Chuck Darwin<p>- <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>pluralistic</span></a></span> </p><p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/20/clinical-trial-by-ordeal/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">pluralistic.net/2024/12/20/cli</span><span class="invisible">nical-trial-by-ordeal/</span></a> </p><p>Realistically, few people are going to read a 900-page group work of neofeudalist fanfic shit out by the most esoteric Fedsoc weirdos the world has ever seen.</p><p>But one person who did read Project 2025 was the leftist historian Rick Perlstein, who was the first person to really dig into what a fucking messthat thing is:<br><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fracture-lines/#disassembly-manual" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fra</span><span class="invisible">cture-lines/#disassembly-manual</span></a><br>Perlstein's excellent analysis doesn't claim that Project 2025's authors aren't sincere in their intentions to wreak great harm upon the nation and its people; <br>rather, his point is that Project 2025 is filled with contradictory, mutually exclusive proposals written by people who fundamentally disagree with one another, <br>and who each have enough power within the Trump coalition that all of their proposals have to be included in a document like this:<br><a href="https://prospect.org/politics/2024-07-10-project-2025-republican-presidencies-tradition/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">prospect.org/politics/2024-07-</span><span class="invisible">10-project-2025-republican-presidencies-tradition/</span></a><br>Project 2025 isn't just a guide to the masturbatory fantasies of the worst people in American politics <br>– far more importantly, it is a detailed map of the fracture lines in the GOP coalition, the places where it is liable to split and shatter. <br>🔥This is an important point if you want to do more about Trumpism than run around feeling miserable and scared. <br>If you want to fight, Project 2025 is a guide to the weak spots where an attack will do the most damage.<br>Perlstein's insight continues to be borne out as the Trump regime makes ready to take power. <br>In a new story for KFF News, Stephanie Armour and Julie Rovner describe the irreconcilable differences among Trump's picks for the country's top public health authorities:<br><a href="https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/trump-rfk-kennedy-health-hhs-fda-cdc-vaccines-covid-weldon/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">kffhealthnews.org/news/article</span><span class="invisible">/trump-rfk-kennedy-health-hhs-fda-cdc-vaccines-covid-weldon/</span></a><br>The brain-worm-infected-elephant in the room is, of course, RFK Jr, who has been announced as Trump's head of Health and Human Services. <br>RFK Jr is a notorious antivaxer, chairman of Children’s Health Defense, a notorious anti-vaccine group. <br>Kennedy's view is shared by Trump's chosen CDC boss, Dave Weldon, a physician who has repeated the dangerous lie that vaccinations cause autism. <br>Mehmet "Dr Oz" Oz, the TV "physician" Trump wants to put in charge of Medicare/Medicaid, calls vaccines "oversold" and advocates for treating covid with hydroxychloroquine, another thoroughly debunked hoax:<br><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2024/12/17/hydroxychloroquine-study-covid-19-retracted-trump/77051671007/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">usatoday.com/story/news/health</span><span class="invisible">/2024/12/17/hydroxychloroquine-study-covid-19-retracted-trump/77051671007/</span></a><br>However, other top Trump public health picks emphatically support vaccines. <br><a href="https://c.im/tags/Marty" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Marty</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Makary" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Makary</span></a> is Trump's choice for FDA commissioner; <br>he's a Johns Hopkins trained surgeon who says vaccines "save lives" (but he peddles the lethal, unscientific hoax that childhood vaccines should be "spread out"). <br><a href="https://c.im/tags/Jay" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Jay</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Bhattacharya" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Bhattacharya</span></a>, the economist/MD whom Trump wants to put in charge of the NIH, supports vaccines <br>(he is also one of the country's leading proponents of the eugenicist idea of accepting the mass death of elderly, sick and disabled people rather than imposing quarantines during epidemics). <br>Then there's <a href="https://c.im/tags/Janette" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Janette</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Nesheiwat" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Nesheiwat</span></a>, whom Trump has asked to serve as the nation's surgeon general; she calls vaccines "a gift from God."</p><p>Like "Bidenism," Trumpism is a fragile coalition of people who thoroughly and irreconcilably disagree with one another. <br>During the Biden administration, this resulted in self-inflicted injuries like appointing the brilliant trustbuster Lina Khan to run the FTC, <br>but also appointing the pro-monopoly corporate lawyer Jacqueline Scott Corley to a lifetime seat as a federal judge, <br>from which perch she ruled against Khan's no-brainer suit to block the Microsoft-Activision merger:<br><a href="https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-for-microsoft-mergers" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-r</span><span class="invisible">ules-for-microsoft-mergers</span></a><br>The Trump coalition is even broader than the Biden coalition. <br>That's how he won the 2024 election. <br>But that also means that Trumpism is more fractious and off-balance, and hence will be easier to disrupt, <br>because it is riven by people in senior positions who hate one another and are actively working for each others' political demise.</p>