimate power-grab by the GOP billionaire class— from the elimination of the Deep State to putting the unitary executive theory into practice. Heritage has corralled something like 80 proto-fascist organization to work on the project, including Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, the Conservative Partnership Institute (run by anti-democracy characters like Mark Meadows and Jim DeMint), Russell Vought’s Center for Renewing America and Stephen Miller’s America First Legal.
They are very secretive about their financing but they seem to have raised something like $30 million for the project since 2022. Right-wing foundations and non-profits funnel money to the project via grants and business owners and corporations are lured into donating with promises of the end of the regulator state and the end of the welfare state. Since it’s not a registered 501(c)(3) organization, it doesn't have to publicly disclose its donors and this lack of transparency has raised concerns about potential dark money contributions from anonymous sources, with some reports linking funding to a network led by fascist mega-donor Leonard Leo.
These are some of the mega-rich fascists who have contributed to Project 2025, either directly or through the component organizations:
Bernie Marcus Family Foundation (Turning Point USA, Heritage Foundation)
Stephen Feinberg’s Tracking Foundation (Turning Point USA)
Richard and Ed Uihlein Family Foundation (Turning Point USA, Heritage Foundation)
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (Turning Point USA, Conservative Partnership Institute, Center for Renewing America, Heritage Foundation)
Sarah Scaife Foundation (Conservative Partnership Institute, Heritage Foundation)
Koch Family Donors Trust (Conservative Partnership Institute, Heritage Foundation)
Walton Family Foundation (Conservative Partnership Institute)
Mercatus Center at George Mason University (Conservative Partnership Institute)
Leonard Leo (America First Legal)
Paul Singer (Heritage Foundation)
Thomas and Laura Wolfe (Heritage Foundation)
ExxonMobil (Heritage Foundation)
Most of these donors have given over a million dollars, some over $10 million to dismantle American democracy. There are other Dark Money operations that have also donated massively, like Donor’s Trust Marble Freedom Trust and the American Enterprise Institute. These fat-cats feel they can shape the future of the Republican Party and the conservative movement, social and cultural issues, media narratives and ultimately, the U.S. itself. This is class war, although only one side is fighting it.
Members of the advisory board and authors of the project’s Mandate for Leadership series include Hans von Spakovsky, Ben Carson, Russell Vought, Peter Navarro, Rick Dearborn, William Pendley, Paul Dans, Ken Cuccinelli, Jonathan Berry, Brooks Tucker, Mora Namdar, Stephen Moore, Thomas Gilman, Paul Winfree, Gene Hamilton, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Christopher Miller, Spencer Chretien, Kiron Skinner, Bernard McNamee, Mandy Gunasekara, Johnny McEntee and Roger Severino, many of whom worked in the Trump Regime.
Kevin Roberts, Heritage Foundation president: “The long march of cultural Marxism through our institutions has come to pass. The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty under siege as never before.”
I wonder how many of these billionaires would feel comfortable with the viciously anti-LGBTQ ideology of the Project. Homophobic maniac Roger Severino, who worked as Trump’s Office of Civil Rights, called for the rescinding of regulations “prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, sex characteristics, etc.” Brynn Tannehill wrote that The Mandate for Leadership “makes eradicating LGBTQ people from public life its top priority.”