r/TheHandmaidsTale • u/LegendOfTreen • 2d ago
Project 2025 - our path to Gilead Politics
Should we be horrified yet??? With the overturning of Chevron???
6
u/LegendOfTreen 2d ago
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1807195762192724403.html for the full thread. So much more information than just this.
3
u/ZongduOfArrakis 2d ago
How likely is it that the replacement for bureaucrats are so incompetent that they cannot make things function? Like this isn't to downplay the risk, but a big thing honestly ignored in the US is an importance of an administrative state. Saying 'we're going to do all this stuff but also replace people who don't have transferrable skills' is scary but also trying to have your cake and eat it too in a way.
Trump's first presidency often depended on experts uncomfortably carrying out orders, a second term would see people without experience as well as a likely more extreme Cabinet. This might be intentional in certain departments but for others you'd have 'oh shit, we can't make the numbers work' and have an economic crisis essentially which would basically piss off a lot of 'pressure groups' who'd want to entrench Trump's powers.
Liz Truss in the UK was an example of what happened as someone who, while adopting extreme policies was probably more willing to listen to certain limits and who only had herself and her finance minister fucking things up, not the entire bureaucracy. She still caused unprecedented damage, and unlike in the US she could easily be told to go as the head of government is in the legislature and the party can easily find a replacement.
2
u/wagsman 1d ago
It’s not an unfortunate side effect, it’s a feature.
If you replace bureaucrats that are experts in their fields with political appointees who know nothing about the subject matter incompetence is going to be fraught within. Then they can prove how terrible government is because people will suddenly be experiencing incompetent government. That in turn will give them More leeway to gut it because average people won’t see the point in paying taxes for incompetence.
The end goal is a small centralized government ruled entirely by the executive branch (autocracy). This is the means to get Americans to willingly accept it.
1
u/LegendOfTreen 1d ago
Ugh, I just feel like, so much dread! Election years have been getting to me the last few cycles! I really just do not know what the future looks like and it feels like there’s a very overwhelming force just waiting to pounce on America.
1
u/ZongduOfArrakis 1d ago
But what if they are incompetent at their own goals? The executive branch's strength in its own way is that people nominated to head it are fairly expert in comparison to people who do sit in the legislature.
I'm sure the project wants a lot of institutions to be dismantled, but they don't want to cause like an economic crisis in the sense that will hurt their own base. To some level yes, intentional incompetence works, but if you have someone in office for 4 years and so clearly turning things to crap then people may notice that too. The financial crisis in 2008 didn't help incumbent governments globally for instance.
Again to make the Liz Truss comparison, she failed to properly tip off the markets about her (bad) plans in a way that they were spooked and nearly crashed the equivalent of the 401k programme - as someone not as extreme as Trump and who only did this with changing two important people and not thousands. Doing that on a massive scale would, while doing a lot of harm, would also probably result in certain plans being exposed as 'okay, this was an unworkable fantasy wish list' and the right-wingers turning on one another.
1
u/LegendOfTreen 2d ago
I would worry that the departments where it is intentional would be damaging enough. Human rights, obviously. The department of health, food and drug regulations, environmental regulations and so on.
1
u/ZongduOfArrakis 2d ago
Oh you're 100% right but I kind of also mean that one positive in the mess is that if there's enough chaos the politics could be self-defeating if the goal is to deeply entrench themselves into such institutions.
Let's say all skilled people who consult on the federal reserve are gone, that could cause chaos enough that the biggest Trump supporters turn on him. I mean, it would obviously do untold damage that would harm so many people but it could be self-harming enough to make people dissatisfied with Trump himself and the GOP. Especially if they are implementing the effects of insane plans like replacing all income tax with tariffs.
Likewise, while Red states would suffer more, the bureaucrats being so unskilled could mean they fail to properly coordinate and control Democratic bases of power. This is only worth talking about though in the big picture of 'can someone come in and undo this later'? If it quickly causes the base to fragment and is too incompetent to quash all opposition that's possible
2
u/LegendOfTreen 2d ago
I see what you’re saying and I don’t think you’re wrong. Like, in Gilead they definitely have a suffering economy and, but there seems to be so little room for anyone to actually do anything to undo all this damage (and hopefully help return things to some semblance of a true free society) due to military control.
What do you think about the chances the corruption would continue in spite of the chaos? Maybe because of extremist religious beliefs or even something like ego or fear?
At some point it could all be lost for us and our kids. Beyond the point of saving or salvaging.
I know I’m in a Handmaids tale sub right now but this is a super real world concern for me and I think so many people. Right? But I fear not enough people are even aware of extreme potential plots like this and think “oh that would never happen” like anyone who would worry is a conspiracy theorist.
2
u/ZongduOfArrakis 2d ago
It's definitely possible, but it's I think good to talk about potential barriers to the worst case scenario not just as 'we're safe' but positive things to be aware of and think about even if what seems like the worst case scenario unfolds.
One of the big ones is getting certain 'kingmakers' on your side. In many states, the military actually tends to be less likely than the police to turn on its people because they trained to mostly use force on foreign powers and turning on 'their own' is new. However, there are large regional variations so we don't know.
Another is the big business, and the US is somewhat rare in the world in that a lot of the top companies are now way more comfortable with the kind of sensible policies of the Democrats even if the low taxes seem appealing. Trump's base are more small business owners and a few shy middle class people who will always kind of like low taxes. But a big economic crisis so obviously in the hands of the GOP may be the final straw.
Another is entrenched opposition - it's unlikely that if you say had the federal government somehow fake a Republican winning as California's governor that most would accept it.
As for entrenched religion, that is definitely a risk especially compared to low religiosity in Europe. However one challenge the show ignores in a way is that American Christianity is very diverse, even the extreme forms. Even now the worst megachurches are kind of a combined 'caucus' and have deep differences. So while they are a big risk, it's harder than say one certain church so clearly subjugating everyone.
The last factor is probably entrenched opposition. In certain states it would just basically be obvious if you faked electoral results to make a Trump-friendly Republican the governor of California. Disbanding them would depend on how all other factors interact and how the public has a chance to respond before reaching that point.
So, there are risks of things getting really, really worse but in some ways you can also take a step back and look at what inborn factors need to be further destroyed before things are too late to be reversed.
1
u/LegendOfTreen 2d ago
Maybe I should research stuff like this…. I generally like to be optimistic and have been having a hard time since reading the thread I linked here.
2
u/LegendOfTreen 2d ago
Like, for example, the Supreme Court is what it is now. Those people are there for life. More damage like this will be impossible to fight, as more supportive appointments are made, it will be easier to pass things that make it harder and more dangerous to oppose or even speak out and criticize.
And I’m not being like, too dramatic, because it’s in the wording in the document. People vote for party lines more often than they take the time to look into where people stand on the issues. We aren’t voting for Trump or Biden, we are voting for their entire administration and I’m so worried people aren’t aware of how serious it could be
And to be super honest, as a non-Trump supporter, he hasn’t even publicly endorsed this plan to my knowledge. I don’t think they care who the president is as long as he and his administration are extreme conservatives.
But I guess we should all just hope that everything goes so crazy, so horribly, that people change their minds?
I’m obviously not frustrated with you, so I’m sorry if it’s coming off that way. I’ve never discussed these things here but I don’t want to cause any issues with people I love so thought I could maybe talk to people here lol.
1
u/ZongduOfArrakis 2d ago
Yeah the federal justice system is basically the one thing that has been in their deck for a long, essentially due to the system getting flawed when ideological schools of law took off, as well as luck on when certain justices died and left vacancies.
I just guess that a weak bureaucracy that's unskilled has less of a chance to competently and efficiently enforce those rulings everywhere, which isn't something I've seen discussed much. Like there's a reason that changing your entire civil service doesn't really ever happen, even in more authoritarian regimes. Some level of harm from it is possible.
Oh, and no worries as I'm not angry at all. It's actually kind of refreshing to get into the discussion more on the details on not just talking about the dangers but the whole question of 'is this workable [within the scope of having a functioning government] when you start implementing it?'
1
u/LegendOfTreen 2d ago
It’s hard for me to imagine a future where this is happening. Like, enforcing a new world order basically through military might. If there is enough extremism within the military, it will be very possible to use some portion of the military against the people. This obviously won’t happen without war at some level. Although I have a feeling a lot of population would be likely to comply out of fear.
Hypothetically speaking, if extremists did take control by force or other means, and they started slowly (or rapidly!) stripping away rights, like the right to vote, freedom of religion, women’s right to work, own property or have bank accounts, ban any type of queerness, what could anyone really do against the military might of an extreme armed service?
Freedom of press will not stand a chance. Would girls still be able to go to school in this potential future? Like the more I think about it the more Gilead I see!
I do think that Gilead couldn’t possibly last much longer without some support from other world governments, but I also think that in a real world situation, support wouldn’t be difficult for the extremist US to garner. There’s already pretty good prospects with Russia, China, and Iran on that front, I think.
2
u/ZongduOfArrakis 2d ago
I mean right to work for women is at least very hard to take away in a society where various jobs have existed for decades. Without women as cashiers at at Walmart, without them filling out people's prescriptions at CVS, the entire bulwark of the economy comes crumbling down with the US balance of trade as everything that's not say, heavy industry would lose productivity. Even Iran does have women attending university and working in several important industries, just with obvious 'limits' (they even implemented birth control programmes in the 90s when population growth became unsustainable)
The real scary part is that the worst end result would not probably look like Gilead, it would be on the surface possibly more recognizable to the modern day but with serious limits on one's civil liberties. So perhaps the average woman still works and can wear fashionable clothes, but is subject to a harsh police state, cannot dissent, has no reproductive rights at all
10
u/sarra1833 1d ago
So if a father or mother abuse the kid, the parent who did not do that gets further victimized, as well as the child - by having the child forcibly adopted out to a different family just to prevent "single parent maybe with boy/girlfriend".
Gross gross gross.