Another Kind of Doomsday Clock
Instead of counting down to nuclear devastation, this one counts down to the total destruction of democracy
My well-read friend David Gerety keeps digging up fascinating, cool interactive political tracking websites. If you liked the Trump Lie-brary or the Trump Tracker, you’re going to love Mr. Gerety’s latest find, the Project 2025 Tracker.
According to the website,
Project 2025 Tracker began as a humble spreadsheet created by/u/rusticgorilla combined with /u/mollynaquafina’s vision for making this information accessible to everyone through a dedicated website.
What started as a passion project by two Redditors has grown into a community-driven resource, powered by people like you who believe in the importance of transparent, detailed analysis.
Essentially, what this tracker does is document “progress” toward the goal of a complete, unilateral takeover of our society and government by the right wing. It's like the Doomsday Clock, but a lot more imminent and scary.
It's hard to keep track, but you may remember that that during the 2024 election campaign, the Dissembler-in-Chief denied any knowledge of Project 2025, much less any intention to use it as a roadmap for his second term. Typically, once Trump was elected, he completely reversed himself and pledged fealty to the principles of that document.
For those of us who have not actually read Project 2025 cover to cover, the tracker website offers a good summation:
Project 2025 is a comprehensive conservative policy blueprint developed by the Heritage Foundation and supported by an alliance of over 100 conservative organizations. It provides a detailed roadmap for transforming the federal government and implementing conservative policies in a future Republican presidential administration.
The initiative is built on four main pillars: a nearly 900-page policy guide called “Mandate for Leadership 2025,” a personnel database to identify conservative candidates for government positions, a “Presidential Administration Academy” for training future administration officials, and a 180-day action playbook for immediate implementation.
Project 2025 proposes significant changes across nearly all areas of government, including restructuring federal agencies, immigration and border policies, reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ protections, law enforcement, economic regulation, and social programs. The plan emphasizes reducing the size of the federal government, centralizing executive power, and implementing traditional conservative values.
It's not headline news that Trump is doing whatever it takes to keep and grow his base. An important part of that base is the ultra-conservative crowd, which is driven by the corrupt, let’s-make-a-deal Christian Coalition. During his first term, Trump made no secret of the fact that all of his Supreme Court nominees would come from a list supplied by the Heritage Foundation. At one point he was asked about this, and his answer was, slightly paraphrased, “I don’t see any reason to look anywhere else.”
There's a lot wrong with the present administration, and perhaps not the most important thing, but right up there, is the fact that the president gets all of his news from Newsmax—Fox is too liberal for him—and all of his direction from the far-right faction of the conservative Republican cabal. In other words, his world view is formed by fake news and most of his actions are determined by what amounts to a religious-political sect. How comforting to know that our country is being run by someone who borrows his point of view from a tiny group of rabid partisans who in no way represent the will of the people.
It turns out that 1984 is real—it just took an extra 40 years to get there.