I was originally going to title my next Trump related column “Of Course There’s a Constitutional Crisis Dummy!” With the ignorance of court orders, the illegal dismantling and defunding of congressional controlled agencies and the deportation of legal residents and U.S. citizens alike, the point seemed all to obvious. And I know this is not obvious to everyone or rather they are oblivious to it. But I wanted to probe deeper into the root of all of this evil.
Today I heard on the radio someone say what I have been thinking all along during these 100 days. “Why is Anyone Surprised by Trump’s 100 Days.” If you remember even vaguely what Trump said and did in his first term. And if you had a chance to read any part of Project 2025. Or if you could tell by Trump’s appointments that all the guardrails are gone, then there should have been little to no surprise that we are in the state we are in.
Trump 1.0
During Trump’s first term, he came up with plenty of kooky, sometimes dangerous, and illegal actions and ideas. From his coverup of the Russian interference in the 2016 election and the obstruction of the Mueller investigation. To the indiscriminate firing of whistle blowers like Lt. Col Alexander Vindman. Then there were his outlandish and harmful cures for COVID-19 such as hydroxychloroquine, sunlight, and bleach. And then top it off with attempts to subvert the 2020 election and planning and inciting a riot on January 6, 2021. What a guy that Trump is.
The big difference between then and now is that in his first term, Trump had a least a small cadre of his advisors who put the country first. People like Dr. Anthony Fauci, General John Kelly, Reince Priebus and Christoper Wray. Instead of those rational minds, he now takes his advice from Kash Patel, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Kristi Noem, and Pete Hegseth. And of course, everyone’s favorite, the congenial Stephen Miller is making an encore appearance, but with more power and influence this time around.
Project 2025 and the Assault on Democracy
And then there is the mastermind himself, Russell Voight who is once again Trump’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget. But he is more infamously known as the chief architect of Project 2025 when he worked at the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation. In this capacity, he oversaw a group of writers, and idealogues who wrote the script for Trump’s second term. And much as the president tried to distance himself from this group during the run-up to the election, most of the policies he has enacted can be traced directly back to the work of this policy group.
Trump’s proposal to dismantle the Department of Education comes directly from the recommendation from Project 2025 that says in part “federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.” How about ending all DEI Programs within the federal government? Project 2025 has that covered. “The federal government should delete a variety of terms, including DEI, abortion and gender equality “from every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.”
And what about the mass firings and buyouts of federal employees? Project 2025’s policy book covers this with the following proposal. “The surest way to put the federal government back to work for the American people is to reduce its size and scope back to something resembling the original constitutional intent.” Most of Trump’s major proposals and related actions can be traced back to the Heritage Foundation policy project.
What’s Next
Much more if Congress and the judiciary continue to not exercise their responsibilities as equal components of the balance of power in our federal government. There are proposals contained in Project 2025 like banning all curriculum related to critical race theory, LGBTQ+ rights, and progressive perspectives on race and gender in public schools. that have not been proposed or implemented
Much of what happens moving forward will be affected by several factors including the stock market performance, opposition to the Trump administration tariffs, inflation, and the president’s approval rating. So much is still up in the air
