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Originally Posted by Dunyain
Ok. So correct me if I am wrong, but it appears this is actually what has happened.
So what happened is that some right wing intellectuals (as much as any exist) got together and wrote to a 900 page conservative manifesto. Some of them worked for the Trump administration from 2016-2020, but that is really all the connection there is to Trump. As an aside, many of the platform points are not even something Trump endorses or agrees with.
The Democrats and MSM cynically tie this manifesto to Trump (despite Trump saying he has no connection to it and doesn't agree with many of the policy platforms) and amplify the most unpopular, divisive points.
As this entire saga is taking place on left wing platforms, and most prospective Trump supporters dont follow left wing media, or even care about policy, it will have minimal impact on voting come November.
Yes, you are wrong.
The Heritage Foundation is the most powerful conservative think tank in the US since the '80s and has pretty much been in the driver's seat of US conservative ideology since. It is not "some intellectuals".
The part that many in this thread get right is the inter-marriage between the Trump campaign and the Heritage foundation, and how this ties Project2025 to his campaign.
What many miss is that the Heritage Foundation under new leadership have during the last 3 years gone full-blown MAGA, complete with election denial and its president Kevin Roberts stating in a NYT-interview stating that the think-tank's goal is to "install Trumpism".
Now, the MAGA and Trumpism we hear about every day isn't exactly a reflective movement, so for the most part there is not much deep analysis to be found. It is mostly just shouting "fake news!" and assuming that anything anti-Trump is bad. However, MAGA battle-cries are very, very clear: Political opponents are to be persecuted, oversight over the Trump administration is bad, teaching people anything other than Trumpism is wrong, checks and balances that can stop Trumpism must be removed, democracy is bad and elections where Trump does not win are rigged.
Project2025 is for the most part just those talking points taken into an actual political roadmap. And yes. MAGA and Trumpism sounds stupid when spoken, but it sounds absolutely insane when its actual implications are taken to heart and written down. That is the reason Trump and his campaign are distancing themselves from Project2025.
So its not like Trump and MAGA just happened to be infected by a controversial conservative plan for shaping US government. It is the other way around. A highly influential conservative think tank has through its connections with the Trump campaign built the roadmap for how Trumpism and MAGA is to be implemented. Sure, they stole the homework of Viktor Orbán, but the plans are still very much genuine.