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thinking. This is the Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews. Everybody's talking
about Project twenty twenty five. What the hell is Project twenty twenty five.
I don't know about you, but I've seen the bullet points. People have
memed it. There have been some summarizations, but by different people. Are
those people credible? How do you distill nine hundred pages down into something that
you and I can manage? The first person I thought to call was constitutional
attorney and friend Andrew Sidell, and so he is joining me today so we
can talk shop. Andrew. Good to have you, brother, always the
pleasure, my friend. Thanks for having me on. All right, well,
let's just get into it. What is this nine hundred page document.
Project twenty twenty five is massive, It really is. I think the simplest
way for your audience to understand it is it is the playbook to create a
Christian nation. Christian nationalists are the architects of Project twenty twenty five, and
this is nine hundred pages. As you said, it's a nine hundred page
policy manual for restructuring the federal government to advance it's the Christian nationalist's ultimate goals
of toppling American democracy and instilling a theocracy that takes away our freedoms and equality.
It's really important to remember that those nine hundred pages, they're what they
felt comfortable publishing, right. So this went through an editing process, it
was sanitized. It's full of jargon, that's what they were comfortable saying publicly.
Right. But there's still a lot that is behind Project twenty twenty five,
the people and the groups that organize this, and this could become a
reality or start becoming a reality as soon as January twenty twenty five. And
I really think it's important for people to understand that this is not some vague
threat, that this really could happen, and it could happen soon. I
used to say that, A, it's all hyperbole. This is me being
relatively naive a decade ago. Ah, the dismantling of democracy, the rise
of religious fascism in this country. You know, the theocracy thing is where
we've evolved beyond that. Look at the demographics, the rise of the seculars,
the non religious. And now I look around and I think, oh
my god. When I say the impending death of democracy, I feel like
it's no longer hyperbole. I feel like I'm looking right at it in the
face. And you would agree with that. I mean, we're on the
bubble here, Oh yeah, I mean we really really are. And within
the first few pages, Project twenty twenty five says it's going to erase protections
for LGBTQ equality, reproductive freedom, diversity, equity because they conflict with Christian
nationalist beliefs. Right, they talk about the biblically based version of a family
and using the federal government to advance that and inhibit everybody else who doesn't fit
within that mold. You know, one of its core promises again early up
top, is to secure our god given individual right to enjoy the blessings of
liberty right, a promise that it roots in its particular version of the Biblical
God. Does this kind of like bait and switch between founding language and then
switching it to this Christian nationalist version of what they would interpret it as.
And really, again, like the biblically based family, they're going to limit
abortion and contraception based on the fundamentalist religious belief that life begins at conception,
dismantle public education. I mean they are talking about quote sunsetting the Department of
Education, and the goal really is in that particular chapter to shut down public
education as we know it and funnel all of those kids and all those tax
dollars into private religious schools that can keep kids in one particular faith. One
of the arguments I am hearing though from the Project twenty twenty five crowd is
that, well, it's states rights. We just want to take the We
don't want to federalize all of this. We need to give this back to
the states and more importantly to the parents, so it becomes actually a stand
that defends the rights of the states of the Union. How would you respond
to that. I Mean, that's a very common and it's a very old
argument. Here's an examp sample of what they're talking about. I'm going to
use an example you're familiar with. Seth Oklahoma Okay Project twenty twenty five actually
connects pretty closely to what is going on in Oklahoma. And we'll just stick
with public education. Right. There's a push to put the Bible in the
Ten Commandments in Oklahoma public schools. Ryan Walters has created a climate there that
is incredibly difficult is like a kind word for it, for LGBTQ people to
exist in those public schools. He's been abusing his power to impose his personal
religion on other people's children and using the machinery of the state to advance Christian
nationalism in the public schools. He created the or He approved the country's first
religious public school, something that Americans United for Separation of Church and State suit
over. He appointed the Libs of TikTok Hate Longer to oversee the school's libraries
and added to that anti LGBTQ atmosphere that he has cultivated and which has cost
students their lives. And then after the Ten Commandments Bill was signed in Louisiana,
which Americans un in our allies suitover Walters was suffering from like the worst
case of Christian nationalist fomo that I have ever seen, right, and he
rushed to announce that he was going to force quote every teacher to put the
Bible in every classroom. And how does that all tie to Project twenty twenty
five. Well, the answer is when the Project twenty twenty five handbook talks
about the quote bright future of education when the states are in full control and
in giving states that control, which it does in the Department of Education chapter,
which is I think these are around three pages three hundred nineteen, three
hundred twenty Project twenty twenty five means Oklahoma. And actually we know that Ryan
Walters has hired a media strategy company that is based in DC, and this
is something that's becoming quite a local scandal that he's paying state dollars to this
organization. The person who runs that organization is named the Mary Vaught. Mary
Vaught happens to be the vice president of Strategic Communications for the Heritage Foundation,
which is behind Project twenty twenty five publish the handbooks. So this is not
just me saying they want Oklahoma to be kind of the model for every state.
They're there on the ground helping influence what Ryan Walters is doing. Just
a quick ray of light here I read just yesterday or a couple of days
ago by Bixby Public Schools in Oklahoma. This is a suburb of Tulsa.
After Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters mandated that the Bible be taught as history
in school, there was an official response and it said, in summary,
the district agrees with mister Walters on the importance of studying the role of religion
in historical and cultural contexts. However, we also maintain that teaching any specific
religious doctrine or ideology is not part of the current state standards. Therefore,
we affirm our decision to keep our current BPS curriculum unchanged. And I've seen
that there are some other places around the state of Oklahoma that are pushing back
as well. So we're not we haven't all lost our minds down here.
No. And you've got a lot of help. I mean, you know,
Americans United and the ACLU and f FRF. I've got all these allies
who are working to help and to help build this groundswell against the Christian nationalists
takeover of the public school system in Oklahoma. Andrew, what do you do
for Americans United? What's your specific role. I actually do the same thing
that Mary Vatt does at the Heritage Foundation. I am the vice president of
Strategic Communications, and one of the things that I have been really working to
do lately is to humanize the devastating cost of Project twenty twenty five, because,
as you and I are sitting here talking about it, it really presents
a challenge. Seth. It's nine hundred pages, It's four pounds more than
four pounds I have weighed. This playbook is overwhelming. It's full of legal
ease, full of governmental jargons. So this is a threat that is vague,
and it's hard to connect to people's personal lives and stories. And that's
just magnified because this is about a future threat, right, So we haven't
had any stories to tell until now. This is something that I wanted to
change. This is something that Americans United wanted to change. We were looking
through this playbook, we were all reading it, and there's a section that
really jumped out at us because it effectively targets some of our brave plaintiffs who
are fighting back against religious discrimination. It does everything except name them. So
Lizen gab Rut and Ram, they're this couple in Tennessee. They're unable to
have biological children of their own, and they actually identified a special needs child
that they hoped to foster and adopt, and the state funded agency that trains
and certifies potential foster families refused to work with Liz Gabe because they are Jewish.
With your permission, then I'm going to play for it. Everybody here.
The clip that Americans United has released, which very much humanizes the challenge
we face. I can't imagine a better life for us than as parents.
I wanted to be able to have at least one biological child. Then we
realized that a biological child wasn't an option for us. Then we decided to
do the fosters to adopt. We started lining everything up, so we found
a child, a little boy in Florida. This one stood out to us.
Unfortunately, as a Christian organization, our executive team made the decision several
years ago to only provide adoption services to prospective adoptive families that share our belief
system. Called me crying. Because we were Jewish, we weren't able to
be parents. It was a gut punch. Our taxpayer dollars are going to
foster care, yet we can't adopt a child through that system. I know
it's hard to think seeing any of her friends that kids, you're happy for
that person, but you also long for that. Project twenty twenty five is
this voluminous, nine hundred page document that the Christian nationalist movement has come up
with on how they're going to take over the United States. Basically, to
know that Project twenty twenty five recognizes what's happening and is supporting it, it's
really hard to swallow. It's really disheartening to see that there's entire political arms
at this point helment on trying to make us second class citizens. We know
this is an injustice. If Project twenty twenty five can come for us,
it can come for anyone. Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
That kind of sounds like what we're trying to do right here. They've been
along with us for all the struggles and the ups and downs. They handle
all the really complicated things that I don't always understand. We tell our story
and they take care of it from there. They're dedicated to the cause of
not letting out theocracy be established. Americans United has been a light for us
in this difficult time. We're still nervous, but at least we know we're
not alone. I feel like in my own work, you know, we
throw data around all the time, but it's the human story that seems to
resonate the most. I mean, you know, it's not a cheat to
target the heart. It's okay to feel something about the things we think about.
And I think that's what you're trying to accomplish here, right is.
You know, this matters, and it's okay to feel alarmed and concerned and
afraid and outraged about injustice. Right Not only is it okay, I mean
people should. People should be alarmed about what is happening and what will happen
if this playbook is put into practice, if it becomes the law of the
land, and the story of Lizen Gab it is it is? I mean
to me, it is hugely emotional watching them talk about this, you know,
and they've been going through this for a number of years now and it's
still very raw for them. And you know, I've sat through interviews with
them and helped them try to crack this story and it's still you can see
that it really still hits them every time they tell it. I mean,
this is you know, we're in twenty twenty four right now and we're talking
about forcing to expairers to fund religious discrimination. It is mind blowing. It's
hard to think of anything more an American than what Project twenty twenty five is
trying to do. But we do have to not just talk about the threat,
but also humanize it. I am interested in the money, the power
players behind the scenes. More with Andrew's Seidel on Project twenty twenty five.
Next, continuing a conversation now with a constitutional attorney and representative for Americans United
for the Separation of Church and State, Andrew Seidel. You know the old
saying says follow the money. Did you want to address any of that?
Andrew absolutely, And I would really encourage people to go check out au dot
org slash Project twenty twenty five because we follow the money on that website and
it is it is shocking, and there's there's so much to follow, and
there are so many big players behind the scenes. And you know, for
a long time, Americans United has been warning everyone about this billion dollar shadow
network that is working to reshape American law and to roll back your rights in
favor of their Christian nationalist vision. Right. And if you look at the
ven diagram between you know, the overlap in those shadow network groups and the
groups behind Project twenty twenty five, it's nearly a circle. So you know,
we've been able to track fifty five million dollars that we know of that
has flowed from Leonard Leo, who is responsible for capturing the Supreme Court and
the Coke Network, to the architects of Project twenty twenty five. We know
that Leo chairs Tinao, which is another organization that is on the Project twenty
twenty five advisory board. Other groups that overlap include the Alliance Defending Freedom,
which was founded by a group of televangelists and radio preachers in nineteen ninety three.
It's a self described Christian law firm. Once on its website it proudly
pro claimed that it was trying to recover the robust Christian domic theology of the
third, fourth, and fifth centuries. This group has been at the heart
of so many of the most harmful Supreme Court cases lately, and it even
claims to have crafted the model bill that eventually led to the overturning of rovers
is Wade And there are a bunch of groups like this that the Family Research
Council, another anti LGBTQ, anti abortion group that is on a quote mission
to serve God by championing faith, family and freedom. First Liberty Institute,
which is just a smaller version of ADF. The America First Legal Foundation,
which is this relatively new, was established in twenty twenty one. It's led
by Stephen Miller, who is known for his connections to the white nationalist movements
and for helping implement the child separation policy at the border, which was justified
by citing Romans thirteen in the Bible right. I mean, there's so many
of these groups that overlap that have been trying to do this Christian nationalist and
implement this Christian nationalist vision for years that are backing Project twenty twenty five.
It's just another way for them to accomplish their goal. I saw someone in
the press had referenced Leonard Leo as the judge whisperer. I mean, wasn't
he the guy who was a major influencer behind five the five conservative Supreme Court
justices. Would that be an overstatement. Was he the puppeteer? No,
I think puppeteer is a great word for it. Leonard Leo is universally recognized
as the guy who orchestrated the hostile takeover of the Supreme Court. And to
me, there's a former employee of Leo's described his mission ones and this is
the quote that I think is described so much of what has happened recently.
And this is what the employee said. Leo quote figured out twenty years ago
that conservatives had lost the culture war, abortion, gay rights, contraception.
Conservatives didn't have a chance if public opinion prevailed, so they needed to stack
the courts. And that's what they did. And the reason I think that
is so telling is because they are they are admitting, they are confessing the
anti democratic goal of all of their work. Right, if they don't stack
the court, the majority is going to rule. If they don't stack the
court, democracy is going to work. And overall, we know that Leo's
network of groups spent about five hundred and forty million dollars, that's what we
know of what we've been able to track packing the court from twenty fourteen to
twenty twenty. And you do not spend that kind of money to get an
impartial court. They bought a court. Another way that Leo's work has been
described as he was described as the quote monitor of the nominees' ideological purity.
Right, So we're talking about judicial nominees here and the monitor of the nominees'
ideological purity. So just think about that. And as you said, he
is responsible for the confirmation of Robert's Alito Gorsich, Kavanaugh, and Barrett Thomas
is an old friend of his. And actually if you go back and watch
Thomas's confirmation, you can see Leo sitting right behind him in the audience.
All six of those justices are or worm of the Federalist Society, right,
So that's six votes all on the Supreme Court, and Leo personally chose five
of them for their ideology, and it is a Christian nationalist ideology. There
has been talk again about changing the structure of the court, or how many
justices, or whether or not they can be lifetime terms, etc. You
have any thoughts on the Supreme Court, and this is sort of murmuring.
I haven't heard anything official, but I know people are like, we got
to do something. What in the world would they do. Yeah. So,
I mean, there are a number of proposals, and there's been some
reporting. I think it was the Washington Post that broke the story that the
current administration may come out in favor of some of those proposals. And I
wrote about this a lot in American Crusade. And one of the things that
I worried about in American Crusade was that We're going to have this short window
in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two where we could actually do something about
the Court, and then if we didn't take advantage of that window, then
it might have closed, might have closed for good. That's what I'm afraid
of. I do think that it is absolutely necessary to fix and check and
correct the Supreme Court. It is the duty of Congress and the President to
check the Supreme Court when it gets out of control. Right with the system
of checks and balances. We all learned about this in school. When one
branch is out of control, the other two branches are supposed to check it.
That's what it means to have checks and balances. And the Supreme Court
is drunk on power right now and it absolutely needs to be checked. And
that is by the way, the institutionalist position, the question is how do
we do that? How should we do that? And there are a number
of proposals out there, some of them very creative. Personally, I'm for
court expansion, which I talk about in American Crusade quite a bit. I
do think an enforceable ethics code is a prerequisite. As we've seen from scandal
after scandal after scandal at this Supreme Court, that billionaires are effectively buying justices,
and that has that kind of thing has got to stop. The proposals
for term limits are really fascinating and they are really attractive to the public at
large. They run into a constitutional problem because the Constitution itself says that judges
get to keep their office during good behavior. That's the phrase during good behavior,
which has been interpreted to mean a lifetime appointment unless they are impeached,
and the people who are in charge of interpreting that language are the justices themselves.
So any kind of term limit proposal runs into that language and the fact
that those justices are going to interpret it. Now, there have been some
really since since then, there have been some really creative ways to maybe get
around that. For instance, just adding one new justice every two years,
no matter what, and letting the court sort out like how they're going to
deal with that. There have been proposals to not take the justices off the
Supreme Court, but to move them down to, for instance, like kind
of what's called scene your status within some of the lower courts, so they're
deciding much fewer cases. So there are some creative ways around that. But
we are not going to see like an actual term liment where people are off
the court in eighteen years, because that runs into a constitutional problem. All
right, So let me make sure. Because I'm a boy in your world
and you're at the constitutional attorney an expert, you're saying that it would require
a constitutional amendment on the macro scale to change how the Supreme Court is formatted
as far as how many members, how many justices, no, just a
lifetime appointments in terms of the number of justices. This is one of the
reasons I think that is a more attractive solution. The number of justices is
just decided by Congress, so that's just a law Congress. The number of
justices has changed. I think it's something like eleven or twelve times. I'd
have to go back and double check. Over the course of American history,
every thirty or forty years, I think is the average. It's been a
while, and all that takes is Congress to pass a law and the President
to sign it. Okay, well, I've got to interject here. Let's
say if we're dealing with a compromised Supreme Court. If you have a compromised
Congress determining changes to the Supreme Court, I feel like we're hosed. Am
I wrong? Hence the fear that I expressed in American Crusade about the window
closing after the twenty twenty two midterms. I mean, to me, the
Supreme Court is the number one issue that I am thinking about, because whatever
else you care about every other issue, Let's just take abortion. Right.
Let's say you want to bring back what the country looked like before Roe versus
Way was overturned. You could do that with a federal law. Right.
So there's a proposal called the Women's Health Protection Act that would effectively restore Roe
versus Way. Great, love it, Let's do it. Except in two
years after passage that same bill, that law, that new federal law is
going to be up before the Supreme Court again, and I don't know what
you think, but I have a pretty good idea of what this Supreme Court
would do with a bill that restored Rovers's way. But the law that restored
rovers Is way, I have little doubt. And so every solution we have
to every problem that we face as a country is going to go through this
Supreme Court. Remember that is why they captured it in the first place.
Remember that quote, abortion, gay rights, contraception. Conservatives didn't stand the
chance if public opinion prevailed. That is why they captured the Supreme Court in
the first place. Because they don't have to rely on public opinion, because
they don't have to rely on democracy and elections, because they can force their
policies upon all of us using those justices. And that is one of the
reasons that we need urgent correction of the Supreme Court. I've had a few
of my fellow lefties, and I'm a proud heathen liberal, but they've challenged
me on the election and how I'm voting, and I'm like, look,
I'm not voting for Potus, I'm voting for Scotus. Right, I'm voting
for a platform. I'm voting my values. I'm voting to protect state church
separation, especially under the shadow of Project twenty twenty five. I was just
bullet pointing a few of these in my own research. It would be illegal
to mail abortion pills across state lines. Pornography would be made illegal, same
sex marriages over the elimination of the Department of Education, cutting a funding for
climate research, removing diversity and inclusion programs, reconsidering which journalists would even be
part of the White House Press core, defunding of public broadcasting, partisan control
of the Department of Justice, the FBI, the FCC, the Department of
Commerce, the FTC, dismantling the Department of Homeland Security, the arrest,
detention, and deportation of undocumented immigrants, deploying the military for domestic law enforcement,
which I think some are interpreting as anyone deemed disloyal to the administration would
become what an enemy of democracy or illegal in their own right and might have
to face the military deployed against them. Am I reading that wrong, Andrew?
No, I mean a good chunk of what you said is very fair,
And I mean, and you know what you're talking about is coming from
the Handbook, And I just want to remind people like the handbook is what
the architects of Project twenty twenty five were comfortable publishing for all the world to
see. But the groups that are behind it are just as important and they
have called for even more extreme things. So some of what you're seeing,
you know, kind of out there right now, some of information connects those
what the groups of behind Project twenty twenty five have said and talks about it
as part of Project twenty twenty five, which I think is fair. But
then this gets kind of, you know, sort of fact checked in the
media and can be can get people kind of confused because there's a lot of
pushback now against people highlighting what Project twenty twenty five wants to do. And
no fault divorce is probably a really good example here. People may have seen
it's connected to Project twenty twenty five. You can't actually find it in the
handbook in that nine under page book, but Media Matters reported that twenty two
at least twenty two of the Project twenty to twenty five advisory board members have
attacked or outright called for the end of no fault divorce, and that's the
option to dissolve a marriage without having to prove any wrongdoing. Right. So
as we are translating the language of that handbook about, for instance, protecting
the biblically based definition of marriage and family, those things are really useful data
points for interpreting and translating that language. So is Liz and Gabe's case.
And I just want to I want to highlight one other thing for folks,
because I think particularly that litany that you just gave note that is overwhelming,
right, And that is one of the things that we are trying to change
at Americans United. We are trying to give people a foothold, a handhold
so that they can actually have conversations about Project twenty twenty five that don't make
it seem like they're in their basement with the red yarn going crazy, right.
And So two things that we'd really encourage people to do is one,
share the video of Liz and Gabe. That is going to do more to
change minds than a lot of the work that you can do posting on social
media. Don't just share it on your social media, share it with your
group texts, right, share it with your chats from your college friends.
We know now that more people are getting their information about politics from things like
group chats than they are from TV news, especially cable news, and from
social media, which was you know, kind of the most recent couple elections
where people have been getting their info. And the other thing Americans United has
done is we have put together a toolkit for people to have these conversations to
address Project twenty twenty five on their text message chains and with their families over
dinner. And so you can get that toolkit at au dot org slash Project
twenty twenty five. You just scroll down a little bit after you see some
of the following the money you'll see I'll link to it. It's a really
short, helpful way to get you thinking about how to talk about the threat
that Project twenty twenty five poses. And if you are just overwhelmed, just
go share, share lizen, gabes video, share their story and that will
do a lot to help move the needle on Project twenty twenty five. And
I just one more thing that I think is just a really useful data point
is that seventy six percent of Americans know little or nothing about Project twenty twenty
five. So those of us who are online and paying attention to set right,
thank you, And I like, we know what this is about like
our first post about Project twenty twenty five. It's like back in November or
something. But studies also show that the more people learn about Project twenty twenty
five, the more they oppose it. So successfully, warning even like one
or two people about this threat can make a big difference, and it can
still that domino effect of raising awareness. It's like when I was talking to
Nick Fish, president of American Atheist, about these school voucher programs. He
was like, you know, everywhere this has been polled, the public doesn't
want it, right everywhere in every state, Like the public said, nah,
let's not do that. So I mean we're talking definitely about raising awareness
because public opinion can matter. I'm not so much of a patent. I'm
scared and kind of jaded, and I do feel my skin turning to scar
tissue. You ever feel that, Andrew. But I'm still engaged. I
still hold out a little bit of hope. There is still a ray of
light out there that I'm rushing toward, and I think awareness is important.
I'm going to link to the video. I'm going to link to your Project
twenty twenty five link from AU in the description box, and I appreciate you
educating us, and we're going to continue to educate ourselves out there and we'll
talk again. Okay, absolutely, my friend. Thank you for grabbing me
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