Russ Vought, the former president’s budget director, is laying the groundwork for a broad expansion of presidential powers.

I’d generally call his vision an Americanized version of fascism, and it seems to be shared by a broad swath of the Republican leadership and billionaire donors.

  • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    This article is an important read. Vought is behind a large portion of Project 2025, and assisted Trump in finding ways around our system in his last term. He is clever and dangerous. Trump is keeping distance from him and the project during his campaign, but you can be sure he’ll be right back in Trump’s cabinet if he wins in the fall.

    The Trump campaign has distanced itself from the extensive planning. Campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in a statement, “Unless a message is coming directly from President Trump or an authorized member of his campaign team, no aspect of future presidential staffing or policy announcements should be deemed official.”

    • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      I strongly suspect Biden’s campaign to try and pin Trump on supporting or disowning Project 2025 as part of an October surprise.

      • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        It’s not a smart move if his campaign maintains distance as they’ve been. It’ll only look like baseless accusations in the media, no matter how true.

        • Adalast@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          The trick is for a coalition of independent journalists to find irrefutable evidence of the connection in early September so it has a chance to cycle out of the news before someone smacks Trump with it in October. It needs to be new enough to be remembered, old enough to not be linked, and disconnected from either party enough to seem unbiased. It won’t mean a damn thing to the right, but it might be enough for questioning moderates.

          • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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            5 months ago

            Yea, this is precisely what I suspect they’ll try so uh… expect some Project 2025 opinion pieces in the NYT in mid-september. And then we’d likely see some direct questions, in theory Trump might be concerned about rejecting Project 2025 because it’d alienate his base, but the outcome Democrats would be hoping for is for him to embrace it.

            • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              The NYT will probably also write a bunch of galaxy brain stuff about #BidenSoOld and gEnOcIdEjOe to even anything out for the horse race/good people on both sides…

  • Glide@lemmy.ca
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    5 months ago

    The article is great, but I hate this title.

    “We are living in a post-Constitutional time,” Vought wrote in a seminal 2022 essay, which argued that the left has corrupted the nation’s laws and institutions.

    The “post-constitutional” world in the title is the way Russ Vought describes the current political landscape. It is not, as the title insinuates, something he used to describe the future he aims to create.

    This guy is a fascist nut job with a ton of insane ideologies. We don’t need dishonest titles to make him look bad.

    • noahm@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      But the term is his, and it’s what he’s using to rationalize his plans. He’s not declaring that he/Trump are declaring a post-constitutional doctrine, but that we’re already living in one and thus he’s justified in his radical reinterpretations of it.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Sure if your oath to uphold the Constitution is a sick joke, why not. Traitors gonna trait, i guess?