Project 2025 Is Terrifying
Added 2024-02-26 07:17:33 +0000 UTCEpisode 1009
The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 has been making headlines with its promises to set the next Republican president up with a full staff of loyal civil servants and a 920-page executive branch playbook--but what is actually in this thing, and what can we learn from it? Matt takes us through some disturbing echoes of 1933 Germany, which was a famously chill and cool time, showing us how the legal system has historically been used to turn democracies into autocracies. We learn that laws with the most boring names are often the scariest, and about the administrative violence of a well-timed memo.
1. Heritage Foundation's Mandate for Leadership (2023)
2. Presidential Personnel Database (Project 2025 job application)
3. Nazi Telegram with instructions for Kristallnacht (Nov 10, 1938)
Comments
Hello, this podcast episode, whether I realized it at the time or not, forced me to focus all my fears in one direction for a moment. And now I fear nothing else except my own desire to give up. I want to run for local government here in Monroe County New York, largely inspired by your show. I’ve been a fan and member since before the blow up, and returned immediately with my wallet in hand as soon as Thomas came back. I’m not looking for a spotlight, I’m looking for help. From the community as much as the show itself. I just want to know where to start. Message me directly somehow if you want my number to call or text, or email me at rpooley28@gmail.com. I’m bad with checking my email but I feel I need to join the fight politically. I’m trusting this community with my contact info. I can’t let my fear run me away anymore
Bickering about morals is my kink, wink-wink
2024-03-19 12:33:08 +0000 UTCI just vomited a little inside my mouth at this ... He is such a disgusting orange ball of refuse ...
I am a philosophical hole
2024-02-28 21:23:18 +0000 UTCOne more thing--on whether Trump read _Mein Kampf_ or not: In a 1990 interview for _Vanity Fair_ magazine, his first wife Ivana was quoted as saying that he kept a book of Hitler's speeches in a cabinet by the bed. Evidently it was the edition called _My New Order_. The interview is on https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2015/07/donald-ivana-trump-divorce-prenup-marie-brenner ; see also https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-adolf-hitler-books-bedside-cabinet-ex-wife-ivana-trump-vanity-fair-1990-a7639041.html . That, to me, is much more plausible than for him to have read _Mein Kampf_. The two styles of writing are very different; the speeches were designed to grab and hold an audience's attention, and Trump would undoubtedly have been attracted to them as models to emulate. By contrast _Mein Kampf_ is long, grandiose, and off-puttingly repetitious, particularly in the literally dozens of passages where he blames "the Jews" for everything he thought was wrong in the world. A person pretty much has to be determined to read it for the sake of having read it. I can't imagine Trump putting in the required time and effort. But the speeches, which are shorter, designed to arouse an audience and maintain authority while interacting with the crowd on one's own terms, are pretty much the way Trump operates. Evidently his rallies evoke very similar reactions to Hitler's back in the day--his followers speak of them as if they were major turning points in their lives, and it's clear that they energize Trump as well; he gets to play his favorite character--himself.
David in Brooklyn
2024-02-27 21:58:43 +0000 UTCThe audio book is good, too, and goes by quickly.
Matt Barber
2024-02-27 06:58:47 +0000 UTCawww glad to hear it!
Opening Arguments
2024-02-27 05:40:47 +0000 UTCI would also strongly recommend They Thought They Were Free, or at least the first 2/3 before it turns into an essay that hasn't aged so well. It's an incredible account of people in a small town far from everything who claimed ignorance of the evils of the Nazis, with the author's skepticism front and center. I re-read it once a year at this point because it seems like such a perfect warning of where things can go
Matt Cameron
2024-02-27 04:52:44 +0000 UTCWilliam Shirer had a unique perspective as an American journalist who remained in Berlin until he was forced out just before the beginning of 1941. As i mentioned in this episode his book is drawn from thousands of pages of primary sources found in Nazi records immediately after the war, and the way they so thoroughly documented everything makes it that much more chilling. This is still the definitive journalistic account of Nazi rule and a lot of it has stayed with me. https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Third-Reich-History/dp/1451651686?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=2e9cfeef-9ee2-45e5-acf9-f59f1cc28ea5
Matt Cameron
2024-02-27 04:49:15 +0000 UTCI'm loving Matt and proud to support you a little.
SlightlyAskewSince1982
2024-02-27 04:01:37 +0000 UTCOh man, Thomas. It is so good to hear you genuinely laugh again. Makes this depressive smile.
SlightlyAskewSince1982
2024-02-27 04:00:53 +0000 UTCMatt, what was the book you recommended we read? It sounded very interesting, but I haven’t managed to find it again by skimming the audio.
Pixel Mountain (aka Rachel)
2024-02-27 03:27:42 +0000 UTCThere is a very good book on how the Nazis took such deep control of the government and the nation in a short period of time, called "Hitler's First Hundred Days", by Peter Fritzsche. When von Hindenburg appointed Hitler to be chancellor in January, 1933, many in the more traditionally conservative power centers in Germany thought that they could control him, and that having actual responsibility would slow him down and "tame" him--kind of like the wishful hopes that some people had about George W. Bush, certain Supreme Court nominees, and even Trump. It's important to realize that some people who aspire to power are fully aware of this expectation (that they'll become moderate), and that they consciously refuse it--like, don't let experience of the real world deter your fanaticism.
David in Brooklyn
2024-02-26 23:50:46 +0000 UTCThis episode is directly relevant to things that I've been studying intently for a number of years, and I think it is very well-based. -- Thomas, your intuition was correct that the German "Enabling Act" of March 24, 1933 (passed in the wake of the Reichstag fire) had a much more propagandistic official title: "Law to Relieve the Distress of the Volk and Reich" (Nazi usage of "Volk" spans "nation", "people", and, as they understood the term, "race"). I hope it's clear why everyone today calls it the "enabling act" (in German, "Ermächtigungsgesetz") instead. -- Regarding the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service", passed just two weeks after the Enabling Act: One very important aspect of this law that wasn't touched on was that not only the legal system but also the entire educational system of Germany was covered by this law; teachers, professors, and lower-level instructors were all civil servants. So the enactment of this law caused the immediate dismissal, without appeal, of all Jewish faculty and academic staff in the entire country. In addition, in order to enroll at a German university it was necessary to present an "Ariernachweis"--documentary evidence of having no Jewish relatives for at least the past two generations. I did some research in a German university archive last year and in the student records from this time, each student's file contained a signed oath attesting to their "Aryan" ancestry, and it was clearly stated that anyone found to have falsified any detail of this certification would be summarily expelled. -- It may also help to understand that during this time, unlike what we're used to here since the 1960s, academia in Germany was distinctly _more_ right-wing than the society was in general. Leftists were ostracized socially, and frequently were attacked physically on college campuses. Their associations were banned and their meetings were violently broken up. Meanwhile, far-right "patriotic" associations (including eating, drinking and duelling clubs) thrived at the universities.
David in Brooklyn
2024-02-26 23:32:02 +0000 UTCAlso please do more on this document
Reese
2024-02-26 21:27:50 +0000 UTCThank you for tackling this. Ive been trying to say this but didnt have the actual words, just faded memories from middle and high schools long ago….and some understandings from other books later. But also i didnt know it was coming from Project 2025, i was guessing who the source was, because like you said, it takes a ton of ppl working really hard to make this happen and DJT isnt THAT smart on his own. There was a movie we watched in school called The Wave, i think thats part of how i recognized whats going on. Its about a classroom experiment to teach students how the Nazi’s were able to seduce the german people and that it could happen to anyone. Watching Maga follow the playbook is chilling.
Reese
2024-02-26 21:20:48 +0000 UTCRegarding Project 2025 and military promotions: the U.S. military recognizes climate change as a reality and includes climate change as a threat in planning documents.
Kristen Leist
2024-02-26 15:49:22 +0000 UTCI’m a huge fan of the revised OA; Thomas, Matt and Casey are wonderful together. There’s probably a little confirmation bias going on, but it’s a relief to have this reality check. Thanks!
Wendy Hughes
2024-02-26 15:42:25 +0000 UTCJa, danke for this perspective. It's such an important point, and while I was of course talking about the actual beginning of the Third Reich in 1933 I had meant to mention here that the German people had at least ten years to see who the Nazis were before then. The party was not at all subtle about the fact that if they were given power they would never voluntarily give it up. There are a few notable differences that continue to give me hope--probably the most important being that political violence is still fairly rare and for as much as the Proud Boys would be happy to do the job there is no viable equivalent to the SA brownshirts providing ground support *at the moment.* But that's not really much comfort in a country which is piled to its collective ceiling with guns, many of them in the hands of extremist militias and other organized groups who have been talking for years now as if a fight is inevitable. I am so tired of hearing people as much as say that if we're not literally living in Weimar in 1932 that there's nothing to worry about, and would like to do more on the law of authoritarianism sometime soon.
Matt Cameron
2024-02-26 13:56:49 +0000 UTCYall are doing a great job revitalizing this podcast. Keep it up!
Austin Flake
2024-02-26 13:42:06 +0000 UTCMatt if you weren’t married I’d ask you out on a date. Your introduction to what you were looking at in 2016, what were the legal steps that happened in Germany between 1933-1946, is a topic I also was looking at. Not a lawyer (why I listen) but my god, it was a moment of being so happy to support this podcast
Rachel J Larris
2024-02-26 12:56:00 +0000 UTCI am German but not a scholar of history. You said that the “Nazification “of Germany started 1933. I would disagree, the process started at least 1923 with Hitlers first Putsch. The more disturbing fact is in my opinion how similar the mindest of the American people is to the mindset of the German people before 1933. Hitler abused the media to spread his lies. He used the legal system and the constitution itself to get rid of both. I am pretty worried : You guys seem to relive Germany 1932 right now😞
Udo אודו
2024-02-26 11:10:39 +0000 UTC
