You are a 53 year old mid-level scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency. You work to develop mitigation processes for Climate Change. Most of your co-workers are like you - long time career government employees - experts in their fields of study. Some of them had left during the Trump administration in the “purge”. Politics had made the job impossible. Once Biden was elected, many were called back to work - to do essential planning for the inevitable changes under way as the Earth’s warming wreaks havoc on the planet.
January 30, 2025. Your phone blings with a text notification from your employer. It simply says: “You’re Fired!” You think it is a sick joke in that the new president had used that term infamously on his TV show. But you also find an emailed termination letter. It is not a joke. Don’t bother coming to work. The letter is not signed by your boss or the Director of the EPA.
The firing letter is signed by Russ Vought, “Director of Personnel for the United States”.
Recently, I wrote a letter about reasons to be optimistic and how the Biden/Harris ticket is offering positive change for the next four years. It was about their good work. It was about doing even better starting next year. The message is “Dems Make Life Better”.
While Democrats are working to help ALL of us, Republicans want to dominate, exclude and completely remake America into a White Nationalist Fascist Nation. Am I ringing an alarm? Yes. Am I yelling fire in a theater? Yes. Republicans want to burn down the nation as we know it.
I shopped around for “explainers” of Project 2025. Media Matters for America has an excellent review of exactly what Project 2025 hopes to accomplish in the next Republican administration. Project 2025 is breathtaking in its scope. It is a vision of America that excludes, unprotects, and persecutes Americans.
Project 2025 is the dystopian movie you never wanted to watch.
You can find the actual document here.
Project 2025 producers and partners have made clear their goals and specific plans - to be executed in the first 180 days of another Trump presidency. The fascists are ready to complete the takeover - quickly and efficiently.
Here is a preview of Project 2025 from a member of the House of Representatives - Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. Double click to view.
Here is the introduction from Media Matters in an article titled:
A guide to Project 2025, the extreme right-wing agenda for the next Republican administration
Project 2025 aims to roll back civil rights and destroy the federal government, among other proposals.
“Project 2025, a comprehensive transition plan organized by right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation to guide the next GOP presidential administration, is the conservative movement’s most robust policy and staffing proposal for a potential second Trump White House — and its extreme agenda represents a threat to democracy, civil rights, the climate, and more.
Project 2025 focuses on packing the next GOP administration with extreme loyalists to former President Donald Trump.”
The plan aims to reinstate Schedule F, a Trump-era executive order that makes federal employees fireable at-will, stripping tens of thousands of employees of civil service protections. Both Trump and others in the conservative movement have said they will clear out the federal government if he is reelected. The project has even set up online trainings and loyalty tests to narrow down potential hires to those who will commit to follow Trump without question. As Project 2025 senior adviser John McEntee has said, “The number one thing you're looking for is people that are aligned with the agenda.”
Put simply, Trump would fire the career professionals who have expertise in science, budgeting, emergency management, health care, education and environmental protection. They would be replaced by sycophants - Trump loyalists who would do the bidding of business interests - the average American be damned. New employees who had signed oaths of allegiance - yet have no experience.
The Department of Justice and the FBI, no longer independent, would become enforcement agencies like the Gestapo.
From an ABC News report:
“In other words, Trump's response when criticized for using Hitler's language was to acknowledge the criticism and then to use it again. Whether he is telling the truth about not ever reading "Mein Kampf," there have been multiple reports of Trump privately admiring Hitler.”
Today’s letter is written to terrify you. The times we are experiencing bear striking similarities to Europe in the 1930’s. We need to be afraid. Very afraid. We need to get up off our couches and vote. We need to find traditional non-voters and explain that despite their reservations about Joe Biden, the alternative is the loss of a functioning democracy.
Successful coups of governments and fascist takeovers don’t happen in a flash. They are slowly developed in the background. And all of a sudden, they are real and unstoppable.
Project 2025 is a brainchild of the Heritage Foundation - heavily funded by Charles Koch. This is oligarchy ascending. This is fascism on steroids. For a list of other ultra right wing organizations that align with and support this coup, read here.
Are you frightened yet? Are you ready to resist the Coup? If so, please share this with as many people as you can.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/20/donald-trump-allies-christian-nationalism-00142086
https://billalstrom.substack.com/p/dems-make-life-better - a positive outlook
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/conservatives-aim-to-restructure-u-s-government-and-replace-it-with-trumps-vision - “freedom is defined by God, not man.”
https://www.project2025.org/ - from the authors
https://www.heritage.org/press/project-2025-reaches-100-coalition-partners-continues-grow-preparation-next-president - a list of organizations that are partners in the coup
https://www.mediamatters.org/project-2025 - an analysis of Project 2025
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/conservatives-aim-to-restructure-u-s-government-and-replace-it-with-trumps-vision - “schedule F” flushes the entire government of professionals and replaces them with Trump loyalists
https://www.project2025.org/training/presidential-administration-academy/ - Administration Academy - Preparing Political Appointees to be Ready on Day One
https://www.axios.com/2023/11/13/trump-loyalists-2024-presidential-election - Behind the Curtain: Trump allies pre-screen loyalists for unprecedented power grab
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trumps-history-adolf-hitler-nazi-writings-analysis/story?id=105810745 - listen to Trumps own words
Thank you so much for sharing . Sadly…it is a manifesto for a living nightmare and it terrifies me . Will share and share again
Thank you for sharing this Bill. I have been telling many people about Project 2025 who had not heard of it, or didn’t think it was anything to worry about. As your post today points out, it most certainly is and everyone should be very afraid and vote blue!