[00:00:02] Speaker A: K Mudd podcast presents.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the show. This is global stuff. My name is Jimmy Durschlag. This is a pre recorded show, and I have two guests for this show. In the second half, we'll be talking about Project 2025, which is its own topic. In the first half, I'm very pleased and honored to have back. Jeff Cohen, media critic, writer, and journalism professor, founded the media watch group Fair in 1986. He's also the co founder of Rootsaction.org with Norman Solomon, who's been on the show and our station quite a bit. He's the author of cable news Confidential, my misadventures in corporate media.
We're going to talk about all the developments that have been happening in the presidential race.
You started the process with roots action a little bit ago. The don't run Joe. That's been. How long ago did you start that?
[00:01:17] Speaker B: We started it right after the November 2022 congressional elections, which were not as bad for the Democrats as experts thought, but we started it right after that don't run Joe. And after Biden announced he was running, we changed the name to step aside Joe. So it took 20 months.
Everyone tends to agree with us now, even the people that were opposing us, that it was a good thing that Joe stepped aside.
I'll tell you this. When we started in November 2022, after the congressional elections, we saw this quote in the New York Times, unnamed member of the House of Representatives, a Democrat, who said that the Democrats did okay in the congressional elections in spite of Biden, not because of Biden, that his numbers were a drag on the democratic party. So that was sort of the gist of it. It was our feeling, you're going to be talking about Project 2025 in the next half hour. But it was our feeling that the extremism of the republican party, extremists on climate, extremists on gun control, extremists even on whether to recognize the legitimacy of elections when Trump loses.
Extremism in denying abortion. So in a generic fight between Democrats and Republicans, the Democrats will win and in many cases should win handily. But with Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, that wasn't going to happen. So we're happy that he's gone.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: And that was, you know, what you said about people not really supporting your position about him stepping aside.
I think there was a lot of hand wringing about what to do. But, of course, after that debate performance, I think before I actually watched the debate, I had it on for a little bit and just, I think with two minutes of, um, seeing his demeanor and how he was presenting himself, no matter what words came out of his mouth, you realized, I mean, you're the media person and how people judge what they see in the media. It seemed almost immediately that, you know, it was not going to go well.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Yeah, television is a visual medium, but it shouldn't have taken that debate. That's what's so fascinating. I mean, we knew that he had made all these promises that if he'd accomplished even one fifth of them, Democrats would be just sailing and Trump would be history.
But he wasn't strong enough as a president to get stuff done.
He promised, if you look at the 2020 campaign promises from Biden or the democratic platform of 2020, they were going to cut the military budget and invest that money elsewhere. Instead, Biden keeps raising the military budget. They were going to raise the minimum wage, which is federally $7.25.
But Biden couldn't get that done. He wasn't a strong and effective leader for a progressive, popular agenda that could put the Democrats way ahead of the extremist Republicans. And we were told at roots action, you're disloyal, you're undermining Biden, you're helping Trump. And then when Biden finally, finally stepped aside after that disastrous debate, everyone forgot that they had been calling us names because we were trying to get someone different as the standard bearer. And I have to be honest, we started this months and months ago because we wanted an open primary.
We didn't want it to be just handed over to Kamala Harris.
And if there was an open primary, where the base of the party, the grassroots, the activists, the voters of the Democratic Party, want no more guns to Gaza. They want Medicare for all. They want all these popular things that are popular even outside of the democratic party.
And so we felt in an open primary process, the base of the party could demand promises and make, you know, have some impact on the candidates seeking to replace Biden. It didn't happen. We ended up with Kamala Harris, and at least she can articulate an agenda and an attack on the Republicans that Biden was incapable of doing.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: And as you said, your first, uh, release that went out on roots action was hoping for an open process in finding a replacement. Um, and it went very quickly to Harris. Uh, you're saying you were, as I said, you. You were hoping for an open process, but how do you, uh, what's your reaction to how that did transpire? Did that, well, kind of inevitable.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: Yeah, it was inevitable because Biden hung on so long.
If Biden had announced he wasn't seeking reelection eight months earlier, six months earlier, there would have been an open process.
And in that open process, democratic activists could have really thrown their weight around in the direction of peace and justice.
I mean, Biden as a president and as a candidate in 2020 was far more progressive than he ever was as a senator because he needed to unify a party and win and defeat Trump. So, yeah, we wanted an open process. But because Biden hung on and hung on and hung on, by the time he did step aside, it was hard for there to be. There was no time for an open process. But everyone understands that at least Kamala Harris can debate, at least she can take an argument to the Republicans. I mean, remember in that debate, perhaps the lowest point of many low points is when the question was a softball question aimed at Biden about abortion rights and how the Republicans have been restricting abortion rights.
And Biden didn't answer the question about abortion. Instead, he started talking about an immigrant who had killed a native born us citizen. I mean, he was, like, giving Trump's talking points instead of hitting the ball out of the park by pointing out that most people in this country want to retain abortion rights and the right of women to have bodily autonomy and the right to choose. That's overwhelmingly a popular position, and he couldn't articulate it. Kamala Harris, that's an issue that she's.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: Quite good on, and she's been articulating it at every chance she's had so far. Very much so. And as a former prosecutor, well, I'm looking forward to that debate, if it actually happens. Trump said he'll do it, so we'll see if it actually happens. But talking about Harris, she wasn't, she had to withdraw from her. I attempt to be the candidate years ago and hasn't had huge popularity ratings, although she's been kind of out of the public view in many ways since then. And yet there's been a real surge, a real positive thing. And she's now, whether you trust the polls or not, she's looking very good in her polling right now. So it's interesting with how much Biden was tanking and how you see that it's not a Democrat republican thing. It's really like, as you said, who can articulate the viewpoints of the voters and Americans. What is your reaction to kind of the post Biden withdrawal euphoria that's surrounding Harris?
[00:10:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it was inevitable. And again, we took a lot of criticism at roots action for trying to move Biden aside of it took the horrific debate and the day he was moved aside and Harris moved in. You're right. It was euphoria. It was like anyone but Biden could do a better job of confronting the Republicans and putting together an electoral majority again. It's going to be close. We have this archaic electoral system.
It's a system where your vote in California hardly matters because we know the Democrats are going to win California. We know the Republicans are going to win Texas and Mississippi. I'm in New York. We know the Democrats. I mean, there's all these states where your vote hardly matters. So because of the electoral college, you have the campaign basically running in seven states.
That's where it matters.
It's Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina.
And you're right that soon after the changeover, the poll numbers started climbing. But still, all of those states are very, very close.
Part of the problem is, and your show is global, part of the problem is that the majority of the country doesn't want any more guns going and weapons going to Israel.
And in several of those swing states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, North Carolina, there was a large number of Democrats who chose between Biden and uncommitted, or Biden in decline to state or Biden and no preference. They chose uncommitted.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: And in Michigan, that's 100,000 people. Across the country, it was 700,000 people. Those are Democrats. And these states are often won by a thousand votes or 5000 votes or 10,000 votes. And if Kamala Harris cannot separate herself from Joe Biden's horrific policy of sending arms continuously while the civilians of Gaza are slaughtered, well, if she does not separate herself from that policy between now and November, she could lose winnable states and Trump could become the president.
[00:12:42] Speaker A: The latest cook poll that I just saw today, political report shows her winning in those key states. But as you say, seven key swing states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Arizona, that could change quickly. Have you, what, have you heard from her yet? She does. She was meeting when Biden met with Bibi Netanyahu. She was there.
I haven't really heard any specific statement from her yet. Do you think she's kind of waiting to the right way to phrase that?
[00:13:16] Speaker B: Well, she's in a bind because she is the vice president of, and she has been supporting this policy all along. She's also been very close to AIPAC, the Israel right or wrong lobby. Just like Joe Biden. Biden has received more money from the Israel right or wrong lobby than anyone in history.
But Harris is also close to those people and they don't represent a lot of voters. The voters are on our side.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: Voters are on the side of peace. The voters are on the side of ceasefire, and the voters are on the side of treat palestinian lives like they matter.
But this powerful and well funded AIPAC Israel, right or wrong lobby is very, very close to Biden and Harris. To Harris credit, and you and I are speaking right before the convention, to Harris credit, when she did a talk in Michigan, she did meet backstage with a couple of the leaders of the uncommitted movement across the country. And Michigan is the center of that uncommitted movement. And Dearborn, Michigan. I grew up in Detroit. Dearborn's right outside of Detroit, in the Detroit metro area. I think it's the highest percentage of Arab Americans anywhere in the country. And Michigan is a swing state.
If you're going to win Michigan, you can't ignore 100,000 people that just voted uncommitted. So to her credit, she did meet with leaders of the uncommitted vote, but she hasn't changed her talking points at all. I mean, ten months after Israel began massacring civilians, it's not a war against Hamas. It's a war against the civilian population. It's broken all records. No civilians have been killed so fast in a modern war. No journalists have been killed so numerously in such a short period of time. No humanitarian workers in any war have ever been killed this fast with such high numbers. And so you still have Kamala Harris saying things like, well, I will always defend Israel's right to defend itself. Israel is not defending itself by killing all these civilians in Gaza and the crimes that are being committed in the West bank against Palestinians. The settlers have gone absolutely nuts and they're killing Palestinians in the West bank. They're taking their homes, they're destroying their olive trees. It's an apartheid system and it's gotten worse and worse. And when you're talking about Israel's right to defend itself, you're basically not serious. You're giving the talking points of a tiny but well funded lobby and you're ignoring the majority of voters in our country and especially the majority of democratic party activists who would get out there and work for the Harris Walsh ticket if it was more peace oriented in Gaza and elsewhere.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: Let me remind the listeners, this is global stuff. My name is Jimmy Derschlag. This is a pre recorded show that we pre recording a week before it airs, which the democratic convention will be done by that, although we kind of know how that's going to go. There may be some surprises.
My guest in the first half hour, Jeff Cohen, media critic, writer, journalism professor, co founder of Rootsaction.org. also, he's the founding director of the Park center for Independent Media at Ithaca College and was an associate, associate professor of journalism there. A real follower of what's going on in the media and especially with an eye on the right wing media. I remember you saying, I listen and watch that so you don't have to.
As you've told me before, it's important.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: To scrutinize the right wing media. You know, their talking points. I mean, they're going after walls on his military record. I mean, it's fascinating. I encourage progressive and liberal minded people to watch Fox News, even five minutes a day.
That's all you need. And I know people get disgusted and they lose their meals and they feel nauseated. But it's really important to keep your eyes on what the right wing is saying because they have a big propaganda sector within the media. It's very, very powerful. And there's millions and millions of people that never look at any media that isn't right wing.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: Yes, correct. I mean, in some ways, I mean, I watch a lot of CNN and MSNBC. In some ways, it also applies to the left. You could watch it so you could see people who maybe support or bring out aspects of your viewpoint, but they still do a lot of repetition of the same things.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Again, I'm nothing, I'm a big supporter of Pacifica, friendly radio state democracy now. But yeah, MSNBC and CNN, there's a lot of propaganda there. There's a lot of stories they don't cover.
They're very close to the corporate democratic elite.
They're not exactly friends of Bernie and AOC wing of the Democratic Party. But yeah, it can be propagandistic. It's just, it's often closer to reality than the craziness I see on Fox News or Newsmax or Stephen Bannon's war room, which I also watch.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: You brought up Tim Waltz. I listened to a fairly long interview that Ezra Klein did with him before he was selected by Kamala Harrison. It was actually fairly impressive about his record as governor and the kinds of things he supported. And he does come from a more, you know, working class background that could maybe fill out that kind of populist niche that.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree with everything you just said. That walls was a great choice.
It's the choice we wanted at roots action.
We ran a campaign against Josh Shapiro, who smeared the student protesters against Gaza. Josh Shapiro's got all, had all sorts of problems on why he would have been a disunifying choice. So that was the biggest choice Kamala Harris has made, and she made a good one. And Tim Walz, as you say, he's working class.
He was a school teacher.
He was in the guard, National Guard.
He was a football coach. He talks seriously. He's not a phony. Many politicians come across as utterly phony.
And he's a real asset to the ticket. And unlike other governors, unlike Governor Shapiro of Pennsylvania, instead of smearing the student protesters who were fighting for the palestinian lives, fighting for the civilians, fighting for peace, when there were encampments in Minnesota, Tim Walz's reaction was, well, we should listen. We should listen to what these protesters are saying. It, it was very different than Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania governor, who I'm so thrilled that Kamala Harris passed over when she chose Governor Walz.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: And yeah, listening to his interview, even in talking about the MAGA crowd, he talked about reaching a common ground. And, you know, Kamala Harris at one of her group, I guess when she was before a crowd and they were chanting lock him up, she kind of quieted that down. I think there's a lot of people who appreciate dampening that extreme rhetoric where it's an attack.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree with you.
You got to win over some of those voters. Not everyone who's leaning toward Trump is a stone cold white, christian nationalist racist.
There are a lot of people that went with Trump because they saw him as an agent of change.
Many had voted democratic year after year after year.
I also co produced documentary movies, Features, and we once produced one in 2018 called the corporate coup d'etat.
And we interviewed all these former union workers, former steel workers in Ohio. And we found these workers who had voted for Obama twice, voted for Bernie Sanders over Hillary in the 2016 democratic primary in Ohio, and then voted for Trump.
And you got to win those voters back. If they voted for Obama twice, they're obviously, at least at that point, we're not white christian nationalist racists.
You're right. I mean, walls can appeal to working class people, the so called low information voters or occasional voters or swing voters. They have all sorts of names, non college educated voters. You got to be able to win people over. And in the past, the democratic party had policies that made those peoples, made working class people's lives better.
And unfortunately, the corporatization of the Democratic Party has made it more of a status quo. Go slow. Yes. No party that sometimes will say good things right before an election.
And Harris is saying some good things about raising the minimum wage and fighting corporate price gouging by grocery store owners and chains. But a lot of that stuff, voters have come over the years to think, all right, it's democratic rhetoric. And when they get in, they're just going to be very hesitant. It'll be halfway measures that don't improve the lives of working class people. Franklin Roosevelt had a media system where it was basically all Fox News.
When Franklin Roosevelt was winning election after election in the thirties and forties, 90% of the newspapers were against him. But the Democrats were delivering all of these powerful policies, starting Social Security, giving workers the right to organize unions, putting people to work. They were materially changing the lives of working class people.
Obviously, there was a lot of shunting aside of black and brown working class people, but all working class people benefited something from the New Deal policies. And that's why those of us who are, you know, operate in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. We understand that if the Democrats got into office and they fulfilled even a third of their promises, working class people, whether they'd voted for Trump once or twice or never voted for Trump, would see, wow, voting for getting the Democrats into power has really improved my life.
[00:25:22] Speaker A: Right?
[00:25:23] Speaker B: I mean, I remember both Hillary and Biden said they were going to reduce the age of Medicare. Imagine if he did that in the first few months of his presidency. Imagine if they had raised the federal minimum wage. Imagine if they'd cut the military budget and taken that money toward education and housing and health care. But they didn't fulfill a lot of their, they made great promises in 2020, and they just didn't fulfill enough of them.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Well, we're running. You don't have a lot of time left in this first half hour, and you're planning to be in Chicago.
At least that's what you said.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: Well, no, my team is. Your team is progressive, you know, roots action education fund. We have a website, progressivehub.net, and we're sending a team of a half a dozen reporters. They will be filming events in and around the convention.
So progressive hub. I know people pay attention to democracynow.org during times of conventions, as they should, but we will be another place where you could get some news directly from the streets and from the convention hall and from outside the convention hall. And that'll be rootsaction.org or progressivehub.net dot.
[00:26:46] Speaker A: Oh, that'll be great. And I did see one protest planned for one of the days of the Israel Gaza support for promoting support for the Palestinians in Gaza and opposing, as you have said, the absolute genocide. I should also mention there's a recent posting on rootsaction.org of the open letter to blinken from journalists, as you mentioned earlier in the interview about all the journalists that have been killed. And it's an impressive list of people that are saying, stop arms sale to Israel.
[00:27:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And remember, this is something your listeners may not know.
Seven national unions, representing nearly a half of all unionized workers in our country signed a statement to Biden saying, no more weapons to Israel while they're killing all these civilians.
And it's really exciting to see unions speaking out on this policy that those unions understand is dividing the Democrats and could lead to Harrison walls losing key states that are winnable.
[00:28:04] Speaker A: So I want to thank you, Jeff Cohen, co founder of rootsaction.org dot. And as I always do when I mention rootsaction.org dot, if you've got a, something that you want to promote, you can put that out. You can submit that it does get vetted and they look at what you want to do. But if you have an action that you'd like to build support for, I've done that in the past, and it's a great way to do that, especially if you don't have your own website or whatever. So I encourage people to do that. And I want to thank you for the many things you've done, including as a founder of fair, we, we have their program, weekly program on our station every week. And it's one of my favorites, one of the few that really dissects and shows the distortions that are happening in the media.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Thanks so much, Jimmy. Yeah, that's counter spin hosted by Janine Jackson. And yeah, on rootsaction.org, comma, we have this dIY do it yourself where you can just put your own petitions up. But thanks so much, Jimmy. It's been a pleasure.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: It's always great to talk with you, Jeff. And these are interesting times. We'll have to see what happens next.
[00:29:16] Speaker B: All right, bye bye.
[00:29:18] Speaker C: KMUT is a community radio station in the Redwood region of northern California. Donate support people powered
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[00:29:35] Speaker A: Welcome back to the second half of the show. I'm really pleased to welcome Andrew Watkins. Andra is the author of five books and counting, as she said, including the New York Times bestseller not without my father, one woman's 444 miles Walk of the Natchez Trace, which was also a 2015 National Book Award nominee. And we're mainly going to talk about her Substack newsletter that she authors, how Project 2025 will ruin your life. And she definitely gets right to the point. It's a lot to cover.
And I want to get to the main points of that because I think the title of her Substack newsletter definitely says it all. We're fortunate in that Project 2025 is actually getting some exposes from the Democrats and from others that people are actually talking about it. But I would say that it seems like you've really been a major force in bringing that into the public consciousness, including publishing a very extensive spreadsheet of a lot of the people from the Trump administration and elsewhere. There's a link to that. In fact, if people want to get there, I would recommend looking up how Project 2025 will ruin your life, and that'll take you right to her newsletter. She also has more information about herself. Andrew.
But anyway, let's start out, as I said, there's not a lot of time to cover a lot of information. But you point out that you were basically indoctrinated in your growing up in a lot of the kind of background that the people who support this christian nationalism, the proponents of that, and that was part of your upbringing. Talk about that. And you were saying you came from a dysfunctional christian family. So talk about that influence.
[00:31:54] Speaker D: I grew up in rural South Carolina in the 1970s and early eighties. So when I started kindergarten, my parents did what a lot of southern families did at that time. They enrolled me in the church school that they joined because they didn't want me going to the public schools learning evolution with black people. So it was a racist construct to have these christian schools in the south.
And I attended that school for 13 years. And we used textbooks from Bob Jones University. And so I learned the christian nationalist history of the United States, which is what they spew now. It's a christian nation. It was founded as a christian nation. The founders were all Christians. They meant for Christianity to be the national faith, etcetera. So that's what I believed for the first two decades of my life and was indoctrinated in that.
[00:32:46] Speaker A: And you come at your newsletter and from the point of view of christian nationalism, so maybe for people who aren't familiar with that, you're saying that this is a christian nation. It was founded that way. And that's what the proponents of Project 2025 are proposing in terms of changes, major changes to the way the federal government operates to support that. But maybe you can go a little more how you would define how they define, and you would define christian nationalism?
[00:33:24] Speaker D: Well, they don't define it the way I do, but I have seven core beliefs that christian nationalists have as a newsletter on my substat. And they believe America was founded as a christian nation in some quarters. They believe it was founded as a white, christian nation. They believe that colored peoples were cursed by God.
The South, the southern slave owners, actually used that teaching from the Bible to justify enslaving people in the lead up to the civil war. So they have a good affinity with white supremacists because they are white supremacists in a lot of cases. They believe that the Bible is the perfect inspired word of God and that it is God's law, and therefore it should be the basis of our laws. And they believe when man passes a law that violates their interpretation of God's law, they are charged by God to make our law match God's law. So abortion is a perfect example of this. Even though the Bible doesn't mention abortion, they've cobbled together this series of viewpoints that they insist mean that God condemns abortion. And so abortion has to be outlawed to match their view of God's law. So that's an example of how they've already done that in some red states in the United States, forcing us to live by their interpretation of the Bible. They also really make bad politicians because they're taught they cannot compromise. You do not make compromises on God's perfect law. It's God's law. We have to follow it. So they're very difficult to work with in political settings because of that.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: So this leads to the whole concept of the project 2025, a 922 page document that, I don't know if you read all 922.
[00:35:20] Speaker D: I did, yes.
[00:35:21] Speaker A: Well, someone has to, I guess, but.
[00:35:24] Speaker D: So you don't have to.
[00:35:25] Speaker A: Yeah, right, exactly. We were just talking to Jeff Cohen in the first half, and he was saying, I listen to Fox News, so you don't have to. But there's 36 authors in 26. There's this whole denial by Trump that he doesn't know anything about Project 2025. And you're saying that 26 of them had direct connections to his administration?
[00:35:49] Speaker D: His administration.
And I even delved with a lot of research into all the various contributors. There were over 250 contributors to Project 2025 who aren't listed, authors. And so the spreadsheet that you referenced, it's a public Google document, shows all of those people.
And I went through and found ties, multiple other ties to his former administration who clerks who've clerked for Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas and Eileen Cannon and have been, you know, chiefs of staff for far right republican politicians. And so, you know, my goal was to establish it not just as a document that Trump can affirm or deny, but as the Republican Party's document, that it. That they own this document, that it's not just about Trump.
[00:36:49] Speaker A: Now, did they specifically incorporate that into the platform, or it's by implication that it basically, the Republican Party's current state status or viewpoint is aligned with the Project 2025 document?
[00:37:08] Speaker D: Well, Project 2025 is authored by the Heritage foundation, which is a conservative far right think tank in Washington, DC.
First one, they started the first one of these in 1979. So Ronald Reagan worked with the first one in 1981. And it was their goal to put together these conservative principles so that when they had conservative governments, they could move the government further to the right. So they published a number of these over the years. Donald Trump instituted over 60% of the one that they published in 2016, his last administration.
So I describe Project 2025 as their moonshot, as their everything we wanted and everything we've been working toward.
It's their home run. It's their grand slam. It's everything they want America to be that they've been working for since 1979. And they've put that in this document for a conservative president. They don't, they name Trump repeatedly, but they stress that it's for a conservative president and conservative administration to implement.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: And basically, I mean, you mentioned the notion, we talked a little bit about the notion of christian nationalism, but they definitely are defining and trying to codify what it is to be an acceptable citizen of the country. And I think one of the basics that starts out, and we talked about that a little bit, but their definition of what is a family and what's an acceptable for people to live their lives. And so how is it that they define the family?
[00:39:03] Speaker D: They define the family as the Bible defines the family. One man married to one unrelated woman with children, as many children as God chooses to bless them with. And marriage is a holy covenant between God, the man, and the woman. So they don't recognize any other structure as a true family. So same sex marriages are not real families. People who choose to live together and have children but not marry are not real families. Single parent homes are not real families to them. And they condemn all of those in Project 2025.
[00:39:46] Speaker A: And they propose this healthy marriage and relationship education program as part of the Office of Family Assistance. So that talk about that, how that would affect the government operations and the support that they'll give people.
[00:40:09] Speaker D: Well, I have called from the beginning, and I started writing about Project 2025 in January as a Christo fascist manifesto to transform our government from a democracy to a christian nationalist theocracy. I was the only person who was calling it that in January. Now more people are calling it that. So one of the tenets that they propose is that we need religious indoctrination to qualify for anything. If you need welfare assistance, you're going to get religious indoctrination. If you commit a crime, you're going to get religious indoctrination. If you need some kind of temporary help, you're going to get religious indoctrination. If you need welfare money, you're going to get religious indoctrination in exchange for that. The program that you outlined is one of those kinds of tools that they will use for that. They will take taxpayer public monies and pay christian nonprofits, religious nonprofits to administer programs like this through the federal government. And they will force people who need help to utilize them. And I even have said they can make people who want to get a divorce or want to get married go through programs like that.
[00:41:32] Speaker A: And one of the areas that you've focused on, I should say, that if people go to the how Project 2025 will ruin your life, substack that Andrew posts to regularly. You're keeping busy putting posts up at.
[00:41:51] Speaker D: Five days a week at a good.
[00:41:53] Speaker A: Flip, and there's a page that says how to get started. And you could scroll down that and see a lot of the, most of the posts that you've put up about particular aspects of the Project 2025 plan, from the most basic to some very specifics. One of the things that you've talked about a lot and seems to be very concerning is this stance on pornography and how it's defined. There's this huge definition of pornography that really is outside the bounds of what most people think of as certainly as any kind of extreme pornography.
[00:42:44] Speaker D: Well, I chose to start talking with pornography because growing up in christian nationalism, we used the same words but assigned very different meanings to those words. And liberals didn't know what we were talking about, you know, so we could laugh behind our hands and say we're saying these things right to their faces and they don't know what we're talking about really, or what we mean.
[00:43:08] Speaker A: Right.
[00:43:08] Speaker D: And so a lot of the work that I've done on my substat is to help people who aren't christian nationalists, who are independent voters or libertarian republican voters or liberal voters understand. When Republicans say, we intend to outlaw pornography, you'd better understand what the word pornography means to them. And it doesn't just mean your Pornhub, it means dirty books. And dirty books to them are books where sex happens between people who aren't married. And if the people are married, you shouldn't be describing the sex.
So even if they're married, having sex in a book, that's pornography to them.
Many movies would be classified as pornography or songs that have explicit lyrics in them, or Michelangelo's David. You saw a school have a book with a picture of that be removed from circulation because of the nudity. So most arthem is pornography. And I didn't have an art education at all in that background because of that and because so many artists were, you know, perverts and horrible people and whatever. And that's what I learned. So most art would be pornography. And you see that playing out in Ron DeSantis attack and defunding of all, you know, denying public grants to all arts organizations in Florida earlier this year. You know, it's a way to stifle what they consider to be pornographic behavior by not funding it. So it's a huge definition of what pornography is. A woman in a swimsuit would be pornography to many of them. If it makes Mike Johnson think about.
[00:44:54] Speaker A: Sex, it's, well, we've got a lot of pornography.
[00:44:59] Speaker D: We're all pornographers either consuming or producing the picture.
[00:45:05] Speaker A: He posted of a crowd in Venice around David's statues, like they're all pornographers because he happens to have his journals exposed. So, so much of art, you mentioned music, any music with explicit lyrics, you know, any. It's just a huge definition of what could be considered pornography way beyond anything. Although with the Supreme Court going the way it is, maybe they'll get to that, too. Of any official Supreme Court definitions that have been considered in the past. I do want to remind the listeners, this is global stuff. My name is Jimmy Derschlag. In the second half of the show, I'm privileged to have Andrew Watkins, who is an author of many books, and you can find out more about
[email protected]. we're talking about her Substack newsletter, how Project 2025 will ruin her life, where she's been in the forefront of bringing to the public knowledge, which is finally getting out there. It seems like. I bet the Democrats will talk about it quite a bit over the next.
[00:46:14] Speaker B: Week at their convention.
[00:46:17] Speaker D: Some people in Congress follow my substac, and I hope that some of the things that I've published have helped to shape their messaging. It'll be interesting to see how they talk about it.
[00:46:27] Speaker A: Well, let's talk about some of the other aspects of it, such as.
[00:46:35] Speaker B: Trump.
[00:46:36] Speaker A: Has already said he wants to dismantle the Department of Education and get rid of it and put it all to the states, just like they've been doing with the abortion rulings. But what about this whole promotion and support of christian based schools and what project 2025 proposes for that?
[00:47:04] Speaker D: Well, they want to do away with the Department of Education and return control of education to the states, they say, so that they can use public funds to fund christian education.
And they're attacking that on two fronts. Texas is a good example of how they're attacking it on multiple fronts. So they're trying to pass vouchers that can be used, taxpayer funded monies that can be used to send your children to private christian schools, and Texas taxpayers pay for that.
But they've also introduced this elementary school liberal arts curriculum for the coming year that is written by a faith based textbook writer. So it's in line with the kinds of textbooks I had growing up from Bob Jones University.
And they use all this Bible imagery and Bible stories throughout the textbooks to illustrate all kinds of things. But they say they're not religious. They're just using Bible stories as an example of how to teach. And so the Texas Department of Education approved those earlier this year, and they're supposed to be used starting this fall. So if they can't get vouchers passed and force most schools to be christian schools, then they'll just force their dogma into public schools. They also pass laws that allow religious chaplains to replace accredited therapists and school counselors in public schools in Texas and Florida. So that's another example of how taxpayer funds are going to fund religious indoctrination. I grew up in that kind of environment, and so the only kinds of counseling you could get were, here's the Bible, and we're going to read these Bible verses about your problem, and then we're going to pray about it. And if you don't feel better, you just don't have enough faith.
So that's the kind of offering they're turning to, giving to our kids in public schools as another way to indoctrinate them into this christian nationalism. It's really very frightening to me to watch this happening.
[00:49:16] Speaker A: Well, for a long time, these christian schools have been outside the main public funding for schools, and that slowly, over the last decades, changed where now they are eligible for those funding, but this is making it, uh, way beyond that. We're now their favorite for, uh, it.
[00:49:38] Speaker D: Looks like getting, uh, yes, they, they want all education to be christian nationalist education. They don't ever want to have another Gen Z.
And so getting to them when they start school, when they're five, four, five years old and starting that indoctrination then is very powerful. I can attest to that.
[00:50:01] Speaker A: Let's talk about the communication from the government. And I guess the press secretary always represents the administration's viewpoint to a certain extent. But in project 2020 five's plans, it now becomes the entire government.
Every official at any higher level, and I would guess at any level now is expected to promote the actual, the things we've been talking about, this christian nationalism and the government viewpoint to exclusion of any other ideas and communications director would be like, as you say, the head of propaganda.
[00:50:51] Speaker D: Exactly. They, you know, with Schedule F and this has been talked about a bunch in the mainstream media, but they want to replace any civil servant who's not in line with their viewpoints, with christian nationalist Republicans, fascist Republicans who are, yes, people who will do whatever the president wants. And the Supreme Court made it possible for the president to rule in this manner right before the 4 July and their ruling on his immunity. So the door is already open for them to accomplish that on day one if they win in November. And so then they can force out a bunch of people who will say no to them and replace them all with sycophants.
And then his press secretary, his communications director, it's proposed that they would not let anyone have access to the president who doesn't agree to parrot the administration's talking points.
So, you know, they've even talked about defunding and deconstructing the White House press pool and not, not even having an on campus White House press area. So they've talked about dissolving the, the club in Washington, DC that deals with the press. So, and creating their own thing, which would be, you can only be a member if you're going to say exactly what we tell you to say.
And we're going to give you our propaganda viewpoints. So they're not going to call them that and you're going to parrot what we want. And so it would effectively turn all of our press into propaganda for a fascist regime and a government. And we've seen other countries and other governments do that as well. So it's not like we can't imagine what that might look like.
[00:52:41] Speaker A: And along with that, the one part of the, I mean, I've skimmed some of the document, but the one part that I read completely was about eliminating the corporation for public broadcasting, since that's so directly connected to stations like ours that they're talking about any government funding. And they've been trying this for years to eliminate any government funding for anything they identify as liberal in any sense. Or they say, well, it's not education. It's promoting a certain viewpoint, which is ironic since that's exactly what they're trying to do.
[00:53:23] Speaker D: But that's always what they do.
[00:53:26] Speaker A: But saying this is not education unless it's Sesame street, and even that's too liberal. But where there is a lot of education happening on these stations and we try to incorporate a lot of different viewpoints and certainly provide a service, and that's one of their major causes, is to eliminate that funding for those programs.
[00:53:52] Speaker D: Well, they'd have, they've had a long term goal to eliminate the corporation for public broadcasting, but they would eliminate any outlet, irrespective of how it's funded, that disagreed with the administration if they win.
So it wouldn't just be NPR and corporation public broadcasting and PBS and that sort of thing.
[00:54:15] Speaker A: Well, and connected to that when we were just talking about who would be part of the government if they win and Project 2025 and its viewpoints get instituted is you brought up the issue of civil service, and there's been a separation for many years. I mean, it's the standard, really. You have these government employees, many of them very dedicated, I would say most of them very dedicated, who have cut across administrations, and they're there because of their abilities and their I skills and their knowledge in these departments that are really based on having to know about the particulars of what that department is doing. These are civil service positions that are not political. The heads of those departments are political and they are appointed by administrations. But there's a major change to do away with that. So they can get rid of any civil servant, no matter what their supposed previous tenure had been, and replace that with people, regardless of their knowledge or ability. I think the postal service, although that's the top of the postal service, is an example of that. But there, so it would really, that to me, may be the biggest change in the nature of the government and the administration because it would eliminate all these employees who have been taking care of the country, in effect, for a long time.
[00:55:54] Speaker D: Well, and what I want to make sure Americans understand about that is, so you're not political. You don't pay attention to government stuff. You don't care about it. But this is a fundamental change to our government that we won't be able to undo in 2026 by changing the party at the top. This is such a fundamental change that it will take us a decade or more to unwind it if they're successful.
It's just fundamentally changing our government and how it functions and how it operates.
[00:56:30] Speaker A: And on top of that, eliminating many of the departments because people objected to Trump deciding he can change the course of a hurricane with a sharpie. They're going to eliminate the weather, the organization that is basically responsible for the reporting on all of the activities of the weather.
[00:56:57] Speaker D: Right.
[00:56:58] Speaker A: And that's just one of many departments that they want to gut. And that's also directly related to climate change, which we haven't brought up. Basically, that's another climate change. Anyone who supports that doesn't follow the, their plan.
[00:57:18] Speaker D: Well, Project 2025 is funded by billionaire oligarch fossil fuel people.
So of course they're going to banish any mention of climate change from this administration and our discourse in society. If they create a fascist government, none of us will be able to talk about it anymore.
So they're determined to stamp out any work related to saving our planet or preserving climate that's habitable.
[00:57:50] Speaker A: Just as an aside, how do they respond to all these weather events and the catastrophic events that seem to be increasing that so, Ann will, majority of scientists who say the climate is changing, is that just a denial or this is God's will or how do they respond?
[00:58:09] Speaker D: So some of it is. It's God's will. We're living in the last days. God's going to destroy the earth anyway, so we don't have to take care of it.
You know, it's just the weather. The weather's cyclical. It'll come back around to not being this way anymore. God's judging us for our sin. And so all of these catastrophes are God judging us. They have multiple explanations for why they don't have to do anything.
[00:58:35] Speaker A: Well, we only have a few minutes left. Andrew, I'm so glad you made the time. Andrew Watkins, check her
[email protected]. and definitely check out her substack newsletter, how Project 2025 will ruin your life. A lot more information there about you really performed a public service. And I don't know if you'll get the credit you deserve, but, you know.
[00:59:04] Speaker D: Now that it's become, you've given it to me.
[00:59:06] Speaker A: So, you know, even now that it's becoming a household word. And I. Are you hopeful with the change that's happened and it seems like there's momentum behind Kamala Harris's nomination and maybe we'll be. It's hard to know and you hate to predict because so many things have happened that we didn't expect. But are you feeling a little more hopeful about what might happen now?
[00:59:36] Speaker D: I cannot wait to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walsh. I'm very excited, so I can only speak for me, but I'm personally very excited and I've seen an energy change within the people that comment on my substat. People are very excited.
[00:59:51] Speaker A: You're allowed to say that I can't.
We can't promote anyone in particular.
Is there any, any other things you'd like to say just to people to be on top of this and be aware of it?
[01:00:10] Speaker D: I think it's really important to learn some basics about Project 2025, to discuss with people in your lives who may not be as politically engaged, so, and to understand what they care about.
I've had a lot of success talking with women about their plans for contraception, for example, because they would do away with all hormonal contraception, including the birth control pill, because they believe they cause abortions. So definitely IUD's and those kinds of things. So it would be really important to let younger women, people of childbearing age, know that they would take that right away and leave you with something very unreliable for birth control.
[01:00:56] Speaker A: Thanks again, Andrew Watkins. I want to thank the people who helped me out here, Doro and Dennis and Rob, in recording this show. And my name is Jimmy Durschlag. This has been global stuff.
[01:01:10] Speaker C: This has been a K Mutt podcast. To listen to other shows and more episodes of this show, find us on all the platforms where you get your podcast and also on our website, kmud.org.
