Project 2025: Building a "Better" Trump Administration
Added 2024-01-30 23:24:48 +0000 UTCAs listeners might have noticed, 2024 is a presidential election year, and already the prospect of Donald Trump returning to power is looming over the campaign and the media's coverage of it. In a second term, Trump has promised to weaponize the Justice Department to punish his enemies, deconstruct major portions of the administrative state, and mobilize the largest deportation force in US history — to cleanse the nation of immigrants who, as Trump says, "are poisoning the blood of our country."
The key to achieving these goals, conservatives believe, is ensuring that this time — unlike in 2016 — Trump is surrounded by the right people: populist true-believers who are both sufficiently loyal and sufficiently competent to implement his extreme agenda. "Personnel is policy" is the watchword. And think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) are busy building rival rosters of ideologically-vetted political appointees. (And pissing each other off in the process.)
This episode explores how movement conservatives are refashioning the "conservative pipeline" for an anti-establishment era — through their efforts to recruit, credential, and train political professionals for a second Trump term. The question is: can these initiatives overcome the candidate's own erratic style, his weakness for sycophancy, his preference for hiring devoted courtiers over disciplined ideologues? If push came to shove, would Trump submit to the Heritage Foundation's plans for his presidential transition? Or would he resent being managed by these self-understood "adults in the room?"
In other words, can the eggheads of the conservative movement clean up the mess that is MAGA? Or is that just another intellectual fantasy? After all, as we often say on Know Your Enemy: "MAGA is the mess."
Sources:
Sam Adler-Bell, "The Shadow War to Determine the Next Trump Administration," New York Times, Jan 10, 2024
Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey, and Devlin Barrett, "Trump and allies plot revenge, Justice Department control in a second term," Washington Post, Nov 6, 2023.
Charlie Savage, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, "Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportation: Inside Trump's 2025 Immigration Plans," NYTimes, Nov 11, 2023.
Jonathan D. Karl, "The Man Who Made January 6 Possible," Atlantic, Nov 9, 2021.
Zachary Petrizzo, "Trumpworld Is Already at War Over Staffing a New Trump White House,"
Daily Beast, Nov 16, 2023.
Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, "Behind the Curtain — Scoop: The Trump job applications revealed," Axios, Dec 1, 2023.
Ian Ward, "The Brash Group of Young Conservatives Getting Ready for the Next Trump Administration," Politico, Nov 3, 2023.
Michael Hirsh, "Inside the Next Republican Revolution," Politico, Sept 9, 2023.
Dylan Riley, "What Is Trump?" New Left Review, Nov 2018.
Timothy Snyder, "Not a Normal Election," Commonweal, Nov 2, 2020
Comments
Big fan of edibles and memory palaces, but watch out for memory mazes or memory dungeons. Always leave the door to the present open!
Kevin Spicer
2024-02-16 00:20:56 +0000 UTCThank you. Listening to today's bonus was excellent. Money continues to bring Inception-level mutation to our perception of the political.
mark o'hare
2024-02-12 23:51:15 +0000 UTCPolitical party funding is deeply regulated, while the funding for think tanks is essentially totally unregulated. They export the policy work there's because that's where the money is.
John Smith
2024-02-12 23:31:21 +0000 UTCPretty sure people's biggest worry about Trumps appointments isn't the political appointees. It's the schedule F regulation and the possibility of political appointees being used in a much wider range of positions traditionally staffed by civil service career officials.
John Smith
2024-02-12 23:29:54 +0000 UTCStandout comment for me -- a lot of these potential admin members have to be silent about their implicit criticism of Trump One. Right now, that seems to be the public mood toward the idea of Trump Two. "Yes, we know he wants to do bad things, but we hope that he won't do them in favor of good things."
David B Hearne
2024-02-06 10:09:51 +0000 UTCI'd be really interested in hearing more about the conservative pipeline in terms of a second trump administration for positions with a more technical bent. Like I work in energy, and have found a lot of conservatives in the space to be extremely smart even if we fundamentally disagree on things but I'm not sure if that's the kind of person that a hypothetical second Trump administration is looking to recruit.
David Savage
2024-02-04 02:44:17 +0000 UTCI'm sorry, "Troop Hemingway" and "James Bacon" sound like conservative staffer names that Felix Biederman made up on a recent Chapo episode
Will Hubbert
2024-02-04 02:18:39 +0000 UTCSam, can you say more to explain the dichotomy between grifters and ideologues? When you say ideologue I hear thug, or maybe somebody craving power, or somebody craving belonging. What's the ideology? Everyone who took John McEntee's survey knew the right answers, right? So, was it a survey to test people's ideology or to test whether people are sufficiently submissive?
David Gillman
2024-02-03 18:01:54 +0000 UTCI think, along with the money part that there's just the assumption since the liberals supposedly control the media, etc., there doesn't need to be a direct jobs program, the way the Right has. You need a paid for lodging, lots of retreats, and such when the assumption is that all the power is in the hands of your ideological enemies. But, when in theory, you can go get a job at random magazine y or newspaper x as was kind of the reality for a long time, there's no need for the alternative institutions, when you have control of the institutions. Plus, even among the American Left, there's a weird dislike of actually building obvious and direct paths of power. It feels unseemly to openly say, 'we're creating this org, not for this specific issue, but the overall pushing of ideology y' even among pretty left-leaning people. Throw in the usual intercine debates among left-leaning folks, and there you go.
Jesse Ewiak
2024-02-02 01:33:23 +0000 UTCI enjoyed this episode in that I learned that political ideology in America is laundered through political think tanks rather than parties. When and how did this come to be? Because I can clearly see why political parties became the storefronts that the people can throw rocks at (what-aboutism) while the work of manufacturing policy out of ideology can function separate. The additional benefit for ideologues and the wealth they service is that their even most obvious failures can easily be washed and rinsed and turned magically back into "new" arguments.
mark o'hare
2024-02-01 21:44:18 +0000 UTCGreat episode as always. Specifically love the Heroes of the Fourth Turning callback at the end there. Still my favorite of your episodes, I’ve listened at least four or five times.
Peter Trigg
2024-02-01 19:48:29 +0000 UTCLoved the episode, Sam’s discussion of patrimonialism made me think of my master’s dissertation on those similar structures in some sub-Saharan African states. You both were really able to put the theory into layman’s terms how patronage networks truly do facilitate harmful dynamics for effective governance (difference between USA and SSA countries is the level of foreign involvement in governance).
Griffin Stibor
2024-02-01 16:29:30 +0000 UTCMatt please do a George Carey episode so we can finally hear your Calhoun lecture and about that unpublished Kendall
Quinn
2024-02-01 14:04:45 +0000 UTC5-4 also identified Chick-fil-a as the ideal lure for students that want to be conservative SCOTUS judges. Insidious stuff
Matt Gately
2024-02-01 01:17:12 +0000 UTCOne explanation is that there’s an inherent financial incentive to invest in young conservative ideologues that doesn’t exist in the same way for liberals. Ya, Dem orgs like Center for American Progress are friendly to capital, but not as friendly as Heritage. Which is a better investment? But I think you’re on to something in that the left isn’t as comfortable with this nakedly political power building. Many of my fellow interns saw their futures in government bureaucracy, big law, or nonprofits rather than political movements. Of course, many of these organizations can be molded for political ends. But idk I felt like most of my fellow interns were not very ideological. Just reflexive liberal professionals rather than warriors for progressivism.
Thomas Dresslar
2024-01-31 16:46:51 +0000 UTCI wonder how much of the relative ineffectiveness of liberal coalition building can be chalked up to the left’s general skepticism toward institutions. Why do liberals look askance at forming progressive leaders while conservatives invest in “the pipeline”? Maybe there’s a McCarthyish fear of being labeled Commie shills? Perhaps the tension between progressives and institutional Democrats plays a role? Idk but it keeps me up at night
Vincent
2024-01-31 15:57:44 +0000 UTCI interned at the Center for American Progress as a young liberal (Ask Me Anything!) and I can tell you the job pipeline is only slightly better than you describe. Got me an interview in Claire McCaskill’s office lol.
Thomas Dresslar
2024-01-31 13:37:14 +0000 UTCThe 5-4 pod is currently doing a series on the Federalist Society which is exactly in the wheelhouse of Know Your Enemy!
James Miola
2024-01-31 04:02:13 +0000 UTCApart from the ideological infighting, what are working conditions like in think tank conservative movement politics? You've noted the easy access to money, does this actually translate to good benefits and treatment for foot soldiers? You've previously mentioned nice trips and retreats people will get invited to, and the money available to influencers and grifters, but I'm wondering more about the day to day for the regular types. PS: I swear I am not trying to get into movement conservative politics.
Hannah
2024-01-31 03:03:32 +0000 UTCThis is the Platonic ideal version of the KYE episode. Rib-sticking stuff. Well done!
Charles Zug
2024-01-31 01:26:02 +0000 UTCFinally, some Weber-adjacent content! I’ve been turning to a lot of commentaries on Weber for a paper on nursing (de)professionalization. His concepts of bureaucracy and rationality are powerful interpretive frameworks, especially when the latter’s abundance of meaning is appreciated. For the Vaber Babes interested in learning more about the homie, check out Ritzer, Levine, Lowith, Scaff, Brubaker, and Turner. Wendy Brown recently released a book on Weber’s political philosophy (though I doubt he’d have called it that), but I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. The lectures that make up the heart of her book are on YouTube.
Vincent
2024-01-31 00:38:23 +0000 UTCYay an episode on Project 2025! This document scares the crap out of me, so I’m glad more people are covering it.
Kelley
2024-01-31 00:11:39 +0000 UTC
