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    ‘Go to hell’: how Project 2025 chief kicked the Guardian out of book event

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    Kevin Roberts, the head of the influential rightwing thinktank the Heritage Foundation, told a Guardian reporter to “go to hell” at the launch of Roberts’s new book on Tuesday night, then threw the reporter out of the venue, apparently in response to reporting on the organization.The Guardian was invited last week to Roberts’s book events in New York and Washington DC. They were billed as an opportunity “to celebrate Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America” – Roberts’s new book, which features a foreword by the vice-president-elect, JD Vance.Roberts, the chief architect of Project 2025, the infamous rightwing plan for Donald Trump’s presidency which would crack down on immigration, dismantle LGBTQ+ and abortion rights and diminish environmental protections, spoke briefly at the event, held in the lavish Kimberly Hotel in midtown New York City, before mingling with the crowd.Approached by the Guardian, a staff member at the Heritage Foundation said Roberts would be available for a brief interview. The Guardian waited patiently before being introduced to Roberts, who was tidily dressed in a suit, tie and cowboy boots.“You’ve got two minutes with our best friend Adam from the Guardian,” the Heritage Foundation employee told Roberts.Roberts said to the Guardian: “Make it good, the first one [question], otherwise you’re going to pound sand.”It was quite loud in the venue and the Guardian misheard the word “sand”. Asked for clarification, Roberts repeated the phrase.The Guardian said: “I don’t know what that means,” which seemed to upset Roberts. He reacted angrily.“It means you’re a bunch of liars, is what it means. So make it good or we’re done,” Roberts said. The Guardian asked if Roberts could elaborate on his “liars” comment, which seemed to upset the Heritage Foundation president further.“No, we’re done, I’m not talking to you,” Roberts said.The Guardian, overlapping Roberts slightly, had begun to ask a question about Project 2025, which provides a roadmap on how a Republican president could permanently transform the federal government into a conservative institution.Roberts replied: “Go to hell.”It was a surprising outburst from Roberts, seen as one of the masterminds of the conservative blueprint which could change the shape of the US government. Roberts, who said earlier this year that the US was “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be”, is a highly influential figure on the right.Vance, who in his foreword wrote: “Never before has a figure with Roberts’s depth and stature within the American Right tried to articulate a genuinely new future for conservatism,” was not present to witness Roberts’s conversation with the Guardian on Tuesday night.After the initial encounter, the Guardian returned to Roberts and asked if he would like to add to his earlier comments. A staff member objected, and asked the Guardian to “please move back.” The Guardian acquiesced, and used the opportunity to go to the bathroom, but was intercepted on the way by two burly members of security.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe security members said the Guardian had to leave – no explanation was offered – and confiscated a name tag that had been handed out earlier in the evening. This reporter was then escorted down to street level by a member of security, who then returned to the event.It was an odd end to what had been a genteel book party. Held in the Kimberly’s Upstairs bar on the 30th floor of the hotel, about 80 people, the men in sharp suits, most of the women in fashionable dresses, had spent time quietly mingling before listening to a conversation between Roberts and Brian Kilmeade, the Fox News host.The pair discussed Roberts’s book, in which he describes how “many of America’s institutions […] need to be burned”. Included among those to be incinerated, Roberts writes, are the FBI and the New York Times, along with “every Ivy League college”, “80% of ‘Catholic’ higher education”, and the Boy Scouts of America.The event had been billed to run from 5.30pm until 8pm, but the Guardian was ejected a full hour earlier than that. It was enough to have this reporter double-check the Heritage Foundation’s invitation, which was sent by Heritage’s senior communications manager on Thursday.“Hey all! Heritage Foundation President Dr Kevin Roberts is launching his new book Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America next week in NYC and DC,” it said.“The book has a forward [sic] written by Vice President-elect JD Vance and identifies institutions that conservatives need to build, others that need to [be] taken back, and more that are too corrupt to save.”The invitation ended: “We’d love to see you attend either (or both) launch parties.” More

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      ‘This victory is a mandate’: rightwing groups ready with policy proposals for new Trump administration

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      As Donald Trump prepares to move back into the White House, he’ll have a host of rightwing groups trying to influence his staffing choices and policy proposals, including the group behind Project 2025, despite Trump’s insistence they won’t be involved.Democrats repeatedly ran attacks on Trump over Project 2025, the conservative manifesto that its writers want to guide a second Trump administration. Trump tried to distance himself from it and from the group behind it, the Heritage Foundation, one of DC’s biggest thinktanks.The Heritage president, Kevin Roberts, congratulated Trump on his “hard-fought victory” that came despite the “sham” indictments and against a “relentless leftwing machine”.“The entire conservative movement stands united behind him as he prepares to secure our wide-open border, restore the rule of law, put parents back in charge of their children’s education, restore America to its proper place as a leader in manufacturing, put families and children first, and dismantle the deep state,” Roberts said.Other groups, namely the America First Policy Institute, have avoided the limelight that backfired on Project 2025 and instead worked behind the scenes to ally themselves with Trump and seek to influence his administration. Trump named Linda McMahon, the chair of the institute’s board, as a co-chair of his transition team, giving the America First Policy Institute a critical role.The institute, started in 2021 and stacked with Trump allies, said in a tweet that it “stands ready to support bold governance that puts Americans first”. It also shared a video clip with the former acting United States attorney general Matt Whitaker talking about deportations and sanctuary cities, key alignments with Trump’s policy goals.“This victory is a mandate to restore our nation to a place of safety, opportunity, and prosperity rooted in freedom,” the America First Policy Institute said. “Together, we’ll secure borders, strengthen the economy, & uphold the freedoms that define us – for a stronger future.”The institute has held trainings for people that could serve in the Trump White House and has a lengthy agenda published online, complete with plans for immigration, education, energy and elections. The New York Times recently reported that the group has “installed itself as the Trump campaign’s primary partner in making concrete plans to wield power again”.The heads of both the America First Policy Institute and the Heritage Foundation have roots in the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a state-based conservative thinktank. Brooke Rollins, CEO of the America First Policy Institute, ran the Texas foundation for 15 years, and Roberts was the foundation’s CEO before he was tapped by Heritage.Another organization, America First Legal, is headed by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller. It has been filing lawsuits that boost Trump and other conservatives on issues like election fraud, diversity programs, public records disputes and government overreach. Miller could return to the Trump administration, but it’s likely the group will remain an outside rightwing legal monitor to help the incoming president.What could Trump’s policies be?Project 2025’s sprawling “mandate for leadership” details in 900-plus pages how each government agency could be altered under a conservative president. The project includes a database of potential hires and a training program for those who could staff a Trump administration, though Trump’s team has said none of the people associated with Heritage’s staffing suggestions would be hired. That would be a feat, given the extensive reach the project had – it was signed on to by more than 100 conservative groups, and many of those who wrote chapters or otherwise contributed had played some kind of role in the previous Trump administration.The project’s biggest suggestion is to designate exponentially more federal government employees as political appointees rather than non-partisan civil servants. It also wants to downsize the government. Trump’s plan also involves downsizing the federal government, something he tried to start implementing near the end of his first term.The project suggests many ways to restrict immigration, both through beefed-up border security and through limiting legal immigration programs for groups like students and low-skilled workers. That’s another pillar for Trump, who made mass deportations a central theme of his campaign.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOn education, the project wants to get rid of the Department of Education and increase the use of vouchers that use public money for private schools – both of which Trump has suggested as well. Conservatives have sought the dismantling of the department for decades, so far without success.Most chapters of Project 2025 mention discarding any programs that promote LGBTQ+ rights and diversity. Trump has railed against these ideals on the campaign trail, promising to root out trans women from sports and in schools.Abortion access is one area where Trump and the project could differ, though Trump’s plans for abortion have been muddled. The project wants to end federal approval of abortion pills, track abortion data and root out anything that is seen as promoting abortion as healthcare. It doesn’t call for a direct ban on the procedure, and Trump has said he wouldn’t approve of one either, but many of these policies would make access significantly more difficult.The America First Policy Institute suggests many of the same policies, though it wants to go further than Project 2025 with federal employees, the New York Times notes, by making most federal workers at-will employees who would not receive civil service protections.Other ideas the institute has pushed include, according to the Times, “halting federal funding for Planned Parenthood and for mandatory ultrasounds before abortions, including those carried out with medication. It seeks to make concealed weapons permits reciprocal in all 50 states, increase petroleum production, remove the United States from the Paris Agreement, impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients and establish legally only two genders.”A policy agenda pamphlet from the institute starts by discussing the Christian foundations of the US and imploring Christians to get involved in the government “before it’s too late”. The policy agenda for the pamphlet was written “through the lens of their biblical foundations and applications to provide Christians more information on the issues and solutions needed for the restoration of the nation”. More

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      Will Donald Trump destroy US democracy? Unlikely | Cas Mudde

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      The most authoritarian and racist campaign of my lifetime just won Donald Trump a return to the White House. It even was the most popular Republican presidential campaign since 1988. There go four decades of academic research on far-right politics, which has confidently claimed that openly racist far-right parties could not win elections. While it is too early to explain Trump’s shockingly large victory, there is one thing I know for sure: Trump 2.0 will be nothing like Trump 1.0. When Trump returns to the White House on 20 January 2025, he will bring his own people, have a clear plan and face no internal opposition.When Trump won in 2016, he was largely a one-man band. Except for his close family, he had no powerful individuals and organizations that were loyal to him. Hence, he relied on the infrastructure of the Republican party and establishment conservative organizations like the Heritage Foundation. His first administration should therefore be seen as a coalition government, between Trump and the Republican establishment – at that time, personified by Mitch McConnell, then the powerful Senate majority leader. It was mainly successful in policies that the two camps shared – notably, lower taxes, deregulation, and judicial replacement – and much less so in policies that only Trump really cared about, like “the wall” and the “Muslim ban”.Today, Trump is in a much more powerful position. There are few powerful counterweights left within both the US right wing and the broader US political system. The Republican party already controlled the supreme court and has retaken the Senate. Although the House is still in play, it is likely to stay in Republican hands given the size of Trump’s win. Finally, he has a vice-president who is blindly loyal to him.Trump is also in complete control of the Republican party. After Ron DeSantis’s unsuccessful challenge in the midterms, only two years ago, opposition to Trump has largely disappeared within the grand old party. Critics like Liz Cheney have been replaced by Trump loyalists, while challengers like DeSantis and Nikki Haley have since kissed Trump’s ring again. McConnell is literally a shadow of himself, immobilized by health issues and unable to oppose Trump even within his own Senate faction. The new Senate majority leader will undoubtedly be a Trump supporter, just like the current House majority leader, Steve Scalise.Similarly, the broader “conservative” infrastructure has changed fundamentally. Not only have most organizations radicalized, but they have also been joined by a host of new, well-funded pro-Trump organizations, often founded and run by former members of the Trump administration. So, even though the Heritage Foundation may play a lesser role in Trump’s second transition team, the organization has become solidly far right and pro-Trump under its new president, Kevin Roberts. Moreover, it will compete with new pro-Trump groups like the America First Policy Institute, primarily bankrolled by Texas oil money. And for middle- and low-level personnel in both the administration and the bureaucracy, the new Trump administration can draw on a large pool of younger Americans, well-versed in far-right ideology and loyalty to Trump by organizations like Turning Point USA.Finally, this time Trump has a plan. Although he distanced himself from Project 2025 in the campaign, and it is very likely that he never read the lengthy report, most of the people expected to take up key positions in his new administration are closely tied to the project and Trump himself has supported most of the key policies. In addition to the usual rightwing pet projects, like deregulation and lower taxes, it includes Schedule F, which would slash legal protections for tens of thousands of bureaucrats so that they can be fired “at will” – a policy that Trump already introduced in the last days of his first administration and has promised to introduce again on his first day back in office. With the combination of Schedule F and an army of young loyalists, Trump could finally transform the “deep state” into a blindly loyal, if possibly much smaller and therefore less effective, apparatus.Does this mean that Trump will destroy US democracy, like his “friend” Viktor Orbán in Hungary? Unlikely. Not because Americans are more democratic than Hungarians, which is a doubtful assumption anyway, but because the US political system is much more complex than the Hungarian political system. Largely set-up to prevent tyranny, the US political system is extremely complex and rigid. Most importantly, it is almost impossible to change the constitution, which has been at the heart of Orbán’s transformation of the Hungarian system. This does not mean that Trump cannot significantly weaken liberal democracy, but he will have to do it with weaker instruments (like executive orders) and with significant judicial pushback (although probably less from the US supreme court than from state and local courts).This will undoubtedly comfort the many college-educated white men in blue states, who disproportionately produce the news and opinions in the US media, but it will do little for those of us living in Republican-controlled states. Most importantly, it will provide little comfort for the millions of Americans who are already marginalized within the country, from the LGBTQ+ community to people of color and women.While the far right’s plans for mass deportations or a federal ban on abortion might not come to fruition, or at least not to the extent that its most fanatic supporters hope, marginalized groups will face an even more hostile state while enjoying even less protection from an increasingly embattled judiciary and media. And, while they can hope for a Democratic victory in 2028, it will be more difficult than in 2020, as this time the elections might still be free but they will no longer be fair.

      Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today More

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      The Guardian view on the US presidential election 2024: a Democratic government is the one we need

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      The mood may be one of despair. But this election is critical to the country’s future? The best hope lies with Kamala. Only her government can shape the future we want to see
      It is hard to imagine a worse candidate for the American presidency in 2024 than Donald J Trump. His history of dishonesty, hypocrisy and greed makes him wholly unfit for the office. A second Trump term would erode the rule of law, diminish America’s global standing and deepen racial and cultural divides. Even if he loses, Mr Trump has shown that he will undermine the election process, with allies spreading unfounded conspiracy theories to delegitimise the results.There are prominent Republicans – such as the former vice-president Dick Cheney – who refused to support Mr Trump owing to the threat he poses. Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under Mr Trump, calls his former boss a “fascist”. America was founded in opposition to absolute monarchy. The Republican nominee models himself after the leader he most admires: Russia’s autocratic president, Vladimir Putin.Mr Trump’s authoritarianism may finish US democracy. He has praised and promised to pardon those convicted in the January 6 insurrection. He has suggested bypassing legal norms to use potentially violent methods of repression, blurring the lines between vigilantism, law enforcement and military action, against groups – be they Democrats or undocumented immigrants – he views as enemies.His team has tried to distance itself from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and its extreme proposals – such as mass firings of civil servants and erasing women’s rights – that poll poorly. But it is likely that, in office, Mr Trump would adopt many of these intolerant, patriarchal and discriminatory plans. He aims to dismantle the government to enrich himself and evade the law. If Republicans gain control of the Senate, House and White House, he would interpret it as a mandate to silence his critics and entrench his power.Mr Trump is a transactional and corrupting politician. His supporters see this as an advantage. Christian nationalists want an authoritarian regime to enforce religious edicts on Americans. Elon Musk wants to shape the future without regulatory oversight. Both put self-interest ahead of the American people. Democracy erodes slowly at first, then all at once. In office, Mr Trump appointed three supreme court justices, who this summer blocked efforts to hold him accountable for trying to overturn the 2020 election: their immunity ruling renders the president “a king above the law”, in the words of the liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor.A historic presidentSince Kamala Harris stepped into the spotlight following Joe Biden’s exit, her campaign has been a masterclass in political jujitsu, deftly flipping Mr Trump’s perceived strengths into glaring weaknesses. With a focus on joy, the vice-president sharply contrasted with Mr Trump’s grim narrative of US decline. In their sole televised debate, Ms Harris skillfully outmaneuvered Mr Trump, who fell into her traps, appearing angry and incoherent. She is confident and composed. He sounds unhinged.The Trump agenda threatens to dismantle voting rights, women’s rights and minority rights – not just reversing decades of social progress but burying it. Mr Trump was behind the shredding of reproductive rights. The conservative forces rallying to him are now intent on imposing a national abortion ban, with – should he win – dire implications for IVF and birth control. Republicans have been hurt in the polls by being associated with such unpopular policies – a weak spot that Ms Harris should keep exploiting.The vice-president has energised Democrats with savvy media appearances while appealing to swing voters. Progressives, determined to defeat Mr Trump, remain committed to freedom and equality. But Ms Harris has disappointed those who have urged her to take a stand on US complicity in Israel’s bombing of civilians in Gaza and Lebanon. Downplaying war crimes, as arms flow to Israel, has already harmed Democratic chances in key swing states like Michigan.In a political system where style often rivals substance, perception is crucial. While Ms Harris hasn’t made her race and gender central to her campaign, her victory would be historic: she would be the first woman, and the first woman of color, to be president. Symbolism matters to her base. Her candidacy rallied key constituencies – the young, women, African Americans and Hispanics – who were cooling on Mr Biden. This election is a leap of faith in Ms Harris, who offers a sense of possibility for the future, while Mr Trump clings to a reactionary past.Protecting democracyDespite his criminal conviction and being declared a rapist by a judge, Mr Trump remains dangerously close to reclaiming the presidency. Many voters still back a man who was the worst US president ever. But probably not a majority of US voters. Republicans benefit from a skewed electoral system: Democrats have won the popular vote in all but one election since 1992, and secured the overall popular majority for the Senate in every six-year cycle since 1996. Yet the country has often been led by Republican presidents and a GOP-controlled Senate, and therefore a Republican-dominated supreme court. In a close race in November, that could mean Mr Trump doesn’t need to win the election – just a court case.Mr Biden has been a transformational political figure, but he didn’t transform the country. He aimed to tackle inequality, broken public services and the climate crisis with a $4tn plan funded by taxing the rich. His goal was to restore his party’s political credibility by marrying social liberalism with economic justice. But corporate influence and the Democrats’ slim Senate majority shrank his ambitions. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shifted his focus to national security, as America experienced rising prices. However, Mr Biden made historic investments to green the economy and refocused industrial policy to take on China. Ms Harris’s plans aim to recapture the spirit of Mr Biden’s insurgency.The US economy is stronger than it has been in decades, yet Mr Trump consistently outpolls Ms Harris on economic issues. This perhaps reflects decades of neoliberalism. Real wages for blue-collar workers have stagnated since the 1970s, while inflation-adjusted house prices have doubled. Polls show 70% of Americans feel significant political and economic reform is needed, putting Democrats at a disadvantage as they are linked to the status quo.Political hope fades when we settle for what is, instead of fighting for what could be. Ms Harris embodies the conviction that it’s better to believe in democracy’s potential than to surrender to its imperfections. The Republican agenda is clear: voter suppression, book bans and tax cuts for billionaires. Democrats seek global engagement; the GOP favours isolation. The Biden-Harris administration laid the groundwork for a net zero America. A Trumpian comeback would undo it. A Harris win, with a Democratic Congress, means a chance to restore good governance, create good jobs and lead the entire planet’s climate efforts. Defeating Mr Trump protects democracy from oligarchy and dictatorship. There is too much at stake not to back Ms Harris for president. More

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      The far-right megadonor pouring over $10m into the US election to defeat ‘the woke regime’

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      Thomas Klingenstein, chairperson of the rightwing Claremont Institute, has cemented his place in the pantheon of Republican megadonors with a more than $10m spending spree so far in the 2024 election cycle, according to campaign contributions recorded by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).Klingenstein has been one of Claremont’s largest donors for decades. As the institute has made its hard-right, pro-Trump drift in recent years, Klingenstein has continued to publicly describe US politics with extremist rhetoric, calling it a “cold civil war”, and has encouraged rightwingers to join the fight to defeat what he calls “the woke regime”.His spending puts him at the forefront of a class of donors who are explicitly supporting more extreme and polarizing politics in Trump’s Republican party.The largesse has already dwarfed his contributions in previous election seasons. The money has gone exclusively to Republicans, and has included seven-figure donations to at least four pro-Trump Pacs in recent months.The Guardian emailed Klingenstein for comment on this reporting but received no reply.Increased largesseFederal Election Comission (FEC) data is a lagging indicator: currently available data only reflects contributions made before early July, so it is possible that Klingenstein’s spend has increased since the last available filings.Nevetheless, Klingenstein’s almost $10.7m in contributions during this cycle is already more than his combined giving in the previous five cycles stretching back to 2013-2014.The amount fits with a pattern of increasing giving to political causes in recent years.Until 2017, Klingesntein was an intermittent and moderate donor: in the 2014 cycle Klingenstein made just 11 donations totaling $32,500, and in 2016 he scaled that back, contributing just $7,700 including $2,000 to Trump’s first campaign, according to records of his giving in previous cycles.In the 2018 cycle there was a sudden uptick to almost $350,000 in contributions. The next two cycles saw six-figure spends: $4.23m in 2019-2020, and just over $4m in 2021-2022. It remains to be seen how much Klingenstein will add to his unprecedented spend this cycle.Klingenstein’s contribution has also grown relative to other political donors.The transparency organization Open Secrets maintains a ranked list of the top 100 political donors in each cycle.Klingenstein first landed on the list at number 85 in 2020, according to Open Secrets. In 2022 he nudged up to 78. This year he is the 35th largest individual political donor in the country according to the rankings.His contributions this year put him in a similar league as Republican donors such as Walmart heiress Alice Walton – currently the world’s richest woman – who is the 32nd largest donor per Open Secrets, and Democratic donors such as James Murdoch and his wife Kathryn, the 28th largest political donors in the US.Funding Super PacsKlingenstein has donated to individual congressional campaigns, but the recipients of his largest donations in this and other recent cycles have been Pacs, including several favored by the biggest Republican donors.One favorite is Club for Growth Action (CFG Action), a Pac which is ostensibly committed to “small government”, and whose biggest funders are billionaire megadonors including Jeff Yass, Richard Uihlein and Virginia James.Klingenstein has contributed almost $9m to CFG Action over several cycles, including $3m in 2020, $1.45m in 2022, and $4.45m this cycle. That figure included a single donation of $2.5m last December.Other recipients of six-figure Klingenstein donations include the Sentinel Action Fund, a Pac launched in 2022 by Jessica Anderson, until then executive director of Heritage Action, a sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, which is the force behind Project 2025.This cycle, Sentinel has positioned itself as the sole conservative pro-cryptocurrency Pac, and has spent in support of Republicans in crucial senate races in states including Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada, according to FEC records and Facebook and Google advertising libraries.Sentinel president Anderson also served in the Trump administration. Klingenstein gave Sentinel $1m in May.Klingenstein has also been a rainmaker for prominent Maga-verse organizations this cycle, giving $1m to pro-Trump Super Pac Make America Great Again Inc in July, and $495,000 to Charlie Kirk-linked Turning Point Pac in February.Not all of Klingenstein’s bets pay off. Last September, he handed $1m to American Exceptionalism Pac, a Super Pac supportive of failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.Rightwing tiesThe Guardian has previously reported on Klingenstein’s role as a financier and influencer in far-right circles.Last March, it was revealed that he had funded Action Idaho, a far-right political website set up by Boise State political science professor and Claremont Institute fellow Scott Yenor.In documents pitching the idea of the site during late 2021, Yenor wrote that the site’s goal was to “translate anti-critical-race-theory (anti-CRT) movement and anti-lockdown movements into a durable political movement to radicalize political opinion in Idaho and shape the primaries to the advantage of conservatives”.Yenor used the now defunct website and an associated account on Twitter/X to make rightwing attacks on Idaho politicians and activists, including Republicans.Last August, the Guardian reported on Klingenstein’s growing largesse including his donations to his own Pac, American Firebrand, whose funds were spent in part on producing a series of videos that showcased Klingenstein’s apocalyptic vision of US politics.Those videos portrayed liberals and the left as implacable internal enemies, and as “woke communists”.In one, Klingenstein said: “We find ourselves in a cold civil war,” and defined the warring sides as “those who want to preserve the American way of life, and those who want to destroy is”, and adding: “These differences are too large to bridge. This is what makes it a war. In a war you must play to win.”Klingenstein’s recent rhetoric has continued in much the same vein.On X, he has portrayed disparate political developments as elements of “cold civil war” such as Trump’s New York felony convictions, the Colorado supreme court’s judgement that Trump was ineligible to be on the ballot due to the 14th amendment’s prohibition on elected officials who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same”, and former Republicans’ public support of that reading of the amendment.He has also opened up his personal website to a rotating cast of rightwing writers, whose articles have claimed that the US is subject to “woke totalitarianism”, advocated for a total freeze on immigration, and claimed that Kamala Harris’s nomination is an outcome of “group quota regime – the paradigm of racial outcome-engineering”.He has also been the leading financial supporter of the rightwing Claremont Institute, where he also serves as chair.Available tax filings for his foundation, the Thomas D Klingenstein fund, indicate that he has directed at least $22m to Claremont since 2004.That giving has stepped up significantly in the Trump era: in returns from 2004 to 2014, Klingenstein gifted an average of about $307,000 to Claremont, and even skipped a year in 2013. In returns from 2015 on he has given an average of $2.3m, and in 2021 his donation to Claremont was just shy of $3m.His heightened giving has coincided with Claremont’s embrace of Trumpism, which writers including Laura Field have argued has transformed it from a respected conservative thinktank into a propaganda juggernaut that envisions a radical remaking of the US along far-right lines.The Guardian has reported extensively on the Claremont Institute’s ties to radical far-right politics.Claremont’s president is one of the senior figures there who are members of the shadowy Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), an exclusive, men-only fraternal order which aims to replace the US government with an authoritarian “aligned regime”. Claremont has also provided direct funding for SACR. In turn, one of SACR’s leading lights, shampoo tycoon and would be “warlord” Charles Haywood, has made five-figure donations to Claremont. More

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      Project 2025 ex-director denounces Heritage president’s ‘violent rhetoric’

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      The former director of Project 2025, a conservative plan to overhaul the US government, has blamed “violent rhetoric” from his former boss Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation thinktank, for the blueprint’s downgrading as Donald Trump has sought to publicly distance himself from it.Paul Dans, who resigned as head of the project in July after it threatened to become an electoral liability for Trump, said it was damaged after Roberts made inflammatory comments in a podcast that were widely interpreted as a veiled threat against leftwingers if they resisted an envisioned conservative takeover.In an interview with the Washington Post, Dans also called on Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, to withdraw a foreword he wrote for Roberts’s forthcoming book, which has been criticised for perceived violent undercurrents, partly due to its appeal to rightwingers to “load the muskets”.“If we’re going to ask the left to tone it down, we have to do our part as well,” Dans told the newspaper. “There’s no place for this sort of violent rhetoric and bellicose taunting, especially in light of the fact that President Trump has now been subject to not one but two assassination attempts.”Roberts made headlines in July when he told Dave Brat, a former Republican congressman who was presenting Steve Bannon’s podcast: “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”The comments intensified scrutiny on Project 2025, a 922-page policy document detailing plans for – among other things – the mass firing of thousands of civil servants and a drastic curtailment of reproductive rights. The project had been run, in collaboration with other thinktanks, under the Heritage Foundation’s auspices and the ultimate authority of Roberts.Trump subsequently sought to disown the project – in public at least – as the Democrats seized on Roberts’s remarks to highlight its most radical provisions and depict it as a roadmap for a second Trump presidency. The Republican nominee falsely claimed that he did not know its architects, even though many of them – including Dans – had served under him when he was US president.Dans said he warned Roberts against media interviews and provocative language and squarely blamed his comments for damaging the project and those who had worked on it.“There’s really no place for this level of rhetoric, let alone from the head of an august thinktank,” Dans said. “And by doing that, he’s essentially besmirched the professional reputations of everyone involved in Project 2025.”

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      Roberts has been criticised for using similarly strident terms in promoting his book, Dawn’s Early Light, whose original September publication date has been postponed until after next month’s presidential election.Its original subtitle, Burning Down Washington To Save America, has been watered down and its cover illustration of a lit match has been removed.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDans has also urged Vance – whose relationship with Roberts has undermined Trump’s efforts to dissociate himself from Project 2025 – to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation president by retracting the foreword he has written for his book.In it, Vance calls for a more aggressive conservative line of action, writing: “It’s fine to take a laissez-faire approach when you are in the safety of the sunshine. But when the twilight descends and you hear the wolves, you’ve got to circle the wagons and load the muskets.’A foundation spokesman, Noah Weinrich, dismissed Dans’ criticism and said Roberts’s podcast comments had been referring to the threat of leftwing violence.“Any attempt to mischaracterize Dr Roberts’s comments as supportive of violence is grotesque and completely contrary to the observation he was making,” he told the Post.Vance, whose links to the thinktank long predate his support for Trump, has not commented.Dans previously blamed Trump campaign officials for the downgrading of Project 2025’s status in the Republican nominee’s priority list. He singled out the campaign aides Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita for publicly denigrating the project in a September interview with the New York Times and said they had jeopardised Trump’s chances of beating Kamala Harris. More

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      ‘I am your retribution’: Trump’s radical plan to remake the presidency – podcast

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      By the time Donald Trump left the White House in January 2021, he was frustrated by the limits of his office. As Guardian US’s chief reporter, Ed Pilkington, explains to Michael Safi, Trump felt he had been held back as president not by the standard checks and balances of a democracy, but by a shadowy “deep state”. In the years since, he and his key advisers have come up with a plan to defeat it should he come to office again – a plan that would radically reshape the presidency and give Trump unprecedented power. How much would a Trump victory threaten US democracy, and what might still thwart his plans in office even if he wins? More

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      Trump appointees must prove ‘fidelity and loyalty’, says campaign official

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      A senior official on Donald Trump’s campaign has said any appointees in a second Trump administration would need to prove “fidelity and loyalty”.The official also sought to distance the former president from Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation plan calling for a far-right federal government in the event of a Trump victory at the voting polls in November.Howard Lutnick, the chief executive officer of Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald and co-chairperson of the former president’s transition team, told the Financial Times that appointees to any second Trump administration are “all going to be on the same side, and they’re all going to understand the policies, and we’re going to give people the role based on their capacity – and their fidelity and loyalty to the policy, as well as to” Trump.The comments come as the Trump team are trying to dispel concerns that a second Trump government would be as chaotic as the first, marked in part by infighting and a staff turnover calculated at 92% as of the day Joe Biden took office as president in 2021.“Those people were not pure to his vision,” Lutnick told the outlet.It is unlikely Lutnick’s comments will calm concerns among those who believe government officials should place American democracy above Trump or any other president.Lutnick joined Trump’s transition team in August along with Linda McMahon, the head of the Small Business Association under the former president and wife of the ex-World Wrestling Entertainment boss Vince McMahon in August.He maintained that Project 2025 was “radioactive”, though its authors openly support Trump and his running mate, JD Vance.“Project 2025 is an absolute zero for the Trump-Vance transition,” the billionaire said. “You can use another term – radioactive.”Democrats have made the controversial document part of their campaign, describing it as a blueprint for a fast-tracked program to increase presidential power and “strip away our freedoms – by forcing states to report on women’s miscarriages and abortions, cutting Social Security and Medicare, and eliminating the Department of Education”.While Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, Democrats’ campaigns for congressional seats have launched billboards in more than two dozen districts harnessing the document to the Republican agenda.“All of the data we have shows that Project 2025 just has huge interest and traction, more so than virtually every other issue,” Represenative Jared Huffman of California, the leader of a task force on countering the project’s agenda, told Axios.The Trump campaign has tried to distance itself from the document and its authors. But lines to the heart of the campaign are clear enough, among them Vance’s foreword to Dawn’s Early Light, a book by the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLutnick told the FT that his job selecting candidates to become Trump appointees was that of “a painter of a mosaic” – and they would need to prepare for a “fast and furious” term if the former president was re-elected.Lutnick said he had given more than $10m to Trump’s 2024 effort and another $500,000 for the transition. He also said he had raised about $75m for the campaign in total.Furthermore, Lutnick appeared on Trump’s The Celebrity Apprentice in 2008 and had previously donated to Democrats.His firm, Cantor FitzGerald, lost 658 employees in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, including his brother. Lutnick said his experience hiring new employees was akin to his work for the Trump transition team.“You go to world-class people that you rate highly, and you ask them to help you,” he said. More

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      If Trump wins the election, he could launch a ‘catastrophic’ rollback of LGBTQ+ rights

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      This is the first part of the standfirst This is the second part of the standfirst Headline what’s at stake?
      View image in fullscreenOne morning in February, 16-year-old Levi Hormuth took off school, his parents called out of work, and the three began a five and a half hour drive.The purpose of the 350-mile trip from their home in St Charles county, Missouri, to Chicago, Illinois, was a routine doctor’s appointment.Levi, a transgender boy, now 17 and in his final year of high school, had been a patient at the Washington University (WashU) Transgender Center since he was 13. The center, a short drive from home, had helped Levi in his transition, providing counseling and eventually hormone treatments at age 15. The testosterone had profoundly positive impacts, Levi and his parents said, helping him overcome significant mental distress stemming from his gender dysphoria.But in June 2023, Missouri’s Republican governor enacted a bill banning gender-affirming healthcare for youth under 18. The law had an exception for youth like Levi who were already accessing the care, but WashU, fearing legal liability, stopped prescribing medications to all trans youth.The best alternative for Levi and his family was to cross state lines.“The fact that I have to drive five hours both ways for treatment just shows our government in Missouri doesn’t care about things that are actually important,” Levi said one afternoon, sitting on his backyard deck with his parents in St Charles county, which is more conservative than neighboring St Louis county. “We have potholes galore that should be fixed, we have horrible crime rates. It’s enraging that they’re not focusing on what matters and listening to our voices.”View image in fullscreenThe stakes of the presidential election are enormous for people like Levi and the broader LGBTQ+ community.Donald Trump has promised aggressive attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, with a focus on trans youth, who have been a central target of the GOP’s culture war. The former president’s proposed “plan to protect children from left-wing gender insanity” includes ordering federal agencies to end all programs that “promote … gender transition at any age”; revoking funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to youth and subjecting them to US justice department investigations; punishing schools that affirm trans youth; and pushing a federal law stating the government doesn’t legally recognize trans people.Trump has also pledged to rescind federal LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination policies, which could mean a loss of protections in housing, healthcare, employment, education and a range of federal programs. He has promised new credentialing for teachers to “promote positive education about the nuclear family, the roles of mothers and fathers”. The Republican platform calls for advancing a “culture that values the sanctity of marriage”.Project 2025, the rightwing manifesto authored by Trump allies, is even more explicit, saying Biden-Harris pro-LGBTQ+ policies should be replaced by ones supporting the “formation of stable, married, nuclear families” and “heterosexual, intact marriage”. It says adoption agencies, healthcare workers and businesses should be able to reject LGBTQ+ people, and faith-based government contractors should be allowed to deny services to people who don’t fit “biblically based” definitions of marriage.Some legal scholars have warned that marriage equality, already endangered at the supreme court, could be further threatened under Trump, particularly if he gets the opportunity to appoint additional justices.View image in fullscreen“It is terrifying to think about our government actively, strategically and intentionally coming for our community in every aspect of our lives,” said Cathy Renna, communications director of the National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund, a national rights group. “These attempts to erase our community would have just absolutely devastating impacts.”‘It’s life and death’If elected, Trump is expected to weaponize the US government to authorize, encourage and mandate widespread anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination.In his first term, Trump banned trans people from the military, and Project 2025 calls for the policy’s reinstatement. The Republican presidential nominee is also likely to assert that employers’ “religious beliefs” provide a lawful justification for firing LGBTQ+ workers, either through an executive order or regulations, the ACLU recently warned.LGBTQ+ people could also be denied housing under a new Trump term, which could see a return to his efforts to exclude trans people from homeless shelters, said Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of Glaad: “Everything is at risk for us in the election – our workplace, our relationships, our families, our marriages, education, our housing.”Advocates fear Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ agenda would undo the Biden administration’s foster care regulations meant to ensure queer and trans youth are placed in supportive homes. Brandon Wolf, press secretary of the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ+ group, said that rollback would endanger kids’ lives, noting survey data suggesting half of trans and non-binary youth have considered suicide. He recalled being a teenager in Oregon when the state banned gay marriage and how that emboldened his classmates’ homophobia“It’s not easy to be a young person when your president is demeaning, demoralizing and dehumanizing members of your community,” Wolf said, “and Trump would be catastrophic”.View image in fullscreenProject 2025 further equates trans-inclusive reading materials to “pornography”, suggesting teachers and librarians should be imprisoned as sex offenders if they promote “transgender ideology”. This would probably require a law from Congress, but the push echoes GOP state bills across the country seeking to criminalize drag art and gender nonconformity. And Trump himself has increasingly spread blatant misinformation fearmongering about trans kids’ healthcare.Beyond explicit attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, advocates fear the politicization of federal public health agencies could impede critical research and HIV prevention efforts. “The support we get from the federal government, while it might not be enough, is what’s keeping some people alive,” said Dwayne Kwaysee Wright, a director of DEI initiatives at George Washington University. “So the stakes are no more than life or death.”Alexander Chen, founding director of Harvard Law’s LGBTQ+ advocacy clinic, who previously helped challenge the trans military ban, said a second Trump term could be “much more dangerous” than his first. As president, Trump introduced some of his most extreme policies in a chaotic, brash manner – including via tweets, with little thought to legality or implementation – resulting in successful court challenges. With support from conservative groups like Project 2025, Trump 2.0 could be significantly more strategic and effective if he returns to the White House.Kamala Harris has not released detailed LGBTQ+ rights policies, but her platform says she would fight to pass the Equality Act, which would enshrine LGBTQ+ protections into law. As a California prosecutor, she was an early champion of marriage equality, but had a mixed record on trans rights; she has since earned support from some prominent trans advocates and major LGBTQ+ groups.The ACLU has urged Harris to build on Biden’s legacy and fight to protect LGBTQ+ people from state attacks on their rights and expand access to trans healthcare in federal programs.A Trump spokesperson declined to comment on specific policies, and said in an email: “President Trump will implement policies that uplifts ALL Americans, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation.” The Harris campaign did not respond to inquiries.‘This could break me’Missouri, a national leader in anti-trans policy, offers a window into the hostile climate Trump and his allies seek to expand. It is one of 26 states that have restricted gender-affirming healthcare, affecting an estimated 118,300 trans kids ages 13 to 17.Studies have found that care is linked to improved mental health. But in recent years, there’s been a growing movement to criminalize those treatments for trans youth, pushed by the same groups promoting anti-abortion laws forcing patients to cross state lines for procedures.Sixteen Democratic-run states and Washington DC have pushed back, adopting “sanctuary” laws protecting gender-affirming care, according to Elana Redfield, federal policy director at UCLA’s Williams Institute. “There’s evidence it’s beneficial for trans people to get this care, so to have it rapidly restricted is likely very distressing,” she said.Levi, the St Charles teenager, was isolated and detached before he transitioned, his parents recalled. He didn’t want to go out in public. He’d have meltdowns and remain balled up in his closet. He struggled with self harm. Once he expressed his identity and the family met with experts who helped them understand gender dysphoria, “he came out of his shell and became a totally different person, a joyous person, a really fun kid,” said Becky Hormuth, his mother, who is a teacher. “It’s unimaginable to think he can be this joyous when the entire world is pretty much attacking his existence.”Kyle Hormuth, Levi’s father, who works in healthcare, said when it became clear gender-affirming treatment could help address his son’s suicidality, “we jumped right on board. I’ll support my children no matter what because I’d much rather have my child in my life than not in my life. I want my kids to live and thrive and be what they want to be.”After Missouri’s ban passed, Becky got Levi on a waitlist for a Chicago clinic, but for months it was unclear if he’d be accepted “That’s when I really started to spiral into a panic”, he recalled.She started rationing Levi’s treatments. It was a relief once they got into Chicago, but the travel was exhausting. Levi had to cross into Illinois again weeks after his first visit to do bloodwork, which was required to be done within the state.Losing access to testosterone wasn’t an option, Levi said, his eyes welling with tears: “After all of this holding myself together, that would probably be the thing that breaks me.” He said he recognized some people were uninformed about trans identities:. “People fear what they cannot understand.” But he was fed up with those in power unwilling to learn. “How am I supposed to talk to you if you aren’t going to listen?”Becky said the constant attacks on their rights had caused great anxiety. “When I’m at a store, I scan the room and wonder, are you a hateful person? Are you someone who thinks vile things about my family and the community I advocate for?”The Hormuths have considered leaving Missouri, but Levi wanted to stay in his school to support younger LGBTQ+ kids.Younger trans kids are particularly vulnerable if Trump is re-elected.William, an 11-year-old trans boy in St Louis, was adamant about his gender from a young age, said his mother, Marie, who asked to use their middle names to protect their privacy. Just before he turned seven, the two heard a radio segment about a trans woman who was killed, prompting her to explain anti-trans discrimination.“His takeaway was: ‘That is how I feel. I think I’m trans. Does that mean I’m going to get killed, too?’” Marie recalled. She was glad the conversation gave him language to express himself, but regretted the fear it instilled. Once he spoke openly about being a boy, the depression he’d been suffering dissipated. “He said, ‘I just feel so much better.’ He was bouncing off the walls like a balloon, so happy and free.”William had a supportive gender-affirming healthcare team, which was on track to prescribe puberty blockers after years of living as a boy – until the GOP criminalized this treatment. “It’s terrifying and extremely stressful,” said Marie, who eventually got William seen at a clinic in Peoria, Illinois, two and a half hours away. But that facility didn’t offer prescriptions he needed, forcing her to seek an appointment in Chicago. “I keep having to start all over,” said Marie.Seated with his mother outside the food business she runs one afternoon, William was cheerful, talking about how popular he was at summer camp, his love of sleepovers, his plans to swim with dolphins, his dreams of being a baseball announcer and how he chose his name based on his first crush. “It’s embarrassing but I was so young and mindless then,” he admitted.He said he didn’t mind the drive to Peoira, because his mom got him doughnuts. He knows they may have to go to Chicago next. “My mom’s gonna feel bad, so I’ll get to stay in a hotel and get snacks and movie night.”“We’ll do our best to make it fun,” added Marie.William’s message to lawmakers forcing him to go across state lines?“Trans people are just other humans,” he said. “If they put themselves in my shoes, they’d change their mind.” More