No. of Recommendations: 5
1pg: So albaby was right.
I'm not sure I agree with that. I think it shows that those trying to tie Project 2025 to Trump were succeeding, and succeeding to the point that Trump - or at least his campaign heads - had to come out and disavow a connection.
Of course, now that they have done that, it's settled. Trump and his surrogates would never lie to the public about such a thing. [Where's that sarcasm emoji when you need it?]
More to the point, note what the campaign did. They didn't actually say that Trump does not endorse Project 2025 or support the goals in Project 2025. They said that Project 2025 does not speak for the campaign and is not associated with the campaign. And that is actually true. P2025 is completely separate from the Trump campaign and it cannot speak for the campaign. Never did and never could.
What the campaign did NOT do was say that they disagreed in any way with Project 2025. It would have been simple to do. But they didn't. I'm not going to read too much into that, but I am going to suggest that failing to disavow the policies was a deliberate choice on the part of the campaign. And that's likely because they DO agree with a number of policies contained in Project 2025.
albaby: They also shirt-canned the head of the P2025 project:
Yeah. About that. Here's the part of the announcement I found interesting:
“When we began Project 2025 in April 2022, we set a timeline for the project to conclude its policy drafting after the two party conventions this year, and we are sticking to that timeline,” [President of the Heritage Foundation Kevin] Roberts said in a statement.
“Paul [Dans], who built the project from scratch and bravely led this endeavor over the past two years, will be departing the team and moving up to the front where the fight remains,” Roberts said.
So Dans isn't exactly fired. He's just moving to a different role in the Foundation. Not exactly a "shirt-canning" in the traditional sense, where he'd be applying for unemployment benefits.
I haven't kept up with the tick tock of what Project 2025 people have been saying. And it wouldn't shock me if Dans got a bit out over his skis and started talking like he was part of the Trump campaign. But it sure seems to me like The Heritage Foundation was generally happy with Dans' work in putting together Project 2025 and, with the Project coming to an end, moved him into a new position.
My suggestion would be to keep tying Trump - and the whole of the Republican party - to P2025. Because the strategy seems to be working.
--Peter
