What Donald Trump's Revenge Agenda Is Hiding

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/heather-digby-parton/112219/what-donald-trump-s-revenge-agenda-is-hiding


What Donald Trump’s Revenge Agenda Is Hiding
by Heather Digby Parton | November 21, 2024 - 7:01am

— from Salon

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But for all the nuts and kooks Trump is appointing to some of the top jobs to accomplish his revenge agenda, there are some areas where he's stocking the administration with people who are determined to fulfill their own. Many of them are Project 2025 veterans.

It's clear that the tag team of Stephen Miller and Tom Homan are prepared to initiate Trump's mass deportation program immediately upon taking office. Trump has said there's no price tag so there is already a tremendous amount of activity taking place in the private sector, with private prison and airplane businesses gearing up for major government contracts. These people are serious about doing this. It's unlikely that they can accomplish their goal of deporting every undocumented person in America but they're going to destroy a lot of lives in the attempt, including those of citizens who "harbor" them, according to Homan.

Then there is the promotion of FCC chair Brendan Carr, another one of the authors of Project 2025, to head the commission. Carr told Fox News on Tuesday that he may obstruct the planned merger between Paramount Global and Skydance because CBS News refused to release the transcript of the Kamala Harris "60 Minutes" interview, a silly Trump conspiracy theory suggesting that the network was covering for her. And you will not be surprised to learn that he is a big promoter of expanding internet access through low-earth satellite technology — including Elon Musk's SpaceX’s Starlink and Jeff Bezos' Amazon’s Project Kuiper.

Trump has also appointed his good pal and transition chief Howard Lutnick to head the Commerce Department. As longtime CEO of the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald, Lutnick is at least experienced at running a large organization, so that appointment makes some sense. He reportedly wanted to be treasury secretary and was backed by Musk, but according to the New York Times Lutnick has annoyed Trump in recent days by hovering too closely and seemingly cozying up for his personal benefit. Anyway, Trump is still looking for that perfect man out of Central Casting who can simultaneously keep the markets calm while helping Trump implement his monumentally idiotic tariff scheme. It's a job for a magician rather than a financial expert. That appointment is still to come.

And then there is Russell Vought, one of the real movers and shakers of Project 2025. I wrote about him back in June, concerned that the self-described Christian nationalist would wind up in an important position in a future Trump administration. At the time people were talking about him as a good bet for chief of staff but Trump chose his campaign manager, Susie Wiles, instead. Vought was charged with writing the chapter on the executive office of the president for Project 2025 and was said to be in charge of planning the first 180 days of a new Trump administration. Politico reported on Tuesday that he may be tapped for the Office of Management and Budget, the job he held during the final years of the previous Trump administration. In that role, Vought would be working closely with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy:

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These are not the instruments of vengeance, like Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, et al., who Trump wants to use to pay back his enemies. These are people who see Trump as their instrument to achieve their own longstanding goals. It looks like they're going to have free rein.