Summary
Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and architect of Trump’s Project 2025, employs intense fire-related rhetoric in his upcoming book, Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America, advocating for a “controlled burn” of institutions he deems corrupt or antithetical to conservative goals.
Roberts calls for dismantling entities like the FBI, Ivy League schools, and the New York Times, framing it as necessary to “renew” America.
His incendiary language has sparked controversy, with critics alarmed by the violent imagery and its implications for Trump’s second term.
My personal reaction to reading this is that I want to pick up the book just to better understand what he believes these conservatives values are. Then I realized this is like trying to understand why Hitler wanted to gas the Jews.
What’s more important is why the fuck Americans are democratically voting for this. I’m going to venture to guess (and hope) that the majority of people who voted for Trump have no clue what they voted for. I’d like to hope that teachers are going to use this moment in time to perfectly frame it along with the rise of Nazi Germany but I know that Trump also intends on burning down the DoE. Teachers will be prevented from using history to educate students.
Incidentally, I’m already exhausted by all the “news” being made about why the Dems lost and Trump prevailed. We have to be discussing why our media and our existing elected officials are all ignoring the plight of middle class Americans while failing, as they have always done, to educate people.
I remember as a kid hearing presidential debates and getting aggravated that the politicians weren’t answering questions. And then in interviews and news reports a topic will be discussed but the contexts and ramifications of that topic are often left out (time constraints, etc). Quick example; why Biden sent arms to Israel has as much, if not more, to do with Iran as it does Gaza. WHY is never explained in political discourse and the media never pressures or holds officials accountable. I am terrified of what Trump will do to our already squeamish journalism community.
I still blame the media for Trump’s 2016 win and I’m blaming them again today. People are clueless. Not to say they’re unintelligent, they are uneducated regarding politics and history.
People are all in their own bubbles living their day to day lives and occasionally see headlines on their mobile apps. They’re subtly influenced, sometimes by the news media but I’d venture to guess equality often by the efforts of Russian, Iranian, and Chinese disinformation armies.
Moreover, this far from a new issue. I was just reading and commented on a story about Musk being the most powerful unelected citizen in America. This reminded me a bit of the guy Citizen Cane was based off of. William Randolph Hearst owned a sprawling media company and used his influence to publish articles that were favorable to Nazis.
How are we not only allowing this but voting in favor of it?
Something is broken. It’s not the political parties. It’s evidently not the electoral college. Schools have always taught about WWII so it’s not our education system. It could be the two party first-past-the post voting system. It could be how election campaigns are financed.
I think we’re distracted. I think there’s too much going on in modern lives. Too many Americans are struggling to get by while also using every moment of free time to disengage. There’s basic government and economic policies and norms that people are clueless about. Take drilling for oil: most Americans think that if we drill for more oil our gas prices will go down. That’s not at all true. This will only increase profits for the oil companies because, while the US actually produces more oil than any other country, we lack the infrastructure to refine the oil we have. Honestly, I only learned about that this week. Not to mention the whole tariff thing that republicans are clueless about. Above all else, I’m terrified that Trump’s presidency is going to bankrupt Americans.
As this article alludes to, Americans should know that the GOP agenda is to dismantle federal agencies and replace them with private corporations. Some agencies and services will go to the states while others will become Wall Street funded corporations. Theoretically, federal taxes should decrease but state and homeowner taxes are going to sky rocket. The costs of goods and services is going to sky rocket while the quality plummets over time. This has been in the playbook since before Reagan got into office. Now they have the momentum, the votes, and the stooge in the White House to make it happen.
Don’t be distracted as the stock market goes to the moon. This is their agenda – to make themselves richer on the backs of clueless Americans.
Your point about the debate thing is really what gets me. They ask a question and the person on the other end might be close to the answer or they might give some vague response but the moderators are always gutless about it.
“I asked you this question, answer it or we will assume you have no answer and move on.”
In an ideal world, dodging questions would lead to decreased popularity. Politicians should feel that if they give bullshit answers, they will not get elected. To get there, we must actually demand, reward, and punish with the power we have, our votes. Of course, one person doing it makes no difference. We need to convince others that this is important.
Shock collars during interviews would be entertaining and help keep people on topic
This is the kind of stuff that makes me turn on or at least waiver on the candidates I fully support. These interviewers are asking question on behalf to he public - the people you intend to represent. Answer them!
Great comment, I share many of those concerns.
I guess I’m not so worried that he will bankrupt America per se, but that the US dollar will be diminished in value, and all of the effort, savings and social security that we’re all banking on in the future become nearly worthless, while billionaires plunder our country and continue to reap value in spite of the worthlessness.
I’m also concerned Trump is going to die mid-term, and Vance will be running as a better positioned incumbent.
The supreme court, well, that’s just a lost cause at this point. I don’t see it ever coming back into balance in my lifetime, and perhaps the country goes with it.
I welcome a Vance presidency. What has made Trump Trump is his stubbornness and defiance of “no”. He’s the kind of guy who comes into a meeting says, this is what we’re doing, make it happen or you’re fired, and walks out. This is the same playbook people like Jobs and Musk use(d). Vance lacks this gift and I fully expect Trump’s supporters to turn on him.
It’s definitely not not our education system
You can’t really point at today’s education system and use it to blame Americans.
People who voted for Trump:
65+: 51%
45-64: 52%
30-44: 47%
18-29: 46%
Our public education system has been abysmal compared to other “first world countries” and we should all be embarrassed.
This has been part of the GOP agenda for decades though. The public schools keep getting worse and subtly foster anti-intellectualism in favor or memorization while the private and higher education schools flourish. The GOP wants to abolish the department of education and replace it with either state run education and/or private corporate owned education.
“Education” is not in the constitution so with a conservative Supreme Court, it’s very likely we will see the DoE go away. Bear in mind that the DoE was only just created under Carter and Reagan campaigned on getting rid of it.
And, as teachers start getting wind of this and realizing what the future may hold for them, they’re going jump ship. Any hope we have of progressing as a country and competing with other countries is gone. This nation will be run by a handful of corporations paying crap wages to non-union workers without the benefit of social security or pensions.
The writing has been on the wall for a hundred years. We’ve laughed at it, maybe pondered it, but never took it seriously. All the dystopian novels that have been written are about to come true.