Many will be aware of Project 2025, which Trump denied having read or having anything to do with. This has now become the blueprint for his regime of economic and societal tyranny. What many will be unfamiliar with is another blueprint by Heritage Foundation called Project Esther, which is a plan for crushing dissent. At the time that it was written, following the October 7th attack on Israel, the intention was to grasp the opportunity presented by this tragedy. The plan was to use the cover of protests against Israel’s disproportionate, brutal acts of vengeful retribution, as a pretext to target anyone speaking out against the now globally accepted acts of genocide in Gaza.
The object was to attack the freedom of expression that Trump claims to hold so sacred. Not only that, it was about defunding advocacy groups, higher education institutions, and wherever possible, organisations associated with the Democratic Party. Given the rising level of objection to the actions of the Israeli Government, it was believed that this would provide an effective vehicle to target left-leaning organisations.
There is no question that, from the outset of this administration’s march toward theocratic autocracy, they knew there would be significant resistance and that polling numbers would quickly show Trump underwater once it became clear that their method of implementing their policy agenda was so extreme. This has proved to be the case, and the only way to counter a narrative of failure is to lie, control the media narrative and create distractions.
They never factored in that their own stupidity in putting the Epstein files front and centre during the campaign would come back to haunt them. Trump now finds himself not only fighting damaging economic news, but the real risk that there will be a fracturing of his base if irrefutable evidence connects Trump to the systematic rape of children. In years gone by, mere association with a convicted pedophile would have been a significant problem for him. But now, it seems it requires irrefutable evidence of his direct participation in these heinous crimes. Rest assured, the DOJ and the Republican caucus (with a handful of exceptions) are determined to run interference to protect him.
It was always going to happen that we were going to reach the point where the truth has become so obscured that those fighting to tell it have an almost impossible task. I sat down to write today and thought, ‘Where do I begin?’, because the challenge is now so great that exposing the truth has become almost impossible amidst a tsunami of bad-faith actors. This is why your support has become so mission-critical to writers like me right now.
When Charlie Kirk was assassinated, it opened the door to the repurposing of Project Esther. Let me remind you of the original aims of this Heritage Foundation monstrosity:
Dismantle the pro-Palestinian movement, which it refers to as the "Hamas Support Network" (HSN).
Target progressive activists and institutions by conflating legitimate criticism of Israeli government policy with support for terrorism.
Restrict free speech and protest through legal and financial penalties, including deporting foreign students and revoking funding for universities that tolerate pro-Palestinian activism.
Ignore antisemitism from the political right, focusing exclusively on left-wing critics of Israel.
Advance broader conservative goals, such as dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
These goals have now been adjusted to:
Dismantle left-leaning advocacy groups and supporters of the Democratic Party by conflating legitimate criticism of this administration and Charlie Kirk with
Target progressive activists and institutions by conflating legitimate criticism of Charlie Kirk with support for domestic terrorism.
Restrict free speech and protest through legal and financial penalties, including deporting foreign students and revoking funding for universities that criticise the racist, misogynistic, and homophobic messaging spread by Charlie Kirk.
Ignore calls for political violence from the right and people like Elon Musk, focusing exclusively on left-wing critics of Charlie Kirk.
As you can see, it’s just a matter of repurposing the blueprint to silence dissent based on criticism of Israel, including criticism of Charlie Kirk. It is a propaganda masterclass by the right to throw red meat to the base, providing them a permissive environment to abuse people of colour, immigrants and the gay and trans community. But it goes much further than that; it opens the door to enact political violence against any person perceived to be a Democrat with impunity. This is about silencing ANY opposition.
Trump has clearly stated that there is no problem with the right and that all political violence is the preserve of the left. It is an age-old tactic of the right to conflate protest against injustice with violence. The ambiguity comes from the definition of violence. Does something only become violent when an individual or a group of individuals suffer physical harm, or does this extend to property damage and words that incite violence?
The argument from Trump is pretty straightforward. The right can do no harm, and the left are a bunch of thugs, criminals and violent domestic terrorists. In an everyday world, we would mock that proposition, but not in the alternative reality we are now forced to inhabit. The Attorney General of the United States is making ludicrous statements that businesses have an "obligation" to fire employees who "discriminate" against Charlie Kirk. In relation to a Home Depot employee who refused to print a poster of Kirk, she stated:
"As employers, you have an obligation to get rid of people who are saying horrible things, and they shouldn't be working with you,” she went on to say. "Businesses cannot discriminate. If you want to go print posters with Charlie's picture on them for a vigil, you have to let them do that." Finally, she made the chilling statement, "We can prosecute you for that."
Is she suggesting that people who voiced disagreement with Charlie Kirk’s promotion of the antithesis of Christian teachings? If that is the case, there would be an epidemic of priests, pastors and faith leaders being forced out of organisations preaching the real words of the bible. For God’s sake, what represents a ‘horrible thing’ in respect to comments about the right’s new beatified martyr?
In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favour of Colorado baker Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, who had refused to make a wedding cake for Charlie Craig and David Mullins, a gay couple who were getting married. The court ruled that Phillips’ rights under the First Amendment were violated. Yet here we are, the Attorney General of the United States declaring that she will prosecute employers if any of their staff say ‘horrible things’ about Charlie Kirk. Not only is this preposterous, but it’s a textbook violation of the First Amendment.
Vanessa Matsis-McCready, associate general counsel and vice president of HR services for Engage PEO, commented to the Wall Street Journal:
“I really don’t feel like there was a time when you could have an individual make a statement on their personal social media and have their employer receive thousands of phone calls.”
We are witnessing the beginning of a propaganda-driven purge of First Amendment rights, but limited only to citizens who are opposed to right-wing ideology. Americans should be terrified. The intention here is to place companies and small businesses on notice that support for anything outside MAGA ideology may be met with prosecution. This is a clear case of ‘free speech for me, but not thee’.
The administration has fired the starting pistol on a government-sponsored campaign to destroy political opposition by any means necessary. Their stated aim is to declare those opposing the government’s position to be radical left terrorists. Before you claim it can never happen, watch what they do. Trump will declare in a raft of Executive Orders to outlaw Democrat advocacy groups and possibly ActBlue, designating them all sponsors of domestic terrorism, in full knowledge that they will be challenged in court.
This won’t matter because they will attempt to tie things up in court to disrupt the flow of Democratic funding. Trump has already said he will target George Soros, and I’m sure he has a list of all large donors. Also, good luck finding a law firm to take on the cases, given that many of the top law firms are terrified of Trump and have bent the knee.
His steps yesterday to target businesses that dare speak out against the right-wing activism of the late Charlie Kirk send a clear message that they will be deemed as supporters of domestic terrorism if they challenge the right. What does this tell them about what will happen if they donate to Democrats? Will they also datamine the ActBlue database to identify voter donors? I have no idea anymore where this might go, I’m afraid. This is about the state attempting to destroy political opposition on an industrial scale under a completely false pretext.
Let’s be very clear, there is absolutely no data to support Trump’s assertion that political violence is rampant on the left and nonexistent on the right. If we agree on the premise that Project Esther is all about combating antisemitism, then it is wholly reasonable for me to use their data analysis of political violence. With this in mind, I am using their research entitled Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2023. In their own words:
The ADL Centre on Extremism is the foremost authority on extremism, terrorism and hate, both foreign and domestic. We monitor extremism across the ideological spectrum.
I don’t intend to dwell on the detail; if you wish to drill in and examine the research further, I have linked it above. I will instead discuss the top-line points. As with all things Trump, he creates a crisis in search of a solution that he has already gamed out to his political advantage. Let’s first look at Domestic Extremist killings
As you can see, these have been in steady decline over the last decade. They are certainly at much lower levels than in the 1960s for sure. Below is the key graph to demonstrate that beyond any doubt 76% of all Domestic Extremist Killings are carried out by the right. This is three times higher than the left wing and Islamic domestic terrorism combined. Left-wing extremism accounted for just 4% of killings.
If we drill down a little further, we can see that of the right-wing politically motivated killings, 74% of them were carried out by white supremacists. You can dice and slice the data as much as you like; it is a deliberate lie being promoted by both the President and the Vice President of the United States for the single purpose of facilitating an utterly false narrative.
The claim from right-wing talking heads is that speech is not violence, and that is why I have used the graphs above for the sake of delivering the facts based on their own terms of reference. The latest excuse for the call for the dismantling of any political opposition is the argument that Charlie Kirk was killed because the left has consistently painted the right as fascists. Remind me what that was again?
Then there’s the claim that the left constantly calls for the assassination of those on the right. Firstly, I have seen no evidence to support this fantasy statement and…
Frankly, these are pure fantasy narratives that fly in the face of all the available data on those who carry out acts of political violence. Then there is the other twisted narrative related to political protests. Given the January 6th insurrection recognised by everyone around the world as such, only Trump and his acolytes would have you believe that our eyes never saw what they saw and that it was instead a tourist day out or a ‘love fest’ as Trump described it. His denial of the truth led to the pardoning of 1200 of his supporters. Of these, at least 10 have been rearrested for further offences as reported by Linnaea Honl-Stuenkel from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
When it comes to liberal protests on the street, the vast majority of protests are peaceful. Despite the right’s attempts to paint the Black Lives Matter protests as violent, 93% of the demonstrations were peaceful. The same goes for most protests, but Trump is a master of narrative manipulation, so he characterises all protests against his actions as violent, which is simply untrue. There has never been a protest when agitators have not played a part, and certainly in the case of BLM, white supremacists were proven to have deliberately provoked violence.
The mastery of Trump’s narrative is that he can wrap anarchists, opportunist criminals and thieves looking to promote looting, etc, under the same umbrella as protesters, and this is now forming part of his argument right now. It is deliberately disingenuous and a false equivalency.
The bottom line is, nobody should believe a word Trump and his acolytes say, but sadly, that’s not how it works, and Millions of Americans are more than happy to discard the truth and go all in on supporting Trump’s call to war. It is this, my friend, that should terrify every American. Not just because of this campaign, but because of the level of distraction that is shifting the focus away from obtaining justice for the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, causing people not to notice the failing economy and the diminishing respect for the US around the world.
Tomorrow we’ll be drilling down into the failing economy and the sleight of hand games Trump is playing to hide his rapidly failing economic agenda. And still the question remains, ‘Where are the Democrats?’
Finally a creator with a following is talking about Project Esther. What I got out of this document was, if you are not pro-Israel you will be deported or removed.
I am hoping the argument about criticism of Israel making one a terrorist is coming too late to have much effect. The genocide of Gazans and inhumane starvation of innocents, especially women and children, is becoming universally acknowledged. I also hold out hope that once Kirk is buried, little will be said about him, and he can be the martyr and we can ignore MAGA lore as we usually do. Trump's next distraction will be taking place anyway. Killing drug dealers from Venezuela for instance. Thanks to the Brits for displaying the largest photo of Trump and Epstein when he visits the PM and the royals! We need to constantly ignore noise and bring it back to Epstein. Drip, drip, drip--my last hope is for this issue to stay alive until undeniable evidence of Trump's pedophilia finally comes out.