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Books by and about 2020 presidential candidates
Crippled America,
by Donald J. Trump (2015)
Fire and Fury,
by Michael Wolff (2018)
Trump Revealed,
by Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher (2016)
The Making of Donald Trump,
by David Cay Johnston (2016)
Promise Me, Dad ,
by Joe Biden (2017)
The Book of Joe ,
by Jeff Wilser (2019; biography of Joe Biden)
The Truths We Hold,
by Kamala Harris (2019)
Smart on Crime,
by Kamala Harris (2010)
Guide to Political Revolution,
by Bernie Sanders (2017)
Where We Go From Here,
by Bernie Sanders (2018)
Our Revolution,
by Bernie Sanders (2016)
This Fight Is Our Fight,
by Elizabeth Warren (2017)
United,
by Cory Booker (2016)
Conscience of a Conservative,
by Jeff Flake (2017)
Two Paths,
by Gov. John Kasich (2017)
Every Other Monday,
by Rep. John Kasich (2010)
Courage is Contagious,
by John Kasich (1998)
Shortest Way Home,
by Pete Buttigieg (2019)
Becoming,
by Michelle Obama (2018)
Higher Loyalty,
by James Comey (2018)
The Making of Donald Trump,
by David Cay Johnston (2017)
Trump vs. Hillary On The Issues ,
by Jesse Gordon (2016)
Outsider in the White House,
by Bernie Sanders (2015)

Book Reviews

(from Amazon.com)

(click a book cover for a review or other books by or about the presidency from Amazon.com)

Mandate for Leadership: Project 2025


(Click for external website)

OnTheIssues.org BOOK REVIEW:

"Project 2025" details how to "drain the swamp" in Trump's second term. It's a heavy-duty policy manual, with 920 pages of specifications broken down into 30 chapters, specifying how to reform each federal agency. It's not intended as a political document -- that is accomplished on Trump's campaign website called "Agenda47" -- Agenda47 provides the vision, and Project 2025 provides the nitty-gritty details.

The Trump campaign officially has nothing to do with Project 2025, and campaign officials refer to Agenda47 when reporters ask their plans. But Agenda47 only asserts the general goals, while Project 2025 outlines how to get there. The intent is an action plan for early in Trump's term -- Project 2025 includes details of what to do during the presidential transition period in November/December 2024. The further intent beyond policy is that the authors -- there are well over 100 authors cited in this document -- become the Cabinet or sub-Cabinet appointees in the Trump administration, and implement the plans they wrote.

Project 2025's intent beyond policy is addressed in supplemental documents -- we only excerpt here the main 920-page policy agenda. Project 2025 focuses on four "pillars": the policy agenda, personnel, training, and a "180-day playbook." The four pillars, combined, are intended to institutionalize Trumpism: to implement Trump's goals from his first term, in a permanent way, especially those which Trump failed to institutionalize.

A major complaint in Trump's first term was that Trump failed to "drain the swamp" of the federal bureaucracy because so few Trump officials had the necessary experience. Now they do, and many members of the first Trump administration participated in authoring this document. Trump's liberal opponents point to this document as an indication that Trump's second term will be worse than his first term -- because the second time around, they know what to do.

Trump's liberal opponents also hint darkly about the horrors that will ensue from Trump's second term -- but there's no secret agenda -- it's all laid out here. The only secretive part is that the details are buried in 920 pages -- but we've excerpted the most important parts.

The Heritage Foundation, the organization behind Project 2025, is a long-standing conservative think tank. OnTheIssues has covered the Heritage Foundation for many years, mostly when they offer opinions on Supreme Court rulings or state legislation, alongside three other organizations with differing views (the Sierra Club, the ACLU, and the Cato Institute). The Heritage Foundation is much more "traditionally conservative" than MAGA, but recognizing that Trump's administration needs this document, there's plenty of MAGA policies here too.

So what's in Project 2025? We show the chapter headings to the right -- it's organized by federal agency. It's also organized with specifics about what to do -- not just in theory, but actual steps that could be implemented immediately. Our Biden excerpts are all about what Executive Orders the Biden administration put forth, and how the second Trump administration could immediately undo those (or sometimes not so immediately -- Project 2025 documents what Congress needs to do, too). Our Ohama excerpts are similarly about which Obama-era Executive Orders the Trump Administration should undo (evidently having missed them in the first Trump Adminstration).

So is Project 2025 a MAGA dream and a liberal nightmare? Well, it's a serious policy document, which means it avoids conspiracy theories and focuses on action plans. But it does kowtow to SOME conspiracy theories -- and they're self-aware that they're doing that -- our favorite: "the PRC's actions often do sound like conspiracy theories--because they are conspiracies" (p. 180, referring to the People's Republic of China -- wonky terms like "PRC" appear throughout). That's followed up with examples like that COVID was "almost certainly spawned in a CCP biological weapons lab in Wuhan, China (p.768, that's the "Chinese Communist Party", and use of the "CCP" acronym gives away the writer as anti-China). Some sections are more MAGA than others, reflecting the numerous authors.

Project 2025 largely ignores MAGA's biggest conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and Trump's criminal prosecutions. We excerpt a bit about the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling on correcting mail-in ballots (pp. 563-4) but there's nothing here that says "Trump won". There are several references to Hunter Biden's laptop, such as dismissing that the laptop was "Russian disinformation" (p.213). But Project 2025 was published in April 2023 -- before Hunter Biden's criminal conviction (which included evidence from that laptop). Project 2025 was also published before Donald Trump's criminal conviction and civil trials, so they're not mentioned either. But we're not so sure that the Heritage Foundation would discuss those anyway, since there's nothing there about which federal department to fix. The DOJ chapter does label the FBI and other agencies as "corrupt," (p.557ff) but the recommended fixes focus on "tough on crime" rather than "back off Trump."

OnTheIssues observes with dismay that the mainstream media is producing frantic analysis denouncing Project 2025. We like the analyis -- the franticness is the problem. Here's some typical franticness, compared with what Project 2025 actually says:

  • Ending the Affordable Care Act: Nope; Project 2025 wants to reform ObamaCare to reduce its mandates, but not end it.
  • Complete Ban on Abortion: Nope; Project 2025 wants to end all aspects of federal funding for abortion, but doesn't propose any "national abortion ban" (which Trump agrees with, to the dismay of many conservative Republicans).
  • Defunding the FBI: Nope; Project 2025 wants the FBI to focus on actual threats and crime, instead of Hunter Biden's laptop
  • Eliminating the EPA: Nope; Project 2025 wants the EPA to focus on environmental protection instead of land use policy.
  • Muslim Ban 2.0: Nope; it's just not there. Project 2025 suggests plenty of immigration restrictions -- from building the wall to ending Temporary Protected Status -- but those mostly apply to Mexico and Haiti and Latin America, not focused on Muslim countries at all.
  • Banning Pornography: Yup; Project 2025 does want to imprison porn producers and outlaw porn websites. The point is, SOME of Project 2025's proposals ARE crazy -- there's no need to exaggerate their proposals!
    Project 25 Chapters:

    SECTION 1: TAKING THE REINS OF GOVERNMENT

  1. White House Office
  2. Executive Office of the President
  3. Central Personnel Agencies
    SECTION 2: THE COMMON DEFENSE
  4. Department of Defense
  5. Department of Homeland Security
  6. Department of State
  7. Intelligence Community
  8. Media Agencies / Public Broadcasting
  9. Agency for International Development
    SECTION 3: THE GENERAL WELFARE
  10. Department of Agriculture
  11. Department of Education
  12. Department of Energy
  13. Environmental Protection Agency
  14. Department of Health and Human Services
  15. Department of Housing and Urban Development
  16. Department of the Interior
  17. Department of Justice
  18. Department of Labor
  19. Department of Transportation
  20. Department of Veterans Affairs
    SECTION 4:THE ECONOMY
  21. Department of Commerce
  22. Department of the Treasury
  23. Export-Import Bank
  24. Federal Reserve
  25. Small Business Administration
  26. Trade
    SECTION 5: INDEPENDENT REGULATORY AGENCIES
  27. SEC and CFPD
  28. FCC
  29. FEC
  30. FTC

(All of the bold italic phrases are quoted verbatim directly from "Overview of Project 2025", a video by the popular podcaster Molly Jong-Fast, available on YouTube iHeartRadio. Ms. Jong-Fast is a well-established member of the mainstream media: an editor at The Daily Beast; a writer at The Atlantic; and a political analyst at MSNBC News)

Bottom line: Yes, Project 2025 outlines what the second Trump administration would do. Yes, those opposing Trump's election should read it (or more plausibly, read our excerpts), because Trump really can't be accused of having a hidden agenda. Trump had no hidden agenda in 2016 either -- he outlined his plans and then tried to implement them -- but no one believed him in 2016. And now everyone should believe Trump, because he has a detailed implementation plan.

Remember how OJ Simpson went free because the police and prosecutors "framed a guilty man"? The media's over-reaction to Project 2025 does the same thing. There's no need to exaggerate what Project 2025 wants -- as we show in our excerpts -- there's plenty to antagonize the left. Liberal commentators should focus on what Project 2025 actually says -- rather than extreme interpretation. In the firestorm of anti-Project 2025 commentary because of the upcoming election, liberal media commentators are trying to "frame a guilty man" -- just let the facts speak for themselves. Here are the facts!

-- Jesse Gordon, editor-in-chief, OnTheIssues.org, June 2024

    Commentary:
  • Biden campaign response, www.TrumpsProject2025.com andhttps://joebiden.com/project2025/
  • (more commentary to follow)
 OnTheIssues.org excerpts:  (click on issues for details)
Abortion
    Heritage Foundation: Ban mailing abortion pills.
    Joe Biden: Trump's second term takes away reproductive freedom.
    Heritage Foundation: Abortion and euthanasia are not health care.
    Heritage Foundation: Prohibit Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds.
Civil Rights
    Heritage Foundation: Eliminate the term "DEI" from every federal law.
    Heritage Foundation: End Critical Race Theory (CRT) training & classification.
    Joe Biden: Created Treasury office for Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion.
Corporations
    Joe Biden: Revoked "management rights" in union collective bargaining.
    Heritage Foundation: Corporate tax rate 18%; plus two income tax rates, 15% & 30%.
    Barack Obama: Fully disclose corporate advice to workers on union rules.
    Donald Trump: Respect management rights in union collective bargaining.
    Heritage Foundation: Rescind the "persuader rule" on disclosing advice to workers.
    Joe Biden: MAGA Project 2025: handouts to the ultra wealthy .
    Heritage Foundation: Investigate corporate ESG as cover for unfair trade practice.
Crime
    Heritage Foundation: Enforce death penalty and pursue more cases.
    Heritage Foundation: Refocus out-of-control FBI on actual threats and crime.
Drugs
    Heritage Foundation: Address fentanyl crisis; reduce availability at border.
Education
    Barack Obama: Focus discipline on disparate impact and restorative justice.
    Barack Obama: Publicize colleges that claim faith-based Title IX exemption.
    Donald Trump: Rescinded policy on "disparate impact" in school discipline.
    Heritage Foundation: End"List of Shame" of faith-based college Title IX exemption.
Energy & Oil
    Barack Obama: Quadrennial Energy Review for economy-wide climate policy .
    Heritage Foundation: No industrial policy nor economy-wide climate policy.
    Heritage Foundation: Climate mitigation instead of war on fossil fuels.
Environment
    Barack Obama: OpEd: expanded EPA's role beyond enviro regulation.
    Heritage Foundation: EPA is environmental regulator: no land use policy.
Families & Children
    Donald Trump: Religious exemptions, including contraception, in ObamaCare .
    Heritage Foundation: Eliminate the woke ideology Gender Policy Council.
    Heritage Foundation: Married mother, father, & children are nation's foundation .
    Joe Biden: Gender Policy Council: promote gender-affirming care.
    Heritage Foundation: Maternal and infant mortality is a global tragedy.
    Heritage Foundation: Outlaw pornography, and imprison people who produce it.
Foreign Policy
    Barack Obama: OpEd: Iran nuclear deal gave a crucial monetary lifeline .
    Heritage Foundation: Pressure Iran away from nukes & toward democracy.
    Heritage Foundation: Dismantle USAID's DEI apparatus.
    Heritage Foundation: PRC actions sound like conspiracy theories because they are.
    Heritage Foundation: Focus foreign aid on advancing the Abraham Accords.
    Heritage Foundation: Refocus Africa policy to Counter malign Chinese activity.
Government Reform
    Heritage Foundation: Correcting mail-in ballots counts as voter fraud.
    Heritage Foundation: Terminate federal FEMA emergency grants; switch to states.
    Joe Biden: $3.5B in FEMA emergency grants for 2023.
    Joe Biden: Protect democracy against MAGA's Project 2025.
    Heritage Foundation: Fire federal employees who participate in CRT or DEI .
Health Care
    Heritage Foundation: COVID-19 was almost certainly spawned in a lab in Wuhan.
    Bernie Sanders: Vermont forced to repeal single-payer healthcare system.
    Heritage Foundation: Employer-based health insurance induces overconsumption.
    Heritage Foundation: Reduce Medicare regulatory burdens on doctors.
    Heritage Foundation: Separate ObamaCare subsidies from private insurance market.
Homeland Security
    Donald Trump: Develop Sea-Launched Cruise Missile-Nuclear program.
    Joe Biden: Cancel Sea-Launched Cruise Missile-Nuclear program.
    Heritage Foundation: Unequivocal top priority: defend Taiwan from China.
Immigration
    Donald Trump: No federal grants for police in sanctuary cities.
    Heritage Foundation: Control border by enforcement, detention and deportation.
    Heritage Foundation: End Temporary Protected Status for Haiti & 15 countries.
Jobs
    Donald Trump: Stricter rules for federal employee disciplinary actions.
    Heritage Foundation: Work ethic at the heart of Judeo-Christian tradition .
    Joe Biden: Loosen rules for federal employee disciplinary actions.
Social Security
    Joe Biden: Never let Republicans cut Social Security .
Technology
    Joe Biden: Industries of the Future: robotics & green/clean products.
    Donald Trump: Industries of the Future: AI , 5G, and biotech.
    Heritage Foundation: Reset Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework.
    Joe Biden: Set up Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework.
War & Peace
    Heritage Foundation: Restore offensive deterrence, including Space Force.
    Joe Biden: Eliminated most offensive deterrence capabilities.
    Donald Trump: Abraham Accords end the centrality of Arab-Israeli conflict.
Welfare & Poverty
    Donald Trump: Waive work requirement only if unemployment over 6%.
    Heritage Foundation: Re-implement workfare; close food stamp loopholes .
    Donald Trump: Close loopholes that allow food stamps to millionaires.


The above quotations are from Mandate for Leadership: Project 2025.

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