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By David Pepper
Trump is now denying that he knows anything about Project 2025.
That’s right.
He doesn’t know a thing about it….or any of the people involved.
Let’s see how that claim adds up:
As Trump’s desperate lie reminds us, the extreme right knows full well that the agenda they are pushing is deeply unpopular with the American people. Which means they know they will lose whenever elections become straight-up referenda on that toxic agenda.
And the knowledge of their own toxicity shapes their entire political battle: they do anything in their power to keep elections from becoming a straight-up referendum on their agenda. The prospect of the majority weighing in on their agenda scares them so much, they do whatever they can to avoid it from happening.
How? I wrote my two books about this, but here are 10 ways this plays out.
1. They pretend it’s not their agenda, even when it so clearly is (like Trump re Project 2025, his ever-changing stance on abortion, etc.);
2. They spend all their time stirring up and scaring voters on high-voltage issues, disinformation and lies, trying to distract from their overall agenda (which is the reason Trump killed the immigration deal, why crime comes up every two years whether it is up or down, why “CRT” and other culture war attacks never stop, and so on; in Ohio, it’s why the GOP is desperately trying to turn the gerrymandering debate into a debate over…“foreign oligarchs”!?);
3. They fight for their agenda in places where people aren’t paying as much attention, and where there is less media to cover it (bringing abortion battles to states, and not trying to pass an abortion ban at the US Senate);
4. They fight for their agenda in places where it is harder for the people to hold them accountable (gerrymandered statehouses), and/or where they face little opposition;
5. They fight to gerrymander states precisely because they know that’s where and how they can pass toxic policies and not be held accountable for doing so; and they fight to make sure those gerrymandered statehouses don’t face other forms of accountability (by attacking independent courts or other offices);
6. They are currently working overtime to undermine the ability of voters to force statewide initiatives because they know (correctly) that such statewide elections are a direct threat to their agenda (even in those gerrymandered states);
7. When those initiatives do succeed, they often defy the majority will that was just expressed so clearly against their policies;
8. They use statehouses to undermine local governments and strip power from other elected offices (the Ohio state school board), because they know those governments are responsive to the popular will on issues that counter their unpopular agenda (think public education, guns, minimum wage, climate);
9. They systematically suppress the votes of key parts of the majority coalition that they know stand against their unpopular policies—because if you’re afraid of the majority, you need to make it smaller;
10. When even Republicans see how toxic their policies are and vote accordingly (as some Texas Republicans did re vouchers), they use billionaire dark money to take them out in low-turnout primaries (almost all those Texas Republicans lost). So GOP primaries in gerrymandered states become a key vehicle where they can overcome the majority will with their extremism.
Folks, when Trump denies that Project 2025 is his plan, don’t just laugh it off.
Know his denial rests at the heart of the overall far-right game plan: seeking to impose on a polity an agenda that, at its core and stripped down to its basics, runs directly counter to the majority will of that polity. Not just the national will, but on many issues, even the will of “red” states in our country.
Rather than adjust their agenda to better reflect and comport with that majority will, they choose tactics to circumvent that will—usually by attacking key elements of a rule-of-law democracy itself to impose their toxic agenda against that will.
And THAT is the battle we must see. And counter.
In fact, once you see that that is their battle, almost everything they do is entirely predictable. Their playbook is plain as day.
So what should we do as a response?
1. Fight for democracy at all the levels where it needs to be protected, including in the often-overlooked places they now use to get most of that toxic agenda through
2. Fight for the reforms that undermine their approach—as we are doing in Ohio this year in the effort to end gerrymandering
3. Fight to protect, reengage and re-empower the voters they have taken out of the electorate because they are so threatened by the majority coalition those voters are a key part of
4. And…when they take the time to write all their toxic ideas down into a single, 1000-page document—so clearly that even Trump himself is trying to run away from it—whatever you do, keep talking about it. Don’t just say “read the plan”—people won’t. Make it as real as you can for people. Through posts. Videos. Interviews. Conversations. Heck, write a book to make its impact as real as possible :). Or share that book with others. One reason Trump is afraid of it is because even voters across red states will be appalled by it.
