Project Gonzo 2025

There’s a new political game in town and it’s called Gonzo Governance. There is nothing “conservative” or “traditional” or “constitutional” about this.  We had best recognize it and call it for what it is—a fundamental change and destruction of entrenched American values and social institutions. Until we call it what it is, we won’t grasp the destructive power on our democratic institutions. Hunter Thompson’s quip in 1988, “Yesterday’s weirdness is tomorrow’s reason why,” is an appropriate description of the GOP’s Project 2025 and shorter 2024 Republican Party Platform. We should know this as Project Gonzo 2025. This program is based on the erroneous assumption fueled by the digital media and the politics of fear that our major social institutions are corrupt and have failed to live up to their promises, and that only Donald Trump can fix things. Gonzo is justified by a perceived crisis and a breakdown in institutional and conventional means of dealing with a problem or issue, whether in journalism, criminal justice sentencing, or social organization. A dramatic resolution is offered that resonates with an audience who shares the sense of disorder. The solution is extraordinary—even deviant, illegal or immoral– breaking boundaries and violating the parameters of social and discursive participation within a community of actors, typically promoting raw emotional meanings and symbols.

Project 2025 ends the forbearance and norms that were taken for granted about our basic institutions. These changes include negating entrenched policies and assumptions about representative democratic processes in favor of an absolute authority that the Supreme Court recently ruled has almost unlimited immunity; stepping back from programs and agencies generationally supported by both major political parties about equality, anti-slavery, progressive policies to promote freedom, non-discrimination, and opportunity.  The foundation for plans and policies to promote inclusion for all citizens includes the U. S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights as well as amendments guaranteeing individual, civic, and political participation of all ethnic and racial groups—including women. According to Project Gonzo 2025, few of these rights and protections—except for gun ownership– should be provided by the federal government but should be allotted to state and local governments. Journalism, science, and educational institutions are viewed as subversive and untrustworthy. Slated for revision or abandonment are policies as settled law, including the election process and outcomes, voting rights, civil rights, human rights, women’s health, as well as long-standing international treaties. F. B. I. agents, professors, teachers, librarians, doctors, professional diplomats and scientists are among those who are deemed disloyal and subversive to MAGA dogma. This undermining has been aided by the courts as well.

 While there was never complete acceptance of these basic protections and freedoms, there has been forbearance and consensus among legislators and citizens that these processes, values, and policies were part of the bedrock of our democratic governance. Until recently, numerous attempts to chip away at these institutions and agencies were rebuffed and their importance for American life was sustained. Not now. The last decade has witnessed a systematic and sustained effort to delegitimize, damage, and remove entrenched civil liberties and routine governmental institutions, programs, and policies. Actions for the Trump administration and supporters both pre and post the January 6, 2021 insurrection attempt have sought to undermine and change presidential autonomy and power, voting rights, election institutions, organizations and procedures, significant governmental agencies and departments including social security, Medicare, the Departments of Education and Commerce, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which includes the National Weather Service as well as the U. S. Census Bureau. Project 2025 proposes eliminating or reclassifying thousands of civil service workers with an ideological litmus test about their loyalty to the Trump agenda. This destructive plan is not just a conservative version of established democratic governance; it must be called out as Gonzo Governance.

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