7/23/2024

Between the time that I started drafting this newsletter to you reading it right now, our current president dropped out of the 2024 election and the former president survived an assassination attempt less than two days before the Republican National Convention. Who the hell knows what will happen by the time issue two comes out.

Sure, the news may seem unusually hectic at the moment, but the fact is this is just the times we’re living in. News breaks and cycles rise and fade in a matter of hours. It’s easy to feel like so much important political reporting doesn’t get the attention it deserves because, well, it doesn’t. I know this feeling well.

I’m Matt Cohen, Senior Staff Writer at Democracy Docket, and for years I’ve been reporting on the right-wing effort to subvert democracy through various means — whether it be through the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, or through the vast, well-funded ecosystem of conservative organizations working behind the scenes. At Democracy Docket, I utilize all this reporting knowledge, skills and expertise I’ve accumulated to expose and explain the ways the right is trying to dismantle voting rights and erode democracy. And, trust me, there’s a lot of ways they’re doing this.

Welcome to Eye On The Right, a newsletter that exposes and explains all the right-wing groups, figures and personalities behind the assault on voting rights.

Why My Hackles Are Raised About Project 2025

It seems like all anyone can talk about these days is Project 2025 — The Heritage Foundation’s nearly 1,000-page blueprint for how former president Donald Trump, or the next conservative president, can radically remake the federal government into a legitimate authoritarian regime. While I’m still personally working my way through the massive document, what I have read and reported on so far warrants alarm bells.

There are utterly terrifying suggestions scattered throughout — like completely abolishing the Department of Education and banning abortion nationwide — that will have an enormous impact on the country. But the aspects of what’s so alarming to me about Project 2025 are the various ways it sets the stage for full-on fascism in America. From a desire to strip the U.S. Department of Justice of its independence, to the various recommendations to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Federal Elections Commission that will make elections less safe, secure and free, it’s clear that democracy is on the chopping block in Project 2025.

It’s also obvious Project 2025 doesn’t just exist as some Republican fever dream — the level of detail for how they can pull it off is frightening. That’s also the vibe among the numerous democracy and voting-related policy experts, advocates and researchers I’ve spoken with in my reporting. Even as Trump and the GOP try to distance themselves from Project 2025 and some of its more extreme proposals (more on that below), the reality is that it’s extremely unlikely the entirety of everything outlined in it will come to fruition. But it’s important to note — and I think this gets lost in the conversation around Project 2025 — should even 10% of it come to pass, it would profoundly and negatively impact tens of millions of people. The nonpartisan legal and public policy research nonprofit Democracy Forward recently released an eye-opening report that outlines the human impact of just a few of Project 2025’s many proposals. It’s worth a read.

To discuss Project 2025, right-wing extremism and the state of democracy, join me for an “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit this afternoon from 1:30-2:30 p.m. ET. I’ll be answering your questions and sharing insights. See you there!

Republicans Can’t Easily Hide Their Heritage Foundation Ties

Everyone knows that almost everything that comes out of Trump’s mouth is a lie — so much so that reporters tasked with fact-checking his infinite stream of deception sometimes wonder what’s even the point anymore. But every now and then Trump will say something so blatantly false that I can’t help but laugh at the absurdity. Such is the case in Trump’s ongoing effort to distance himself from Project 2025.

As soon as Project 2025 took hold in the mainstream media late last month, Trump — somehow only just recognizing that its extreme agenda might actually be a problem for people — took to his TruthSocial platform to try and do some damage control. “I know nothing about Project 2025,” he said. “I have no idea who is behind it.” I won’t go into too much detail about how ridiculous that claim is because, as I previously mentioned, so many former Trump admin officials contributed to it.

The entire GOP is doing whatever they can to avoid talking about Project 2025. The problem is that the 50-year-old Heritage Foundation is such an influential organization to the modern GOP that it’s utterly unbelievable for any Republican politician to claim they aren’t aware of Project 2025, arguably the Heritage Foundation’s single biggest collective effort to date.

In my latest piece, I highlight nine Republicans running for office or reelection in Congress who, despite staying mum on Project 2025, have previous ties to The Heritage Foundation. In many cases, these politicians — like Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Gov. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) — worked with Heritage in crafting or discussing policy topics directly outlined in Project 2025.  

JD Vance’s Anti-Voting History

After months of speculation and a truly insufferable media cycle around the “Apprentice-style reveal” just before the RNC, Trump announced Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate in the 2024 election. There’s a lot of good pieces out there that go deep on how Vance’s faux-populism, radical MAGA transformation and Silicon Valley ties would be bad news for the country that I highly recommend reading when you have the chance.

But I want to highlight Vance’s history of election denialism and anti-voting policies that hasn’t much been discussed.

As I wrote last week, Vance has a history of expressing conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election, including in a February interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, where he said were he the vice president during the 2020 election, he would not have certified the election for President Joe Biden. He also falsely claimed that illegal immigrants are voting in elections, pitched an idea to give parents extra votes in elections to represent their children and, most recently, praised Project 2025, telling NewsMax that after reviewing most of it, he concluded “there are some good ideas in there.”

I hope you’ve enjoyed this first edition of Eye On The Right. I’ll be back in your inbox next month, but if there are any topics you’d like me to dive into in the meantime, let me know.