Notices by Thomas Zimmer (tzimmer_history@mastodon.social), page 12

Beyond just dismantling the state, “Project 2025” also seeks to mobilize and weaponize government in a far-reaching effort to punish and purge “woke” enemies and impose a reactionary white Christian patriarchal order on American society. 6/

Underlying all the policy proposals to dismantle some parts of the executive while weaponizing others is the fever dream of a great purge of government officials who are to be replaced with a vast army of loyalists. 11/

“Project 2025” talks about “eliminating politicization” – only to then present the whole laundry list of rightwing culture war grievances. DEI! CRT! Trans people!
 
A policy agenda fueled entirely by the Christopher Rufo canon of reactionary white male moral panics. 10/

“Project 2025” promises to restore former national glory by purging enemies and deviants from the nation. Look anywhere in the report, and what you’ll find is visceral disdain for any kind of pluralism and diversity channeled into a policy agenda aiming to extinguish it. 9/

Labor Policy? A tool to create more room to legally discriminate in the workplace – “Project 2025” openly demands the president “Rescind regulations prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics.” 8/

“Project 2025” dreams of firing and replacing up to 50,000 federal employees by implementing Schedule F, strip all these people of their civil service protections in order to make them fireable. No more independent experts and competent bureaucrats. An hour of wolves. 12/

Expanding presidential power, establishing total control over the government, weaponizing some parts of the executive while dismantling others – that is the first big focus of “Project 2025,” as it crystallizes in the policy agenda for every department, every agency. 2/

“Project 2025” promises to restore former national glory by purging enemies and deviants from the nation.
 
Visceral disdain for any kind of pluralism and diversity channeled into a policy agenda aiming to extinguish it. That’s “Project 2025.”
 
A thread, based on my new piece:
 
🧵1/
 
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/what-project-2025-would-do-to-america

The plans for the education sector are a good starting point to explore the desire to dismantle modern government. The very first sentence in this chapter of the “Project 2025” report unequivocally states that “the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.” 3/

If you know anything about the rightwing crusade against the modern state, it will not surprise you that the “Project 2025” plans for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are another good example for what the Right means when they talk about dismantling the state. 5/

What is outlined here is not some fringe position on the Right. It is, in fact, very much in continuity with the reactionary crusade against public education that has always been a key element of modern conservative politics in the United States. 4/

The plans in the public health sector are a good example of how the deregulation/dismantling government agenda and the desire to weaponize the state intersect. While the hate the CDC, the people behind “Project 2025” also regard it as a useful tool in the crusade to ban abortion. 8/

Measures to tackle the climate crisis are derided throughout the report as pure “woke” radicalism. “Climate fanaticism” is, in this worldview, just another “globalist” strategy to undermine America, just like “gender radicalism” and “promoting abortion.” 7/

Climate change is the obvious elephant in the room here. To the extent it is acknowledged at all, it is presented as just another bogeyman the Left uses to scare people into compliance with their anti-American agenda – it’s all just “environmental extremism.” 6/

The plans for the Department of Health and Human Services are really not revolving around public or individual health at all. The overriding concern here is to impose a reactionary Christian patriarchal order and punish all those who object and deviate. 10/

The role “Project 2025” envisions for the CDC: A unified databank with comprehensive data on every abortion in America in the hands of a patriarchal regime lusting for control over the bodies of women. Who could possibly object? 9/

The goal is to turn the clock back to a time when the “natural” / divinely ordained hetero-normative, patriarchal order was still intact. Only those who comply are considered “healthy” and have a right to health care. 12/

Public health is seen purely as a tool to uphold a traditionalist, conservative Christian understanding of gender, family, and motherhood. No more of this unnatural pluralism of lifestyles, identities, and family structures. Deviation is to be extinguished. 11/

“Project 2025” often demands to “eliminate politicization” – only to then present the whole laundry list of rightwing culture war grievances. DEI! CRT! Trans people! A policy planning document fueled entirely by the Christopher Rufo canon of reactionary moral panics. 13/

The Democratic Party, in the Right’s understanding, is not just a political opponent, but an “Un-American” enemy – a fundamentally illegitimate political faction captured by the radical forces of leftism, liberalism, wokeism, and multiculturalism. 3/