The over 900-page document, commissioned by the people expected to run another Trump White House, is a laundry list of the far-right’s most politically toxic ideas, from banning abortion nationwide to mass firing federal officials who believe in protecting public health and safety. One would think that Trump and his allies would try to keep their sinister plans out of public view. Instead, Team Trump published their fascistic blueprint on a website for anyone to read,. They even proudly display the menacing “Project 2025” label on the front page.

On Sunday, actress Taraji P. Henson took a break during the BET Awards, which she was hosting, to speak out about Project 2025. “The Project 2025 plan is not a game. Look it up!” she told viewers. “I’m talking to all the mad people that don’t want to vote. You’re going to be mad about a lot of things if you don’t vote.”

The clip went viral, amplified by other celebrities like Mark Ruffalo. So the MAGA forces swung into action on social media, accusing Henson and Ruffalo and other progressives of making it all up. “Is Project 2025 in the room with you?” a blue-checked user sneered under Ruffalo’s tweet. These efforts at gaslighting people run against a real problem, however: The drafters of Project 2025 seek to promote their authoritarian playbook. Thus, a simple Google search generates a slew of explainers from various news organizations, with even more coming out rapidly, as a response to the rising number of people asking, “What’s Project 2025?”

“We received a flood of reader inquiries asking if Project 2025 was a real effort,” the fact-checking team at Snopes wrote in their lengthy explainer published Tuesday. Google Trends confirms that the number of searches for “project 2025” has grown dramatically in recent days.

  • ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    And, here’s the thing: If they lose this one, they will keep trying every election from now until they win or are found to be breaking the law and sentenced to heavy time or death. So, it’s not just this election folks need to vote–it’s every election. This hasn’t been stated, but the natural direction is that they will try to get folks into any position of power where they can further disenfranchise anyone who doesn’t vote their way. I know that has been happening, but Project 2025 hasn’t focused on that yet (to my knowledge).

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      And, here’s the thing: If they lose this one, they will keep trying every election from now until they win or are found to be breaking the law and sentenced to heavy time or death. So, it’s not just this election folks need to vote–it’s every election.

      And the reason they keep not getting sentenced to heavy time or death is that enlightened-centrist liberals keep refusing to vigorously apply consequences (see also: Biden refusing to even consider SCOTUS reform, despite them literally just handing him the power to do anything he could possibly think of, up to and including having the fascist justices killed off and replaced). It’s almost like they get off on edging fascism.

      • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        I think more dems are seeing that reforms need to be made. If democracy is expanded -especially in some way that abolishes gerrymandering or the two party system - the funds tying all these republicans into a single party will collapse for a time.

        You see people like AOC willing to create consequences for the supreme court and people pushing constitutiomal amendments again. I expect if Biden wins again the next dem primary will be interesting. If he loses well, there’s a good chance we’ll become a one party system like russia at the federal level.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          Sure, progressives/leftists see it, but they’ve been seeing it the whole time.

          The trick is getting liberals to see it, and that shows pretty much no indication of happening despite the fact that the fascists are now even going so far as directly threatening to persecute them.

          • gh0stcassette@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            4 days ago

            I wouldn’t be so sure. I think the calls for Biden to step down are evidence that DNC-types (at least some of them) are realizing the gravity of this situation.

    • Xanis@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      WHICH, my dear potential voters, is why we need to stop fucking arguing with one another and come together, dammit.

      It’s REALLY easy:

      1. Stop being idiots.

      2. Pressure Biden to use the recent Supreme Court decision to OUR advantage.

      3. Vote Biden into office for another 4-years.

      4. Continue to be fucking geniuses by holding hands and using those 4 years to fix shit.

      If those on the Left actually stopped verbally measuring one another’s dicks and stood united, they would be a force that the Right could not reckon with. The problem is so many of you keep strutting around, beaks in the air, making damned goose calls while collectively peeing into the wind and complaining that your pants keep getting wet.

    • hypnoton@discuss.online
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      I am worried about this entire dynamic.

      So from now until infinity the Dems will (rightly) say Repubs are an existential threat, and that’s all the reason you need to vote D. Then the Dems no longer need to aspire to anything for their voters, promise anything to their voters, and as long as the Dem voting base remains scared shitless, the Dems are no longer accountable.

      The world that this creates is unappealing to say the least.

      Anyone saying I just need to wait is going to be ignored.

      Also I don’t want to protest in sweltering climate changed heat while my foes fuck me over from their comfortably air-conditioned rooms.

      I need strategies where my foes suffer more than I.

      • evatronic@lemm.ee
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        4 days ago

        You may have heard of Thomas Jefferson?

        “…the price of Liberty is eternal vigilance.”

      • niucllos@lemm.ee
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        4 days ago

        If the Dems no longer have to compete with Republicans during generals, the focus needs to be on primarying bad candidates with better Dems too, we shouldn’t just be pushing generals every four years. We need to be getting out the vote for primaries and midterms as well

        • hypnoton@discuss.online
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          4 days ago

          And if the DNC decides to cancel the primaries?

          I vote in every election. Where I live some positions just have an uncontested ® running.

      • ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world
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        Yes, we can’t be complacent and let Dems, or whoever is opposing the Right, sit comfortably on their stacks of cash. This country needs real change or it will fall.

        • hypnoton@discuss.online
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          That’s exactly what I fear. The strategy to vote D solely to stop the existentially threatening R will in my opinion at best work for two more cycles. Then the public face of the Democratic Party will be ruined beyond repair. Not only that, but the public face of our electoral system itself will be ruined beyond repair.

          This only postpones fascism for two cycles, but at an insanely high cost to the public institutions.

          If the DNC decides to cancel all the primaries, then there are NO polite and civil methods left to get any accountability from the system.

          We are NOT solving our fascism problem by simply voting D. We’re rolling out red carpet for fascism in two cycles.

          • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            The only way I see that changing is voting locally and supporting new candidates with good ideas trying to hurdle the obstacles of entry. Its hard, and there’s definitely no immediate solution. I think thats partly by design in a democracy.

            • hypnoton@discuss.online
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              A better democracy would not have privately controlled ballot access by a duopoly of RNC and DNC.

              And a better democracy would not rely almost exclusively on billionaire-owned media, owned by 6 giant corps.

              The founders loathed the idea of political parties.

              I’m not going to say we don’t have a democracy, because I do appreciate what little of it we do have. But we must do better and soon. If there is no civil way forward we will have to be impolite.

    • r0ertel@lemmy.world
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      Isn’t this like leaving your team playbook on the hood of your car before the big game? Why can’t or don’t the parties opposing this use it to construct their game plan to systematically remove all the loopholes and methods that this “project” is using to promote their agenda? I’m the furthest thing from a politician, so ELI5.

      • gh0stcassette@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        To fully prevent most of what’s laid out there would require supreme court rulings, which isn’t going to happen under a conservative court. The only way to prevent it is for Democrats to win (Biden needs to step down imo) and then pack the court and/or impeach a couple of conservative justices.

        • ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world
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          Exactly this. There is infrastructure to these kinds of moves. The right has been moving on it and the left has mostly not. However, there are some things the left could do, and they should get on that ASAP.

      • ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        I agree, actually. There may be a time and a place for it, but even if that were true, humans are not able to handle it. I wasn’t necessarily endorsing that direction, simply recognizing that the eventual outcome for someone doing what they are doing could be death.