- Steve Contorno @ CNN: Trump claims not to know who is behind Project 2025. A CNN review found at least 140 people who worked for him are involved
- John Whitehouse, Helena Hind, and Jane Lee @ Media Matters: Oklahoma is having right-wing media figures rewrite its social studies curriculum. Here’s what you need to know about them.
- Annika Brockschmidt and Ben Lorber @ Religion Dispatches: Persecution, Betrayal, and the Zero Sum Fight for Global Domination — Day 1 of NatCon 2024
- Hemant Mehta @ Friendly Atheist: Texas pastor fined after illegally using church donations to boost his city council campaign
- Chuck Tanner and Devin Burghart @ Searchlight: White Nationalist Motown Meltdown
At least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration had a hand in Project 2025, a CNN review found, including more than half of the people listed as authors, editors and contributors to “Mandate for Leadership,” the project’s extensive manifesto for overhauling the executive branch.
On July 9, Oklahoma’s superintendent of public instruction Ryan Walters announced that a number of people — many of them key figures in right-wing media — would be rewriting the social studies curriculum in the state. The list includes right-wing hosts with ties to Walters like Steve Deace, Dennis Prager, and Stacy Washington. Also included is Kevin Roberts, the head of The Heritage Foundation, which has organized Project 2025.
The opening day of 2024’s National Conservatism conference was shot through with familiar themes of far-right triumphalism, civilizational war, xenophobia and existential threat.
A Texas politician and the churches that donated directly to his campaign have been fined for violating state law. But the fines are so low that there’s no reason to think it’ll prevent the further mingling of church and state.
On 15 June, influential white nationalist “Groyper” leader Nick Fuentes attempted to hold a fourth version of his America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC IV) in Detroit, Michigan. It was his latest move to pull the right in a more antisemitic and fascist direction. Amidst the chaos of an ill-planned event, Fuentes and a coterie of followers and “VIPs” were booted out of three venues. Along the way, Fuentes made clear his current strategy is not “America First,” but “antisemitism first.”
