OPINION:
The most celebrated guest at the Democratic National Convention arguably wasn’t lame-duck President Biden or even the shiny new nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris. Instead, it was a 922-page book published by The Heritage Foundation.
Speaker after speaker lugged the supposedly monstrous tome up to the lectern and presented it as Exhibit A of the potential horrors of a second term under former President Donald Trump.
Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow said Project 2025 would “turn Donald Trump into a dictator.”
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Texas Democrat, said, “Donald Trump wants to put our 1787 Constitution through his Project 2025 paper shredder and make every day Jan. 6.”
Even if Mr. Trump had endorsed Project 2025 — which he hasn’t — these would still be lies.
Liberals warn that Mr. Trump wants to infiltrate the federal bureaucracy with his loyalists — all while desperately hoping that Americans don’t realize this is exactly what they’ve already done.
You see, Democrats have their own version of Project 2025, dating back decades. They have so thoroughly infiltrated the administrative state that a conservative president needs a comprehensive game plan to root out ideological corruption.
Under the Constitution, the executive power rests with the president of the United States, but starting with the New Deal, the administrative state has usurped rulemaking power for itself, and various regulations have insulated the bureaucrats from the president’s control. The Trump administration saw many bureaucrats intentionally frustrating the agenda of the elected president, creating a deep state.
If he returns to the White House in 2025, Mr. Trump has promised to restore the executive branch to its constitutional role — accountable to the president, who is in turn accountable to the people.
The Democrats, terrified of a plan that would dissolve their iron grip on power, hyperventilates about a strategy to gut the “civil service,” conveniently ignoring that the civil service has already been infiltrated — by liberals.
My forthcoming book, “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government,” exposes how a network of progressive donors props up a cadre of “woke” nonprofits that staff and advise federal agencies. I call the Democrats’ version of Project 2025 the “Woketopus” because it slides its ideology into the administrative state through many tentacles.
At the Woketopus’ head stand the dark money donors.
George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, operated by Soros’ son Alex, directs cash infusions to favored liberal causes. The for-profit company Arabella Advisors set up nonprofits to bankroll pressure groups. The Tides Foundation, which operates an in-house project called Palestine Legal to give legal representation to anti-Israel rioters, also funds the same nongovernmental organizations.
This dark money network props up radical environmentalist groups such as the National Wildlife Federation. The federation and similar groups enjoy close ties to the administration, forming part of a revolving door. Activists such as Laura Daniel Davis go from chief of staff at the Interior Department under then-President Barack Obama to the National Wildlife Federation, then back to Interior under Mr. Biden. Radicals such as Tracy Stone-Manning, who wrote a letter on behalf of tree-spiking ecoterrorists, go from the federation to the Bureau of Land Management.
In 2009, an Interior Department investigation of the Bureau of Land Management found that federation staffers were writing and editing official bureau materials to promote the federation’s priorities. A federal agency was outsourcing its work to many anti-fossil-fuel activists.
So sure, the liberals have infiltrated the bureaucracy, but what about policy papers? Surely they don’t have their own version of Project 2025, right?
Wrong. The Center for American Progress released policy papers urging specific policies. In 2021, the center released “Redefining Homeland Security: A Framework for DHS to Meet Today’s Challenges.” Among other things, that document urged the Department of Homeland Security to shift “toward a more service-driven department that treats immigration as an asset to be managed rather than a crime to be enforced against.” Sound familiar?
The Human Rights Campaign, an influential LGBTQ nonprofit, released “The HRC Blueprint for LGBTQ Equality Under Biden” shortly after Mr. Biden won the 2020 presidential election. According to my analysis, the Biden-Harris administration has carried out more than 75% of the recommendations in that blueprint.
While Democrats may condemn Project 2025, they’re silent about their own version of Project 2025. If the American people knew how deeply the liberals’ tentacles have already infiltrated Washington, perhaps they’d be more understanding of the conservative effort to restore the Constitution and bring the deep state to heel.
• Tyler O’Neil is managing editor at The Daily Signal.
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