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Project 2025 - the Takeover

and the 180 Day Playbook

Peter Howitt

Peter Howitt

This is a companion page to:

Introduction

"a systemic, ruthless plan to undermine the quality of life of millions of Americans, remove critical protections and dismantle programs for communities across the nation, and prioritize special interests and ideological extremism" (The People's Guide to Project 2025, see link below)

Project 2025 aims to deconstruct federal agencies and centralise power in the presidency, which could potentially isolate states with a focus on reducing federal oversight and control. It advocates for a "unitary executive theory," which posits that the entire executive branch should be under the direct control of the President. This would eliminate the independence of agencies such as the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Project 2025 proposes dismantling or significantly reducing the authority of several federal agencies, such as the Department of Education, the Department of Commerce, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It also calls for abolishing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). By eliminating or weakening these agencies, the ability to regulate bad actors would be intentionally seriously curtailed.

The plan proposes cutting federal loan programs, such as those that help parents of college students, graduate students, and immigrants afford higher education. It also seeks to eliminate the Head Start program, which serves over one million children, and cut funding for public transportation projects. Additionally, the project advocates restricting safety nets for farmers. By reducing federal funding and support, Project 2025 would isolate states which lack the resources to make up for these cuts.

This Takeover has been a long time coming. The coup happened years ago - this is the mop-up operation and victory march.

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Deep AI Analysis

An in-depth analysis of over 120 documents including thousands of sources provides the following summary:

"the sources provide substantial evidence that Donald Trump's administration, Project 2025, and the 180-day takeover plan exhibit a strong alignment with the characteristics and tactics of extreme authoritarian and fascist regimes. The focus on centralising executive power, dismantling checks and balances, weaponizing government agencies, suppressing dissent, undermining democratic norms, and embracing a specific ideological agenda raises serious concerns about the future of democratic governance in the United States"

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Thematic Breakdown

The below articles and sources are arranged thematically - see table of contents drop-down below:

Table of contents:
  1. The long road to authoritarianism and capitalist fascism (inc. the attempted coup)

  2. Project 2025

  3. The Takeover (including the 180 Day Playbook)

  4. Useful data tracking tools for the Takeover

  5. Changing of the guard (military changes)

  6. DANA - Democracy as an attitude not an act.

  7. Election interference

  8. Healthcare

  9. Education

  10. Chaos as a weapon

  11. Resistance precedents

  12. Judiciary & law

  13. Cruelty is the point

  14. Religious fundamentalism

  15. Project Esther (weaponizing allegations of anti-semitism)

  16. Disinfo and information/media attacks

  17. Diversity

  18. DOGE

  19. The biosphere and climate crisis

  20. Corruption, bribery and grift

  21. Who funds these far right groups?

  22. The Middle East

  23. NATO and Allies

  24. The Economy

  25. Poems

Note: I call what we are seeing fascism. Yes, it is a new form which is internationalist, corporatist, nativist etc but it is still far-right. Fascism with less ideology and more grift (and makeup it seems). In any event 'fascism' will do until a better catch-all word comes along for what is, in essence, a coalition of criminal private capitalists seeking to control and destroy our societies.

The Pre-Trump long road to extremism and capitalist fascism:

"The U.S. post-9/11 wars have forcibly displaced at least 38 million people in and from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya and Syria. This number exceeds the total displaced by every war since 1900, except World War II.”

More articles:

The Attempted Coup & Terrorist Activity (06 Jan 2021)

More articles:

Project 2025

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https://democracyforward.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/2024-05_Peoples-Guide-Pro-2025.pdf

https://www.americanprogress.org/series/project-2025-exposing-the-far-right-assault-on-america/

More Project 2025 articles:
Play Video

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025-would-destroy-the-u-s-system-of-checks-and-balances-and-create-an-imperial-presidency/

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-top-5-ways-project-2025-would-hurt-disabled-people/


Tracker tools

Professor Christina Pagel has prepared and maintains a very detailed spreadsheet of the authoritarian takeover - available at her Substack.

More tools:

The Takeover & Blitzkrieg

The blitzkrieg:

Changing of the Guard - military changes


Interlude: DANA - Democracy is an attitude not an act

Before we continue with more info on the Takeover, just a quick a reminder that our belief in democracy is a state of mind and a daily practice. It is belief in the value of all people, in diversity. The current system of representative democracy is largely symbolic, so this crisis also has within it the seeds of hope for a better society and system that distributes wealth and political power more fairly.

So what can we do?

We can focus on community coordination, meet with people (in real life) to share our concerns and more importantly work on ideas on how to be stronger together. They want each of us to be alone, doom-scrolling on our devices – atomised. Resist that, there is strength in numbers and in strengthening the bonds of care between us. Compassion must be at the heart of our practice.

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(Art from rlmartstudio.com courtesy of the wonderful Jeremy David Engels)

Election interference

"He knows those computers better than anybody. All those computers. Those vote-counting computers. And we ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide,” (Donald Trump)

Nazi propaganda trick of Projection?:

"In his analysis of Nazi propaganda, Ellis Freeman identified an influence tactic based on projection: accusing another person of the negative traits and behaviors that one possesses and exhibits with the goal of deflecting blame away from one’s own misdeeds and toward the accused."

More articles:

Preparing for the next elections

SAVE ACT: "While the vast majority of Americans have a birth certificate, tens of millions of married women could not present their birth certificate as proof of citizenship under the SAVE Act, as it does not display their current legal name."


Healthcare

Healthcare Attacks Summary:
  1. "Restricting Public Health Programs: Project 2025 would scale back the use of public health programs like Medicaid and make it harder for people to access them, including through huge funding cuts to Medicaid. Instead, it calls for pushing families towards private plans with worse coverage.

  2. Rolling Back Affordable Care: Project 2025 would make it more costly and difficult for people to access affordable health coverage generally, including by weakening key reforms under the Affordable Care Act, a law that has that helped millions of people gain health care coverage.

  3. Attacking Reproductive Rights: Project 2025 would ban or severely restrict access to mifepristone, the safe and effective drug used in more than half of all abortions today, including by criminalizing the distribution of medication abortion drugs by mail. States that vowed to protect reproductive rights would be forced to report data to the federal government on pregnant people traveling from other states to seek care. And Project 2025 calls for rolling back HIPAA guidance put in place to protect the privacy of people who receive reproductive health care.

  4. Rolling Back Antidiscrimination Protections in Health Care: Project 2025 would weaken important regulations implementing protections known as “Section 1557,” particularly as they relate to addressing sex discrimination in health care settings.

  5. Shrinking Safety Nets: Project 2025 would make it more onerous or impossible for people with low incomes to access public benefit programs — for example, it would reduce food assistance benefits by imposing additional work reporting requirements and limiting what people can use their benefits for.

  6. Overhauling the Tax System: Project 2025 proposes ending most deductions, credits, and exclusions. While not mentioned by name, this could include the Child Tax Credit. Under those changes, families with low incomes will likely pay more while wealthier families will see cuts.

  7. Politicizing the Government at Every Level: Project 2025 supports drastic changes, known as “Schedule F” reforms, that would force tens of thousands of civil servants — including in agencies that protect civil rights — to serve the president’s political aims instead of serving the public interest. This would include agencies that shape policies related to health care and economic security."

    https://civilrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Project-2025-Health-Care.pdf


Education, Academic Freedom & Oppression

More articles:

Chaos as a weapon

"You know what solves it? When the economy crashes, when the country goes to total hell and everything is a disaster. Then you’ll have a [chuckles], you know, you’ll have riots to go back to where we used to be when we were great.” (Trump, 2014 when defending Russia on Fox News).

from Sarah Kendzior's blog


Resistance Precedents

More articles:


Judiciary & Law


Cruelty is the point


Religious Fundamentalism

"The number one enemy to the people in Israel are American Jews that do not support Israel'

(Steve Bannon)

Play Video

Project Esther (alleged anti-semitism as a pretext)

"Trump and the Israeli government share the same right-wing agenda, and despite what they may claim, it has nothing to do with keeping Jews safe."

(Jewish Voice for Peace)


Disinfo, Information & Media Attacks

More articles:

Diversity


DOGE


The Biosphere & Climate Change Crisis

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Corruption & Bribery

More articles:

"I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.” (Resignation letter of Hagan Scotten, Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, when asked by Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove to dismiss federal corruption charges against NYC mayor Eric Adams.)

Hundreds of federal prosecutors signed a letter to salute the bravery of those standing up to the recent corruption of the DOJ

The Orange King (I am the State) - Le Roi Orange (L'État, c'est moi)

Play Video

The Shakedown and Grift

“I’m here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States from being the primary guarantor of security in Europe.”
US Secretary of Defence, February 12, 2025.

More articles:


Who funds this international criminal conspiracy?

Play VideoPlay Video
Articles:


The Middle East

More articles:


NATO & Allies

"The president’s latest positions on the war reveal that he is indifferent to ongoing slaughter—indeed, he is willing to increase it—and that his opposition to Ukraine’s independence has nothing to do with saving US tax dollars. Trump simply wants Russia to win."

(Jonathan Chait, the Atlantic)


The Economy

See:


Poems

Project 2025 - the Takeover