The Whiny Little Bitch Manifesto (Project 2025)
Originally published 7/11/24 on DavidNewhoff.com
That’s a provocative title to get you to read this post, but an alternate might be Project 2025 from a Gen Xer’s Perspective. Why Gen X? Because The Mandate for Leadership, according to its introduction, is the legacy of a book first published and presented to Ronald Reagan in 1980. And from a cursory review, much of today’s edition reads like the conservatism of that era—an overly exceptionalist vision of America I opposed then and still do—dressed up in the narrative of the angry victimhood which animates the MAGA mutation of the Republican party.
To the first obvious question as to whether I read all 920 pages of the “Mandate,” the answer is FUUUUCK NO! I ain’t got that kind of time, and they don’t make that kind of drug. I have been searching for key words and reading exemplary passages and proposals, curious to know how bombastic the language is on abortion, religion, national defense, and gay and transgender rights. I look for evidence in the language of the document that would truly identify it as a guide for erecting an authoritarian state. Cutting to that chase, it could be, but not necessarily in the way it’s being described in headlines and memes.
My general take, so far, is that the “Mandate” is a mix of familiar conservative agenda salted with extremism and theocracy articulated in a whiny bitchiness as a rationale for its proposals. But the most important distinction between the plan of 1980 and Project 2025 is that the President and party for which this plan is written is not conservative but radical, incoherent, cultish, incompetent, and unmoored from the constitutional foundations allegedly being rescued. That’s the insidious con game afoot. Even the substantive and, dare I say, reasonable-sounding items in the book are dripping with a cultural outrage that truly makes it the Whiny Little Bitch Manifesto (WLBM)—no less a tantrum of identity politics than exists in the “woke” Left about which it complains. For instance, its preamble declares:
It’s not 1980. In 2023, the game has changed. The long march of cultural Marxism through our institutions has come to pass. The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty under siege as never before.
As Seargent Hulka said in Stripes (1981), “Lighten up, Francis.” Yeah, Marxism is a sophomoric concept, and every year, a bunch of college sophomores become enthralled with The Communist Manifesto, blah blah blah. And while I do recognize that infatuation with Marxist or pseudo-Marxist views appears to be increasingly popular on the far Left these days, that is 1) tomorrow’s problem; and 2) no excuse for the far Right being whiny little bitches about it.
We got this. Been there and done it. The Commies are not “sapping our precious bodily fluids,” and the administrative state is not a proto-Bolshevik hydra “weaponized against American citizens.” When Reagan used anti-communist rhetoric against the political Left, it was infuriating on occasion, but at least the rhetoric wasn’t accompanied by scenes of Republicans fawning over men like Putin and Orban—to say nothing of the dark irony that the WLBM would indeed see the administrative state turned into a politburo.
The WLBM is too copious to discuss every aspect, but for this post, I’ll focus on what is probably the least whiny section—the one on national defense, written by former acting Sec. Def. Colonel Christopher Miller. Due respect to his credentials and experience, much of Col. Miller’s substantive criticism is at least soberly articulated, alleging various flaws in military operations about which neither I nor most Americans have sufficient information to rebut.
What we do know is that military doctrines come and go, and the DOD, like any other bureaucracy, has its inefficiencies and differences of opinion about operations, personnel, and investment in various technologies. Several of the recommendations in the defense section sound reasonable on their face, but the pretense that they are apolitical corrections to Leftist error is whiny bitchy theater. For instance, Col. Miller reasonably states the following:
Currently, defense companies are required to manufacture defense items for the U.S. government that are 100 percent domestically produced and at least 50 percent composed of domestically produced components. However, there are loopholes that allow companies to manufacture these items overseas. This can create supply chain and other issues, especially in wartime. Manufacturing components and end products domestically and with allies spurs factory development, increases American jobs, and builds resilience in America’s defense industrial base.
Sure. I would add the unnerving volume of counterfeit products that creep into the military supply chain and then ask which party is most reluctant to regulate private industry? Because if the Former Republican Party (FRP) is willing to compel military contractors to restrict or limit foreign manufacture, especially in adversarial nations, this Democrat endorses the plan.
But unless and until such a proposal is viable in Congress, Col. Miller’s wholly subjunctive proposition, let alone blaming the Left, is the kind of political noise it presumes to be clarifying. Additionally, the supply chain problem to which he alludes, along with some of the other points about the DOD, predate the “woke” generation—and even the goddamn Reagan administration! But it’s always easy to politicize the military since most people don’t know what it does anyway. On that point, the whiny and bitchy factor increases dramatically in the following paragraph:
“…should rigorously review all general and flag officer promotions to prioritize the core roles and responsibilities of the military over social engineering and non-defense related matters, including climate change, critical race theory, manufactured extremism, and other polarizing policies that weaken our armed forces and discourage our nation’s finest men and women from enlisting.”
Without trying to guess how often CRT is really taking the military’s eye off the ball, or what Col. Miller means by “manufactured extremism” or “polarizing policies,” there is no question that climate change is a big fucking national security issue. The DOD has studied climate change for decades, if for no other reason than the plain, apolitical fact that extreme weather events change the security landscape.
If a base is likely to be swamped under rising sea, it’s a security issue. If unprecedented drought triggers a mass migration anywhere in the world, it’s a security issue. If the homeland is frequently battered by increasingly violent weather events (as it has been), it’s a security issue. Climate change is not a liberal “woke” conspiracy theory, it’s a goddamn security issue. And if “conservative” means ignoring a particular threat for political reasons, that’s tantamount to dereliction of duty.
Similarly, the “conservative” rhetoric about EV technology and military personnel reflects a political myopia allegedly exclusive to the Left. Regarding the former, if EV might provide a tactical advantage, the DOD must consider its deployment in the field. Surely, Col. Miller knows that logistics win wars and that moving fuel around the AO is a vulnerability. If EV can mitigate that vulnerability, it is irresponsible to disregard the option as a “green” plaything of the “woke.” For sure, the Chinese have no political obstacle to deploying whatever tech they believe gives them an advantage.
Likewise, the hostility directed at transgender personnel is incubating a real vulnerability for the sake of a cosmetic one. I know politicians like Cruz and Tuberville think the best military is the one with the most square-jawed Rambos with big guns, but the superior effectiveness of the U.S. military relies on a combination of technology, logistics, intelligence, and support behind Rambo and his gun—or better yet, obviating the need for him to deploy. So, if the “best and brightest” coder in CYBERCOM, for instance, happens to be transgender, who gives a flying fuck? If he/she/they have the skills and are willing to serve, we should be grateful that he/she/they want to do the damn job!
It is telling that Col. Miller blames a Leftist “social engineering” agenda for a drop in recruitment while insisting that the military must either reject or eject qualified personnel on a basis which may be unrelated to the mission. Either this is dumb to the point of magical thinking, or it’s exactly what it looks like—a “conservative” brand of social engineering which cares more about preaching “values” than effective operations.
I agree that training requirements must fit the job, but unless Col. Miller et al. can prove that various units—from cyber to special forces—are run amok with “diversity hires” who can’t perform their duties, the message to the contrary is bullshit. Further, if reports are even half true that the VA reforms in the WLBM will “rob veterans and active duty troops of billions in benefits,” that might have a chilling effect on recruitment, no?
Instead, the unconstitutional, self-defeating (and surely overstated) focus on excising transgender persons from the military is a policy written by whiny little bitches decorating animosity and fear as “American values.” And thus, we return to the raw hubris that the WLBM presumes to promote values it defines as “American,” even when at least half—if not the majority—of Americans might soundly reject its conception of those principles.
To that end, as I dig into the whinier and bitchier parts of the plan, I am already weary of memes and headlines telling me to fear Project 2025. Why? It’s not their goddamn country. They’re welcome to stay, of course, but at this moment, I am reminded of a popular MAGA tee shirt which says, “Fuck your feelings.” Yep. That’s exactly what I say to the little bitches who wrote this whiny manifesto.