This will be my last post regarding Project 2025. I wish I could continue to blog through it, but I am ready to focus my attention for this blog elsewhere. With P2025, I am finding that chapter after chapter, essay after essay, I am seeing the same pattern. The document has the potential to offer tremendous insights into important and ongoing conversations about how to shape our government in an ever-changing world. To that extent, there is a lot to learn from P2025. On the other hand, the shape of the document is not at all conducive to being part of an ongoing conversation. It is too devoted to a single vision, as if any benefit here can only be helpful to conservatism. To wit, consider opening words of the essay on the “Intelligence Community” by Dustin J. Carmack. It begins with this “mission statement”:
“To arm a future incoming conservative President with the knowledge and tools necessary to fortify the United States Intelligence Community; to defend against all foreign enemies and ensure the security and prosperity of our sovereign nation, devoid of all political motivations; and to maintain constitutional civil liberties” (p. 201.)
I suppose that this “mission statement” is meant to describe the mission of this chapter, and not the Intelligence Community [IC] itself, since it is directed specifically to an incoming conservative President. After reading further, my thought was that some of the arguments here would benefit a future President who is not conservative. So why – this is a serious question – why is the “mission” of this chapter to arm a conservative President? What is the disposition of this chapter if the next President is not conservative? What of future Presidents that may not be conservative? Do any of the arguments here apply outside of a specific political perspective? And how does that narrow focus at the beginning of the mission statement cohere with the phrase that follows, “devoid of all political motivations”? If the mission of a plan to create an apolitical apparatus is itself professedly political, is it not manifestly hypocritical?
If the context of the other essays in P2025 shows us anything, it is that the phrase, “devoid of all political motivations” is meant to suggest that the current iteration of the Intelligence Community is too politically motivated, or is too motivated by the wrong politics. And, true to form, here it is on p.204, “Finally, the future IC leadership must address the widely promoted ‘woke’ culture that has spread throughout the federal government with identity politics and ‘social justice’ advocacy replacing such traditional American values as patriotism, colorblindness, and even workplace competence.” But wait, there’s more. On p. 212 Carmack has a section entitled “Preventing the Abuse of Intelligence for Partisan Purposes.” And here is a glimpse at how the IC can practice its political neutrality: “rectify the damage done by the actions of former IC leaders and personnel regarding the claims of Trump-Russia collusion following the 2016 elections and the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop investigation and media revelations of its existence during the 2020 election.” This rank politically partisan operating instruction flies in the face of Carmack’s earlier pseudo-neutrality when he envisioned an IC “devoid of all political motivations.”
On p. 213, Carmack begins a bullet-pointed list of norms and virtues that would help restore the integrity of the IC. It begins with clearing house and removing some personnel, goes on to look into past politicizations and abuses, and suggest ways to prevent current and past personnel from speaking to the press without authorization. Carmack also has a number of arguments for stricter controls over how IC information is gathered, shared, and processed for critical use. Again, much of this information seems insightful and very consequential for the work of the IC. But, also again, it is highly politicized in it entire orientation. If the issues described here are integral to the IC itself, why must it be cast specifically for a conservative administration? When it is pointed in that direction, it seems that the warnings and processes for silencing whistle-blowers are all about protecting certain points of view while highlighting others. Isn’t that exactly the kind of partisanship that Carmack’s phrase “devoid of all political motivations” intends to avoid?
In the end, reading this chapter makes me envision a future conservative administration that re-centers Hunter Biden's laptop, dismisses Russian election interference concerns, and goes on a witch hunt against personnel deemed too “woke” and attentive to “social justice” (remember when Glenn Beck tried to make “social justice” a bad thing?). In doing so, I wonder how the IC would benefit from such a blatant radical reorientation smothered with the pretense of being patriotic and non-political. It would be a perfect tool for a president who wants to spend more energy seeking revenge over past grievances than facing a world of current challenges.
Final note: There is an author’s note concluding this chapter that says it is a collective work and therefore no statement, recommendation or view expressed should be attributed to a particular contributor. With respect to that, please read my previous remarks about “Carmack” to mean “Carmack and his collaborators.”
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