The World According to Jen & Carolyn
The World According to Jen & Carolyn is a podcast where history, politics, psychology, and humor collide in unexpected yet brilliant ways. Hosted by Jen, a community servant with a sharp wit and a knack for digging up the historical receipts, and Carolyn, a licensed marriage and family therapist who expertly unpacks the psychological layers behind it all, our show offers listeners a smart, hilarious, and refreshingly real conversation between two friends with 25 years of stories and opinions to share.
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The World According to Jen & Carolyn
Project 2025 Revisited
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In this episode, we dig into the implementation of Project 2025 — the 900+-page blueprint created by The Heritage Foundation and other conservative organizations for remaking the federal government and policy agenda. What parts have already been actioned? What remains pending? What are the risks, and where are the potential levers of accountability? We’ll review data from trackers and assess next steps.
American Civil Liberties Union+2Democracy Forward+2
Wikipedia+2Congresswoman Grace Meng+2
AFSCME Council 5 Retirees United+1
Project 2025 Tracker+2American Civil Liberties Union+2
Seligman, M. E. P. (1972). Learned helplessness. Annual Review of Medicine, 23(1), 407-412. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.me.23.020172.002203
Maier, S. F., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2016). Learned helplessness at fifty: Insights from neuroscience. Psychological Review, 123(4), 349-367. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000033
Lodge, M., & Taber, C. S. (2013). The rationalizing voter. Cambridge University Press.
Cialdini, R. B. (2006). Influence: The psychology of persuasion (Revised ed.). Harper Business.
Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 480-498. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.108.3.480
Happy New Year or something. You're listening to the world according to Jen and Carolyn. What's up, Carolyn? Happy New Year. Happy New Year. The US or Trump started a war. America. Fuck no. Oh God. Three days in. Three days in. Three days in, and we have bombed a sovereign country, taken its yeah, kidnapped its leader. It's it's just that great either. He's not. But we just you don't do that. You can't. There are laws. There are literally laws. There's a whole ass constitution, article one, section eight, that talks about how you do war, which involves Congress.
SPEAKER_01Congress didn't even know about this. Jen, what is this Congress?
SPEAKER_00You talking about? I know Congress. A lot of them are neutered and pieces of shit. And I think behind closed doors, even the Republican Congress folks are saying, what just happened? We're supposed to authorize this, but they won't dare speak out against their dear leader in a public forum. The dictator. Dictator. Yeah. So, you know, this is what we're dealing with now. This is how our year is starting, which I don't think I don't think bodes well. It's always great when he's quiet for a couple days. I don't think he was quiet. He was partying. He was having non-stop New Year's party after New Year's party. We saw the footage of vanilla ice dancing with a ninja turtle with Steven Miller and Ice Barbie dancing, literally white man's overbite.
SPEAKER_02Like this if it wasn't, if it was just the dumb shit like that, I know. But then it's like the other side of that is like just bombing a sovereign nation.
SPEAKER_00Like, you know, right, exactly. Yeah. And now we're going to be. I love how there's no subsequent plan beyond taking the president and taking over the country. And then Trump asks, What are you going to do? He's like, Well, we're going to be running. We haven't thought that far ahead. It's like, really?
SPEAKER_02Well, his children will just invest in it and it'll just profit for him, no? Of course. Well, that's always how it goes.
SPEAKER_00But usually it's a little more cloistered, a little more like behind the scenes, like the way that George W. did it when he went into Iraq claiming they were weapons of mass destruction. Yeah. We all knew that was disaster capitalism at work and the money that his cronies and Dick Cheney's cronies and all those fuckers' cronies made from that uh misadventure. It's evident. But here we've got Trump on from the outset being like, we're going in for the oil. Like there's there's no hiding it. Oh, the CIA, they're fucking involved. Whereas before, it was a lot more clandestine.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's that again, that's the that's the sad beauty of this administration is they don't even try to knock it out. No, they're literally what we're talking about today.
SPEAKER_00It is all laid out, yet still, still people are defending this. We're tweeting war plans and shit. Like, you know, we got Pete fucking Hegzef doing weird shit. These people are weird, they don't give a shit, and it's incredibly brazen, and it's about time. People are standing up, yeah. But we needed our elected officials to be like, fuck this shit. Isn't our military too fat though to be doing any of this according to Hegze?
SPEAKER_02According to him, they did think they all go on their GLP ones. They must have been. Sorry, it makes sense if you're on that. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Whatever. Do what you want with your own body. But yeah, there's there's so much, there's so much fuckery going on like this this new year, and there was a maybe a day or two of thinking, okay, maybe things are going to get better this year. Why did you think that's? I don't know. It was a are you high? I I was, and I was drinking a lot. And I think that may have have lended to this false optimism that has been shattered as of today. Well, the It only took three days.
SPEAKER_02The Peruvian drum circle guys did say predict that Trump will die this year. I think he will as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think that they are right on, but then we've got President President Couchfucker. So, you know, it's out of the frying pan, into the fire, as they say. So we're here to talk about some real fuckery. It's all connected, y'all. We're gonna dig into not just the implementation of Project 2025, but we wanna figure out where we're at now, right? Where are we with the remaking of the federal government and the policy agenda in accordance with the Heritage Foundation's 900-page blueprint project 2025? What remains pending? What have, what has this administration already like accomplished in accordance with this plan? We're gonna read from experts, review data from trackers, assess next steps, the whole deal. We thought it was high time that we revisited. I think it's been about a year since we did our initial project 2025 episode. I think now is the time to revisit. And we're gonna take a deep dive into one of the most consequential policy blueprints in recent memory. You know, a lot of folks have heard of it. Few people understand the detailed tenants and crucially how far the implementation has actually progressed. We're gonna break it down. We're gonna tell you what's been done, what's underway, and what it might mean for federal governance, civil rights, and public interest. Are you ready? Are you ready? This is why I'm drinking. Uh I only have lemon lime. Sparkling. Would you there is a cart full of bourbon and spirits behind you? All right. Nobody will mind. Stay sober. That is that is not my phrase for this year. Uh, I typically don't, I swear to God, I don't have a drinking problem. I don't even drink during the week, but during the holidays, I am on a tear. I have been on vacation for the past, excuse me, 10 plus days. You were working. I was off. You work hard, you play hard. It was like being on vacation, but I've still, you know, maintained my healthy diet for the most part. I've still been exercising. Not me. I took care of my husband who gave himself food poisoning from rancid fat. Um, that was awesome. So I feel like I've earned this bourbon that I am imbibing on. Showing off your power.
SPEAKER_02I was talking outage after outage after outage. Yeah, that's right. There we have been P Genie.
SPEAKER_00Yes, P Genie is a piece of shit. We've been dealing with a lot of power outages in San Francisco, particularly Carolyn's neighborhood. They've been uh really disproportionately impacted. Yeah, I still don't really understand why, too. I it's a well, I think that your generators, PG has been, I'm not gonna go into it, but I I don't think the generators in your particular neighborhood are up to snuff. Cool. Anyway, so let's talk about the background on Project 2025. Still a little history here, a little reminder. Yeah. So in April of 2023, the Heritage Foundation and some 140 former officials from the first Trump administration released what they call the mandate for leadership, which is essentially the 900-plus page route roadmap for a conservative administration to act on day one agency by agency, which is exactly what we've seen. So, some of the core goals, just a reminder, to ramp up the president's power and shrink or reform the federal civil service. Check. Thanks, Doge, dismantle or severely reorient federal agencies seen as part of the administrative state. Checks and balances, who dis roll back what the authors view as left-leaning regulatory civil rights and socioeconomic programs. Hey, white men who have been aggrieved, come to us with your civil rights complaints. Jesus fucking Christ. Yeah. And then restructuring immigration enforcement, workforce protections, climate policy, agency budgeting, etc. Check check. Yes, project 2025 is less a single policy and more a comprehensive re-engineering of the federal state around a conservative vision. That's what we're seeing. So let's talk about the progress. Did he ever admit that it actually existed? Yes, he finally did. After disavowing it over and over again during the election cycle, finally, once elected, he was like, Oh yeah, Project 2025, those are my boys, those are my girls. And then subsequently brought a lot of those folks into the second administration. Yeah, weird indeed. Okay. So what progress has been made thus far? So we rely on multiple trackers and reports. This is kind of an aggregation of all of these primary trackers. So independent tracking indicates a substantial portion of Project 2025's objectives are either completed or in progress. So of 317 objectives, about 116 are marked completed. So roughly 36, 37% others are in progress. It's very efficient for government, too. It's the most inefficient thing ever. It's so bad. The thing I like the best is like, oh shit, we fired all these people who are responsible for like monitoring our nuclear program. Oh god, bring them all back. Bring them all back. It was so early 2025. God damn it. Ham-handed Elon Musk shit. Now Elon's back out here. I don't know really fuck. Oh, yeah. I think he's back, baby. He's back. No, they had a they had a little breakup, a little temporary breakup, and then I think they're they're back on.
SPEAKER_02There's just so many things to keep track of. It's there's too much fuckery.
SPEAKER_00It's it's nonstop. So the Center for Progressive Report Reform with Governing for Impact reported that as of late 2025, more than 40 percent 47% of Project 2025 domestic regulatory agenda had been initiated or fulfilled. So, i.e. 251 of the 532 identified actions for that. So there's a lot of concurrent tracking going on for different metrics. So don't get confused, y'all. Just know that a lot of Project 2025, mission accomplished, bitch. So examples, let's give you some examples of concrete actions. So the United States Agency for International Development, i.e., USAID, was targeted for major budget/slash capacity reductions consistent with Project 2025's blueprint. We all saw that. The White House executive branch items, i.e., directing independent agencies to require regulatory review by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OIRA, revoking Biden-era rulemaking via the Congressional Review Act, replacing agency leadership, using impoundment slash pocket rescissions of funding, reorganizing agency authority. We've seen all of this. We've seen nonstop attacks on trans folks and transgender military banslash gender identity policy changes. So trans individuals have been banned from military service, and gender identity data collection ended in federal reporting. LGBTQ protections have been removed. We've seen federal protections for LGBTQ plus people, including an education and health care context, rolled back. We've seen reproductive rights restrictions like the Hyde Amendment was enforced and abortion-related international policy like the Mexico City policy reinstated. So, you know, immigration and border enforcement, I don't even need to go down the rabbit hole with what's been going on with ICE and what's been happening to people, both undocumented folks and people who are here legally. How many times have we heard stories of people who are here legally being asked for their papers, like it's Nazi fucking Germany being harassed, being taken into custody? This is fucking wrong. So border and asylum changes, so military and enforcement deployment to the border and asylum policy suspensions have been executed, civil service reform initiatives. Look at the folks who have been fired, the reclassification of career civil service positions and broad federal workforce changes. It's all consistent with project 2025. You know, it's if somebody came in and said that my role, I was a permanent civil servant before I changed jobs within my organ within my department. Somebody's like, yeah, you're no longer a permanent civil servant. Like we can revoke that. We can fire you at any time.
SPEAKER_02Like just you weren't seeing this like day one, you were getting meetings and rollouts and things that you were having to check to make sure it was D or it was Elon proof.
SPEAKER_00Well, on the I can't say much, but on the local level, like we have to be careful, right? We are very fortunate in San Francisco to have a city attorney who is is is watching the backs of the most vulnerable, the people in San Francisco whom we are committed to serving. We're committed to serving every San Franciscan, right? But offices like mine are committed to serving the most vulnerable people. And most of those folks, a lot of those folk folks, fall into categories that the Trump administration is actively attacking. And so we have to be very um strategic in the way that we do things. And that's about all I can say. So yeah. All I can say is San Francisco is still gonna San Francisco. Like our mission is still our mission. We are still here for folks. You know, our our mayor was successful in ensuring that the National Guard did not come to San Francisco. Trump said it was eminent, it was happening. I don't know what transpired in that conversation, but at the end of it, they didn't end up coming. So hats off to the mayor for that one. So just glad they're not here in our backyard.
SPEAKER_02I noticed the lights were lit red and blue on the state or the city on City Hall too for New Year's, which I thought was interesting.
SPEAKER_00I, you know, I'd have to look into why that is. I'm not I it's maybe that it's probably red, white, and blue because the building itself is white. Maybe I interpret it as like let's just be. I don't know what it usually is. Is it usually green and red? You know, I'm not sure. No, I'm not sure. I mean, for Christmas, it's green and red. For New Year's, I don't I don't know. Again, we're taking it back, right? Red, red, white, and blue belongs to us true patriots. Yeah, we can't allow this image of the flag to be snatched from us because we are the ones who genuinely care about protecting democracy and the reasons why this country was founded in the first place, though imperfectly. We are working toward a more perfect nation. Yeah. That's my interpretation. Yeah. Don't stop wearing your red, white, and blue. So, in summary, significant progress has been made. Nearly half of the agenda is marked as done or in progress, and many of the bold structural goals are already being translated into action. So, Carolyn, I have a question for you. Go for it. At what point does policy shock give way to resigned acceptance? Or does it?
SPEAKER_02Do we still have some fight left in us? I do. I think there's a big majority of us that do. I think some people just seem totally unaware. And some people are so excited about this. So I don't I don't know who we're talking to. I'm gonna assume it's the people who are kind of shocked and appalled. Yes, they're they're our audience. Let's let's talk to you guys first. So, Jen, what we're seeing here again is textbook learned helplessness, but again, on a collective level. So, if you're not familiar with that term, 1960s, Martin Siegelman conducted experiments where dogs were exposed to electric shocks, they couldn't escape. And what he discovered was that even when there was a barrier, the barrier was removed and you could escape, the dogs didn't try and leave. Yeah. And they learned that their actions didn't matter and organisms adapt to powerlessness by ceasing to attempt control. You see this with kids who have really domineering parents, you see this in workforce, you see this in cults, you see this in abusive partnerships, all that. So when we apply learned helplessness to the current movement, policies are changing, policy changes targeting immigrants. You mentioned all these immigrants, trans individuals, federal workers, reproductive rights, civil liberties come at this high, high velocity. There's just so much going on, multiple per day. My nervous system can adapt and adjust. I can do like one or two big stories. And you're also, I'm always interested in looking at well, what's going on globally too, because that's all impacting. So there's a lot of information, and our our systems sort of are adapting, but we're repeatedly getting activated. And it's very this sort of successful defense trigger that we have that usually would help us shut down is sort of keeping us there. I think for those who are in that, I would equate it to like the my vote doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm just one person, kind of that push and pull, too, of I want to be informed, but oh my god, this is overwhelming. And that was I gave this morning. Yeah, 24-hour news cycle, right? Yeah. Like I want to know what's going on, but oh my God, how this can't be good for me.
SPEAKER_02Well, we all need breaks. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You were talking about that with your son earlier.
SPEAKER_02Right. It's like you get frustrated, which means you're you're learning and you're you're growing. But if it's too much, you do need to take a break. And again, our system is not, our capital system is not set up. Meanwhile, laundry, cleaning the house, making sure your home is functioning, making sure your kids have what they need, making sure your work co-workers and your employees and whatever.
SPEAKER_00So a lot of this disproportionate what you just named disproportionately falls on women. Oh, yeah. I'm not saying my husband isn't helpful, but the way that we're conditioned and we're socialized. We're just better at it. So it's not all women because that's the way we've been trained. Our brains think differently too. That's true. But we have been trained to take on all these things in addition to work. Yeah. Now that's the expectation. None of those things have fallen to the wayside. All the stuff that we were doing when we were solely in the home, that's still waiting for us when we fucking come home. And you were talking about this too.
SPEAKER_02Think of the person who's making sure your home is clean and then has to go home and make sure their home is clean and take care of everything. Yeah. Yeah. So basically, the system essentially activation is leading, activation isn't leading us towards safety where it normally would. Um, going offline is actually making people feel better. And so we were just talking about this just the disparity that's really crucial to name. If you're not in a targeted group, your nervous system isn't going to be registering this as learned helplessness at all. If you're cisgender, documented citizen in a stable job watching transgender military members get banned or immigrant communities facing enforcement, your brain can categorize this. And I I hope this isn't true, but I know it probably is. That's happening to them, not to me. And if you have a somewhat fair education and you're interested in history and politics, you know better than to think that. But I think a huge majority of people actually feel vindicated that it's not them.
SPEAKER_00And if you have friends in these groups that are being punched down on and attacked, like that makes it incredibly personal. Yes. Yes, 100%. But I know so many people, especially the people who are really like attacking the trans community, I'm like, he's never even fucking interacted with the trans person. So it was the other way too. Like, you don't know these people, so it's easy to other them.
SPEAKER_02Or they're covering up for some weird, sick fetish of their own that they don't want to deal with.
SPEAKER_00Dude, did I tell you the plumber that came into our home up north? You know, that this is where things are red. I'm gonna take us on a journey real quick. Um, who started saying terrible things about trans folks. And then, you know, subsequently was like, you know what? I have a transgender friend. And I was like, wow, we're having a moment. He also started talking to me. He's like, oh yeah, that started talking about Russian River. He's like, oh yeah, what's the the gay bar up there, the resort? I was like, oh, Arthur. He's like, or you had your bachelorette. Right, which I told him. And I was like, I was like, yeah, because only cis men have hurt me, and I want to go hang out with the gays for my bachelorette party so I don't get harassed. Yes. Um but he was saying, Oh, I've partied there. Like me and my girlfriend, we went to the pool party. We had the fucking best time. And I'm like, you don't say, what are you hiding? You you like hanging out by the pool with a bunch of gay men and speedos? Like there might be something going on here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Anyway, I know I hate to make it about that, but you know, oftentimes it is. Oftentimes it is. Yeah. Um, you know, so it's there's just a callousness I think that you and I are often responding to when we when we talk to people who don't think it affects them. But it if you think that unless you're a rich white man, you better stop thinking that. Yeah. Um, you know, so it's it's prioritizing immediate versus personal danger. And this is the ecosystem we're in in America 2025. Where's your zip code, documentation status, gender identity, employment sector, determine whether Project 2025 feels like this existential crisis or just background noise. And for MAGA supporters, many are experiencing the opposite of helplessness. I mentioned this, a sense of vindication, finally having power to wield on their behalf, which they do. Yeah. Um, and then there's these in-between folks, and the lack of immediate personal impact allows their nervous system to kind of just deprioritize things and threats just keep coming. And the reversal of learned helplessness, though, it comes through experiences of efficacy. So Mayer and Siegelmen, the researchers later did work that showed even small experiences. Experiences of successful control could prevent and reverse helplessness. That's why mutual aid networks, local organizing aren't just political strategies, they are neurobiologically restorative. Okay. It's a felt sense that leads to action. And we have to name the reality that can communities under threat don't have the luxury of waiting for that restoration. And communities insulated from that threat don't develop that urgency to act.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And the communities under threat have the most to lose, which is why it's so important for those of us, i.e., like cis white women, cis white men, to be allies. Yeah. Because we have more privilege. We have more power. That's why allyship is so important.
SPEAKER_02Well, I in 2026, my hope is that all these uh, who's it, Tizzy on uh TikTok, the guy who likes people will send him like something fucked up happened in a bathroom. I think so, yeah. Sunday. I it always shocks me when the person's doing the filming and nobody in the background saying anything. That's what I'm saying. Because you know you and I would be fucking saying shit. Oh, hell yeah. I I'm waiting, I'm waiting for that moment. Right. I sometimes go looking for that shit. Yeah. You know, and I it that's my hope is that in when you see something, you do something, right?
SPEAKER_00That's what we teach kids. And simply like standing beside that person and letting them know like I'm here to support you in that moment. That's everything. Yeah. That's all anybody I think wants who's going through like this, you know, whatever the attack looks like. Like it being a trans person in a bathroom and having somebody say some awful shit to you, like stand by that person's side. You know, just don't even engage with the other person. Just talk to the, you know, trans woman, trans man, like your hair looks fucking awesome today. Yes. Make it completely about something else. Yeah. Take the focus off that person, take away their power. Yes. Fuck them. Yes. We we have so much power and we don't even realize it. And I am so tired of people being like, well, we don't control any, you know, we don't control the house, we don't control the center. I'm like, you are looking at this, this, this representative idea of power, but we talk about this all the time. Fuck them, a broken record. Like true change comes from the bottom up. We tell what our our elected representatives what needs to be done, but it's through collective action, normal, everyday people getting together, like the civil rights movement, the women's movement, saying, we're not gonna fucking take this shit anymore.
SPEAKER_02Well, and at what point did altruism not become a social norm? Yeah. At what point are we okay as a society with someone doing the things that we're seen doing in a bathroom? Right, let alone bombing a country.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's like the term woke, for instance. It's like, yeah, bitch, I'm woke and I'm owning it. If woke means being a kind person and and not caring who the fuck someone is, as long as they're a good person. Call me a Lib Tard. Yeah, don't give a shit. Call me a snowflake. It doesn't matter to me. Yes. Like, when did kindness get associated with like negative connotations? That makes me so fucking mad. Like these people who call themselves Christians, it's like you're fucking full of shit. It's us liberals, we're the ones that are doing the work. That I'm sorry, New Testament Jesus would be like, right on. Right on, ladies, do that shit. You you go turn sex workers and turn them tables over and stop giving the government your money for war. Yeah. Jesus is on our side, not your side. That's who we need to take back. We need to fucking take Jesus back. I'm not, I'm an atheist with some agnostic meanings. And I'm taking Jesus back because you know what? We are Jesuit educated, and the work we do, the way we think, the way we take care of people and embrace them, that's fucking Jesus. And not Zach Efron Jesus. No, but he, god damn, what a hot fucking Jesus. And also Willem Dafoe Jesus, hot as shit. We all know Jesus wasn't white. I get it. I've never seen it William Defoe. Watch The Last Temptation of Christ. It's honestly the best depiction of Christ I've ever. I don't think I've ever seen that. Ever seen that. So what's the other one you're talking about?
SPEAKER_02Oh God. Was it about Jesus? No. I was reading a BuzzFeed article about like the worst movies that we all watched as kids. One of them was kids that we shouldn't have watched.
SPEAKER_01Funny games. Funny games, yeah. Nothing to do with Jesus. We're not going down that road.
SPEAKER_02Those are some weird entitled white people doing terrible homicidal things. The higher your income and higher status in Christianity, though, the more close you are to MAGA. That makes sense. I'm sure there's there's gotta be documentation on this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, we're the ones. The the pastors and the the clergy who are getting fucking pepper sprayed in the face by ice who are out there saying, Love thy neighbor, they're Christ-like. They're doing the work.
SPEAKER_02Dude, there's monks walking across our nation that don't come unless they think a nation is in crisis. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00If they're out, we're fucked. Yeah. We all know we're fucked, but these monks, they're just the icing on the goddamn like uh apocalyptic case. Yeah. I don't, yeah. Anyway, so let's talk about the areas that are still in play and the key priorities that are not fully implemented for project 2024.
SPEAKER_01What do we have left?
SPEAKER_00The implementation is not uniform across all domains. So there are some key areas that remain contested, pending or in litigation. For instance, while the agenda to shrink the federal workforce and civil service is underway, the full reclassifications of tens of thousands of federal employees is being worked out, right? And there are also judges who said, all these people you fired, give them their jobs back. Yes. You know, some of the most sweeping policies like education funding cuts, dismantling of major programs like Head Start, major changes to immigration slash asylum frameworks remain legally and politically contested. We see the Supreme Court over and over, not the Supreme Court, I'm sorry, but the federal courts primarily. The Supreme Court is mostly giving Trump what he wants, but federal courts are saying no. Like the federal court just said, or a federal court just said, take the National Guard out of fucking Chicago. Stop this. Take them out. I'm sure ultimately the Supreme Court will vindicate him, but for now, it's a big no. So state level, did you know Bill told me something really interesting to set today that when it comes to, I think, federal judges, it's marshals who are responsible for ensuring that they're protected. And all this money right now is going into ice and there's not money being poured into the marshals program. So there are all these judges who feel unsafe, who are being threatened. So the big thing is having pizzas sent to your home. That's just basically freaky people saying, I know where you live, I can get you at any time. Oh, sending these pizzas to your house. But anyway, like these judges who are doing Are they getting pizzas? I think I don't know if they're actually like accepting the pizzas. You would wonder that. You're like, what happens to the pizzas? I'm curious myself as a pizza lover. But anyway, interesting. So um, you know, where was I? State level action and legal pushback. So many aspects of Project 2025 propose federal rollouts, but states are already serving as laboratories of implementation or resistance, which adds to complexity. So states are push pushing back. We're seeing that. We're particularly seeing that in California. Uh hats off, Gavin, Governor Gavin. Gavin. Gavin Newsom, I love you. Did you see his New Year's mashup video? I don't think so. It's it's like a um uh what do you call it? Uh like a hodgepodge. I forgot the word for it right now. But essentially it starts with him giving Trump that aggressive handshake on the tarmac when he arrives in California. It's so good. I love the next level trolling. But, you know, remember public and institutional resistance, like civil society groups, ACLU, like legal organizations, watchdogs, they continue to track enforcement, litigation, and whether proposed actions are fully realized. So, for example, delays, courts say, and legislative hurdle. So keep throwing these impediments at them. It is working, it's slowing things down. So, in short, while momentum is strong, the agenda still faces friction and some of the most transformative elements are actually still in motion. So here's what to watch for. So, what does it mean? And where should our listeners keep an eye out? So, because Project 2025 is designed to reshape institutional power like civil service, independent agencies, regulatory architecture, progress here tends to have long-term effects beyond simple policy shifts. So the backbone of government is changing. Will it shift back when a Democrat is in power or when Democrats are in power? My hope is yes. So the scale of progressive in power. We'll see, yeah, progressive. Progressive is key. Um, but even if moderates are gonna be able to push things back to at least where they were before, which isn't great, but at least our democracy will still be intact. So the scale of implementation matters. Once structural changes are made, like agency reorganization, staffing changes, new executive, new executive controls, they often persist. But for how long? You know, you have to hope that when the regime changes, not the regime, but you know, when power changes, leadership changes, these things will shift back. So the contested nature of legal/slash regulatory change means we should monitor things like litigation outcomes, agency budget decisions, appointment confirmations, contractor changes, state, federal interactions, all these things matter. These are nuances, I understand, but they matter. That's when people go, what can we do? What's actually being done? And we throw at them the thousands of cases that the ACLU, for instance, has brought against the Trump administration and in many cases won. That all matters. That all matters. It's just not being amplified to the extent where mainstream media is picking up on it. But these things are happening, the pushback is happening, okay? So for practitioners, for example, in workforce development, right here, public service nonprofits, understanding which federal programs might face reduction, which agencies authority may shift, and how the regulatory environment may change is vital right here at the bottom. Go local local level, this is what matters. I have other friends in other municipalities who are severely impacted by what's happening at the federal money because most of the money that they get to do their workforce development work is federal. We are very lucky here in San Francisco, where the majority of our money comes from the general fund. We don't have to worry in our department at least a lot about federal funding or losing federal funding, but the city is losing federal funding. We're in a huge deficit because of that. Cousin Jenny's department, community development and housing, they get from community development block grant alone, which is HUD funding, $26 million. If that goes away, that severely impacts their ability to provide housing for the most vulnerable people in our communities. So it matters. How well do people actually understand Project 2025 versus reading the headlines or reacting to social cues?
SPEAKER_02Well, speaking to someone who didn't fully comprehend a 900-page document, did you read it? I think try the Cliff's notes. Okay. I remember you actually tried. I did. So yeah, it's a 900-page blueprint with 532 tracked policy actions. That's you're not living in a moral failure if you didn't comprehend that. Right. It's kind of how human cognition works. Um, that's way too much information overload overload. And what we're all doing instead is relying on heuristics, mental shortcuts. Oh, okay. I know they're like my built-in cliffs notes. Weird uh statistics. Yeah. So Lodge and Tauber's research on political reasoning, this is from 2013, showed that people from um, excuse me, people form political judgments primarily through effective responses and partisan cues, but not policy analysis. Okay. And we when we encounter new information, our brain quickly checks does this align with my group? Um yeah. How does this make me feel? And then we move on. Confirmation bias. This, yeah, this process takes a millisecond. It's actually reading and comprehending dense policy documents takes hours that we don't have. So there's also social proof. Unless it's our job. Right.
SPEAKER_00Because that's part of my job. There you go. But you're good at retaining a lot of that. You are so hard. You're you're better. I can say, as someone who has to do a lot of this for a living, it's really fucking hard. And I have yet to figure out a way to quickly recall information. My boss is really good at that. Oh, really? She's also almost 10 years younger than me and hasn't done nearly as many drugs as I have. So I attribute it to that. She's also just a genius, but she can recall this shit, not like the worst.
SPEAKER_02If something's read to me, yeah, that's different. But I'm the queen of like, I'll read a page and then be like, what did I just read? But I I've had a whole other fantasy. You're not focused. I'm not, I don't focus while we do. Go figure. Yeah. So anyway, social proof. Robert, how do you say this Italian name? Cialdini. I'm not on the page, but yeah, good enough. Influence research demonstrated that when we're uncertain about how to interpret something, we always look to our social network for cues. And if everyone in your trusted circle is treating Project 2025 as its authoritarian takeover, you'll probably adopt that frame. Right. And if your circle dismisses it as liberal fear-mongering, you'll likely kind of do the same. So very few people are independently even understanding when you say heritage foundation, they're not even connecting those two things unless they've done that, even very minimal research just to do that. So, anyway, so here's where the American ecosystem matters, because remember, everything works in systems. Who you trust is increasingly sorted by geography, media consumption, and identity markers. We are not receiving the same information and we are all interpreting it differently. We are receiving fundamentally different information streams on a global level. Fox News viewers, MSNBC viewers aren't just disagreeing about Project 25. We we can't even get people to admit it exists. Right. No one's really talking about it. You know, so it's like, what how can you talk about the emperor has no clothes if he doesn't have any clothes? You know, it's it's just ridiculous. And so this disparity, it it stakes um in it, it has a big impact on the people it's going to affect, who are the people who probably aren't reading this, right, uh who aren't being affected. And if you're a federal employee facing reclassification, you're probably looking up civil service restructuring sections, right? If you're an undocumented or have undocumented family, you probably are gonna spend a little bit extra time on immigration enforcement provisions. But if you're insulated from all these systems, which I think a lot more people than we think are 100%, or they think they are.
SPEAKER_00That's the problem. They think they're insulated. They think this doesn't apply directly to them, but it all does. It all does, it all is new.
SPEAKER_02This is the year we're really gonna see it. I think so. More than ever. Um, and so you know, again, we're looking at you said funding of or transgender health care access. Fuck, healthcare access for all of us. The cognitive cost of understanding outweighs the benefit. Your brain rationally decides this doesn't affect me enough to justify the mental energy, which probably is true. And it's not, again, I don't feel fair saying that's a civic failure. There's a triage, this is the system is deliberately doing this. They know exactly what they're doing and they're they're actually able to track it. So here's my clinical concern and why I think every single person in medicine medicine and healthcare and therapy, we need to be thinking about our clients and our patients this way. Motivated reasoning by Ziva Kunda's research showed that we are all constantly processing information in ways that protect our existing worldviews. This is from 1990. We seek out evidence, you said confirmation bias that confirms what we already believe and dismiss contradictory information. So I want to ask people, I told you this before, I want to know that politics does come into the session. Politics should come into your medical appointment. Right. How are you being impacted by your phone and by social media? How much are you consuming? What are you consuming? We have to start looking at this as the public health crisis that it is. Right. And conservatives aren't doing this any differently than progressives. We're doing it constantly. And the question is whether we can recognize when we're operating on fragments and social cues versus actual comprehension. And that scares me a lot.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, and we hold our certainty more lightly when we're maintaining our own values. You and I are often shocked when we're around someone in the Bay Area who doesn't agree with us. Yeah. Because it's so shocking. It's like, what? Yeah. But that tells you a lot about our circle. Right. And maybe we need to infiltrate other places. But anyway, the work also isn't stop being scared. The work is finding moments of safety with other humans. Mutual aid, talked about that. Community gatherers gatherings, sitting with someone who just gets it, matters. Sitting with people who need help. Yeah. Um, it's nice, not as nice to have that all the time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So that was my post-suggestion today. Get outside, go do something, go, go take a class, go be with other people who probably you do share the same thing and smile and nod and be kind to each other.
SPEAKER_00It's helpful. It really is. And so many people question the like efficacy and the significance of protest. And I say, even if protest is simply being in shared space with people who are are are similarly outraged, yes, and you share opinions with, like, that's reaffirming. That's really good for you. Yes. You know, especially if you are going to a No Kings protest in a state or in a city within a state that tends to lean red, and then all of a sudden, all you blue motherfuckers start coming out the woodwork, and there's a few thousand of you in the town square. That is empowering. That gives you hope to keep going. And that's important, even on an individual level. I think collectively it makes a difference too. Absolutely. But even if it's just making an a difference for individuals, that matters.
SPEAKER_02It totally is. You can't not, that's the number one for stress and anxiety is to go, go, go do acts of service. But AA, as much as I have issues with that as a 12-step program, their whole thing is get out of your fucking own life and go do something for someone else. Right. There were more the the after the No Kings protest, the Monday I had sessions, that whole week, that's every single person brought that up about how they went, how it was so great to be around people. Yeah. And I've I've seen a lot more like speaking with that. Like, do we need to be doing these 24-7?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like, do we need to be marching and doing this even more?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I think it's coming. And I think it's important. And I think, I think too, it's important for the folks in power to see like how many, when seven million people across this country come out, take to the street, that's not even everybody who hates what you're doing. Those are the folks who have the resources and the ability, whatever that ability may be, to be able to be out there in community with other people. There's seven million in the street. How many are at home? You know, like my my mom, who physically can't be out there, you know, but agrees 100% with everybody who's on the street.
SPEAKER_01They were showing them just like in their rooms. Yeah. You don't like this shit either.
SPEAKER_00Totally. No, it's it's so true. And so even if it's just that being in community with other people, the value in that can't be understated. Gatherings. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's what we that's that is the most uh anti-patriarchy thing you can do. Yeah. Is gather. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00No, absolutely. Because that's the first thing they try to take from you, right? Yeah. Absolutely. That's what whenever there is a dictatorship, an authoritarian leader, what do they try to stop you from doing? They try to stop you from gathering, they try to stop you from learning, they try to stop you from engaging in anything joyous. Look what happened with slaves, for instance. It's like, you can't read. We're not going to allow you to read. Learning how to read by firelight was an act of fucking resistance. When, when, when uh Castro, for all of his faults, him and and Che were doing their gorilla thing in the jungles, like ready to take over, they would go into the villages at night and teach people how to read. Cuba's literacy rate was and probably is still far higher than the United States, because they understood that teaching people, like teaching people how To read was an act of fucking resistance.
SPEAKER_02That the in the uh Congress, they have the Gutenberg uh Bible.
SPEAKER_00Oh, the Library of Congress?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, not yeah, not the original one. I guess it's the King James, but it it's so poignant that I think that that was there. Yeah. Because it's true, that changed the world. Yeah. Yep.
SPEAKER_00Teach people to read and then they start to think. And that is why I know. I know. One of the reasons why our education system in this country is so poor. And it's not for lack of trying on the part of educators. The system is set up to uh inspire failure as fucked up as that sentence is. Like, you know, the smarter people are, the more they're going to resist. And the powers that be don't want that. Trump isn't the first piece of shit that we've had in elected office. I mean, that what happened today is giving like George W. Bush like big time, reminding me of Afghanistan and Iraq and the false pretenses under which we went into both of those countries. Both. We should not have been in Afghanistan. The majority of the 9-11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, which of course we would not attack because we have vested interests with them. Oil, they buy billions of dollars and weaponry from us. Like it is a mutually beneficial relationship. But we went after Afghanistan to make a show of it for regime change. And because there were resources in that country that we wanted, make no mistake, that is what is happening today, and that is what will continue to happen in this country unless we change the way that we do things. The people. Yeah, we the people, which is why I love motherfuckers like Mom Donnie. Change it up, dog. It's all about the people. Now housing first. Can't I mean you can come here? You can do proclamations of like we don't agree with this, etc. Like proclaimed. I don't know. And Trump also seems to have like a really weird, like single white female uh worship of Mom Donnie, which is really strange. Uh anyway, that's for another show. Anyway, you guys, so you know, to wrap it up, the blueprint for of Project 2025 is already being translated into action. That we know. Many of the structural pieces are underway, and close to 50% of the tracked agenda appears to have been initiated or fulfilled or fulfilled. So from 40 to 50%, depending on which tracker you look at, right? But the full vision is not yet complete. And a lot of it depends on oversight, public engagement, legal safeguards, and institutional resistance. So if you're working in public policy, uh-huh, government service, uh-huh, nonprofits, civic engagement, stay alert to changes in agency structure, rulemaking, funding shifts, personnel policies. So those things are all really important. Instead of looking up here at what's going on at the national level, look at what's happening around you. That's your litmus test. Where can you make an impact? Where can you make change? Where could you potentially be impacted? So widen your gaze. Yes. And thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_02Shout out to Auntie Teresa, who loves our podcast.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Auntie Teresa, we love you, girl. Um, we love all of our listeners. Our TikTok community is up to almost 700, 7,500 folks. How impressive. It's our fourth year.
SPEAKER_02It's our fourth year doing anniversary. We're gonna go big this year. Super Bowl Sunday is our anniversary.
SPEAKER_00Super Bowl Sunday is our anniversary that we don't have much love for football. Don't tell our partners. Um, but yeah, we've been doing this a while. Don't get me started. We've only become, you know, we've only turned our focus fully to politics once Trump 2.0 started. We feel like that's really important right now. That doesn't mean we won't have some light-hearted uh episodes in the very near future. And you can go back. You can go back to our oldies, they're hilarious. Go back, listen to our oldies, they're amazing. Um, but we're gonna mix it up this year. We're gonna do some live shows. So keep an ear out for that. We are gonna be doing more partnerships. Uh, Rick Wilson, if you're listening, we fucking love you. We have a small but mighty like uh community. We love the Lincoln Project. Love them. But that is an example of look at that. People who work. The onion. Yeah, the onion too. But Rick Wilson, him and his partner whose name I'm forgetting, not they they worked toward getting people that we absolutely hate, Republicans, elected. Once Trump came into the picture, they said, Oh no, no, fuck this, we can't do this anymore. Like this is this has gone too far, and have now made a complete 180. And it's it's amazing. It's amazing to see what can happen once people uh wake up, so to speak, yes, and and realize that hey, we're we're we're not gonna have platforms which to have these fucking arguments on anymore because we are entering very quickly into a state of authoritarianism.
SPEAKER_02We're not gonna have a planet if we keep relying on fucking oil. That too. That too. Do you know Carter put solar panels on the White House and Reagan? Fucking Reagan knocked them all down. Yeah, of course he did. Of course he did. It's fucking ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00It's not a show unless we dump on Reagan. Yeah, it's really not. Reagan needs to be shat upon every show. And with that, uh, we thank you for listening. We encourage you to follow us, particularly on TikTok. We are TWAT, T-W-A-T, J C. Um, and Instagram, help us out there. Lots of trolls, literal trolls, straight up Russian bots. YouTube, yes, follow us, follow us, follow us. Uh, we appreciate you. We love you. Happy New Year in spite of all of the fuckery. We're gonna make it a good year. Uh yeah. Yeah. All right, everybody. Bye.