Project 2025: A High School Essay… ? (And Rather Poor at That; And a Disastrous Flop)

The Perched Eye blog is 16 years old,  beginning from 2009 with President Barack Obama's election. The Perched Eye is eclectic ...  we strive to see and write about the styles and directions of American politics and culture, with an occasional comment on the impact of new technologies. We hope our observations attract and sharpen the eye of the reader... in today's world the 'pen' still remains unblunted.  Pericles 21, Author.

PROJECT 2025 IS A DEBACLE!

Project 2025 was supposed to be the conservative GOP's solution to their notions of America's problems - government size and inefficiencies, immigration, crime, economic waste, and more, much much more.

But 10 months later, '2025 has turned out to be more of a superficial, strung-together essay written in ignorance of adult, real world consequences.

 '2025' can still sound with its catchy, but empty phrases that ring around the brain for second or so ....until one realizes how much real-world pain and destruction they've caused. And 2025 is especially painful and damaging to the very audience '2025 was claimed to be written for...Trump's MAGA base.

’25's authors - Heritage Foundation? The Federalist Society? Clubby elitists, Elon Musks managerial-IT flying monkeys … have turned out to be naive, inexperienced (and generally underaged) phrase mongers who apparently sat around at exclusive country spots and downtown gathering places patting each other on the back for ‘smart’ phrases they believed would solve America's governance 'problems (as hey saw it) and incientally preserve 'their' way of life whatever that meant. 

But 'lo and behold' 2025 quickly began to wreck not only the democratic institutions Musk's minions claimed to want to help (but seemed to detest) but 2025  just as quickly threatened their own safety, economic security and peace of mind. (2025 continues to affect America like a bad hangover.)

To the casual eye, a first ‘reading’(look-scan) of the voluminous ’25 tome might have impressed one by the apparent ‘work’ that went into compiling such a lengthy target list of hated institutions that included Medicare, SNAP and USAID..essential elements of America's social safety net and its global diplomatic outreach.

But after ten-plus months we've realized  that that the list is superficially lacks real thought and consideration of consequences, linkages and of what 2025's erasures actually might mean for America and America’s allies and global economic alliances.

’25 reveals its authors have neither sophistication of thought and planning nor an even elementary notions of basic business school principles.

Project 2025 has proven have a startling lack of insight and foresight about consequences.

For example, in the agricultural arena, ’25’s targeting of immigrant farm labor (for deportation) was quickly implemented by masked non-uniformed vigilante raiding-crews…decisive yes but depleting a critical tool needed to plant and harvest America’s crops…in many sectors resulting in fruits and vegetables rotting in fields.

And then the tariff issue. The quickly enacted so-called defensive tariffs actually revealed a shocking gnorance of what ‘tariff’ actually means and who pays tariffs…it’s not the nasty foreign (-er) source, it’s America who collects tariffs at incoming ports. The application of high (and shifting) tariffs on close allies revealed ‘25’s ignorance of global trade interdependences and consequences...America’s historical trading partners have been forced to find more favorable trading partners…amongst America’s long established enemies. T

2025's resultant shift and warping of post World War 2 trade alliances and partners has gotten out of control. We've has even estranged CANADA!

Project 25 even successfully sold itself to the very domestic groups it has turned out to wreck: agribusiness, auto manufacturers, ‘protected’ immigrants whose protections are being canceled (Cubans especially), cancellation of birthright protection, and many more reversals of immigrant policies that appear to target people of color.

In other words, Project 25 seems to be at root a 'plan' implemented by a klan-like cabal of threatened white male elites who hide their race-fears and race-elitism behind hollow sophistry…that fooled and distracted so many groups that were the actual targets.

ELON MUSK AND TWITTER: MUSINGS FROM AN MBA CASE STUDY POV

The Perched Eye blog is 12+ years old,  from 2009 with President Obama's election. Our focus has been eclectic ...  the styles and directions of American politics and culture, with an occasional comment on the impact of new technologies. Our observations sometimes attract a critical eye, but the 'pen' remains unblunted.

The recent Elon Musk-Twitter ‘fiasco’ was expected by some who have noted Musk’s ‘Twitter-troubles’ and moved on, but to many MSM readers this latest MSM ‘reveal’ has been a titillating new flavor experience to those who are programmed to be fed the latest MSM uncovering on just about anything, but especially juicy-ness about public notables of whatever kind...as noted in the following article:

Twitter brings Elon Musk’s genius reputation crashing down to earth

Nevertheless, the ‘roilings’ from Elon Musk’s acquisition of the social media giant, Twitter, has drawn attention from even investors and techie observors to ‘Musk the person’ behind ‘Musk the inventor’.

‘Elon Musk the inventor’ seems to mask something we did not fully expect, except for some who have worked with him. That revealed ‘something’ about Musk is enlightening, yet also a bit off-putting for a ‘businessman’ who has attracted the attention of the globe, and billions of investment from Wall Street and the American defense world… as is discussed below.

Musk’s Twitter ‘chapter’ reveals he is not a business Superman, but nevertheless he still stands out in ways that should retain Wall Street’s interest, and preserve Musk’s reputation for major innovative thinking (and influence.)  Musk‘s technical talents are definitely special but his marketing of them is enhanced by public and investor perceptions and mystique…which have suffered by his erratic ‘leadership’ of Twitter.

That Musk is shown to be part perception-mystique shouldn’t alarm investors or the world at large. Musk can reliably be expected to keep generating new, innovative and world-shaping ideas, products and projects-with-spin-offs. But after Twitter’, the world sees there are border fences to the Musk ‘genius’… that Musk’s investor and staff ‘dependents’ should be aware of in order keep Musk within his skill areas…for the best interets of everyone.

Musk’s interaction with Twitter - with its internal clockworks, especially with Twitter’s human gears, etc — show he is not a people person. This is a serious gap for someone whose business pattern has been to exercise near-complete control over his projects.

That Musk is not a people-person is not a new ‘discovery’, but it hasn’t been significantly mentioned in the public media except as a somewhat amusing aspect of a recognized ‘genius’ (now seen more as a ‘savant’ with psychological overtones.)

After Twitter (and speaking as a layperson), Elon Musk seems a ‘Spectrum’ listee (DSM-5) — a tech innovator/savant overlaid with bi-polar, sociopathic ‘flavors’. (Disclaimer — this writer is not a professional mental health professional and reference is given of DSM-5 purely as background for serious reading.)

’Pre-Twitter’, the public tides generated by the newness of Musk floated his boat well above its waterline, i.e., Musk demonstrated a skill in cultivating a ‘mystique’ and using it to influence the public, the media and funding sources.

But the newness of Musk in the investor world seems to have worn off, as is historically natural, as investor needs for the ‘different’ has leaned to boredom. Musk’s Twitter flop has definitely led to investor shyness as witnessed by the resultant drop in Wall Street indices for Musk companies and projects as noted here:

Tesla gets downgraded on Wall Street over Elon Musk’s Twitter antics, banning of journalists.

But, Musk’s innovativeness is real and still stands, e.g., the ‘Tesla’ electric car and associated sub-industries (e.g., battery technology), Space-X and coming cyber products.

Musk appears to have one clear ‘flop area’, people skills — where, it seems that he has a ‘less-than’ average ability to communicte except by intimidation and non-verbal cues that are ‘understood’ by his longest and closest associates (and a few employees).

‘Elon Musk’ is no longer an enigma, it’s just that total awe of Musk has settled into seeing where he excels, and where he is just ordinary (and prone to flop just like any entrepreneur).

Are We Seeing a 1930s Weimar Era Deviousness in America’s Current Rightwing Political Drama? The Endgame Seems Similar: Authoritarian Dictatorship, Putsch and All

 The Perched Eye blog is 12+ years old, beginning from 2009 with President Obama's election. Our focus has been eclectic ...  the shapes and directions of American politics and culture, with occasional comments on the potential impact of new technologies. Pericles21's observations sometimes attract a critical eye, but the 'pen' remains unblunted. 

Prologue: Why does American politics under Trump since a year before his 2016 presidential election, and after he lost in 2020, continue to resemble ithe drama and craziness of Hitler's drunken-walk caryings-on through German politics of 1920-1933?. Trump's shouts  of 'foul-play' for losing the 2020 election, seem to mirror the drama of Germany in those times.

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After the unsuccessful Jan6, 2022 attempted putsch, which so far appears to be a thing of history, America’s democratic preference to let bygones be gone…, now has a breath of clean air in President Joseph Biden, who is an experienced Washington politician (Senator, 2-term Vice President, and family man). President Biden has steadied the American ship of State, though the media, right and left, quite readily have targeted his policy and even personal qualities.

Kurt von Schleicher was Hitler’s ‘fixer’ who orchestrated der Fuhrer’s decade-long rise to Chancellor (1933) after his 1924 imprisonment for sedition and attempted putsch of the Weimar Republic. Von Schleicher’s spider-webbed schemes on behalf of HItler are close to Machiavelli’s darkest political maneuverings. (But it wasn’t at all just about Hitler, the intention was to use Hitler to springboard a cabal of Germany’s industry-autocrat,..aristocrat-militarist elite into total authoritarian rule under a military head.) 

In this current era, it appears that von Scleicher has been resurrected in the Steve Bannon — William Barr duo who almost pulled off a 1933 style game play in the 2022 midterms except that the Democrat vote was even more the majority (8 million plurality) than in 2016 presidential election when Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 3 million votes. Now, Bannon-Barr have been replaced by the Department of Justice’s new head, Merrick Garland, a methodical legalist whose style appears to be an unbiased adherence to Constitutional principles. Garland’s style at times appears frustratingly slow (America’s collective psyche prefers quick action), but in the end solid evidence and near-faultless case closures have consistently advanced his legal pursuit of justice for Trump-and-compny’s political injustices..

Garland is an important bright spot in America’s recovery after the Trump presidency and attempted putsch.

Garland uses Democracy to defend Democracy, instead of a Bannonist exploitation of Democratic principles, through clever wordplay, to promote authoritarian rule (Bannon and Barr Trumpism… and ‘others’ whose roles are yet to come into view…but their shadows are appearing in the distant fog).

Bannon is still, even under the threat of long-term incarceration, playing the role of Hitler’s ‘Kurt von Schleicher’, a 1930s German aristocrat (plutocrat) whose political ‘game’ attempted to use Hitler as an intermediary to replace constitutional government with an authoritarian miliary-dictatorship.

Of course, it can be seen that Trump, like his literary-historical mentor, Hitler, even facing possible incarceration or at least heavy political condemnation and possibly social exile, should not yet be counted out. Trump’s “Brown Shirt’ street thug supporters, the MAGA crowd, are still active, and the recent November midterm elections did not remove America’s government from being in danger by a rightwing takeover…as evidenced by the Supreme Court’s increasing open association with extreme right-wing industrial-political groups.

In coming acts of American political drama, there are reasons to expect that the current Trumpist supporters such as Bannon will be trampled under the wheels of Trump disfavor … Trump is a ‘Natural’ for the role of a Neo-Hitler…even to the point of promoting the unsuccessful Jan 6 ‘putsch’.

But, as for who or what group is pulling the strings for America’s right-wing players, the picture is yet incomplete… but shadows are now coming into focus. 

Elon Musk , the mega-entrepeneur, is one candidate to be added to that potential list of hopeful autocrats who would rule America like a gang-boss. (Although, Musk is a successful entrepreneur, his time at the political right-center stage is most likely a temporary red-Herring, the exploitation of a politically buffoonish savant.)

We will see what things take shape as this play goes forth.