BYLINE SUPPLEMENT — My Investigation Into Project 2025 — A Violent Vision
Today, Byline Supplement published my investigation into the dark-money funded Project 2025, a plot to destroy democracy and turn the US into an autocracy
***Thank you for supporting my work with a paid membership.***
Thank you to everyone who has taken out memberships to Bette Dangerous — we are sooo close to 500 paid and gifted memberships — please support if you can.
In addition, thank you to all the Bette members who also support Byline Supplement, and to all the Byline Supplement members who support my work at Bette. We are building a new reader-funded model of investigative reporting that cuts out the corporate and billionaire middlemen who thwart truth.
Today, my investigation in Byline Supplement about Project 2025 is an example of that truth — while it’s a terrifying blueprint into the id of fascism, I also remind everyone that their avatar Trump continues to trend downward. Don’t believe the smoke and mirrors hype, but also don’t for a second think we’ll coast through 2024 without the hard labor of democracy. It’s going to be incredibly challenging — more so if everyone who is pro-democracy doesn’t align. Pick your lane — democracy or fascism. As my report evidences, that’s our choice.
Here is an excerpt:
On 25 March 2023, on the 30th anniversary of the Waco Siege, Donald Trump held his first campaign rally for the 2024 election.
The 1993 siege in Waco, Texas, occurred when federal agents raided a compound where a cult called the Branch Davidians had been compiling explosives and where children were routinely sexually abused. A 51-day siege at the Branch Davidians compound ended with a fiery inferno that killed 82 cult members and four ATF agents.
The siege inspired the modern militia movement, and Trump — being an experienced propagandist — walked onto the stage to the singing of the J6 Choir — prisoners arrested for their assault on the Capitol — while violent footage of that day played on a video screen.
An ABC reporter said he was so shocked, he called former Trump advisor Steve Bannon for comment and Bannon said, “We are the Trump Davidians.”
In other words, when people tell you who they really are, believe them…
“Trump’s brand is violence, and his rallies and other events sell that violence,” wrote Italian fascism scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat. “Trump's 2024 campaign is making that call to violence far more explicit.”
And it is prophesied in full color in Project 2025, a scorched earth hit-list of democratic institutions. Project 25 is a blueprint for Trump’s plans to finish the job he started when he began the attack on the US government from within.
It reads like a Soviet-era how-to manual on the total annihilation of the US government and any critics of the regime.
Conceived by dark money think tanks fronted by the extremist think tank, the Heritage Foundation, the plan is nearly 1,000 pages and proposes a ‘unitary executive theory’ — neutering Congressional oversight and granting the executive branch almighty power.
(I detail the plans targets and objectives)
It’s a wishlist for the destruction of all things that make America, America. We were the country that fought for freedom from kings, we fought to end slavery, we fought the Nazis in World War II…
Academic Brent Allpress, an open source intelligence researcher whose work on the impact of data mining of military personnel and churchgoers was featured in the documentary film People You May Know, and who gave testimony to the January 6 Committee, conducted an analysis of the leadership connections between Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation and the Council for National Policy (CNP). The CNP is a shadowy conservative organisation with multiple links to the Trump administration, fossil fuel interests, and anti-rights movements.
“Project 2025 is a CNP project,” Allpress told Byline Supplement. “A campaign is initiated at secret CNP meetings and one of the affiliated organisations is nominated to be the vehicle for the operation”…
… After a recent Trump photo op at a South Carolina gun shop to admire a ‘Trump 45’ Glock, Ruth Ben-Ghiat wrote: “It was always going to come to this. A MAGA hat and a gun.”
To read the full investigation, please take out a subscription to Byline Supplement. If you are unable to do so at this time, please send a request to read the report to bettedangerous/gmail — I am authorized by Byline to share the report individually upon request.
Thank you as always for your support of my work.
****
Bette Dangerous is a reader-funded magazine. Thank you to all monthly, annual, and founding members. Thank you as well to all those who support my work with your generous coffee tips and who buy my ebooks. Some of you prefer making subsidizing donations via venmo, and it’s always greatly appreciated.
Thank you to all who are contributing to the raffle to try to win a copy of my rarest book, Sublime’s Brad Nowell Crazy Fool — Portrait of a Punk. The winner will receive a signed copy.
Details on how to win here:
Members access all content and receive invites to our weekly Happy Hour, and our Speakeasy guest events. Our next Speakeasy featured Jack Bryan and John Mattes from Lawyers, Guns, and Money podcast on 12.17.
Here are reports from recent Speakeasys:
Members who support me at the premium level will be invited to our monthly Founder’s Day events — please upgrade to Founding Member if you would like to join us for these special intimate occasions to meet global experts. Among our recent Founder’s Day events was a conversation with Paul Conroy:
Also, a private link to an annual membership discount for older adults, those on fixed incomes or drawing disability, as well as activists and members of the media is available upon request at bettedangerous/gmail. 🥹
More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.
“We just have to see that the battle for democracy is broader. It's deeper.“—David Pepper
“I need people to see they're on the frontline. Wherever you live, if you’re doing this work, you are the frontline.”—David Pepper
“The message should be a fair deal… fairness everywhere.”—Martin Sheil
💘
“I say a silent prayer of thanksgiving as I walk upon the earth.”-Audrey Peterman.
“May the viral hope for truth and humanity wash away the chaos of these years.”-S.C., Bette community member
“Something Sacred never dies in almost all of us, who can hear the invitation of Truth…”-words from a Bette Dangerous community member
“Nothing but blue skies from now on…”-Irving Berlin
💘