Quote (Handcuffs @ 24 Jun 2024 22:32)

I think there's a difference, personally, between addressing the so-called "4th Branch of Government"/The Administrative State and the specific vision of Project 2025. If you take the ideas presented from point 1 in my post, that of the Unitary Executive Theory and the reclassification of federal employees to Schedule F (to the greatest extent possible), but inverted all instances of "conservative" and, say, "liberal", then it would undoubtedly be concerning to everyday conservatives if Biden/Democrats had their own Project 2025 in which they want to gut federal institutions and fill them with express loyalists.

Once people can step outside of their tribalism though, it should be clear that such a vision is concerning and an affront to democratic principles of freedom.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jun 26 2024 07:09pm)

Isn't this essentially what happened over the past 15 years, though? Okay, the federal bureaucracy isn't filled with overt partisans, but Democrats very much did fill them with fellow travelers who exhibit a clear and undeniable partisan bias in favor of the Democratic party, its policies and its ideology.

Quote (bogie160 @ Jun 26 2024 03:52pm)

The argument Heritage would make in response, one that I mostly agree with, is that the Democratic party has been doing this for decades via the bureaucracy, NGOs, and other parallel institutions.

Quote (Handcuffs @ 27 Jun 2024 04:56)

Can you each say more about this?

To whatever extent that this has happened, I imagine that it is the result of a process that is altogether quite different than what is proposed by Project 2025. The idea behind 2025, of Unitary Executive Theory / Schedule F classification, is a specific approach that if implemented would be disastrous for our country. Cycling out 50,000+ federal employees based off of ideological alignment and subordination to the President every 4 - 8 years would be a terrible thing--whether done by Republicans or Democrats.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jun 26 2024 08:56pm)

Oh, I totally agree. It's just... what is the alternative? During Trump's first term, the deep state/administrative state/federal bureaucracy, or whichever name you want to give it, had been in full-fledged revolt against the lawfully elected president and chief executive of the country and tried to undermine him at every step. How do you square that with democracy?



There are two core issues that I see.

1.: The political right has been caught asleep by the left's long march through the institutions and the way that liberalism has established cultural hegemony over the past 30 years. The fact that the GOP became thoroughly discredited by the collapse of the neoliberal paradigm during in the financial crisis, and by disastrous wars started by neocon warmongers, has accelerated this trend. As a consequence, the power difference between the two sides within the pre-political space (media, academia, culture, corporate boardrooms, NGOs etc.) has thus become dangerously big.

2.: The executive branch of the federal government has become too powerful, period. It is not healthy for presidential elections, or those for Congress, to feel existential and like the course of the entire country hangs by a thread every two years. Control of the executive branch based on tiny majorites shouldn't lead to the policies of the country taking a complete U-turn.




Taken together, this creates a dangerous power imbalance where Democrats are able to push forward their agenda anytime they're in power, no matter how small the underlying majorities, while Republicans and their agenda are met with strong institutional resistance anytime they try to implement theirs or to shake up the status quo in general. From a democracy point of view, such an asymmetry in the ability to produce political results from comparable electoral mandates is an untenable situation. Project 2025 is essentially an attempt at rolling back the institutional capture of the administrative state using drastic means, based on the realization that a GOP administration cannot bank on the cooperation from the career officials and swamp creatures. Essentially, "drain the swamp" has been replaced by "burn down the swamp".

Quote (Meanwhile @ 26 Jun 2024 19:44)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025

It's completely insane lol what the hell. The whole U.S country would fall in the hands of very few powerfull people.

If your guys read the definition of fascism:

"far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement,[1][2][3] characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy."

"
"Fascist negations" – anti-liberalism, anti-communism, and anti-conservatism.
"Fascist goals" – the creation of a nationalist dictatorship to regulate economic structure and to transform social relations within a modern, self-determined culture, and the expansion of the nation into an empire.
"Fascist style" – a political aesthetic of romantic symbolism, mass mobilization, a positive view of violence, and promotion of masculinity, youth, and charismatic authoritarian leadership.
"

=> As a reminder: power in the hands of very few people, military and big business together. Increase in inequalities.... The dream for the far right local pardians, possibly the return of some kind of slavery and christian sharia lollllollll.

Quote (Ryvulet @ Jun 27 2024 05:59am)

All i gotta do is read the first three sentences to know this is biased
Project 2025 will never be executed in full, parts of it might nit be bad though. Nothing wrong with training team members for positions as long as its lawful. That is what all businesses do