“Project 2025” is a reminder that a second Trump presidency would be much worse.
A better prepared rightwing regime, operating with the help of a fully Trumpified GOP, a supermajority on the Supreme Court, and the omnipresent threat of violence.
@tzimmer_history Violence to gain/hold power works because there are so many people who abhor violence so much, they'd rather hand over power to fascists 'peacefully' than fight them (or at least support others who fight).
Analogue to the "tolerance paradoxon" i call it a "pacifist paradoxon". We need to be pacifistic, yes. But not when it comes to fascism.
The Right was not ready in 2017. They didn’t have any plans or strategies, Trump world didn’t have a clue how government worked, the extremists didn’t have the personnel to bend the state to their will and harness its powers. This will not hinder them the next time. 2/
And with all their plans, preparations, and personnel ready, the Right would be operating under conditions that are vastly more favorable to their cause, in at least three ways:
First of all, the Right could count on a game-changing reactionary supermajority on the Supreme Court. 3/
Secondly, this would not be the same Right that came to power in 2017. That starts with Trump himself. The idea that he has always been the same, just Trump being Trump, is massively misleading and obscures the rather drastic radicalization of the Right’s undisputed leader. 4/
Beyond Trump, the Right more generally has significantly radicalized. This radicalization has found its manifestation in a fully Trumpified GOP. Prominent Republicans like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney who publicly objected to violent insurrection have been ostracized. 5/
Finally, resistance to the rightwing regime – not just coming from the Left, but also potentially fueled by whatever skepticism still remains among Republicans – would face a level of violent threat far beyond anything the country experienced during the first Trump presidency. 6/
All strands of the Right – Republican elected officials, the media machine, the reactionary intellectual sphere, the conservative base – are embracing rightwing vigilante violence in an increasingly open and aggressive fashion. 7/
The percentage of people on the Right who see political violence as necessary has drastically increased; violent threat against lawmakers and anyone who dares to defy Trump specifically has exploded. Americans may want to resist. But it would be far more dangerous this time. 8/
The best approach to understanding the Right has always been to take seriously and actually grapple with their vision for American society. Take “Project 2025”: Rightwing leaders could not possibly be clearer about the reactionary vision they want to impose on the country. 9/
They are telling us that they do not accept this egalitarian, pluralistic vision of a society in which the individual’s status is no longer determined by race, gender, religion, and wealth – where everyone, not just those who reflect their image back at them, is to be recognized as equal. 10/
They feel justified in taking truly radical, extreme measures to prevent that society from ever becoming a reality because they believe they are defending “real America” in service of a higher purpose: To restore and entrench what they see as the “natural order” and divine will. 11/
The reactionary mobilization against democratic multiracial pluralism won’t stop because the people behind it have some sort of epiphany they shouldn’t go that far. It will either be stopped or succeed in entrenching white Christian patriarchal rule.