A note on Trump and Project 2025. I’m not interested in writing a full newsletter article on this, but since I’m asked about it a lot, here are the key points:

1) Yes, Trump knows what Project 20205 is. No, he likely doesn’t care, because policy is a thing other people do while he steals money and ensures impunity for himself and his backers.

2) Trump is not an ideologue. He is a bulldozer used by two GOP-linked networks that often collaborate.

3) The first network is made of hard right-wing ideologues that have been gradually implementing a neo-fascist US since the Reagan era, chipping away at courts, regulations, rights, etc. This is the Project 2025 network.

4) The second network is transnational organized crime, the network in which Trump is most at home. Their goal is to collapse the US and strip it and sell it for parts, much like the oligarch wars that followed the collapse of the USSR. This network has been active for decades as well. Its dynamics and Trump’s role are laid out in my book HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT.

5) Both networks contain fanatics of varying faiths who deploy rhetoric with apocalyptic overtones. Some are true messianic believers. Others exploit religion for financial and political gain.

6) Broken or corrupt US institutions, especially the DOJ, have allowed these anti-American entities to grow and thrive.

7) Blackmail, threats, and bribery play a role in solidifying their power, but many officials are simply complicit, including in the Democratic Party.

8) The two networks may clash at some point, depending on whether their goal is American autocracy or collapse. Either way, Americans will get some form of mafia state kleptocracy, which is what we have already.

9) I’ve explained all this in detail in my books and free newsletter and interviews. It’s a complicated history.

What’s not complicated is that the big danger isn’t Trump, the man, but Trump and the criminal billionaire networks behind him. The latter need to be examined far more than the former.