(originally published with Dr. Anne Tapp in The Sun 24jul24)
What happened to all of those angry people in the old black-and-white photos from the civil rights era? You know the ones: Those screaming crowds, spitting at the heels of little Black children as they walked to school. Where did all those angry people go?
It wasn’t racism alone that drove them into the streets. Mostly, they were angry about how much the country was changing. Decades have passed since those photos were taken, so it’s safe to assume that many of them have died. Did they take their anger with them? Or did they just pass it down to their children and their grandchildren?
Some of us liberal minded Americans see that rage on full display today as we watch how the far right has planned and executed this country’s dramatic rightward shift. Whenever they succeed in reversing some long-established practice—Affirmative Action, Roe v. Wade, the Chevron deference—we think about all those angry people in the black-and-white photos.
The worst part is that the far right is not acting alone—we’re helping it. Every time we buy into the “anti-woke” nonsense, or give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt, we enable the dissension and division the right needs to achieve its ambitions.
The far right is a small voting block. It knows that. So, it channels resources into efforts to keep the rest of us divided. The January 6th riot, the Tea Party protests, the movement against critical race theory , and the spate of legal challenges against race-based programs across America are all funded by wealthy dark money donors on the right to keep us at each other’s throats.
Legal scholars and academics have been telling us for years that this was coming. The journalist Sidney Blumenthal identified the phenomenon in 1986 in a book called "The Rise of the Counter-Establishment."
According to Blumenthal, the far right's ascent began in the 1960s, when the conservative activist William F. Buckley, Jr. helped to establish the philosophy of ‘American Conservatism.’
He caught the attention of Ronald Reagan, who recognized how he could repackage Buckley’s philosophy to fuel a political movement. While he and Buckley built a conservative army, think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Hudson Institute emerged as incubators for conservative ideas. Conservatives soon turned their attention on the courts, and the Federalist Society was born. It seeded the American political, corporate and legal landscapes with an arsenal of lawyers sympathetic to the conservative cause. Before long, they were active on the Supreme Court, in the administrations of Republican presidents, and at the state level, working for Republican governors including former Maryland governor Larry Hogan.
The far right doesn’t intend to stop with its recent successes at the Supreme Court. If Trump is reelected, the right will hope to impact every aspect of American life by implementing the Mandate for Leadership, dubbed Project 2025—a 900-page list of far right policy proposals assembled by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation.
Among Project 2025’s many recommendations are suggestions to reverse approval for abortion drugs, removing worker protections for federal employees, weaponizing the Justice Department for the president’s personal use, diverting billions from the Pentagon budget to build a border wall, and using the military to wage war on Mexican cartels.
Particularly unsettling are the project’s suggestions regarding our children. Among other distressing recommendations, the document proposes eradicating the Department of Education, reducing funding for low-income students, eliminating Head Start and, rolling back civil rights protections for marginalized groups. For those who believe in the transformative power of education and its potential to create a more equitable society, these proposals are a stark reminder of the long struggle in this country to protect and advance the rights and opportunities of all students.
Trump has publicly distanced himself from Project 2025 in favor of his own plan, called Agenda 47. It’s no coincidence that the two plans have similarities—at least 140 people who served in Trump’s administration contributed to Project 2025, according to CNN. They are a determined bunch, not unlike those angry people in those old black-and-white photos. When you look at the faces of the people in those photos, you can’t help but be struck by their resolve. They were truly determined to stop America from becoming a more tolerate and inclusive nation. Many of their descendants are just as determined today.