Will There Be Tampons Under Project 2025?
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Rise and shine, fever dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm Bea Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream, presented by Betches News. Where we explore the absurdities and oddities of our uniquely American experience. And it is quite a fever dream this week. It really is, Sammy. I mean, I know we're supposed to jump into the episode here, but we would be remiss to not take a pause and say, listeners, holy crap.

Every day, every hour gets wilder and wilder. We get further into uncharted territory. So today we are going deeper into Project 2025 now that it's finally gotten its big break into the mainstream breakout star of the week. And Donald Trump is now trying to distance himself from it. So we are dedicating today's episode to painting a picture of the world that the far right MAGA movement is set on creating with Donald at the forefront.

And if that wasn't exciting enough, it is a big week for us, Sammy. I am literally about to board a plane for D.C. to attend the NATO summit, check in with my crew at the Pentagon, maybe even catch a glimpse of Joe. The Lord Almighty is the only thing that can stop me, Biden. And your book tour is popping off this week with three stops.

Wow. Democracy in Retrograde is out today. Exciting. The timing is really quite necessary because the general mood seems to be that people are finally very aware that our democracy is in danger. They want to save it, but they don't know what to do. That seems to be the common refrain, what the fuck do we do? So Emily and I had a feeling that it was going to come to this when

for the past several years, you know, when Donald Trump was not getting out of the picture and the MAGA movement was only getting stronger and more organized, um,

So we wrote a book to help people figure out the answers for themselves. We are a big country and not everyone has the same role to play. So we wanted to write a book that would help you find yours. And yes, we are on tour this week. Tonight, we are with Governor Josh Shapiro at the Weizmann Museum of Jewish History in Philly. And then Thursday, we'll be in DC at the MLK Junior Memorial Library for a chat with Ali Batali. And I'm very excited that you're going to be there. I will. And it'll be after the NATO week. So NATO Summit closes Thursday.

Quick espresso martini, maybe. Little shrimp cocktail snack as we do. Hit the book tour. And then, I don't know, me and Samir are going to camp out at the Old Epic Grill and try to overhear what the staffers are talking about. We're just going to be gossip queens about DC for the rest of the weekend. But for real, I mean, who knows what world we could be living in by Thursday, but this NATO summit could not have fallen on a more appropriate week. I am both excited and scared.

which is my standard feelings. I'm excited because I don't know that much about NATO. So I'm really, I mean, outside of what the average person understands. So I'm really excited to get to learn more about NATO, their functions, meet a lot of the foreign diplomats that make NATO work over in Europe and whatnot, and hear about what their concerns are. I also think

I don't know if it's because I used to be a caterer or a waiter, but I'm very good at just like blending in with the walls and eavesdropping. So I'm going to try to just like make myself a part of the room and see if I can pick up any hot gossip from the foreign leaders that are here to see what they're thinking about our elections and about the future of NATO. I know there's a lot of talk about how do we Trump proof NATO just in case something happens. So I think it'll be an interesting time to just be in the room.

From what I hear, that is sort of the theme of this entire summit. I imagine the other part of the theme is going to be assessing Biden's capability of leading this alliance for the next four years, or as he says, running the world. Who knows all these people like I do? No. Who's going to hold you like me? Who's going to love you like I do, baby? Well, the

And the other thing that I think is interesting is they have invited other creators. Preston Stewart is a creator that I really respect and care about. He's former army and he does a lot of like military TikTok news, which is so interesting because he talks about like strategy of what's going on in the different wars and like which weapons they're using. And he's just really good at making it the average person understand and he'll be there. And they're giving us a whole creator room with lights and cameras and videographers. Like they are really hoping that content creators, not just from TikTok, but from

Instagram and Snapchat and what used to be Twitter will really, you know, hype up NATO and help people get to understand why it's so important. So I'm excited to see what it's about, but I'm also very nervous. It feels like a lot of pressure this time.

You're getting your own situation room to NATO SpawnCon, except it's not paid. I guess so. Yeah. Let's be very clear. Unpaid. I'm getting a ton of access, but we don't get paid to do this stuff. But it's going to be exciting. And I guess at the end of this, we'll see if Kara Swisher thinks it's journalism. You know, if content creators are journalists, this will be my big thread moment for the NATO Summit.

All that aside, we're going to get right into the news this week again, because there's just so much to talk about, much of which revolves around Project 2025, now that it's gone wide into the public. And we want to let you know more about what to expect under a second Trump regime, should that come to fruition. But we are really, truly hoping, I'm hoping for our French moment and that it doesn't. But here's what we got. And our British moment. I know. I want to be like them.

We used to be, but this past weekend we celebrated the 248th anniversary of no longer being. So the irony of that is thick. It triggers my patriotism though. I have to tell you anytime, like it's like, it's like America is my sister and like I can talk shit about her, but no one else can talk shit about her. Like anybody comes for the USA and I'm like, I will throw down so hard on you. No, this is the greatest country in the world and it's all going to turn out great. So.

Right. As they say, you don't know what you got till it's gone, which is why we're going to describe what it will look like when it's gone so that we can appreciate it while we have it. We're going to take back the flag, the flag aesthetic. Okay. So as you said, finally, Project 2025 went mainstream last week, mostly thanks to the fact that Taraji P. Henson railed against it at the BET Awards and told everyone to go Google it. So let's play a clip. I love you all. Make sure you vote. It is very serious.

Freedoms are being taken away from us. Wake up, do the research, look up 2025 agenda, because next year this time could look very different if you don't vote.

I think that that one took a lot of bravery because you know that wasn't in the script. You know that that was something that she really thought, okay, this is my moment. I have an audience and I'm going to make sure that they hear about this. This is for the community. And isn't it always on the shoulders of a Black woman to have to bring forth

this type of information in a way that gets people to pay attention. Yeah, I think that is a point that I wish would be more prominent in the way people are thinking about this. Black women are always on the front lines of fighting fascism. We really have to thank the Black community for the fact that we took the Senate in 2020. We cannot forget these

debts that we are owed and essentially the fact that we should be listening to people who are warning us, to people who have been correct, to communities that are going to be the most affected by Project 2025 and a future Trump administration. And it's not surprising to me that that is the corner where it's coming from. My question is, why does this not translate to

People talking about how our vice president is a black woman and a prosecutor, and she is really sort of the perfect person to be making this case against Donald Trump and Project 2025. That's why we were making the case for Kamala at the end of last week. But she herself also made an appearance at Essence Fest this weekend, where she also called for more attention on Project 2025. So let's play that clip too. In a

In 122 days, we each have the power to decide what kind of country we want to live in, understand what we know,

when there has been a full-on intentional attack against hard-fought, hard-won freedoms and rights. When I talk about the family that raised me, yes, they took me in a stroller as they were marching and shouting for justice, knowing that justice will not be achieved unless we are prepared to march and shout and fight for it. And one of the ways we do that is through our vote. You know something that's so interesting?

about these two women that are bringing this forward, right? Taraji P. Henson and of course, Vice President Kamala Harris. They are both Howard graduates. Taraji P. Henson went to Howard for acting. And of course, Vice President Kamala Harris is a graduate of Howard. And you have to wonder how being in that environment, whether you're there for acting or politics or law or whatever the case may be, must really instill a level of social justice and wanting to take care of your country and your community. Because these are the two people that are bringing it forward. And-

It's just, it's a lot right now and it's a lot to be putting on them. Well, I think the thing is that, you know, coming from that, coming from an environment where you're really with your community and you're really steeped in the history of it and you don't have to explain it or dull it for the dominant group or the dominant culture and they don't have to code switch everything.

And they didn't come from an environment where they were gaslit into thinking that those things are normal. Going to college is a really formative time. So my assumption is that they have that foundational understanding that has become really, really important now. And it's especially important because even as educators,

There's attention being called to this. Like we said, Donald Trump is trying to distance himself from this, even as the leaders of Project 2025 are going more hardcore into talking about their plan and having Americans be aware of it.

So there were two really important statements that came up last week. First was the Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, who went viral last week after he essentially threatened violence if conservatives don't win the 2024 election and get a chance to institute Project 2025. So just for some context before we play that clip...

Kevin Roberts leads the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation is responsible for leading Project 2025 and laying out the groundwork for what their plan will be in a merely 1,000-page plan. So it wasn't all written by him. There were several conservative groups and think tanks that were part of this and legal scholars. But really, he is the one to have spearheaded the project, and this is what he expects to be the result. We are going to win.

We're in the process of taking this country back. We are in the process of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be. What kind of fascist cosplay is this? You know what I mean? It'll be bloodless if the left allows it. Is that a threat? What does that even mean? And this is where we say that sometimes a revolution isn't the one you lead, it's the one you resist. So there's been a lot of discussion about

voting and about how we want a third party revolution and how we don't like the two party system. We are in a revolution. It's just we're on the defense side of it right now. We're not on the offense side of it where we're calling the shots. And I think there's nothing more important than taking these people very seriously because this isn't a group that popped up in the last couple of years. They've been on this since the 1970s. There's been like 50s,

50 years of effort towards getting us to this very moment. We're not going to undo it with some wishful thinking on TikTok. We are on the defense.

Yeah, there's not going to be like some first cannon shot in this situation. They've already begun. They've been doing this for decades. And it's a legal revolution, not a... For now, what he's saying is it will just remain a legal revolution as long as you submit. But I think that this is why it's really worth bringing up because any authoritarian scholar will tell you that one of the most important ways to fight fascism and to resist any sort of authoritarian leader is that you do not submit in advance.

Part of what I think is so difficult to witness, especially as we're talking about this debate and talking about Donald Trump versus Joe Biden, is that people have already sort of submitted to Donald Trump. We don't call for him to get out of the race, even though obviously we emotionally call for him to get out of the race. But it's like-

He's not held to the same standard that Joe Biden is held to. So we all sort of are doing a little bit of a version of submitting in advance, or it's like you don't try the tactics that you would normally try with a leader who is functioning like a normal law-abiding leader because you sort of know that it's not going to, quote, work with the autocrat. And that is one of those things is that they want to signal to you, this is how you should act in this.

the future and just lay it down and let it happen. Well, and part of the thing as a content creator, right? And we know we do it with our families also, if you're not a creator is, well, I'm just not going to talk about Trump because if I talk about them, then all the Magaloonies are going to come after me and they're going to dox me or they're going to like flood my comments or I'm going to end up on lips of TikTok or all these things are, all these bad things are going to happen because I speak up against Donald Trump.

And the same thing happens in our families, right? Keep the peace at Thanksgiving. Your uncle's a maniac. Who cares? Don't correct him. Just like let it happen. And all of that since 2014, 2015 has contributed in leading us to this point.

my mother used to tell me like all the time to be the bigger person and I fucking hated it because I don't want to be the bigger person. I want to be the petty small person, but who's correct. Like, I don't want to just like make myself small to be like more accommodating to the dinner table or to like not cause a problem. Why aren't we ever on the uncle that calls a problem? Why are we always on the eldest daughter who stands up to him?

because we're team, when they go low, we go high. And the problem is that you sort of have to maintain that though. That's the thing. It's like- No, I'm not going high anymore. I can't, Sammy. I know I'm resistant to always going high as well. But the thing is that you actually kind of have to, otherwise there's no longer an argument that you have any standing. Well, these are the things that I say when people are like, why won't you debate this or that like shit stir TikTok? Or I'm like, because we're not peers.

We're not on the same level. I'm not going to debate somebody whose entire purpose is just to aggravate and they have endless energy to suck the life out of you with their random points that don't make sense and their propaganda and their parroting MAGA talking points. There's no debating them. We're not peers. We're not on the same level. That's why I don't.

that's about as high as I can go on the high bar is to say what they do is not normal. And so thereby we are not playing the same game, nevermind by the same rules. I'm not going to engage you as if you are my peer, as if you are my equal, when your point is to just exhaust me and run in circles. And like I said, they're all like little edgelords. They get off on like just frustrating people.

Yeah, and also on flooding the zone with shit. Right. Because the thing is there's not enough capacity to fight all the lies and to point out all the manipulations and the cover-ups. And that's why another thing we wanted to point out today about Project 2025 is that as it's becoming more popular and being brought into the public's awareness –

Donald Trump has officially begun his public denial campaign that he has never met Project 2025 before. He wrote on Truth Social the other day, I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they're saying, and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them. How do you square that?

First of all, how do you both wish them luck, but you don't know what they're doing, but you also don't like what they're doing, but you still wish them luck? It's so Proud Boys stand back and stand by coded. It is.

It is playing both sides of the fence. And here's the thing. I actually believe that Donald Trump does not know what Project 2025 is. I don't know that they include him in actual policy discussions. And what I wrote to quote myself on threads this weekend, and if you're not following me and Sammy on threads, you really should be. It's where we do all our shit posting and like open thinking. It's like a journal for me.

was that Donald Trump and his MAGA movement, right, at least what we assume is Trumpism,

is the Trojan horse for Christian nationalism. So he is going to get burned down once they get into the castle. They just need him and his loyal followers to be the vessel by which Christian nationalism and the Heritage Foundation and these conservative think tanks bring their ideals and their policies into the castle. Steve Bannon, right before he went to jail, said that Donald Trump is actually not a huge part

of the bigger movement and is in fact a moderate in the MAGO world that he would, he doesn't go far enough in his mind. So to me, I think Donald Trump is perfectly happy

To be cast as the president, to be playing the role of the leader because he gets his money, he gets his fame, he gets to move in the White House and people follow him around and say yes sir to him and all that absurd stuff that he likes. And he is just as happy to be a useful puppet to them as he is to be a useful puppet to Putin. It's all the same. Totally. And he gets his criminal immunity. Yeah.

Yeah. He gets everything he needs. He doesn't care. He gets to play mob boss. Right. He also probably thinks, what are they going to do to me? They need me. He's very flattered. And this is the other thing where we say you have to watch where the propaganda comes from. It's Iran. It's Russia. It's China. It is the far, far right Christian nationalist movement, which is not to be confused with Christianity or patriotism. It is neither of those things.

And the flattery piece and some of the propaganda of him with like big muscles on a tank and like all this stuff, that shit comes from Iran. That shit comes from them understanding that flattery is the easiest way to prop up an autocrat and a dictator and then build your movement and your actual theocratic government behind them. You just need somebody who's willing to go out there and be the face of it. But I don't think Donald Trump actually has a ton of power in the movement outside of the fact that he's the face of

But he is a puppet. He is a Trojan horse. He is not actually the mastermind. Well, that's what they think now. That's what they're using him for. I think what gets questionable is that he will, if he is elected, he would be the president. So he would be the one in power. But that doesn't mean that in the long term... Right, right. It would be...

people who come from this world, the Heritage Foundation, the Steve Bannons of the world. But the other piece is that, to your point, he's happy to be used as a puppet, but he's still trying to pretend that he doesn't know what it is, even as the Heritage Foundation and Kevin Roberts is explicitly crediting him for making these plans possible. Here's a clip of what Kevin Roberts has said about Donald Trump and Project 2025.

We want no credit. We want the American people, if President Trump is elected again, President Trump and his administration to take credit for that. But it will also be a great sign if all of this is successful that in fact, as we know in our prayer time, but maybe not every time when we're watching the news, that the Lord is still smiling upon America.

So, I mean, you have it right there, right? In that moment, Donald Trump's all too willing to be flattered by it. And they're being very clear that he is their candidate. They're by everything that they're doing. He owns and he's the mastermind of because they have to make him feel like he's in control.

But he wrote his own little plan called Agenda 47. And this gives him essentially like deniability, right? He's like, oh, Project 2025 is their plan. Agenda 47 is my plan. Well, they are the exact same things. They are the exact same things. I did a whole video on Agenda 47.

Because if he wants to play the game, I don't know what Project 2025 is. Well, I'm just as happy to talk about Agenda 47 because it's the exact same thing. And he's made videos about these things and where he stands on it. He knows in his heart of hearts

That abortion is a losing game. And he knows that they are pushing him to say that fetal personhood will be a promise that he makes come true in his second term. That is the thing that they want more than anything, because then that allows them to punish women who have abortions. That makes it like murder. That's how you get your national abortion ban, which is what they care about the most because they care about controlling women in children's bodies.

Will the FIUSs be allowed to vote by mail? I mean, why is there a voting age if we have fetal personhood, right? Don't you have civil rights at birth or in utero?

And Donald Trump is stubborn and show business smart enough to understand that when he goes out there, that does not fly. He knows that abortion will lose him the election. So he's trying to distance himself and say, no, no, no, it's enough that the states are doing it. And so then over the weekend, also the president of Susan B. Anthony Foundation, which is just, Susan B. Anthony had nothing to do with abortion, okay? She wanted women to vote. She did not want women to get healthcare. But they use these like,

Feminist icons to do anti-feminist things. So the president of Susan B. Anthony Foundation, which is deeply anti-abortion, came out and said that she needs to hear from Donald Trump's mouth that he will make fetal personhood a thing or they may not as fervently support him, which is kind of like a stupid threat, right? We might pull back our support for what?

For who else? They have no other option. This is your guy. You have no other option. So I think it's going to be interesting to see who his vice president pick is. And I also think it's interesting he hasn't announced it yet because once we get that pick, we'll know if it's somebody who's willing to say national abortion ban.

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I think one of the scariest things about Project 2025 is that its own authors have said that there are elements of the plan that they don't wish to make public because the ideas are too radical and will scare the public. Sammy, so the 900 pages that we have out, there's more? There's more? Do we write to edit? Can we cut down some of this? Yeah.

Trump himself is mentioned hundreds of times in Project 2025. So the idea that he's like somehow not tied to this is ridiculous. But like you said earlier, he is something of a moderate in the movement. Steve Bannon said that before he went to jail. Then you have a guy who is actually running for governor of North Carolina this cycle. His name is Mark Robinson. He's currently the lieutenant governor of North Carolina. And he's been running for governor of North Carolina for a long time.

he seems like the kind of guy who is maybe even more extreme than Donald Trump. So let's play a clip of him campaigning this past week. You know, it was a time when we used to meet evil on the battlefield. And guess what we did to it? We killed it. Some liberal somewhere is going to say that sounds awful. Too bad. Get mad at me if you want to. Some folks need killing. It's time for somebody to say it. It's not a matter of vengeance. It's not a matter of being mean or spiteful.

It's a matter of necessity. Samantha Sage, we are living in a time where a Black elected official from the great state of North Carolina will go on record on television in front of a crowd and say, some people need killing. This...

is crazy. This is crazy. The state of North Carolina, which has executed more Black men than pretty much any... I mean, they have a legacy of not doing well in that zone. Now you have a Black man coming out and saying, well, some people need killing. What kind of madness do you have to say something like that and to stick by it? I mean, I think there's always going to be people who...

who like whitewash a movement on behalf of the oppressor. There's always people like that. But this guy sounds just off his rocker beyond the substance. Now, guess who he's up against? Guess who his opponent is? Jeff Jackson. Jeff Jackson, the beloved TikToker who voted for the TikTok ban and then all the kids turned on him. So listen, we're going to have to mend fences with...

Jeff Jackson, who's running for attorney general also, because he's a wonderful man who made a big mistake in betraying the TikTok community and voting for the TikTok ban. But it's that or some people need a killing. And I just don't think we can. I think we're going to have to take Jeff Jackson back. I think we're going to have to try and rehab him. He's been punished long enough. He's been in the punished corner for a while.

take my life but not my TikTok. No. I mean, this movement is real. There were Nazis marching in Nashville this weekend. We have audio of that too. Let's play that. Because without the race of men that built America, without the ironclad resolve of our ancestors, there would be

America. We are heirs to an expansive and continental homeland purchased with immeasurable sacrifice. The most natural of human truths.

the pride of one pole, the instinct of who he is. I got to say, as a lesbian, I am offended by the fact that they continue to use U-Hauls. All right, fellas, listen. One, they keep getting arrested for illegally using the U-Hauls because you're not supposed to like clown car pack into a U-Haul. How are you going to say that you're a supremacy movement and you ain't got money to rent a bus? At least get these boys a bus. Why are you putting them in the back of a U-Haul? You look

silly, like nonsense. And then they just like throw open the door, get a tank then get a cyber truck. I don't know, but showing up at a U-Haul constantly. Do you know how bad that truck must smell? Like how disgusting. And this is why I cannot take it with them. Just your behaviors tell me that you, that you are disgusting.

in some way, a freak weirdo guy because you want to just be packed in like little sardines sweating all over each other. And then you want to be mad at the gays. Leave us alone.

There is something bizarrely homoerotic about this. Yeah. The khaki pants, just the sea of khaki pants. And the blue shirt and the white – y'all didn't want to wear masks, but they wear these like ski gator things and their little hats. And like the way they march is so out of step. And I'm like, okay, listen, listen. No.

No beach. No beach. You got to tighten up. The other thing that I think we have to start bullying people. I'm bringing back bullying. We have to bully white supremacists and Nazis. No, we absolutely must bully them. I can see you saying no, Samantha, and this is why.

Because they are actually scared. Okay, but you can bully Nazis. No, they don't have confidence. They are – but they will get confident and they will start to act – they're going to only grow in their movement in some ways. But the way that they march through the town is not a slow, steady march. This is not Selma Bridge, right? This is not power. This is like skedaddling through the streets of Nashville with our flags. Right.

You guys are such clowns. You're such clowns. And I really think that we should bully Nazis. I just, I don't think there's another way around it. You're right. We can bully Nazis. I'm into that. But I think the bigger point you're making is about this aesthetic, that it is about joining an aesthetic and signaling that you are part of this movement, which is

if you think about it, sort of counter to democracy ideologically because in democracy you have freedom of expression. So you can't demand an aesthetic. You can't signal loyalty to democracy through your khaki pants. You know what else bugs me about them? The flags. Why are you guys carrying colonial flags? Ain't not weird.

one of you from the 13 colonies. Well, they carry the Confederate flag, but their American flag only has 13 stars on it. And I'm like, look, as a person who hails from the great state of Connecticut, I've never seen you people in my life. You can't be Southern and of the colonies. Like the flags don't make sense. You're laughable.

Why do they feel so safe in Nashville, Tennessee? That is something that I think we need to explore too. The home of Dolly Parton, the home of country music, which came in reaction to over-policing and poverty. And now we have these Yahtzees out there marching around, skedaddling with their little flags, skedaddling. I'm not calling it marching.

And I'm like, you know what, Nashville, what is going on in your city that they feel most comfortable there more than any other Southern city, more than Texas, more than why is it Tennessee? What's going on up there? That's what I think we need to get to the bottom of more than anything.

I think that is a good question. I'm curious to get to the bottom of that. But to your point about the ultimate end goal of this and about their aesthetic, they are trying to enact a certain world. We've spoken about this in a past episode. They want a society that is aligned with the Seven Mountains mandate, the Seven Mountains movement, the Seven Mountains prophecy, whatever you want to call it.

That is their strategy to turn America into a formally Christian nation by capturing the seven pillars of society, the seven mountains. They've identified these as family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business, and government. Their followers believe that by fulfilling the seven mountains mandate, they will bring about the end of times. So you have these skedaddling Nazis aligned ideologically with this Christian mentality

They have a lot of prominent followers, perhaps most importantly, the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, most funny, Lauren Boebert, of all the people. And like you said, they are supportive of Donald Trump. He is their...

you know, flag bearer. And one of their members, one of their most prominent members, Paula White is Trump's own spiritual advisor. Oh, right. I don't know what's going on. He's had a couple of them. One of them just got arrested for like touching kids funny. So, you know, let's not look at his spiritual advisors. None of these Christians begrudge him his sins. In 2020, Charlie Kirk said at CPAC that we quote, finally have a president that understands the seven mountains of cultural influence.

Oh, he said it.

They want to take over the legal system. It's a full court press against all areas of American life. I think they have taken the courts. I mean, I think that that's something that the Federalist Society has certainly done. Maybe we need to look at the intersectionality of this right-wing movement because I'm going to imagine that the Seven Mountains people intersect with the manosphere movement.

but I imagine that more of the manosphere show up in those U-Haul trucks than actual like Richie Christian nationalists do. Like I don't think Mike Johnson or his ilk are showing up in the back of a U-Haul truck. I think it's more the people who think Andrew Tate is cool and how these groups intersect and crossover is, is probably something worth exposing. And so we'll find you a right-wing expert and we'll have Mon and we'll, we'll see how,

how we break this down because that's how you start to chip away at a movement. It's not by trying to attack the whole thing as a big conglomerate. It's by exposing the different pieces and then hopefully being able to understand and overcome them. To that point, there was a really interesting long feature in the New York Times that

to this future and another one of these pillars and how they're trying to attack society. It's not the U-Haul guys in their mom's basement. It's not the Andrew Tates of the world. But there is a, like we said, they're trying to capture more than just the political sphere and the legal sphere and the military sphere. They want to capture the regular culture, the regular everyday way that people are consuming entertainment and the communities we live in.

So a religion reporter named Ruth Graham recently wrote a long piece that speaks to this future that they have in mind titled New Conservative Brain Trust is Resettling Across America.

So she's essentially wrote about how conservatives are moving out of California and other coastal states and urban areas in search of ideologically friendlier environments. The reporting of this feature focuses a lot on key employees at a think tank called the Claremont Institute, which was founded in Southern California in the 1970s, around the same time as the Seven Mountains Movement.

And they're an example of this trend that you describe of conservatives who share a sense that their world is unraveling and they want to build these enclaves that they see as part of a project to reclaim the values of Western civilization. Now, he'll say he doesn't know about it in Project 2025, but this idea of creating cities that are like Christian utopias is in Project 2025. It's also in Agenda 47. He just calls them freedom cities.

Can you describe what the Freedom Cities will be like? So the Freedom Cities is where he's going to take parts of federal lands. This is all, this isn't me making this up. This is right there in the black and white of Agenda 47. He wants to take federal lands like Bears Ears, right? Which is not only a federally protected park, but also very sacred indigenous space and reduce the size. Remember, he tried to do this during his administration, but he was found

that he was doing it unconstitutionally. And in taking away this Bears Ears part, build cities, give it to developers to build cities where nuclear families and Christians could live in peace and harmony and where businesses could thrive and where they could essentially create like a company town

for different churches. So you may recognize this as the way that like a Warren Jeffs goes about things, right? The way that the FLDS has like their little castle and then the church owns all the little houses around it and all the little businesses around it. And if you mess up, well, guess what? You're not the carpenter anymore. Now you're exiled and your business is given to a more worthy man.

That is what they're looking to set up in Freedom Cities, but they would do it in places like out here in Western New York, we have Letchworth Park. He looks at Letchworth Park and doesn't see it as a place for recreation and just public enjoyment. He sees it as beautiful land with great views that they should build condos on and give to the church. And that is what a Freedom City is. And it has to do with disenfranchising Native people and taking away the power they're starting to gain over protecting the land. And also, they just have no respect for nature or God.

truly, in my opinion. And so God's creations, like these beautiful parks, well, we should put condos on them. I think that's the more manufactured, formal version of what they would like to do. But it seems that there are groups and individuals who are already doing it. So this focused on the Claremont Institute. The Claremont Institute is part of this movement that started, like you said, in the 1970s of building a

counterculture to the more liberal, progressive, dominant American culture. So by that, they mean a country with bigger families, fewer immigrants. And like I said, it's really about an aesthetic. They want towns with classical architecture, men wearing traditional suits. And

That's why you see these weird... They're all wearing the same fucking khakis. And they also want... I found this to be the most interesting. A revived conservative art movement to counter cultural liberalism that's inherent in mainstream media like Barbie and Game of Thrones. So what they're doing is they're resettling into communities...

out of cities that will be ideologically safer for them. Sure. States and areas that they perceive as welcoming. I'm assuming that means with a conservative government where they can battle for American society from their conservative fortresses is the way they think about this. What is conservative art? I mean, are they looking at like, do they think Norman Rockwell is conservative art? Because he wasn't, but I bet they look at that and go, oh, that predicts, that projects a

Like is Hopper conservative art to them? Do they even know who those people are? Genuinely, who like paints Americana? I don't want to say what one person, what some of them might know, but ultimately this is the argument is that there does need to be some sort of like aesthetically and, you know, actually talent driven culture that comes out of the conservative movement. The problem is that it's sort of counter to the idea of making art when you can't think outside of the

Things you're allowed to do. I'm like, good luck with the art without the gays or the Jewish people or the black people. There will be no arts. Not to say that there's no art outside those communities. Certainly there is art outside those communities. But a good amount of creativity does come from more liberal minded people who are more creative often.

I will send you a very interesting article that I read last night in doing this research from someone at the, they were writing for the Claremont Institute's blog, which

And they were making this argument for why the conservative movement needs to have a revived art movement because that's able to change hearts and minds. That's why authoritarians want to ban art. It's why the Nazis stole all the art, right? Because it was like, you know, you actually do value creative people. You actually do value expression. You just don't want to admit it because you think like somehow that's not cool or whatever. But

You know what this reminds me of? The idea of these free... We have done this so many times. They have tried to create a utopian city. If you look at the city of Celebration, Florida, right? That was the city that was created by Walt Disney that was supposed to be perfect. That was only for the nuclear families. And look at Celebration, Florida now. It is crumbling. Those houses were facades. They were not properly built. Folks didn't actually want to live in a utopia where everything that they did had to be exactly uniform to their neighbors.

That's stifling. That's not actually American freedom. We have examples of this failing.

I think that this is obviously not a mass masses of people, but these are people who are opting into this. Part of this movement is actually calling for something that they call the great sort, which is a societal reordering or resorting where conservatives and liberals naturally segregate themselves into homogenous communities and regions. That is really the long game they're trying to create. They want this to be the rest of our lives.

And part of it is about marginalizing everyone who does not fit this aesthetic and follow their rules. I mean, it would be fine if y'all wanted to like go live off grid somewhere or live on grid somewhere, whatever you wanted to do and create your own little cult over there. But they never leave us alone. That's the thing is like, they don't actually want there to be a separation where folks like us just

get to live our life and you don't try to put like your laws on us. So I think that that's not true. That's what the issue ultimately is, is that this is sort of putting a bomb over the force of the movement. Like, yeah, all of these people are going to vote for politicians who want to force this onto everybody else.

Even if they're saying, oh, we just want to do this ourselves. This is just for us. It's like, we don't have a problem with you doing that. That's the difference. And to that end, they are some of the leaders of the Claremont Institute who are sort of on the forefront of this. They've started an actual project of building an organization. So they have now started building fraternal communities with multiple chapters that are

across the country. They prioritize in-person meetings. They already have 10 exclusive all-male Christian-only lodges in various states, and each one has their own membership. So different amounts in each one.

They're calling themselves the Society for American Civic Renewal. And part of the purpose of these groups is to try to identify local elites throughout the country in these communities who they can then cultivate as a generation of political appointees for future regimes.

meaning a second Trump presidency and well beyond. So I don't want to say it's a cult, but it's definitely a group that enforces their rules through uniformity. Their members are encouraged to dress in this classic American style. They sort of occupy the world of the trad wives. It's an aesthetically pleasing version that puts a veil over the cruelest ideologies of the far right. And what they're really doing with this demand for cultural homogeneity is really grounded in racism.

as well as an openness to using violence to achieve their political aims. Lame. I know. This is my coping, right? I'm like, no, this is silliness, but it is very serious. We've seen it happen. And it is such a delusion of these people to think that

that this is a sustainable life, right? If you want to go back to what you're considering a classical American lifestyle, you have to admit that it's not in existence like that anymore because we have progressed. And what is classical? Are you talking about going back to like Victorian times, right? Because the expectations were very different then. And the question that's really coming up to me right now is like, are they going to allow

Are we going to have tampons in the freedom cities or is that going to be considered too progressive? Like, are we going to have what are we going to have in these freedom cities? Are we going to have pasteurized milk? Are we going to reject all forms of vaccine? Because they're not going to last long if you're going to reject everything that came, say, after the Industrial Revolution.

Yeah, no, I think they really, I don't know what their rules are going to be specifically. This is going to be my question. Every time I get to interview a Christian nationalist, I'm going to be like, will there be tampons in the freedom cities? And just see, just mostly because I think it's good to horrify people.

I have a feeling that a lot of the governance is done by social pressure. In the article, they write about how it's like very idyllic situation. People leave their doors unlocked. So there's a lot of social trust within the group, which tells me that they don't allow much diversity within it. Go be Amish. Can't you do that? Or Mennonite? It exists.

That is kind of, I think, the vibe they want, but it's a little bit more of like, but it's a little more white collar and wealthy. These are people who have left like white collar elite institutions so that they can start their own professional businesses and give each other business and invest in conservative leaning ventures. They also don't allow members of their society to

uh, describe themselves as hyphenated Americans, like Italian American or Irish American. That was originally a reference to a Theodore Roosevelt speech who, because he wanted to, uh,

extort the value of assimilation, but for them, it's really more of a demand for assimilation and a threat against immigrants, but hidden behind this white picket fence. So you just say you're American. American. Okay. We want to bring this back to Trump. Yes. One of the Claremont Institute's board members is John Eastman.

He is the guy who advised Donald Trump's 2020 campaign and is largely credited with conceiving the whole fake elector scheme. He now faces criminal charges in Arizona and Georgia for those conspiracies to overthrow the results in those states. And like I said, he is one of the Claremont Institute's board members. They are very much up in Trump's grill.

Another Claremont employee named Michael Anton served on Trump's National Security Council. So these people are overlapping in the Venn diagram. They're in the Trump sphere. But like I said, I do truly believe to the people who support MAGA or are part of Trumpism, you are the Trojan horse for this kind of stuff. They will eliminate them just as soon as they get what they need through because

they are not going to be like, like you just said about how you have to be so elite and so white collar and so rich to be able to afford to succeed in this world. They're not going to bring you bringing in the MAGA base and saying like, okay, yeah, you have a leadership role here. They're using them as the Trojan horse is the tip of the spear in this war. They are, they're welcome casualties to them in pursuit of this greater thing that in many ways already exists. You can,

Go be Amish or you can just be a homesteader and do your own thing. You don't need to enforce it on the whole United States, but here we are.

And that is why it is more important than ever to do a techie V, a tactical vote to recognize that we are in the defense part of this revolution. And if we can be like France or Britain and, you know, join with centrists and moderates and leftists and Bernie bros and all of that to defeat the far right, then we can continue to have a country worth fighting for. And that doesn't fall into this.

Can you explain the Tacky V? Yes. So on TikTok, I was watching a bunch of like British Gen Z people talking about how they were going to be voting. And, you know, British teen slang is very, I think, very interesting. And they were like, yeah, so we did a Tacky V. We were going to vote for the Green Party, but we didn't want to have

The far right. So we were sick of the Tories. So we got together and we did a tacky V and we all voted for the Labour Party and and now we won. And so now we can vote for the Green Party next time. And I was like, a tacky V, a tactical vote.

So they're people who, if you were to compare them to Americans, might be somebody who thinks that they want an RFK Jr. or Jill Stein or a totally new party. They joined with members of the Working Families Party, which is like the progressive Democratic caucus, but also neoliberals and people that they don't particularly like or want in power to do a tacky V, a tactical vote to beat their version of the far right. And they said it so casually and so funny. And I was like, it's the obvious thing.

simple choice, a tactical vote. We're on the defense. A tacky V. I love them. Me and my mates did a tacky V and then the labor one. And so next time we'll get to vote for the green body. I was like, I love this for them. That's literally like we have a version of that. Yeah. We could do a tacky V. Why couldn't we? Anyway, I did it. I did this on TikTok and people said we need tacky V merch. So I'm putting this on Betches, the Betches geniuses to make us some tacky V merch. And

And it's spelled T-A-C-C-Y. T-A-C-C-Y-V. Oh, not tacky. No. This is tacky. Good, because otherwise people would think it's like tacky V. Yeah. Like you are tacky. Okay. Well, speaking of voting, shall we close out with our down ballot era? Let's do it.

So in our down ballot era this week is voter suppression via the Americans with Disabilities Act. Yes, you heard that right. They are using some of the legislation that benefits our most vulnerable to hurt them just a little bit more. Because if there's one thing the Alliance Defending Freedom will do, it is find a way to bastardize a law in their favor. So today's down ballot girly of the week is the National Disability Rights Network.

In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down key provisions in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. They did it in a case called Shelby County v. Holder. In simple terms, Shelby struck down the federal oversight of elections and set all of the power of hosting an election and creating voter rules at the local level, even if it's for a federal election.

This reaction led to some states having more strict voter identification laws, voter purges, and polling place closures. To this day, Republican-led states take most advantage of the lack of federal guidelines and go a step further even and will misuse the Americans with Disabilities Act to force the closure of polling places that are not perfectly ADA accessible, despite the fact that disability activists have asked for them to please not do this, especially don't do this in our name.

And they do this even though they know that there is federal assistance available to make a polling location temporarily ADA compliant. So for those of you listening out there, if you normally go to vote in a fire hall or in a little old post office or maybe something like that that's not always ADA compliant, maybe you live rurally, you can get federal dollars to make that polling place temporarily ADA accessible.

The federal government will literally give you the money to build a ramp or purchase markers to expand disability parking. But these local yokels aren't using that benefit, of course. Instead, as polling places are often schools or churches or firehouse halls and other spaces that, while not perfectly accommodating to all disabled people, when closed mean that no one gets to vote and mean that people are oftentimes traveling up to 30 minutes to the next polling place.

This suppresses the vote even more. This is most true in Texas, where in 2023, Governor Abbott vetoed a bipartisan law that would have expanded vote-by-mail access for people with disabilities, specifically people who are blind or paralyzed and need assistance in marking their ballot. The bill would have provided an electronic ballot that would be filed using a special platform designated to give blind and paralyzed folks greater independence online. This was bipartisan supported in Texas, and he shot it down.

Greg Abbott, a beneficiary of the ADA, no doubt. Absolutely. So now this is all very frustrating and there is something you can do to help. You can visit ndrn.org to learn more about the accommodations that your local governments have access to, to make voting even easier for disabled folks. And you can use their legislation tracker to find all the bills in all the states and at the federal level that are affecting the disabled community.

There's something so cruel about this and it reminds me of everything else that they do, which is that they're able to basically manipulate any law or any condition of the way laws are determined in order to achieve their own means. So it's like you take something where the intent of it is very clearly to help people gain access and you weaponize it to take away access. And

That is just, it's so beyond the pale and yet this doesn't even crack like the top 50 stories in the country. And if you think that they won't do it to you, they're willing to do it to themselves. Governor Abbott uses a wheelchair and he votes against disability equity time after time after time.

Mark Robinson, who is a black man in the state of North Carolina, which has done horrible things to black men, will vote against black interest. And then you have Clarence Thomas, who is an interracial marriage, who will vote against the 14th Amendment protections for interracial interfaith marriages, even though he has one himself. They will do it to themselves. They will do it to you.

Absolutely. Well, this has been a riveting, terrible show. It's been a bummer. But here's the good news. You're going to listen to this Tuesday morning, and you're going to hear from us all throughout the week. Sammy's on our book tour, so we're going to talk more about the book and the ways that you can get involved and help. I'm going to have frequent updates from the NATO summit, including some hot gossip, so tune into the TikTok.

It's going to be okay because it has to be okay. Anytime the good people of the United States of America have been faced with adversity and we went through a civil war already once, right? We came out on top. Who came out on top? The good, the people who were in the progressive spaces. Because at the end of the day, most of us want to be seen as good. So we can do this. It can get better. Don't give up hope. And we can be good.

We can do it, Joe. Let's do it, Joe. Also, oh my God, if we didn't talk about it, talk about the elephant in the room. We intentionally did not talk about if Joe's getting replaced and we're not going to. Follow us on TikTok for updates. Go back and listen to the case for Kamala. It's good information whether she is the president now, in the future, or just gets a more forward-facing role as vice president. There's a lot of bullshit out there about how Kamala's not qualified or she's not liked. The numbers do not reflect that. That's just not true.

Yep. So check that out. That's still evergreen. Yeah. Forever and ever. Common love for the people. All right. Until next time, I'm Vita Spear. I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream. American Fever Dream is hosted by Vita Spear and Sammy Sage. The show is produced by Rebecca Sous-McCatt, Jorge Morales-Picot, and Rebecca Steinberg. Editing by Rebecca Sous-McCatt. Social media by Bridget Schwartz. And be sure to follow Betches News on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

Betches.