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The MINDRAMP Podcasts focus on three key components that have been shown to contribute to flourishing in the later years of your life. You will find mini-series of episodes that explore each component.
1) Keeping your brain and body healthy - see The Roots of Brain Health
2) Managing your mental states - see Flourishing
3) Planning the kind of death you want to have - (coming 10/1/24))
You will also find the occasional episodes that focus social concerns that I feel have an impact on our well-being, for example "Elections."
MINDRAMP PODCASTS
ELECTION - Project 2025 - The Hungarian Connection
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Trump and MAGA Republicans are following a playbook for the future (Project 2025) that was put together by The Heritage Foundation and The Danube Institute of Hungary.
The Danube Institute is dedicated to spreading Viktor Orban's vision of authoritarian rule around the world and The Heritage Foundation is a willing partner in this project.
A vote for Republican's this November is a vote for an authoritarian vision of America that runs counter to the spirit of the American Revolution, The American Constitution and American democracy.
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PROJECT 2025 - THE HUNGARIAN CONNECTION
Hi. Welcome to this Election 2024 edition of the Flourish As You Age podcast. I’m Michael C. Patterson. The November elections present us with a choice between two very different visions of America’s future. One, represented by the Democrats is a democratic vision, that stresses equality, fairness, inclusion, freedom and opportunity for all Americans. This is the vision that will best support our desire to age well and flourish.
History has clearly shown us that it is hard for people to flourish under a dictatorship, under authoritarian rule. But, that’s the Trumpian vision, turning America into a dictatorship. The Republican Party has articulated a plan to, essentially, turn America into an oligarchy in which power is held by a small group of elite radicals who are interested only in increasing their own power and wealth.
As you probably know by now, this vision of authoritarian rule is spelled out in a 900-page document called Project 2025. When we make our choice in November it is critical that we understand what our vote will mean. A vote for Donald Trump and for any MAGA Republican is a vote for a future shaped by Project 2025.
It’s important to understand how Project 2025 came into being and what inspires its vision of authoritarian rule.
HOW DID PROJECT 2025 COME INTO BEING?
After Trump’s first term his supporters were disappointed that they weren’t able to make as many changes to our way of life as they would have liked. They didn’t blame these failures on Trump and his incompetence, or on the unpopularity of their proposed policies. No, they blamed it on what they perceived as obstruction from government bureaucracies, and resistance from federal agencies and from civil servants.
Trump was limited in his ability to take away freedoms because he was restrained by long-standing rules and protocols that protect against such behavior There were cabinet members who ignored Trumps orders when they knew they were ill-advised, illegal or downright idiotic.
There were civil servants who were loyal – not to Trump - but to The Constitution, to the rule of law and to the American people. They refused to carry out Trump’s outrageous plans.
So, in the four years since Biden’s win – since Trump’s defeat in 2020 - his supporters on the far right have devised a comprehensive strategy to overcome these obstacles in a second Trump administration. Project 2025.
WHO IS BEHIND PROJECT 2025?
Who would create an agenda like this that is so counter to the ideals of the American Revolution and hostile to the principles of the American Constitution; and so different from what the majority of American people want? Well, Project 2025 was conceived and coordinated by two interesting organizations, The Heritage Foundation and Hungary’s Danube Institute, which tells you a lot.
These institutions set the basic agenda and then pulled together authors and advisors who share their extreme conservative, white, Christian-nationalist vision for the future of America. One hundred and forty of these folks served in Trump’s administration. Not his original appointees – not the one who tried to limit the damage he could do - but his later appointees, the ones who were selected because of their loyalty to Trump and because of their commitment to his Anti-American ideals.
So, what do we know about The Heritage Foundation and the Danube Institute. I have to admit that I knew very little about the Heritage Foundation and nothing at all about the Danube institute. But with a little digging it is easy enough to get a sense of who they are and what they are up to.
The Heritage Foundation has long been a conservative think tank that originally favored Reagan-style conservatism. They were old-style Republicans. But, in recent years, The Heritage Foundation has been taken over by Kevin Roberts who has instituted monumental shifts in policy and priorities.
The Heritage Foundation has become much more reactionary and more authoritarian under Roberts leadership. It has been described as “an intellectual breeding ground for Trumpist ideas.”
Aside from authoring Project 2025, for example, the Heritage Foundation has also led the effort to gut funding for Ukraine and their effort to repel Putin’s aggression. Why on earth are American conservatives at the Heritage Foundation against protecting a democratic ally from aggression by a brutal dictator?
Well, here’s a hint.
Roberts, it turns out, is a big fan of dictators. He is particularly enamored of Viktor Orban the dictatorial Prime Minister of Hungary. And, Orban is buddy-buddy with Putin. Apparently the Heritage Foundation is all in favor of spreading authoritarian rule around the world.
Recently, Orban made a visit to the United States. It’s quite telling that he didn’t come to meet with American president Joe Biden. He came to meet with Donald Trump, and Trump welcomed him with open arms as he does all dictatorial strongmen, like Putin, and Kim Jun-un and Egyptian strongman Abdul Fattah al-Sisi. After meeting with Trump, where did Orban go next? Right to a meeting with The Heritage Foundation.
This is where the connection with The Danube Institute comes in. The Heritage Foundation has finalized what they call a landmark cooperation agreement with the Danube Institute. The sole purpose of the Danube Institute is, by all appearances, to praise Viktor Orban’s style of authoritarian governance. It is funded by Orban’s Fidesz party and is housed right next to the prime minister’s building.
And, the Danube Institute has become one of the main tools for promoting the Orban government’s ideological expansion abroad. It has been described as one of the main vehicles for “building a political network in the United States.”
The Danube Institute has, in other words, become a vehicle for foreign interference in our domestic affairs. And, Trump, the Heritage Foundation and MAGA Republicans have become willing accomplices in this dissemination of authoritarian ideology within the United States. MAGA Republican politicians are getting their script from an Eastern European dictator.
The Heritage Foundation, in particular, has become a conduit for authoritarian propaganda authored in Hungary and vetted in Putin’s Russia.
John O’Sullivan, a British conservative, currently runs the Danube Institute. O’Sullivan once served as the director of studies at – guess where - the Heritage Foundation.
Jacob Heilbrunn, who wrote America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators, comments that “With his extensive connections in the conservative universe, O’Sullivan has become Orban’s conduit to the American right.”
HUNGARY
If you want a preview of the future as envisioned by Project 2025, take a look at some of the things Orban has done in Hungary. Orban uses a technique that is being borrowed by Trump and MAGA Republicans. Distract people’s attention away from what you are really doing – which is grabbing power and wealth through any and all means. Distract people by making a lot of noise about highly emotional issues that will get people riled up. First it was abortion in America and now it is racist fantasies about immigration.
Remember that Trump rants about disastrous problems on the border but when President Biden managed to negotiate a bi-partisan bill to pour money into border control, Trump instructed Republicans to reject it. He doesn’t really care about the border, he needs a political talking point, a hot-button issue. He need immigration to be an emotional trigger to get his folks riled up so that they will forget about his legal troubles, his attempted overthrow of the government, and his autocratic agenda for the future.
Orban does the same thing in Hungary. It is part of the dictator’s playbook. Under the guise of “family values,” - who can object to family values - Orban’s government banned adoption by same-sex couples and barred transgender people from changing their legal gender. Recently Hungary passed a law which equates homosexuality with pedophilia and bans “promotion and portrayal of homosexuality’ and gender diversity to under-18 year-olds, in sex education, films or advertisements. Hungary has refused to ratify the Istanbul convention, which aims to protect women from violence.
TRUMPS CONNECTIONS TO PROJECT 2025
Recently Trump has tried to distanced himself from Project 2025. Now that the Republican plan has been made public it is proving to be wildly unpopular among the American people, as well it should be.
So, all of a sudden, Trump knows nothing about it. But, as usual, Trump its lying. The facts tell a different story. Trump is a fan of Kevin Roberts and the new, more radical goals of the Heritage Foundation. In 2022, speaking at a dinner hosted by the Heritage Foundation, he seemed to nod to the idea of Project 2025 himself: “This is a great group, and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do,” said Trump.
Trump’s assistant press secretary Karoline Leavitt also appeared in a Heritage Foundation promotional video last year that sought to recruit people for Project 2025’s training program. And Trump’s super PAC has been running ads promoting a website called Trump Project 2025.
The Heritage Foundation, for its part, claims that the Trump administration embraced 64 percent of its policy proposals. Much of the plan itself—overhauling immigration policy and gutting federal agencies—falls in line with policy Trump has publicly supported. And as we mentioned, the text of the plan was authored by 140 members of Trump’s administration.
So, think of Project 2025 as a dictator’s playbook. It’s a how-to book for instituting authoritarian rule, a step-by-step guide to undermining democratic principles and institutions. Again, when we cast our vote in November, we get to choose between two very different visions of America’s future. The Republican vision, the vision of Donald Trump, The Heritage Foundation, the Danube Institute – the vision borrowed from Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin would bring Americans under authoritarian rule and significantly undermine our ability to flourish.