[jmull]

> The long-term goal seems to be...

Where do you get that from?

I've seen no sign of long-term goals, much less any mechanisms being put in place for follow-through on those goals.

It seems like people keep making the mistake of believing there's a detailed plan, while all evidence tells us there isn't. I guess it's the normal human tendency to see order in the chaos.

[tlogan]

Project 2025 lays out a clear vision for the privatization and decentralization of federal functions. It’s not subtle—it explicitly calls for it.

Separate from whether we support this or not:

Trump is doing—or promising to do—exactly what he said he would. We can disagree with the policies, but it’s not accurate to say he or his team are directionless or incompetent. They have a coherent (if controversial) agenda.

So rather than dismissing them as clueless or idiots, it’s more productive to debate this:

- Why is outsourcing CVE program to private consortia a bad idea?

- Could a model exist where a private consortium is supported by federal grants, but maintains accountability and public interest safeguards?

[chowchowchow]

Actually Trump repeatedly said he didn't know about project 2025. He's so scattered in his campaigning that it's possible to pretty much justify any action as "what he said he would do." But saying executing project 2025 is exactly what he SAID he would do defies all reality. It may be what intelligent observers expected him to do but it is not what he said.

Edit: good lord people I’m not defending Trump I’m saying he lies about everything including that he lied and said he wasn’t going to do project 2025. Read the post I’m responding to!

[ranger_danger]

Someone is clearly pushing that agenda whether it's (knowingly) Trump or not.

Project 2025 is 42% complete, 3 months in.

https://www.project2025.observer/

[SlightlyLeftPad]

People have got to learn how to read between the lines with Trump and those around him. When the things he says he is going to do and the things he’s actually doing are exactly the things laid out in project 2025, the connection to the project is immediately clear and establishes that he was lying about knowing nothing about it.

[chowchowchow]

Obviously

[pstuart]

> Actually Trump repeatedly said he didn't know about project 2025

  * He said he'd end the war in a day.
  * He said he had a better health care plan.
  * He said he'd drop the price of eggs.
  * ...
  * He said lots of things that were not true.

[chowchowchow]

That’s exactly right and what I said. The guy above said Trump is doing what he said he would. He isn’t.

[sigzero]

Which doesn't mean Trump saying he has nothing to do with Project 2025 a lie.

[pstuart]

I've never been in the room, but it's a safe assumption that he was lying.

[tlogan]

> Actually Trump repeatedly said he didn't know about project 2025.

His exact quote is: "I have nothing to do with Project 2025." Meaning sure - he did not write it. I doubt he read it - it is 900+ pages long document :-)

Anyway, he might fooled some people but I doubt - my understanding was that he is going to follow Project 2025. It is good time to rewatch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYwqpx6lp_s

[chowchowchow]

I am certain you can find more than one quote of his relating to Project 2025. In any event this also doesn't disagree with what I said more broadly, which is, he was not forthright about his plan to do exactly what Project 2025 said, so you can't say he's doing exactly what he said. But anyone with a hint of insight could understand that was his plan.

I'm responding to someone who said Trump is doing what he SAID he would do, and that is all I intended to correct.

[jmull]

Trump said he was not going to follow the project 2025 plan.

So you're making two immediately contradictory claims that Trump is doing what he said he would, and is following the project 2025 plan. That's not coherent.

You're suggesting a privatization plan exists, and want to debate its merits, but I see no sign such a plan is being adopted. E.g. who is enacting the plan? When is the comment period? Who do we send our feedback to? You may have a plan, but what does that have to do with the people in charge? If it's not their plan it doesn't matter one bit. Despite your assurances, I see no sign they aren't acting without a plan (or, as you put, as clueless idiots).

[acdha]

> Trump said he was not going to follow the project 2025 plan.

He didn’t convincingly reject it, though, and his distancing was only convincing to people who were looking for an excuse to ignore it with the way he pretended not to know the people behind it when 31 of the 38 authors were members of his first administration, his campaign was in close contact throughout, and he certainly didn’t put much effort into rejecting specific policy proposals.

I think this is a case where different audiences got different messages. The hardcore base knew he was lying since it had all of their red meat issues, informed Democrats knew he was lying because actions speak louder than vague denials (e.g. if you don’t agree with someone’s policies, you wouldn’t let them have a role in your campaign and you’d be able to say what you’d do differently), but he gave the media and casual voters just enough to make it harder for Biden/Harris to land attacks which we now know were fully accurate.

[jmull]

Yes, he was obviously lying, as he has done about so many things.

Well, it's obvious to some us, anyway.

[nrdvana]

In most of the video clips I saw, he was saying "I don't know anything about that", which could be entirely true. Often I see hints that he's attempting to play the Aes Sedai game of "speak no word that is untrue" but he's too dumb to do it well. Anyway, as an extension, both comments can be true, that Trump himself has no plan and is an idiot, but that his administration is enacting Project 2025.

[danaris]

There seems to be a lot of hay being made over whether Trump is

- deliberately following Project 2025 to the letter, or

- completely ignorant of Project 2025 and not doing what it says

...when it seems very likely that the truth is somewhere between.

Trump himself is doing things the way he always does: in a mixture of long-standing bigotry and idiocy, his own whims, and whatever someone said to him 10 minutes ago (or he saw on Fox & Friends, or whatever).

His administration is heavily populated with people who either helped write Project 2025 or are close with those who did.

DOGE is only loosely connected with the latter, and it's DOGE that has been instrumental in wrecking federal agencies—and while that destruction largely aligns with Project 2025's goals, it's not clear to me that they're specifically following its playbook. Rather, I think they're doing things their own way with high-level guidance from the people who care about Project 2025. It's very possible that their goals could end up conflicting, depending on what Musk wants.

Edit to add: It's also true that Trump said he knew nothing about Project 2025. Whether or not this is true, he said it during the campaign, when Project 2025 had just been widely reported on as a negative thing. I don't think we can read much into Trump's campaign statements intended to publicly distance himself from something he sees as unpopular.