The G.O.P. Vision Thing: A Sociological Disaster - Van Horne

The G.O.P. Vision Thing: A Sociological Disaster - Van Horne

Older readers may recall the travails of our 41st president, George H.W. Bush. He was often criticized as a mere “steward” of the office, lacking a compelling, more activist “vision.”  Prompted in 1987 to retreat to Camp David and think about where he hoped to take the country, Bush Sr. dismissively replied, “Oh, the vision thing.”   After his re-election loss in 1992, critics repeatedly cited inattention to long-range goals as his Achilles heel.

In similar fashion, Trump’s 2020 re-election attempt presented voters with a pretty fuzzy policy focus. Trump’s constant rule-breaking and chaos-in-governance during his 2016 - 2020 presidency, led the RNC to deliberately opt out of any official party platform. Their political imperative was to support a charismatic persona, not a binding set of party principles offering more accountability. Pathological Pinocchioism is a tough platform to articulate.

As the 2024 election proves, however, the past is no longer prologue.  Now, the RNC has reversed course, window-dressing a charismatic, personality-centered tribalism and thinly veiled ethno-nationalism with abundant detail.  First, The Party has adopted a short, bullet-style formal platform statement.  Second, in a tedious 922-page foundational platform  (Project 2025), the Heritage Foundation has finally put some real policy meat on the GOP vision for us. Such transparency is great news. The bad news? The document reflects a vision of America so misogynist, so theocratically inspired, authoritarian, and vindictive in spirit that it could have been written by Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro.

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A small sampler of this bitter authoritarian candy would include a) torching access to abortion, using an 1873 law to criminalize the sending or receiving of abortion pills like Mifepristone in the mail; b) weaponizing  the Centers for Disease Control to increase the “abortion surveillance” of health care providers in every state c) gutting clean-energy programs nationwide while supercharging fossil fuel production on federal lands; the lead agency charged with monitoring scientific evidence about climate change would be eliminated; d) slashing corporate tax rates further while hamstringing IRS capacity to audit high wealth taxpayers; e) restricting public education’s ability to inform its citizenry of our foundational history by eliminating the Department of Education; f) cutting veterans’ health care and disability benefits; g) reducing the scope of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security; h) weaponizing the Department of Justice and the F.B.I. in order to attack critics, esp. the fourth estate and, most perilously; i) replacing tens of thousands of competitive middle management civil service positions with Trump appointees, weakening the independent authority and power of other branches of government to hold the Presidency accountable.

Trump’s willingness to ignore expertise and appoint grossly inappropriate candidates to important posts is a legend. He selects a brain surgeon to head the Department of Housing and Urban Renewal, a man who believes that various scientists have insisted that aliens built the pyramids (Ben Carson), appoints a rabid private school and voucher advocate as Secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, an administrator who sought major budget cuts for the agency every year (Betsy Devoe); selects a climate denier with ties to the fossil fuel industry to head up the Environmental Protection Agency (Scott Pruitt); and nominates as Labor Secretary (Andy Puzder), a fast-food CEO bitterly opposed to minimum wage increases, whose restaurants have serially violated the Fair Labor Standards Act.

As details of this Banana-Republic-styled platform are revealed, the ex-president has distanced himself.  He now asserts, “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it.”  This is most curious. During his first year in office, the Heritage Foundation announced that 64 percent of 334 policy recommendations were included in Trump’s budget or adopted through regulatory action. Thus, no rope-a-doping now by Republicans can distance them from their intimate ties to this document. Their denials are akin to being caught en flagrante delicto in an extramarital affair and then denying the evidence. Hard to imagine, isn’t it?

Project 2025 director Paul Dans was Trump’s chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management. Maybe he forgot to mention the project?  Russell Voght is the RNC’s current 2024 Platform Policy Director; he also wrote a key chapter.  Could he have failed to mention this to Trump? Thirty-one operatives in Trump’s administration, including eight former cabinet secretaries, wrote or collaborated on various sections. J.D. Vance wrote the foreword. Trump’s V.P. vetting team (including Don and Eric) must have been aware of this screed and excited about it. Vance’s imprimatur was tantamount to a blood oath to Magaism.

In short, the Heritage Project 2025 is well known to Donald Trump. It’s a well-articulated plan to abolish many institutional checks and balances, dismantle democracy, and chip away at church-state separation. Were the American revolutionary Thomas Paine a fascist, he would be well pleased with this document. Read it.

 

Dr. Willard Van Horne is a retired research sociologist and former Director of Fiscal Analysis with the New York State Education Department.