When I first read Project 2025 in the summer of 2024, I was shocked that such an extensive, meticulous vision for reimagining American society was being so openly shared. Mandate for Leadership, a conservative vision for America, had existed since the Reagan years but had largely been kept hidden from public view.
The Heritage Foundation has for decades been waiting for an opportunity to change America fundamentally with a radical vision for a white Christian Nationalist nation, placing religion at the heart of government as a narcotic to control the population in the name of God. Hitler did the same in 1030s Germany with the state Reich Church under the leadership of the Nazi Bishop Ludwig Müller to unify the different branches of Protestantism, to create a group called the ‘German Christians’ within the Reich Church to promote Nazi ideas. Sound familiar?
They understand the fundamental power of religion in controlling societal behaviour. The church has exerted disproportionate control for thousands of years. What Christian Nationalism has managed to do in America is to fuse religion with politics to bastardise Christian values and promote a new religion of greed and intolerance that are antithetical to actual Christian values of love, tolerance and inclusion.
I have long had a problem with organised religion and the damage it has done to society over the years, but I know how important faith is to many who use it as a value structure on which to live good and honest lives. I respect their right to practice their faith, regardless of which God they pray to, because it is not my job to tell them how to live their life. If you follow their logic, we will all be held accountable for the way we live our lives, and I, for one, am at ease with that.
What makes the moment we are currently living in so challenging is the new societal backdrop against which we are living our lives. In 2016, Mandate for Leadership formed part of that backdrop as the Heritage Foundation promoted the uptake of their policy vision to promote division and shift the focus to a less tolerant society, where a permissive environment was created to promote racism, homophobia, and fear of ‘the other’. We saw attacks on women’s rights, gay rights, and trans rights. We saw child separation at the border and open warfare on voting rights. During Trump’s first term, the Heritage Foundation saw around 64% of its policy agenda enacted.
When Trump lost in 2020, he, with the help of the likes of the Heritage Foundation, challenged the very foundations of the electoral system. The insurrection and election denial movement proved that the US political system was vulnerable to manipulation in a way the US had not experienced before. Not only did Biden have to dig the US out of the economic wasteland Trump left behind, but the new administration had to come to terms with a Republican messaging monster for which there were no rules of engagement. The sole focus was to win. Lying and deceiving American voters were no longer random acts to gain political advantage; they were the foundation for the whole Republican campaign for 2025.
Even out of office, Trump tested the very legal foundations on which the rule of law in the US was built. He manipulated the judicial system in coordination with running as a candidate for president to test the very limits of accountability. What’s more, he used the Supreme Court to create a permissive environment for a future authoritarian state. Merrick Garland will go down in history as a significant contributor to the US arriving where it is today. His failure to act quickly and aggressively against Trump’s egregious flouting of the law enabled him to escape accountability. But it did much more than that; it emboldened him on his quest to seek absolute immunity for crimes committed in office.
The critical point here is that the Heritage Foundation used the period of the Biden administration to create a plan that sought not only to build on the policy implementations during the first Trump term, but to use the knowledge gained during that period of government to piece together what we now know to be a blueprint to reimagine American society today through a government policy agenda that tears up the rule book and seizes absolute control placing it in the hands of an autocratic leader.
They have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, and I’m afraid the formal political opposition party has been brushed aside with relative ease, rendering them impotent in the face of ever-growing executive power. The administration has war-gamed every Democratic response and appears to be ahead of the curve at each step, as its march to theocratic autocracy continues unhindered. Never in my wildest dreams had I considered they could seize absolute control so swiftly. It is indeed, as Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, put it,
The country is in the midst of a “second American Revolution” that will be “bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
You can try to convince yourself all day long that Democrats have an answer, but they quite clearly do not. Frankly, NOBODY has an answer to this problem, because there is NO POLITICAL SOLUTION. The only people who can stop this are the American people by sitting on their money and starving the monster. That’s it, it is the only answer. The problem is that we are programmed to consume at ever-increasing rates by a system that knows us better than we know ourselves. All evidence indicates there is no appetite to take this type of action. Nobody is suggesting you go out onto the streets with guns or wave banners that the administration doesn’t give a damn about. Protests are no longer a threat. They know they can deploy the army on the streets to crush any dissent. In contrast, however, there is no federal mechanism to force you to press ‘BUY NOW’. It’s bloodless, it saves you money and would bring the system to its knees within a month.
The system has been exploiting your consumption for decades. You only have to look at the high profit margins on goods produced with cheap overseas labour. They didn’t pass on the cheap labour costs to you; they just increased their margins to make more money out of you. When your demand for goods drops off, prices are reduced, not because they love you or care about you, but because they no longer have the critical access to your money. They are then left with a worthless product, which turns into a game of cat and mouse with the consumer as to how far they need to reduce prices before the consumer is prepared to part with their cash.
I can guarantee that if spending ceased on high-margin goods, prices would drop; it would be their way of getting you to break your economic strike action. They understand human nature; it’s the whole ball game in a consumer economy. The system has NEVER been more vulnerable to economic disengagement than it is in this moment. The dollar is at a half-century low, the country is drowning in $37 trillion of debt and struggling to sell that debt at a level that is compounding the problem even further.
Be in no doubt, there has never been a better time to take on the system and win. This government is betting on the fact that you don’t have the bottle to do it. My question to you is, what have you got to lose? Trump is destroying the economy anyway; he’s just going to hide the truth from you, just as the banks did in 2008. This is no longer a political war; it’s a war between the people and a system that transfers money from the bottom and the middle to the top.
It’s the same with Political Parties. If you want the Democrats to represent your values better, don’t give them a cent until they engage in a conversation about what a better, more equitable society looks like. If you turn off the money tap, I guarantee they have no choice but to listen. It is no exaggeration to say that the American people can change the world if they just come to terms with the fact that governments govern by consent.
There is no question that this is going to take a revolution, but this requires a new mindset. A type of revolution led by people, not politicians. Politicians have brought us to this point by allowing themselves to be bought by corporate interests on both sides of the aisle. This is now driving the economic bus over the cliff, them having insulated themselves against the fiscal carnage that will follow. Smart, decent people with moral integrity and clarity do exist in this world; it’s our job to find them, elevate them and create a better way forward.
To be very clear, I am NOT proposing a communist state here. It’s clear that, for all its failings, the capitalist system can deliver wealth and prosperity to broader society, but only if it contains within it a social welfare system designed to protect the vulnerable and those who hit hard times. Affordable housing, healthcare, childcare, a living wage, and paid family leave are not unattainable within capitalism. There is no evidence that these basic needs bankrupt societies. We are just programmed to believe they do. It’s not social ambition that is killing America; it’s the greed of a few at the expense of the many.
How on earth can removing healthcare from 17 million Americans benefit the nation? How can taking food stamps away from hungry children benefit the country? How can carrying $40 trillion of soon-to-be unsaleable debt benefit anyone? We have allowed ourselves to be played by a system that tells us one day you too could be a billionaire. Let me assure you that if you think as a member of the middle class, you will fare better than those you are encouraged to look down on and blame at the bottom; you will be the biggest losers in the incoming AI revolution that will decimate the middle-class economy. Those at the top of the food chain are salivating at the prospect of saving money by throwing you under the bus, as machines take over your work. There is no insulation for what’s coming. It will sweep away jobs far more efficiently than COVID did.
I get sick of seeing the question ‘What can we do?’ Well, I’ve spelt it out here in the starkest of terms. At the moment, Trump and his friends are hoarding wealth, sucking up every last drop from the bottom and the middle for good reason. They can see what’s coming. You can rest assured that when they float off into the distance with all your money, you and your loved ones will be the price they were willing to pay to begin their new life without you.
Hey , the White House press secretary said they want to get pedophiles off the streets , great idea, let’s start with the one that occupies the Oval Office.
Thank you! This article and explanation of how The Heritage Foundation has been working to achieve their white Christian Nationalist agenda is needed for people who have been so unaware of the dangers that are now deeply embedded within the culture.