Front Man

If there’s a second term for Donald Trump, it will be different…very different.

The guy playing the lead – the star of his own reality show – will be back on top but it won’t be the same.

You’ll know him by the attitude, the tone of voice, the whine, the endless self-praise, the ability to disparage, boast, over-praise, insult, discriminate, with negatives in all directions and the burning and very obvious and personal desire to get even.

But the rest of the cast will be different: sharper, authoritarian, carefully selected, speaking often over the star to correct and direct him, alter his prose, forcing him to stick to a script he did not write, edit or even read.

And the script itself will be far different. It will be totally developed, fully thought out, prepared by the star’s former cast mates and by those around them who have been working since 1973 on a far different America than we have experienced.

The single act of the first term – the sharp cut in corporate and personal taxes, followed by a whole set of promises that were never truly developed beyond the promise – will be repeated with more tax cuts for the all-powerful one percent.

But then will come the 920 pages of Project 2025 designed specifically for a Trump Administration by those who worked in his first administration and who understood how vacant of policies he and the former Republican Party were. The star then was a man who had no idea of how to be a President but followed the simple direction: “Do what the hell you want to do, you are the President.” Plans and policies for government were clearly missing – and as far as he is concerned, still are.

Now, should he regain the starring role, we will see a very different focus… one designed by those who want a total concentration on specifically and significantly reducing the size and cost of government, turning back the clock as far as it will go, with new script writers and show handlers: The Heritage Foundation.

Soon, certainly within the first year, it will become obvious to everyone but not necessarily to him, that the star is now simply the Front Man – doing what he’s told to do by a very special agent of Heritage – his own selected Vice President; no longer a Pence-like worshipful slave, but fully indoctrinated by Heritage and there to maintain the authoritarian and ultra conservative Plan and to keep the Front Man in line.

THE PLAN EXISTS

Donald Trump disavows the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 which states repeatedly that it has been designed for Trump’s second term as President. The full title of the Heritage Plan is the 2025 Presidential Transition Project or Project 2025. 78% of the Heritage staff on the Project has worked in Trump’s White House during his first term in office.

You have read here and elsewhere about some of the bold views contained in the document. Little by little more and more of those plans are becoming public

At the same time Americans not in that one percent tax bracket will be asked to pay what amounts to a national sales tax as the entire Project has been developed to ask more of those who can afford so much less.

The plan is then to eliminate as much of government as can be lost; to reduce as many departments and agencies as can be cut, weakening what is left so that it can be controlled by the Chief Executive – the star – in the Oval office.

Heritage goes right at the foundational pillars of government: Judicial, Commerce, Education, Healthcare…taking away whole departments with some and seriously weakening parts of others.

Further, in removing the essential working staff of government – Civil Service employees – and turning 660,000 of those jobs into political appointments – 50,000 of them in the first year – Heritage has the second Trump Administration making a significant change in exactly how the Federal Government works day by day. This is about getting rid of the essential non-political structure of the government bureaucracy and replacing it with political appointments returning America to the 18th and 19th Century years of the “spoils system”.

Getting rid of the Federal Reserve system to regulate money and with it our economy; decreasing the power of the Judiciary system by ridding it of its investigative power by eliminating the FBI; closing the Departments of Commerce and Education and all that they do for business growth and the education of our children.

(By the way if you watched the Harris-Trump debate you might have noticed that not a single word about education was heard in that hour and a half.)

But there is more, much more including a major impact on our healthcare system.

In his debate with Kamala Harris, Trump, as he has done for more than nine years, reports no specific way he will finally get rid of the Affordable Care Act which is now the foundation of our healthcare system. He says only that he has concepts of a plan.

Designed to open healthcare support to almost all Americans, with cost as a significant but not sole reason for Obamacare, the Act has worked.

More than two thirds of Americans have either Medicare or Medicaid assistance.

Congress has already delivered Medicare price negotiations on 10 widely used drugs limiting out of pocket spending for prescription drugs under Medicare to $2,000 a year.

In 2024, 79 million Americans with low incomes, received Medicaid assistance. There are no mandatory work conditions specified to receive Medicaid nor any length of time associated with that coverage.

The Heritage plan for healthcare will make massive changes cutting both programs and in the case of Medicaid insisting that those receiving benefits must prove they have a job and also signifying that such coverage is only good for a certain number of years.

In five pages directly in the middle of Project 2025 Heritage proposes that the Affordable Care Act cut Medicare benefits, end the $35 cost of insulin, stop Medicare price reduction negotiations, cut Medicaid access, restrict contraceptive care, jeopardize access to IVF and ban medication abortion.

While Trump denies interest in everything Heritage, 250 of their policies match his past and current policy proposals.

Its extremely likely that Trump genuinely knows nothing about that.

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY DANCES

Eleanor Roosevelt often said that the Democratic Party was its own worst enemy.

Stunned by the frightening sight of Joe Biden stumbling through a debate with Donald Trump unnerved party leadership and those whose money made a big difference so much that they found a way to “retire him”. They did so even after 14 million votes he’d actually won in an almost invisible primary, made him the Democratic candidate for a second term as President.

His terms to step aside were obvious. Only Kamala Harris would maintain his primacy as the architect of a new administration with his Vice President as President.

And this is where Mrs. Roosevelt’s comment became so real.

Never mind her personality, her preparedness, her color and ancestry, her previous thoughts and statements about various policies – Kamala Harris is a woman and America has never truly wanted a woman as President.

While that ultimate leadership position has been true all around the World, it has never been true in America even as women have run universities, major corporations like General Motors, major movie and entertainment empires and served as Governors, Mayors, members of Congress and the Senate, served as members of the Supreme Court.

But not President.

Donald Trump became President when women in battleground States supported him.

He lost the Presidency when women in battleground states were furious over his dismal leadership during Covid.

Now we know women again will play a role in the election if they choose to ignore his attitudes, his actions and statements about “getting even” and the insidious Project 2025.

Here again there are issues that must be dealt with. Abortion might become an issue that overcomes the high price of food that only now seems to be coming down even as gas prices begin to drop lower than we have seen in years.

And the fact that the Republican Party has disappeared from sight…able to make a man who hates government, Donald Trump, its choice for President for three consecutive elections

No matter, Kamala Harris is a woman. After the recent debate which had her slice Trump down to Earth, the polls in Michigan showed no change from Trump’s one percentage point edge

Polls show that Harris will only receive one quarter of black men’s votes.

There are just weeks to go now before Election Day. While her popular vote will show a major Democratic victory for the ninth time in the past ten Presidential elections, that State controlled Electoral College will choose the next President.

Kamala Harris is a woman. The Democratic Party did what it thought it had to do to change its candidate for President at the very last moment.

Let’s hope that Eleanor was wrong – now more than ever.