P 2025, the Aug. 29 edition

Last week I began looking at Richard Dearborn’s essay on “The White House Office.” It offers an interesting overview of the roles of many governmental positions that one hears about in passing but may know nothing about in particular. From Dearborn’s position as the Deputy Chief of Staff in the Trump administration, he knows well what it is that these persons in these roles do. This essay could be a helpful introduction to Washington curious, but it does come with an agenda. As I pointed out last week, by naming loyalty to the president and the Constitution as the primary credential for the While House Counsel (p.28), Dearborn skirts one of the more obvious challenges of the Trump administration – when loyalty to the president means disloyalty to the constitution. Just ask former Vice President Pence, whose constitutional role presiding over the Senate was not in service to or answerable to the Executive branch of government. Still he was deemed disloyal for doing his constitutional duty and not doing President Trump’s bidding. 

Much of Dearborn’s essay sounds descriptive, but it is evident that it also has an agenda as part of a larger section called “Taking the Reins of Government.” When Dearborn writes about the work of the White House Communications Director, he helpfully describes the need for this Director to be informed of the breadth of White House activities, as well as having quick-minded skills to fend off or redirect questions, even rebutting the presumptions behind a question, in order to stay on message. To be fair, it strikes me that Communications Directors of every political stripe at every political level face the challenge of whether they are communicating the truth per se, the truth as the know it, or the truth that their office wants communicated. 

The context to keep in mind here is the role of the free press in the US and the extent to which a politician, elected by and for the people, is accountable to it. Particularly in a day when social media enables virtually anyone to publicize claims that may or may not be true, a free press is recognized as a necessary safeguard against political hubris that disguises itself in savvy press releases. At the same time, news media in the US are not perfect, are often driven by economic necessity, and one must recognize the perspectival nature of any news source. News media are both necessary and need to be highly scrutinized. One way that press associations have tried to ensure some level of accountability for their work has been through the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA), known chiefly through questions raised in the White House briefing room or aboard Air Force One, as well as by the WHCA dinner each year, where barbs and teasing flies back and forth between politicians, press, and guests. For over 100 years, the WHCA has encouraged governmental transparency by through press conferences and has encouraged press accountability by requiring White House correspondents to be credentialed by the Standing Committee of Correspondents. Again, the context here is the role of the free press to ensure governmental accountability by insisting on “the people’s right to know.” 

It is disheartening then when Dearborn continues the “us v. them” rhetoric of P2025 saying, “The new Administration should examine the nature of the relationship between itself and the White House Correspondents Association and consider whether an alternative coordinating body might be more suitable” (p.30). In plain English, this is an invitation for the next President to destroy a century-old process of accountability and replace it a body of reportage that is hand-picked, or “more suitable.” So, not only has Dearborn paved a way for the Communication Director to offer information that is loyal to the president’s agenda, he is encouraging the administration to ensure that the CD will present that information to a press corps that is also deemed loyal, marking the end of accountability and an invitation for hubris. 

Again, this would be a wonderfully informative essay about the various roles within the White House if it weren’t contextualized within such a blatant maneuver to dismantle hard won structures of accountability surrounding a president. 

MD

P2025: Richard Dearborn on Taking the Reins

 I continue blogging through the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” which I will call for short, P2025. To start, I want to acknowledge two things. 

1) While the online version of the document that I am using is a whopping 920 pages, that number turns out to be a bit misleading. The first 32 pages are easily skippable, with reference information that one can turn to as needed. And, in between sections, like Kevin Robert’s “Foreword” and the first main section, there are blank pages, albeit they are missing the customary “This page left intentionally blank” memo. Even so, the document remains plenty long and one wonders whether the volume is intended to be thorough or just too intimidating to offer a reasonable read. 

2) I have some reservations over whether what I am doing is even worth the effort. Keenan Thompson’s hilarious send up of “Project 2025” during the third night of the Democratic National Convention may be a better approach than my effort – which one person dubbed my “perverse devotional.” When I wrote my book, Left Behind and Loving It, I chose to use humor as my primary tone very deliberately. While I think humor is often ill-intended and hurtful, I also think it is a powerful tool for deflating hubris. I think those writers who have made a mint off stoking fear over the imminent rapture and those who are trying to enforce their small view of the world through governmental change in this document are prime examples of hubris and need to be deflated. We often hear someone say, “I’m not going to dignify that remark.” As I blog my way through P2025, I may eventually reach that same conclusion. Does something, so filled with vitriolic and demeaning language, really deserve a measured and thoughtful response? Or should we just let the comic genius simply display it for what it is? I revisit that question every week. 

The first major section of P2025 is entitled, “Taking the Reins of Government.” It has an anonymous three-page preface, which seems to have been written by Roberts. If nothing else, it continues the kind of “us v. them” language of Robert’s Foreword. And the preface makes it clear that what follows will be an argument that civil servants have the role of serving the agenda of the President. The presbyterian in me is on high alert here. 

The first chapter of this section is entitled, “White House Office,” by Rick Dearborn, former Deputy Chief of Staff for President Trump and Executive Director of the 2016 President-elect Trump’s transition team. As such, Dearborn offers a description of civil servants that differs from the preface. Whereas the preface says, “Federal employees are often ideologically aligned—not with the majority of the American people—but with one another, posing a profound problem for republican government, a government ‘of, by, and for’ the people; Dearborn describes those who work in the White House Office hold approach their work as their “shared patriotic endeavor,” hold jobs that are “among the most demanding in all of government.” Relying on his position within the White House, Dearborn describes the work of the Chief of Staff, as well as all the other deputies and department leaders within the chain of command. For example, Dearborn describes the role of the White House Counsel in part this way: 

"While the White House Counsel does not serve as the President’s personal attorney in nonofficial matters, it is almost impossible to delineate exactly where an issue is strictly personal and has no bearing on the President’s official function. The White House Counsel needs to be deeply committed both to the President’s agenda and to affording the President proactive counsel and zealous representation. That individual directly advises the President as he performs the duties of the office, and this requires a relationship that is built on trust, confidentiality, and candor." (p.27)

I appreciate the distinction of the WH Counsel’s role from the president’s personal attorney, as well as the gray areas that may arise with that distinction. He does include an important parenthetical phrase that the President’s agenda must be “within the bounds of the law,” a sentiment that shows up often. 

But there seems to be something else afoot here. On p.28, Dearborn says, 

"When a new President takes office, he will need to decide expeditiously how to handle any major ongoing litigation or other pending legal matters that might present a challenge to his agenda. To offer guidance, the White House Counsel must get up to speed as quickly as possible on all significant ongoing legal challenges across the executive branch that might affect the new Administration’s policy agenda and must be prepared at the outset of the Administration to present recommendations to the President, including recommendations for reconsidering or reversing positions of the previous Administration in any significant litigation. This review will usually require consulting with the new political leadership at the Justice Department, including during the transition period." 

Okay, is it just me or is this a clear signal that a first priority of a future Trump administration would be to put the kibosh on all of the pending lawsuits and verdicts that he is facing? Whether it is on account of actions taken to deny the 2020 election results or personal actions involving porn stars, this argument offers rationale and urgency to bringing the White House Counsel and the Department of Justice to heel, in the name of ensuring that the president’s agenda is not disrupted. Apparently, the courts and civil servants cannot be trusted to do their job. Dearborn concludes his description of the Counsel’s job with this on p.28: “… while a candidate with elite credentials might seem ideal, the best one will be above all loyal to the President and the Constitution.” The problem arises when the choice is between loyalty to the President or to the Constitution. 

More to come. 

"Project 2025" pt. 4 - Final look at the Foreword

 I am blog/slogging through the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025.” Starting next week, I will begin addressing it in larger chunks, since it is enormous. It is an ironic case of self-instantiation that a document, criticizing bureaucratic overreach, is so long. 

So far, I have focused on the “promises” that are described in the Foreword, “A Promise to America,” by Kevin D. Roberts, Ph.D. More irony: Mr. Roberts, despite speaking often of intellectual elites, adds his academic degree after his name. Apparently, academic elitism is only a problem for “them” and is a virtue for “us.” I say that because part of what makes me recoil when reading this Foreword is how emphatically Roberts insists that “they” are evil, and “we” are not. You can read the document yourself here. 

The fourth promise Roberts addresses is to, “Secure Our God-Given Individual Right to Enjoy ‘The Blessings of Liberty.’” The term “liberty” is directly associated with the Declaration of Independence’s assertion that reads, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” I have cited the original document in its non-inclusive language deliberately, as I will note below. As with Roberts’ previous three promises, “the Blessings of Liberty” seems to be a matter on which most people agree. But Roberts will assert that is not the case. Simply put, the American people live into these blessings while “they” – described variously as “Marxist/Socialist/Communist elites,” “the Left,” “the ruling class,” and of course, “woke cultural warriors” – do not. 

Roberts argues that when the Founders spoke of “the pursuit of Happiness,” what they meant might be understood today as the “pursuit of Blessedness,” which he says is “found primarily in family—marriage, children, Thanksgiving dinners, and the like.” (p.13) As I have noted before, it is hard to imagine that anyone is against marriage, children, Thanksgiving dinners, and the like. I have a friend who loves Thanksgiving dinner so much that he and his husband would prepare eight turkeys and invite everyone else to bring side dishes so we could gather at our church and have this meal together. I don’t suppose their homosexual, interracial, Woke Left union is quite the Rockwellian notion that Roberts has in mind, but they do love Thanksgiving dinner. And each other. Once again, Roberts has laid claim to the high road regarding something that plenty of folks he disparages also embrace. 

My first response to Roberts’ fourth promise is that, because he has chosen to approach this promise under the stark “us/them” paradigm, it is another opportunity lost. Americans share many common goals yet define them differently and have different ideas about how to attain them. For Roberts, those that differences worth discussing are treated like oppositions worth fighting about. 

The second response I have to Roberts’ fourth promise is that its account of history is dishonest. It is not dishonest like someone saying, “My crowd was bigger than theirs,” but dishonest by means of oversimplifying complexities and aggregating things that do not belong together. Here is what I mean, from page 14: “Left to our own devices, the American people rejected European monarchy and colonialism just as we rejected slavery, second-class citizenship for women, mercantilism, socialism, Wilsonian globalism, Fascism, Communism, and (today) wokeism. To the Left, these assertions of patriotic self-assurance are just so many signs of our moral depravity and intellectual inferiority—proof that, in fact, we need a ruling elite making decisions for us.” 

What a dishonest mishmash of contested ideas. Most people I know see the Revolutionary War and the establishment of the judicial, legislative, and executive branches as rejection of European monarchy. But did the US reject colonialism itself? Or, did we reject being the colony? Did “the American people” reject slavery, or did we not have a war pitting Americans against Americans, because many Americans wanted to preserve slavery? Did “Americans” reject second-class citizenship for women? Don’t forget the explicitly male language of the Declaration of Independence cited above, and the explicitly exclusive laws that only changed because they have been challenged over the years by “woke warriors” who opposed them. Which of the “American people” were the “American people” during Jim Crow, Suffragist movements, Civil Rights movements, and the like? Weren’t these accomplishments gained during these periods the results of agitators, questioners, protesters, and marchers who loved their families and Thanksgiving dinners and stood up for human rights?  

Roberts’ depiction of what makes America great reads like one of those dreadful history books that conservative publishing houses have been propagating in home schools and private schools and are trying to force into public schools. Nagging truths, like the fact that the writers of the noble words of the Declaration of Independence owned people, are excised in order to create a pseudo-narrative that the Woke Left will destroy every accomplishment unless we elect a conservative right now. I am not exaggerating. Here are Roberts’ own words on p.16: “Conservatives have just two years and one shot to get this right. With enemies at home and abroad, there is no margin for error. Time is running short. If we fail, the fight for the very idea of America may be lost.” And p.17: “The Conservative Promise represents the best effort of the conservative movement in 2023—and the next conservative President’s last opportunity to save our republic.” All of this from the one who calls others “warriors.” 

In the end, Robert’s "Foreword" is a disappointing alarmist diatribe that, instead, ought to be a serious attempt to describe our mutual challenges and look for ways to address them together. 

"Project 2025" pt. 3

Friends, 

I continue to slog my way through The Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025.” I use the word “slog” because I find the language of the project to be so slanted and disingenuous that it is hard to take at face value. It is slanted with repetitive references to “woke” words – “woke warriors,” “the Great Awokening,” and so on. And it is disingenuous because it uses the provocative power of words and phrases, like “pornography” or “protecting children” to provoke, but stipulates definitions of those terms that are not fitting to the original provocation. When someone abhors “pornography,” are they really thinking about a book about a child with two moms? When we think of “protecting” children, are we willing to omit transgender or nonbinary children from that protection? A more genuine use of language would be to say, instead of “pornography,” “any reference to sexual relationships outside of a heterosexual married couple.” And instead of “protecting children,” a more genuine phrase would be, “shielding our children, whom we assume to be cisgender and straight, from children whose gender or sexual expressions that we don’t agree with.” Then, the kinds of things “Project 2025” refer to as “pornography” and “protecting children” would be revealed for what it really is – bullying, plain and simple. 

But, again, don’t take my word for it. The essay is here I encourage you to read it yourself - especially if you find my characterization of it to be questionable, unfair, or wrong. Page references below refer to this online edition. 

The third promise of Kevin D. Roberts’ opening essay, “A Promise to America,” turns its attention to international relations under the title, “Promise #3: Defend our Nation’s Sovereignty, Borders, and Bounty against Global Threats.” Right off the bat, Roberts wants to establish an “us v. them” mentality, with the “them” being “Washington, D.C. and other centers of Leftist power like the media and the academy.” If that isn’t clear, it gets more pronounced: “Today, nearly every top-tier U.S. university president or Wall Street hedge fund manager has more in common with a socialist, European head of state than with the parents at a high school football game in Waco, Texas.” I’m guessing Kamala Harris’ selection of Tim Walz, a former high school football coach, as her vice-presidential running mate deflates this overbearing stereotype a bit. Roberts continues, “Many elites’ entire identity, it seems, is wrapped up in their sense of superiority over those people. But under our Constitution, they are the mere equals of the workers who shower after work instead of before.” (p.10). I would be quite surprised if Roberts, or any of the other writers in “Project 2025” were numbered among the “workers who shower after work.” In fact, when you read their biographies at the beginning of the document, most of them proudly claim their corporate, educational, governmental, or business backgrounds as what give them expertise on their subjects. Nonetheless, this carefully crafted rhetoric depicts Roberts and his partners as among those who are ignored or demeaned by such “Progressives.” 

Roberts’ analysis is grounded partly on his critique of Woodrow Wilson and his invocation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Wilson is a frequent reference, under titles like “Wilsonian globalism,” to refer to international treaties and agreements, which Roberts depicts consistently as a sacrifice of the US’s own self-interest. Roberts cites specifically immigration policies, environmental concerns, and economic globalization, particularly with regard to China, as those places where progressives sacrifice the interests of people who shower after work in order to “exercise dictatorial powers over all nations without being subject to democratic accountability.” I suppose that’s the “Wilsonian globalism” part in Roberts’ mind. The part where Roberts invokes Dietrich Bonhoeffer is where he describes progressives as exercising “cheap grace.” Roberts spins Bonhoeffer’s phrase to mean “publicly promoting one’s own virtue without risking any personal inconvenience.” (p.10) It’s hard to imagine that “personal convenience” aptly captures Bonhoeffer’s words, “When Christ bids a man to follow, he bids him to come and die,” but that is just another example of Roberts’ disingenuous use of rhetoric.   

On p.11, Roberts describes how “‘Cheap grace’ aptly describes the Left’s love affair with environmental extremism,” since it is not environmentalist themselves, but the aged, the poor, and the vulnerable who would suffer should the environmentalists get their way.” What Roberts does not do is define what makes environmentalism itself extreme. He hints at it by claiming that environmentalists want to ban fossil fuels and show no confidence in human resilience or future ingenuity to respond to environmental concerns. But to establish that environmentalists are “extreme” would require looking at the science behind climate change and the relationship between environmental concerns and the use of fossil fuels. It would require a frank appraisal of alternative energy sources, projections of who is already suffering and who stands to suffer the most if the effects of fossil fuels continue unabated, the need for international focus since the environment itself is globally shared, and carefully negotiated steps that can address both caring for the vulnerable and implementing necessary change. All these hard approaches are what environmental activists do regularly, but none of it is evident in Roberts’ attempt to denigrate them as extremists. In fact, Roberts argues on p. 13 that a better alternative would be for the US to lean into its own oil reserves and aggressively pursue dominance in the global energy market. The argument that “Wilsonian globalism” diminishes the noble aspiration toward “we the people” calling our own shots is not based on an ethical principle that the US might honor for other countries. For Roberts, it seems that globalism can have an upside, as long as the US can impose its self-interests on other nations. 

Surely it is necessary to hear differing views on immigration, environmental challenges, energy use, and international markets. It is necessary for the US to weigh the needs for global cooperation with the need for national sovereignty. It is necessary to consider the short-term as well as long-term effects of the use of fossil fuels and alternative energy sources. Those are the “costs” of “costly grace.” That kind of work cannot happen within Roberts’ “us v. them” approach, which makes Promise #3 another opportunity lost. 

 

“Project 2025” pt.2

Last week I began looking at The Heritage Foundation’s massive “Project 2025,” which you can find here and focused on Kevin Roberts’ Forward, “A Promise to America.” I do not know how long I will continue to blog through “Project 2025,” but I will keep giving you the links to it because I trust your ability to read things for yourself. If you would prefer to do that, rather than to read what I have to say about it, you get no argument from me. Have at it and read “Project 2025” for yourself right here. Blessings. 

Last week we looked at Roberts’ “Promise #1: Restore the Family as the Centerpiece of American Life and Protect Our Children.” This week I’ll look at “Promise #2: Dismantle the Administrative State and Return Self-Governance to the American People.” In this section, Roberts points to two examples of public “corruption” that need overturning, the Federal Budget and the Administrative State. As in the first promise, many of us have sympathies with both goals. Who wouldn’t prefer to pay less taxes, see projects we don’t understand de-funded or less-funded with “our money”? Lower taxes, less spending, and more dollars into our pockets to do with as we wish – few people would find those to be objectionable goals. Likewise with the “Administrative State,” as Roberts calls it, who doesn’t get frustrated with bureaucracy, with regulations and requirements that seem to have been hammered out in such contentious committee and sub-committee compromises that the end result is massive and unwieldy? Federal spending and bureaucracy are persistent frustrations and can evoke a wide spectrum of reactions from irritation to corruption.

Roberts presents spending and bureaucracy as intentional corruption and his descriptions place the blame on extremists of “the Great Awokening.” Here are his specific examples, with my own touch – I will put into italics rhetoric worth noting: 

• A combination of elected and unelected bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency quietly strangles domestic energy production through difficult-to-understand rulemaking processes;

• Bureaucrats at the Department of Homeland Security, following the lead of a feckless Administration, order border and immigration enforcement agencies to help migrants criminally enter our country with impunity; 

• Bureaucrats at the Department of Education inject racist, anti-American, ahistorical propaganda into America’s classrooms; 

• Bureaucrats at the Department of Justice force school districts to undermine girls’ sports and parents’ rights to satisfy transgender extremists; 

• Woke bureaucrats at the Pentagon force troops to attend “training” seminars about “white privilege”; and 

• Bureaucrats at the State Department infuse U.S. foreign aid programs with woke extremism about “intersectionality” and abortion. 

Many of us say “Bravo” to the large ideas of cutting spending and reducing bureaucracy, but the difficulties are not the large picture. The challenges arise when we ask, “Which spending?” or “What bureaucracy?” Judging from Roberts’ choices and rhetoric, his aim seems to be to tap into ire over spending and bureaucracy per se and direct it to things he identifies as pet projects of extremists: Environmental concerns; historic racism; LGBTQ rights, and immigration. Is it really the case that if the EPA establishes regulations to keep oil wells from contaminating local drinking water resources, that it is “quietly strangling energy production”? Is it really the case that teaching about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre is “anti-American” or “racist” propaganda? Is it “woke extremism” to ensure that our Foreign Aid programs are aware of how US dollars might be used in other countries to violate the human rights of non-binary persons? 

While many of us cite frustrations with Federal spending and regulations in general, the devil is ever in the details. Therefore, the work before us requires difficult, cooperative conversations that rely on some mutual respect and dialogue. One would hope that “Project 2025” for all of its gravitas and pages, could engage in addressing the hard work ahead without scapegoating their pet peeves with slanted rhetoric. So far, that is not the case. 

Mark of St. Mark