Trump and Project 2025 (Plus a few thoughts on his state of health)
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August 2018)
See the Supreme Court decision killing the Voting Rights Act, April 27, 2026; & see State Sen. Morris(R) LA, to Black voting rights supporters: "Shut up, Boy!"
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"How do you spell ICE in German? GESTAPO." (S. Jonas, July 2025)
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"First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.
"Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
"Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
"Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me." Pastor Martin Niemoller (c. 1946)
Let me begin with quoting a summary of the goals of "Project 2025" (see just below), the now well-known (or at least often referred-to) 925 page-long document produced by the Heritage Foundation in 2024. In the words of its Director, it proposes to achieve a "Second American Revolution:" Click Here.
Just below is a fairly lengthy quote from an article published on Wikipedia, which (in my view, at any rate) effectively summarizes the Project (Click Here; see the original for its footnotes).
"Project 2025 (also known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project)[3] is a political initiative published in April 2023 by the Heritage Foundation with the goal of reshaping the U.S. federal government by consolidating executive power in favor of right-wing policies. [4] It constitutes a policy document that suggests specific changes to the federal government, a personnel database for recommending vetting loyal staff in the federal government, and a set of proposed executive orders for the U.S. president to implement those policies. [5][6] In summary:
"The project's policy document Mandate for Leadership[7] calls for the replacement of federal civil service workers by people loyal to 'the next conservative president' and for taking partisan control of the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Commerce (DOC), and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). [8] Other agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Education (ED), would be dismantled. [9]
"It calls for reducing environmental regulations and realigning the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with conservative priorities. [10]
"The blueprint seeks to reduce taxes on corporations, institute a flat income tax on individuals,[11] cut Medicare and Medicaid, [12][13] and reverse as many of President Joe Biden's policies as possible. [14][15]
"It proposes banning pornography,[16] removing legal protections against anti-LGBT discrimination, [17][18] and ending diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs [6][18] while having the DOJ prosecute anti-white racism. [19]
"The project recommends mass deportation of illegal immigrants. [20][21][22]
"The plan also proposes enacting laws supported by the Christian right, [23][24] such as criminalizing the sending and receiving of abortion and birth control medications [25][26][27] and eliminating coverage of emergency contraception. [12]
"Project 2025 is based on a controversial interpretation of unitary executive theory according to which the executive branch is under the president's complete control."
Thus the proposed program would essentially abolish U.S. Constitutional Democracy by fiat. These far-reaching, indeed revolutionary, policies and programs were to be implemented following an election in which the Presidential candidate proposing them were to make them central to what he proposed to do once he regained the White House. BUT, Trump did not refer to this ultimate goal even once.
That this revolution-in-practice was to be achieved without a) stating clear reasons for its necessity, or b) involving the U.S. population in any democratic, or even semi-democratic way in making such revolutionary decisions was, for the Director of the Foundation, Kevin Roberts, functionally beside the point. What was needed was the re-election of Donald Trump, who, as it happened, had not the least understanding from any historical or Constitutional perspective of what Roberts was talking about, in either content or process. For him, just as long as whatever it was would put him (Trump) "at the top of the heap," it was fine. And so it did.
Functionally, Roberts' (and Russell Vought's --- he a key designer/driver of the whole Counter-Revolution), to repeat, primary aim was/is to destroy the fundamental principle of The Separation of Powers in the government of the United States. This is, in my view, the central feature of their revolution, one which, in my view too, is missed by many observers and political actors.
In fact, the U.S. Constitution designed and established the first government in history for which the Separation of Powers was its central feature. Trump has taken many anti-democratic/anti-Constitutional steps in his Presidency. But the most important ones for achieving the Constitution-destructive aims of P2025 are those he has taken that ignore completely the requirements of the Constitution for implementing them --- from unilaterally declaring War on Iran (see Article I of the Constitution) to unilaterally setting up his Compensation (some call it "slush") Fund for criminals convicted of taking part in the attempted violent reversal of the results of the 2020 elections --- without going through any kind of Congressional-appropriation process (see also Article I of the Constitution).
Trump now has three sole foci of his Presidency: glorifying himself (in his own eyes, anyway); taking revenge against his real and perceived enemies; and making as much money as he can. And oh yes, as one official in the Iranian government said, on the first day of Trump's attacks on it, one of his primary purposes for that attack was to distract attention from the, as Jimmy Kimmel defines them, "Trump-Epstein Files tm." (Man, if the nation, and its academia, survive P2025/Trump, the number of doctoral dissertation proposals that this man, his family, and his team, will generate down the road will be approaching an unimaginable number.)
And just how is Trump accomplishing all of this? By using his tried-and-true "Seven Magic Tricks" (click here) of course. And here they are (once again):
1. He has always had one or more protectors and enablers, either personal, or financial or both.
2. For decades he has had a standard operating procedure when he faces an adversary of any kind. He learned it from Roy Cohn (who learned it from Joe McCarthy): "Always attack; Never defend." A more recent variant is: "Look. Over there."
3. Also learned from Roy Cohn is the mantra: "when you run into a problem, just sue." You may not win, and it may cost you some money. But a) you might win, and b) with the endlessness with which civil litigation can be drawn out in the U.S. legal system, the other side may just get worn out (or run out of money for lawyers' fees [which Trump, for one reason or another, never seemed to do]).
4. In the whole of his business life, Trump has never been responsible to anyone else, either above him (except for Dad, of course) or even alongside. Making the strategic decisions himself, he has still been able to escape from one legal (and other) scrape after another, if he has had a protector/enabler (see 1. above), also known as the "fixer," on his own.
5. Trump has lived his life surrounded by enemies, whether in business, in his personal life, in his banking and financial life (except for a select few, like Deutsche Bank), certainly in politics, and not just at this time. He has thrived on that state-of-being. In dealing with his enemies/adversaries, as he told us in the "Art of the Deal," the key to winning for him has never been the actual deal-making, but rather attempted opponent-crushing. Real negotiation is just not his thing.
6. Trump is history's greatest con man (a subject to which I have devoted a previous column).
7. To which list I more recently added a Seventh: "Oh woe is me; everyone's against me, and it's so unfair[!]."
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Let me finish with a few comments about Trump's state of health --- from the perspective of a licensed physician who, as it happens, is not a clinician but rather a specialist in public health. But nevertheless, because they are so basic, a few clinical observations can be made. A) Trump seems to be gaining weight, not healthy at any age (and as it happens, I have published extensively on this subject, in both the professional and the lay press). B) The dozing off during (public meetings) could be a sign of some mental disorder or it could be simply the result of his staying up for at least half the night to write all those personal attacks on real and perceived enemies that he so much enjoys doing.
There are two other clinical findings that are readily apparent and frequently referred to (and there may well be others that are not) that could be significant. One of course is the obvious periodic sub-cutaneous bleeding that is occurring on the backs of his hands. That could be the result of medication of one sort or another (for what, we do not know), or it could be the result of frequent blood-drawings (for what we do not know), or frequent intravenous injections (of what/for what we do ). It is highly unlikely that the widespread bleeds on the backs of hands are the result of "frequent hand-shaking." The swollen ankles are (correctly) assumed to be the result of "venous insufficiency," which, as it happens, is quite dangerous.
The latter is a condition in which the valves inside the veins-in-the-legs which normally help the blood that has gone through the arteries to the periphery return to the heart. In an abnormal situation, blood that is on its way back to heart can slow down its speed on that return trip. And if it slows down enough, clots can form in those veins through which the blood passes. Then further, in the most dangerous situation, pieces of those clots, called emboli, can break off. If they eventually get to one or more sensitive places in the heart, they can cause serious damage. And that could be very worrisome form the President, his staff, the P2025 engine, and the Second American Revolution that the latter is in the process of engineering.
And we shall leave it for there, for now.