(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Play the Hand You're Dealt [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-07-07 Are we all tired of playing the “should Biden drop out?” game? Maybe, maybe not. I don’t really want to debate that. Too many people are doing that already. I do, however, think we should all be aware that Republicans have been attacking Democrats to make them disappear since Abe Fortas was nominated as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. It’s been pretty much nonstop since Jim Wright was forced to step down in 1989 for a book deal...a book deal that was dwarfed by one held by his chief attacker, Newt Gingrich. Republicans defended Gingrich until his leadership lost Congressional seats for the party. To this day, Republicans everything Trump does, from obvious exhibitions of cognitive shortcomings to criminal behavior and blatantly authoritarian impulses. Ultimately, all this will shake out somehow, but I don’t want to talk about that right now. I want to talk about something I am sure can beat Republicans, if Democrats are smart enough and tenacious enough to use it effectively. I speak of Project 2025. Despite all the nonsense, the concept of a plan to impose authoritarianism on America by executive fiat is terrifying to any real American, and it’s reaching the point of a story with legs. On Sunday, actress Taraji P. Henson took a break during the BET Awards, which she was hosting, to speak out about Project 2025. "The Project 2025 plan is not a game. Look it up!" she told viewers. "I’m talking to all the mad people that don’t want to vote. You’re going to be mad about a lot of things if you don’t vote." The clip went viral, amplified by other celebrities like Mark Ruffalo. So the MAGA forces swung into action on social media, accusing Henson and Ruffalo and other progressives of making it all up. "Is Project 2025 in the room with you?" a blue-checked user sneered under Ruffalo's tweet. These efforts at gaslighting people run against a real problem, however: The drafters of Project 2025 seek to promote their authoritarian playbook. Thus, a simple Google search generates a slew of explainers from various news organizations, with even more coming out rapidly, as a response to the rising number of people asking, "What's Project 2025?" "We received a flood of reader inquiries asking if Project 2025 was a real effort," the fact-checking team at Snopes wrote in their lengthy explainer published Tuesday. Google Trends confirms that the number of searches for "project 2025" has grown dramatically in recent days. Henson's speech juiced the search rate, but this data shows interest levels were rising before her speech last Sunday. Earlier this month, John Oliver did a segment about Project 2025 on his HBO show, though the boost of interest from that was modest. His audience tends to be people who are already politically engaged and have heard about the initiative from the news. Perhaps more importantly, President Joe Biden's campaign has started a big media push to raise awareness, starting with a website last week that offers "a taste of Trump’s Project 2025" with bullet points like, "Takes Away Reproductive Freedom Nationwide" and "Terminates the Constitution." The campaign projected a QR code around Atlanta Thursday that sends people to the site. There have also been a few TikTok videos garnering millions of views that break down what Project 2025 is, and what a threat it is to ordinary people. Perhaps one of the most telling signs that this is beginning to backfire on Trump, however, is the way the MAGA forces on social media are starting to freak out. As Democratic activist and researcher Will Stancill pointed out, the MAGA people who pretend to be leftists to sow confusion online are busy at work trying to pretend Project 2025 is, uh, a Biden thing. Perhaps the right's mistake was giving the initiative the name "Project 2025," which sounds like something out of a dystopian sci-fi novel. Trump's in-house team has the same urge, as they have "Agenda 47," a lighter-weight version of the same fascistic game plan. Trump's campaign likely went with scary-sounding names on purpose, both to thrill their sadistic foot soldiers and to cause liberals to react fearfully. But those monikers also make them memorable enough to break into the consciousness of people who aren't paying close attention. Swing voters and people who aren't sure yet if they're going to vote are starting to hear about this "Project 2025" — and they do not like it. That's not how this was supposed to work. Even in early June, polling showed only a quarter of Americans had heard of Project 2025. It was, for a time, working as likely intended: To motivate hardcore MAGA people and alarm partisan Democrats, all without even being noticed by the everyday people who still haven't made a choice of who to vote for or whether to vote. There hasn't been new polling data yet, but this spike of interest suggests there's a strong chance that the sands are shifting. If the chatter about Project 2025 continues in both the press and social media, the knowledge of Trump's plans might start to influence the election — and in ways he will not like. Trump cannot win without a large percentage of voters backing him under the false belief he's "not so bad." The more they find out about what he intends to do in office, the more will have second thoughts about risking another Trump term. 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