Project 2025 Puts Conservatives on Defense Every Single Time

Message Discipline means talking about Project 2025 every day

See photos of the “Expose Project 2025” campaign here, and learn more about Accountable.US’s campaign at ExposeProject2025.org.

If Democrats were disciplined, which we often aren’t, we would shirk the lose/lose discussions about Biden’s age and talk about Project 2025 nonstop.

After all, conversations about Project 2025 have FINALLY trickled into the national spotlight, with Trump attempting to disavow the 920-page right-wing manifesto and Biden finally hammering it the way he should have during the debate.

“I Hardly Know Her”

Trump claiming to have nothing to do with Project 2025 is another of his Big Lies. The authors of the dystopian document are his friends, advisors, and likely cabinet members if he’s elected again. They are already attempting to fill positions in his office on their website Project2025.org.

Philip Germain points out that Trump knows all of these men, closely:

Paul Dans is the director of Project 2025. He also served as Trump’s Chief of Staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, managing the federal agency in charge of human resources policy for the more than two million federal workers.

Spencer Chretien, who definitely looks like he was one of the Hitler youth, was a special administration assistant for Trump.

Stephen Miller, who authored much of the immigration section of Project 2025, was a well known white supremacist in the Trump administration.

John McEntee was a Trump personal aid.

So why is Trump denying ties to Project 2025, a document authored by so many of his friends and advisors?

Because he knows it’s an election loser.

Right-wing extremists know Americans don’t actually want to live under their Christofascist regime. They know Americans value things like social security that they’ve paid into their whole lives. They know Americans value our public schools and want them to thrive. They know Americans don’t want politicians in their doctors’ offices for them. They know Americans believe parents are most capable for making decisions for their children — from what books they should be allowed to read to what medical access they have. They know Americans don’t want to see their minority neighbors suffer.

They know we will reject their control and cruelty every time. So they don’t want Americans to know what is coming for them if Trump is elected again.

Did I hurt your feelings?

Did saying that Democrats often lack discipline when it comes to campaigning offend you? Good. That means I have something new to teach you. The tactics that work best in our circles of influence are often our downfall in politics.

Listen to US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island:

‘We (the Democrats) are like a bumblebee when it comes to messaging. We go from place to place and there’s no really persistent theme, whereas the Republicans are like miners drilling for ore. They know half a dozen things that their big donors really want, and they will pull and press and pitch the issue until they’ve made at least their base, and much of the public want it.”

Senator Whitehouse said Republicans’ persistent and narrow talking points, which are full of racism, embellishments, and lies (“black jobs”, “post-birth abortions”, “open borders”) often wins them elections. Why? It’s Message Discipline. Instead of getting captivated and thrown off by every controversy, they stay on message. They remain unified around the same five or six issues, making them appear loud and strong.

Republicans perform best when they can knock us off course and exploit our intellectual instinct to debate and react. That’s why they are delighted about the “Biden is old” conversation. We’re making their talking points for them. We have to acknowledge that which is often are strength, this time is a weakness.

Here’s a private conversation I had with a progressive friend about Biden’s age, who is considering not voting for Biden if he’s on the ticket:

Her: “I think it’s really counterproductive to slam people who want an honest dialogue about Biden. I was already super upset at him for his position on Gaza, as you know. But he is not capable of campaigning the way someone needs to to convince new voters to get behind him.”

Me: “That’s understandable. But don’t you see how the discussion about a better alternative devolves into the same purist dysfunction we’re known for? Do you really think Democrats can coalesce around any one candidate this late in the game and give them the name recognition they need to win?”

One thing that is hard for people who are politically minded to understand is that most people aren’t. Most people didn’t watch the debate. Most people’s newsfeeds are not filled with politics. Most people spend their time online reading recipes, catching up on sports, ingesting celebrity gossip, scrolling through BookTok, watching makeup tutorials. Most people are just trying to get by day by day and don’t have the bandwidth to metabolize the types of conversations you and I are having.

That doesn’t make them bad people. That makes them normal. We’re the aberrations. We’re the freaks.

Actually, I prefer “lady in the street but a political freak in the newsfeed.”

Okay, Now What?

So how do we break through? In this election, we have to Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts, as my friend Rachel Bitecofer says in her recent political strategy guidebook, which you should definitely buy.

Over the past decade, the GOP has perfected winning by disqualifying the other option. Through effective messaging fueled by the breadth and depth o fright-wing media, the Republican Party has successfully branded modern Democrats as a party of unpatriotic, ultra-woke, godless perverts slipping into socialism in the only western democracy that doesn’t even offer paid maternity leave yet.

This is called Negative Partisanship Strategy. This not only maximizes their own voter turnout, but pushes swing voters away from voting for Democrats.

If this makes you squeamish, that’s because Democrats tend to try to engage voters through moderation and bipartisanship. In today’s polarized political world that is a losing strategy.

The good news is we don’t have to lie in order to engage in Negative Partisanship Strategy. We just have to tell voters what Republicans are actually planning for the country:

• Fully privatized health care

• Repealing Biden’s drug price negotiations

• Limiting and eventually fully removing school lunches

• Allowing ICE to conduct public raids and rounding up anyone suspected of being undocumented (i.e. brown and black people)

• Expelling transgender service members from the military

• Undoing all progress on climate change

• Gut clean energy programs

• Abolishing the Department of Education

• Using the Department of Justice to go after political enemies

• Reversing the FDA’s approval of safe and effective abortion medication

• Tracking women’s pregnancies

• Removing anti-discrimination laws

• Eliminating labor protections

On and on and on.

Look, I’m a pollyanna. Staying in a negative space goes against my nature. But I love this country enough to be real about the darkness ahead if we let Trump and his twisted agenda back into the White House.

I learned about Message Discipline for the first time when I worked in communications for a congressional candidate. Tired of attempting to make the same points over and over in new and interesting ways, I asked the campaign manager, “Can’t we talk about ____(I can’t remember what the issue was now, so I’m omitting it)___? We’ve spent so much time focusing on _____, I feel like everyone has heard about it by now.”

“You’re wrong,” he said. “If you say something for the thousandth time, someone will hear about it for the first time.”

I’ve since learned that my job is to be succinct, consistent, and repetitive. And now, that’s your job too.

Just remember: Republicans DON’T want Americans to learn about the contents of Project 2025. Which is exactly why YOU have to tell people about it every chance you get.

Onward, Democracy Defenders!