After the assassination attempt against former President Trump, which tragically resulted in the death of a rally attendee, Mukilteo Council President Louis Harris wrote on his Facebook page: “While Trump is a toxic person, there is no justification to kill him like what was attempted that day. What’s worse is his rhetoric caused one of his supporters to be killed. I have no sympathy for the man and won’t give him an inch of compassion.”
Harris explicitly blames Trump: “his rhetoric caused one of his supporters to be killed.”
It is shocking to blame Trump, who is one of the victims, for the death of another person.
Louis Harris is an elected official. Does he really want to set the precedent of blaming elected officials (current or former) when another person commits a terrible crime?
Why would Harris say such a shocking thing? My guess is that Harris, like many people, has an extremely distorted view of Trump.
What else could prompt Harris to say something so awful as that he has no sympathy or compassion for someone who just came within an inch of being assassinated?
If you have learned about Trump from the media—even from media sources that you might think are neutral, like NPR or AP—you, too, likely have a distorted view of Trump.
For example, do you think Trump said there are “fine people on both sides,” with the two sides being BLM protestors versus white supremacists and neo-Nazis? If you do, your media sources have lied to you.
Trump actually said there were fine people on both sides of the debate over whether to take down statues. In his comment, he explicitly said he was not talking about “neo-Nazis and white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally”—but dishonest media people and Democrat officials, including Joe Biden, have lied to you about this quote for years.
Another example: Do you think Trump said he will be a “dictator from day one”?
Again, you have been lied to. Trump actually joked that he wouldn’t be a dictator “other than day one,” in order to quickly undo terrible Biden policies regarding the open border and other things. In other words, Trump will issue executive orders to close the border, just as Biden issued executive orders in his early days to open it.
Do you think Trump threatened a “bloodbath” if he is not elected? Play the clip, and you will see he means it will cause an economic bloodbath for the auto industry—not that he is calling for his supporters to go out and kill people, as the media have been leading you to think.
I could go on and on with instances where media and the Democrats have lied about Trump.
I urge you to look up the full videos of these examples. Do not just watch a short clip. Watch enough (a few minutes), to get the context of the conversation and the tone Trump uses.
I grant that Trump can have an imprecise way of speaking that is simultaneously rambling and abbreviated, but when you watch a video of reasonable length, you can grasp what he means and the tone he is conveying.
You should be able to trust your media sources to be honest with you. They should not deliberately distort Trump’s meaning and intent the way they do.
Ask yourself: If they are lying to you about Trump, what else are they lying about?
If you have been misled about even one of the examples I cited, you should stop listening to that media source.
We know they’ve also lied about Joe Biden’s cognitive decline.
You are being manipulated. You deserve to know the truth, about our political candidates and about many issues facing us today.
Even after the assassination attempt aired live on TV, prominent media figures (among them Joy Reid of MSNBC) have suggested that it was staged. This is insane. A man was killed, and two other spectators were seriously injured.
Again, if the media is willing to advance a position so counter to known reality, ask yourself what else they are lying about.
I hope you will not, like Louis Harris, blame a political figure who is the victim in a terrible crime.
I hope you will not become so blinded by partisan hatred that you say you have no compassion for the victim of an attempted assassination, just because he is of the other political party.
I hope you will not continue to listen to media figures who have lied to you repeatedly.
Sharon Damoff, Mukilteo
Letter-to-Editor DISCLAIMER: The views and comments expressed are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the Lynnwood Times nor any of its affiliates.
Author: Lynnwood Times Staff
21 Responses
Sharon, what executive order did Biden sign “to open” the border? If you’ve been paying attention, Biden recently passed an executive order that “bars migrants who cross the Southern border unlawfully from receiving asylum”. This was something that Trump and many Republicans fought against, even though it’s exactly what they want, because their strategy is to blame Biden for a problem that has existed since Bush. Sharon, it sounds like you’re drinking a whole lot of the Kool-Aid yourself.
Within Biden’s first two weeks of taking office in 2021, he signed a series of executive orders undoing the policies Trump had established at the border, including “remain in Mexico” (which meant migrants had to stay in Mexico until their cases were heard), halting construction of the border wall, and other things. Biden repeatedly bragged about undoing Trump’s policies that had closed the border and slowed illegal crossings. As soon as word got out about Biden’s executive orders opening the border, migrants started flooding in. It is impossible to know how many people Biden’s open border allowed in, but it’s around 15-20 million, the majority military-age men.
Of course, the media tried to cover for Biden—and again, if this is the first you are hearing about Biden’s open border for the last 3.5 years, you really need different news sources. It was only when the election was drawing near, and Biden was feeling the political pressure, that he signed his recent proclamation (June 4) making a show of closing the border—which was his admission that the border had been open all along, and he could have done something about it all along.
Republicans didn’t fight this proclamation—what they had objected to was a proposed bill that would have codified letting in 5,000 migrants per day, plus funded lots more agents to process people in—not strengthen the border to keep unvetted people out.
If you were not aware of Biden’s executive orders in Jan/Feb 2021 and the disastrous effects they’ve had on our country, it’s pretty clear you have not learned the truth from your media sources, and you need better sources.
Immigration of unvetted people on the scale Biden has allowed for the last 3.5 years is what is putting pressure on housing—making it less available and more expensive—and harming American workers. It has also contributed to a wave of rapes and murders across the country. It is the main reason for the fentanyl epidemic that is killing something like 100,000 Americans a year.
I am all for measured, legal immigration, but Biden’s open border policy has been disastrous, and we will be feeling the terrible effects of it for a long time. Just to mention housing: the Washington birth rate is below replacement rate. The US birth rate is below replacement rate. So why is housing so scarce and expensive? Why are we being told we have to plan for so much growth? It’s because of all the illegal immigration.
“Trump actually said there were fine people on both sides of the debate over whether to take down statues. In his comment, he explicitly said he was not talking about “neo-Nazis and white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally”—but dishonest media people and Democrat officials, including Joe Biden, have lied to you about this quote for years.”
No they haven’t. We just understand that quote differently. The history and purpose of statues of confederates is well-documented. https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/8/18/16165160/confederate-monuments-history-charlottesville-white-supremacy
If you rightly believe that someone who is against removing the statues of racist, traitors (you cannot argue that Confederates are not either of those) is intrinsically a white nationalist or *supports* white nationalism (this is the “heritage” argument), then “Fine people on both sides…but I’m not counting the nazis and white nationalists” sounds like nonsense. Who is actually on the other side then? Just the white nationalist enablers. Those aren’t fine people in my or many peoples opinion.
Now ask yourself this question… why do neo-nazis and white nationalists love Trump? That’s the deeper question. Ask why you’re standing shoulder to shoulder with them for this man.
Also…. You cannot with a straight face type this…
“I grant that Trump can have an imprecise way of speaking that is simultaneously rambling and abbreviated, but when you watch a video of reasonable length, you can grasp what he means and the tone he is conveying.”
And then a few lines later type this….
“We know they’ve also lied about Joe Biden’s cognitive decline.”
Trump exhibits the same “cognitive decline” and has for far longer, but you will make excuses for Trump.
Please watch Biden’s honest speech after the debates and then try to tell me he has “cognitive” decline. https://youtu.be/MGOp1mJfa1I
I could literally pick any Trump speech and find long sections where he rambles. You just have been a frog in boiling water for so long you can’t or won’t see the truth.
https://newrepublic.com/post/182792/cognitive-decline-trump-fumbling-rambling-speech
Regarding the border…..
Mitt Romney (a Republican mind you) on Trump’s putting his election before the border security you are obsessed with.
https://youtu.be/6wmxbJFbD_A?si=jcs4bzvciCZNKeJ5
Here’s how to really understand where a candidate stands/acts on an issue. Find a political action group on the far side of a subject, be it left or right (climate change, gun rights, health care) and see how they feel about the candidate. You think Biden has created open borders and is soft on immigration? Immigration activitists–people actually calling for open borders– DO NOT LIKE Biden. They think there is little difference between Trump and Biden’s actual policies and methods. That should tell you something…
People want to try to pretend that political violence is unhead of in America…. but it’s not. Gabby Giffords, Steve Scalise, Paul Pelosi… (which Trump made jokes about https://youtu.be/DR7LHOfSA_k?si=B53E0q-LpFk4FhSc).
It’s terrible but you need to understand… “You don’t have to show empathy for a person who has devoted their political career to attacking your friends and family.”
People seem to forget that ALL of us are related to immigrants…remember that the Indians we the original owners of the United States until our ancestors decided to take it upon themselves to board a ship from their country and come to a another (uninvited) and take over…so they were the immigrants!
As I said, I’m all for legal immigration. But 15+ (20?) million people in three years swamps everything. Biden has let in enough people to be the fifth most populous state. Washington has only 7.8 million people–so Biden has let in double our population. And they are unvetted. Other countries, like Venezuela, are basically emptying their prisons and sending them here. There is case after case where a young woman is raped and murdered. And it is certain that terrorists are among the people who have come in. Even if only half a percent of the people who have come in intend us ill, that would still be 75,000 to 100,000 people. The open border has also allowed in fentanyl that is killing Americans. Have your news sources been telling you about this open border, or have they been repeating Mayorkas’s lie that the border is secure?
Who is being lied to Sharon?
Your numbers don’t really make sense.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-03-20/illegal-us-border-crossings-aren-t-really-breaking-records
The point is: millions of unvetted people are coming in every year. They are swamping our system, diverting resources from American children (whose gyms and rec centers are turned into shelters), American vets (who are sleeping on the street while illegal migrants are housed in Manhattan hotels), and American students and hospital patients. They are putting enormous pressure on the housing supply. They are committing terrible crimes. And if even a fraction of them are terrorists, as is likely, we are facing terror attacks.
The opinion article you cited wants to manipulate the numbers with models–but the truth remains what the opening sentence of the article says: “The number of people who are apprehended by US Border Patrol agents or voluntarily surrender to them at or near the border with Mexico has skyrocketed recently, setting records in each of the past three fiscal years — and exceeding last year’s numbers in each of the first four months of the fiscal year that started in October.” We are being swamped with unvetted people.
You are splitting hairs on this one. No other country allows the unmitigated invasion of their borders by Military or Migrants. This is about buying votes, pure and simple.
It’s despressing that facts are “splitting hairs” to people who are so wrapped up in the lies.
Michael, I notice you don’t address the point of my letter, which is the massive lies the media tells about Trump.
In addition to the ones I already mentioned, they lied for years that he colluded with Russia. He didn’t–but they repeated it so often, many people still wrongly believe it.
They said he said to inject (or drink) bleach. He didn’t–but again, many people still believe it.
The media should be telling the public the truth about our elected officials and candidates. Instead, the legacy media colluded with big tech (Facebook, old Twitter), intelligence officials (51 former members who signed the letter), and the Democrat party to suppress the truth about Biden’s corruption as revealed by Hunter’s laptop. That was hugely significant info the public should have known before the 2020 election, but they suppressed it. The Biden family has 20-something shell companies set up to funnel in money from foreign countries. Even one of Biden’s granddaughters got a check. Utter corruption.
The media–and Kamala–have lied to us for years about Biden’s mental incapacity. Kamala actively lied to the American people.
I just want to encourage people to read news from multiple sources. Even sources that people think of as being neutral–such as NBC, NPR, AP–are not neutral. If you are a Democrat, read sources on the right, just so you hear the other side.
You are very very selective in your “evidence” and outrage about lies.
You also seem to be blind to how you have been lied to by what you consider news sources.
“In addition to the ones I already mentioned, they lied for years that he colluded with Russia. He didn’t–but they repeated it so often, many people still wrongly believe it.”
They didn’t lie. They reported on an ongoing story. As is often the case, once the truth comes out, most people have moved on. And a reminder, the end of that story was that Russia DID act to support the Trump campaign but it was never proved that actual coordination occured.
You then go on to repeat the lie that “Hunter’s laptop” showed some grand corruption….when it didn’t. You are the victim of believing and repeating lies..while chasting people for the same thing.
https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/national-verify/hunter-bidens-laptop-what-we-can-verify/536-a41c9f05-c548-4681-a0be-a01fcc75b59d
And please read this breakdown on how the “20 shell companies” story from Republicans is. disngenious at best and outright lies in other respects. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/116415/documents/HHRG-118-GO00-20230928-SD045.pdf
Regarding the bleach thing…. Yes, overblown. You’re seeing media shorthand that gets bolstered by social media.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52407177
This is largely because…. what the president says MATTERS. Whether he actually was suggesting disinfectant be used internally or was “being sarcastic” as he later claimed. It was a glaring example of how embarassing he was as a leader.
You have drunk the kool-aid, you have joined the herd, you have abandoned all autonomy to follow a felon, a conman, a liar…. not worth a tub of used grease.
Stop blaming the media, immigrants, Democrats, etc etc…
You tell me to look at right wing news? Did you look at any of the articles or videos I responded with?
Thank You Sharon Damoff for your letter. I agree and support you trying alert folks to checkout other media sources and do some fact finding. The media has lied to the American people about many things. Sharon provided just a few examples of how they lie about Trump. I’m just saying think and really do some fact finding.
I can’t believe anyone would blame former President Trump’s rhetoric for Corey Comperatore loss of life and the injuring of two others. Trump was a victim of this crime!
This breech in security should alarm any political candidate no matter the party.
Janie Gracom
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More importantly, it should be noted that it has been documented that Trump himself has told thousands of lies. Who is really the one misleading?
Trump’s “lies” are directionally true. They are a salesman’s exaggerations: “the best this,” “the most beautiful that,” “no one has seen anything like it,” etc.
Biden’s and Harris’s lies (and the media who lie to protect them) are things that are not true. Just look at the three examples I cited in the original letter. Dem officials and media figures have repeated these over and over.
Today, Dems and the media were trying to say Kamala was never border czar, even though there is video of Biden assigning her that task and video of her discussing her border efforts. They’ll have fresh new lies in the coming days.
Kamala and the media have lied for at least a couple of years in saying that Joe is cognitively fine, when he obviously was not. Everyone could see this at the June debate–but if you had decent news sources, you would have known that already.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/list/?category&ruling=false&speaker=donald-trump
Just a couple from the list:
The gag order prevented him from testifying in his recent trial. Not true
Democrats want to allow abortions even AFTER BIRTH. Not true
The election was rigged! No evidence
I get it. You think Trump is misunderstood.
He’s a convicted felon.
Thank you Louis for speaking the truth.
Off the top of my head, I don’t know about the gag order assertion, so I won’t address it, but I do know about the other two claims you make.
1. Letting a baby die after birth: Former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (Dem) did indeed talk about making a decision about the fate of a baby after it is born. No state currently allows it, but a prominent Dem governor discussed that possibility. And there really is no moral difference between killing a baby the day before it is born or killing it shortly after birth.
2. As I mentioned in a comment above, the 2020 election unquestionably was rigged when the NY Post broke their story in Oct 2020 about Joe Biden’s utter corruption revealed by Hunter’s laptop, and major media outlets, social media platforms (FB, old Twitter, etc), members of the intelligence community, and prominent figures all colluded to suppress that true and hugely significant info from the American public. The FBI had had Hunter’s laptop for 10 months at that point and knew it was genuine, but they just suppressed it. Then 51 former intell people signed a letter saying the laptop had all the hallmarks of Russian disinfo–when they knew it was genuine. That letter was organized by Anthony Blinken, who got rewarded with a Sec of State position. The NY Post was locked out of their Twitter account for 2 weeks right before the election. People on social media who tried to talk about it had posts deleted. It was a major and coordinated suppression campaign. The issue with Hunter’s laptop wasn’t all his drug use and sex antics–the issue was that the laptop revealed Joe had been taking money from foreign governments for years. Joe has been beholden to China, our enemy, his entire presidency. The American people should have known Joe had been bought by China–and they would have, before the election, if there had not been that major coordinated effort to suppress the truth. So, no, the 2020 election was not fair–even aside from any questions about ballot dumps in the middle of the night.
About Trump being a convicted felon: It is shameful how the Democrats have weaponized the courts against a political opponent. The 34 felony counts should have been–if anything–1 misdemeanor that was well past the statute of limitations. There is no other instance of any other person being charged as Trump was for a similar bookkeeping entry. The Dems did that just because they hate him and fear he will win. Talk about a threat to democracy.
I do not think Trump is “misunderstood,” as you claim I think–I think he is unfairly prosecuted by Democrats who will stoop to anything to keep power.
Trump was not my preferred R candidate, but the lies being told about him by Dems and the media, the efforts to twist laws to keep him off the ballot or to imprison him, and now the effort to outright kill him are all the true threat to democracy and to stability in the US.
Convenient to not know about the gag order lie.
Governor Northam is a pediatric and if you listen to the entire statement, it was taken out of context and did not call for after birth abortions. He’s also ONE guy and Trump has twisted it to lie about the stance of the entire democrat party.
THAT’S another lie.
I would suggest you look twice at your sources because it’s very obvious by all of your statements that you likely are only listening to the likes of Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens and Alex Jones.
We all are entitled to our educated opinions. Do not suggest that yours are the only correct ones.
Karen, please don’t make accusations about me based only on your own wrong assumptions. I don’t listen to Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens, or Alex Jones at all. Also how convenient that no one, including you, has addressed the main point of my letter, which is that the media and Dems repeatedly lie about Trump. The original letter debunks three of the biggest lies repeatedly told about Trump (fine people, dictator from day one, and bloodbath). You also didn’t address the other two major lies I mentioned–the Russia collusion hoax, and the inject bleach hoax. These are just some of the most-repeated lies. In fact, Biden cited the fine people hoax as his reason for running–what a joke.
So you have failed to address those significant *facts,* not my opinions, because you can’t.
As I said, there is no moral difference between killing a baby the day before it is born or right after birth (they both are evil), and plenty of Dems (including, I *believe,* Kamala) want to allow abortion through the ninth month. So again, Trump is directionally correct. Abortion was the main thing the Dems ran on in 2022, and Kamala is pushing it heavily now.
I haven’t had time to look up the gag order. I notice you didn’t explain it. But the very fact that Trump was put under any sort of gag order in his cases is shocking. On the bookkeeping case, Michael Cohen and many other people were out there tainting the jury pool and public opinion, while Trump was not allowed to speak about the corrupt judge (whose daughter was making millions). Gag orders are usually to protect the person on trial–but as with so much of the lawfare against Trump, in his cases prosecutors and judges twist the law against him in ways it is not used against anyone else.
Fair-minded people should be shocked at how much our media have become the propaganda arm for one party and at how much the Dem party is weaponizing the law against a political opponent.
Hillary and Biden had far worse classified document issues, and nothing happened to them. Meanwhile, the DOJ/FBI planted/staged evidence to make Trump look worse.
They accused Trump of colluding with Russia, when it was Hillary who colluded with a foreigner, the DOJ/FBI, and the media to lie about Trump and concoct and spread the Steele dossier, when they all knew it was fake. Adam Schiff lied to the American people for years that he had seen evidence in classified briefings–when he hadn’t seen any evidence, because there wasn’t any. The FBI knew it was all a lie and didn’t speak up.
Meanwhile, the Biden family has been accepting bribes-for-access for decades. Biden was bought by China. His corruption was revealed on Hunter’s laptop, which the FBI suppressed before the 2020 election. They had the laptop for 10 months before the election and tried to suppress it.
You conveniently ignore all these *huge* issues–you just whine that Trump overstated the abortion issue.
I wish Trump were more precise in his speaking, but a far worse problem is the corrupt media and Justice Dept.
Ok, I read about the gag order. Trump misspoke and said it prevented him from testifying. What he meant was it prevented him from answering people outside of court who said things about him all over the media. He issued a statement correcting what he said the next day. So he misspoke, and quickly corrected himself. Meanwhile, the media and Dems lie daily about him.
These are all facts. You cannot pretend anymore that this election isn’t Rule of Law versus Rule.
July 30, 2024 (Tuesday)
On Friday, speaking to Christians at the Turning Point Action Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump begged the members of the audience to “vote. Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what: it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine…. In four years, you don’t have to vote again, we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”
The comment drew a lot of attention, and on Monday, Fox News Channel personality Laura Ingraham gave him a chance to walk the statement back. Instead, he said: “I said, vote for me, you’re not going to have to do it ever again. It’s true.” “Don’t worry about the future. You have to vote on November 5. After that, you don’t have to worry about voting anymore. I don’t care, because we’re going to fix it. The country will be fixed and we won’t even need your vote anymore, because frankly we will have such love, if you don’t want to vote anymore, that’s OK.”
Trump’s refusal to disavow the idea that putting him back into power will mean the end of a need for elections is chilling and must be viewed against the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s July 1, 2024, decision in Donald J. Trump v. United States. In that decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court’s right-wing majority said that presidents cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of a president’s “official duties” and that presidents should have a presumption of immunity for other presidential actions.
Roberts defends the idea of a strong executive and has fought against the expansion of voting rights made possible by the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The idea that it is dangerous to permit minorities and women to vote suggests that there are certain people who should run the country. That tracks with a recently unearthed video in which Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance calls childless people “psychotic” and “deranged,” and refers unselfconsciously to “America’s leadership class.”
The idea that democracy must be overturned in order to enable a small group of leaders to restore virtue to a nation is at the center of the “illiberal democracy” or “Christian democracy” championed by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán. Orbán’s imposition of an authoritarian Christian nationalism on a former democracy, in turn, has inspired the far-right figures that are currently in charge of the Republican Party. As Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts put it: “Modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft but the model.”
Roberts has called for “institutionalizing Trumpism” and pulled together dozens of right-wing institutions behind the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 to create a blueprint for a second Trump term. Those who created Project 2025 are closely connected to the Trump team, and Trump praised its creators and its ideas.
Today, The New Republic published the foreword Vance wrote for Roberts’s forthcoming book. Vance makes it clear he sees Roberts and himself as working together to create “a fundamentally Christian view of culture and economics.” Like others on the Christian right, Vance argues that “the Left” has captured the country’s institutions and that those institutions must be uprooted and those in them replaced with right-wing Christians in order to restore what they see—inaccurately—as traditional America.
That determination to disrupt American institutions fits neatly with the technology entrepreneurs who seem to believe that they are the ones who should control the nation’s future. Vance is backed by Silicon Valley libertarian Peter Thiel, who put more than $10 million behind Vance’s election to the Senate. In 2009, Thiel wrote “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
“The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics,” he wrote. “Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.”
Thiel set Vance up to invest in companies that made him wealthy and touted Vance for the vice presidential slot, and in turn, the Silicon Valley set are expecting Vance to help get rid of the regulation imposed by the Biden administration and to push cryptocurrency. Trump appears to be getting on board with comments about how the tech donors are “geniuses,” praising investor Elon Musk and saying, “We have to make life good for our smart people.” In a piece that came out Sunday, Washington Post reporters Elizabeth Dwoskin, Cat Zakrzewski, Nitasha Tiku, and Josh Dawsey credited the influence of Thiel and other tech leaders for turning Vance from a Never-Trumper to a MAGA Republican.
Judd Legum of Popular Information reported today that the cryptocurrency industry is investing heavily in the 2024 election, with its main super PAC raising $202 million in this cycle. Three large cryptocurrency companies are investing about $150 million in pro-crypto congressional candidates.
On Saturday, Trump said he would make the U.S. “the crypto capital of the planet and the Bitcoin superpower of the world.” He promised to end regulations on cryptocurrency, which, because it is not overseen by governments, is prone to use by criminals and rogue states. That regulation is “a part of a much larger pattern that’s being carried out by the same left-wing fascists to weaponize government against any threat to their power,” Trump said. “They’ve done it to me.”
But the problem that those trying to get rid of the modern administrative state continue to run up against is that voters actually like a government that regulates business, provides a basic social safety net, promotes infrastructure, and protects civil rights. In recent days, Minnesota governor Tim Walz has been articulating how popular that government is as he makes the television rounds.
On Sunday, CNN’s Jake Tapper listed some of Walz’s policies—he passed background checks for guns, expanded LGBTQ protections, instituted free breakfast and lunch for school kids—and asked if they made Walz vulnerable to Trump calling him a “big government liberal.” Walz joked that he was, indeed, a “monster.”
“Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can go learn, and women are making their own health care decisions, and we’re a top five business state, and we also rank in the top three of happiness…. The fact of the matter is,” where Democratic policies are implemented, “quality of life is higher, the economies are better…educational attainment is better. So yeah, my kids are going to eat here, and you’re going to have a chance to go to college, and you’re going to have an opportunity to live where we’re working on reducing carbon emissions. Oh, and by the way, you’re going to have personal incomes that are higher, and you’re going to have health insurance. So if that’s where they want to label me, I’m more than happy to take the label.”
The extremes of Project 2025 have made it clear that the Republicans intend to destroy the kind of government Walz is defending and replace it with an authoritarian president imposing Christian nationalism. And when Americans hear what’s in Project 2025, they overwhelmingly oppose it. Trump has tried without success to distance himself from the document.
He and his team have also hammered on the Heritage Foundation for their public revelations of their plans, and today the director of Project 2025, Paul Dans, stepped down. The Trump campaign issued a statement reiterating—in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary—that Trump had nothing to do with Project 2025 and adding: “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should service as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign—it will not end well for you.”
The Harris campaign responded to the news by saying that “Project 2025 is on the ballot because Donald Trump is on the ballot. This is his agenda, written by his allies, for Donald Trump to inflict on our country. Hiding the 920-page blueprint from the American people doesn’t make it less real—in fact, it should make voters more concerned about what else Trump and his allies are hiding.”
The reasoning behind the idea of a strong executive, or a “leadership class” that does not have to answer to voters, is that an extremist minority needs to take control of the American government away from the American people because the majority doesn’t like the policies the extremists want.
When Trump begs right-wing Christians to turn out for just one more election, he is promising that if only we will put him into the White House once and for all, we will never again have to worry about having a say in our government. As Trump put it: “The country will be fixed and we won’t even need your vote anymore.”