Imagine if I wrote this. Or some other leftie nobody did:
America’s Bicentennial, which culminated on July 4, 1976, was a spirited and unifying celebration of our country, its Founding, and its ideals. As we approach our nation’s 250th anniversary, which will take place during the next presidency, America is now divided between two opposing forces: theocratic reactionaries and those who believe in the ideals of the American revolution. The former believe that America is—and always has been—”God’s tabula rasa” and that America, as a nation, is not worth celebrating and must be fundamentally transformed, largely through a centralized removal of powers of state. The latter believe in America’s history and heroes, its principles and promise, and in everyday Americans and the American way of life. They believe in the Constitution and representative government. Progressives—the Americanists in this battle—must fight for the soul of America, which is very much
at stake.
First of all, you might say that the theocratic right-wing is floundering and it’s probably a better bet to critique the libertarian, wealth-preservationist red-right, who currently use the religious bunch as their stooge. Second, you’d find it very tendentious that I suggest “Progressives” fight for “the American way of life,” since, right or left, the cornerstone of such a thing is diversity, individuality, uniqueness, multi-sectarianism, something, but not one “way of life.”
Thing is, I didn’t write this. Its page 1 of Project 2025. I more or less only swapped out the bold and italicized:
America’s Bicentennial, which culminated on July 4, 1976, was a spirited and unifying celebration of our country, its Founding, and its ideals. As we approach our nation’s 250th anniversary, which will take place during the next presidency, America is now divided between two opposing forces: woke revolutionaries and those who believe in the ideals of the American revolution. The former believe that America is—and always has been—“systemically racist” and that it is not worth celebrating and must be fundamentally transformed, largely through a centralized administrative state. The latter believe in America’s history and heroes, its principles and promise, and in everyday Americans and the American way of life. They believe in the Constitution and republican government. Conservatives—the Americanists in this battle—must fight for the soul of America, which is very much at stake.
Whichever fledgling 1960s anarcho-syndicalist rag they grabbed from the Way-Way Back Machine, or a box of unarchived stuff at a university library acquired from a Lower East Side midwest transplant’s estate sale — the “unifying” switcheroo from a clearly separatist diatribe didn’t work. And the LES radical didn’t win in the battle of democratic ideology. My recollection of the bicentennial was a vibrant multi-racial, multicultural Philadelphia (since I was there, to see the Liberty Bell with fairly Nixonian conservative parents), and we all got along swimmingly.
And so goes on 900 more pages of absolute polemic, ideological central planning without a wink to the nation, its people, the global environment, the technological environment, or even the current political environment that the republican party itself is largely responsible for creating. (Much of Project 2025 is about making government smaller at the same time as making it more authoritarian. But I’m not going to rag on the hypocrisy, only the cluelessness).
Oh, except for two chapters. Very nuts-and-bolts. Christopher Miller and Ken Cuccinelli have super-explicit ideas about the military and the Department of Homeland Security. Skimming through Miller’s reform ideas is perplexing, though, because it seems like streamlining and modernizing suggest reductions of staff, reduction of wasteful spending, and a general non-partisan outlook on making a smarter military. However, cuts and downsizing are shrouded in double-talk and expanding and investment are lauded as if spending is a goal. The marines seem to need some cuts. but they’re “divestitures,” apparently.
“Divest systems or equipment that are better suited to heavier U.S. Army units.”
“Reduce unnecessary deployments to increase dwell time in order to enable more robust primary military education.”
“Divest systems to implement the Force Design 2030 transformation.”
Note that Biden apparently decimated the Space Force, which didn’t even exist, and Bush’s war in Afghanistan was apparently Obama and Biden’s disaster as well. The democratic president names usually follow the words “increase spending”. Go figure. The whole new Democratic Hawk crowd must feel like outcasts, just when people were shaking their heads about the Wesley Clarks of the world. Of course, once putting an emphasis on strengthening the VA started, it was clear that the Republicans had to squash this stuff immediately. Notably the VA isn’t mentioned in Miller’s section.
Maybe some boots-on-the ground specifics are addressed throughout. It’s not a total Santa Claus list, to be fair. But details are still slim. There are 7 charts in the discussion on education reform. Seven. Some with one line each. (Master of data viz), Edward Tufte said, “if there are only one or two lines in a line chart, you’re being lied to.” None have three or more.
The amount of data in 900 pages is scant, all over, though. The section on trade has like, seven? tables, and the index is robust with… just kidding. There’s no index. No appendices to speak of. The five page conclusion is less vision and synthesis of data to a common eureka, result, hypothesis, or I guess, what you’d call “conclusion”… except… oh ho! Eureka! It’s a history of this farcical jalopy of a treatise, (at best a 101 survey class textbook with a collection of essays) first conceived in 1979. (I’d argue, 1741, when Johnathan Edwards told a new world they were going to hell) But literally, like Mr. Burnes, like Gargamel, rubbing their grubbies together, he details all the muah-hahahah stuff right there. Mr. Feulner, onward indeed.
I kinda ignored project 2025, because I figured it’d be kinda what it is. But then stuff happened that I didn’t see coming in this … is there a better word than strange? no. … strange year, and apparently project 2025 was to blame. I don’t remember specifics, but it wasn’t and isn’t this document. This is a reader. A compilation. Not a heads-together Heritage Foundation-guided plan for a prosperous future. The acknowledgements in front and back-patting is more informative than half the sections the writers themselves discuss. And those essays are so much conserva-fluff, if there are any good ideas, I didn’t see them. Maybe they need visualization. It’s at least as telling as anything else in the book.
I present to you Project 2025 Word Clouds.
I mean, they’re about as helpful as 900 pages of buckley-wannabe drivel.
I guess except for some experts in military, HSA, a few other things… But I’d really have to get into the weeds with those. And these things take forever.