The president of the right-wing group spearheading Project 2025 raised the specter of violence Tuesday against those who refuse to capitulate to what he characterized as “the second American Revolution” ushered in by presumptive GOP nominee and would-be authoritarian Donald Trump.
Kevin Roberts, head of the Heritage Foundation, said in an appearance on “Real America’s Voice” that the coming “revolution” will “remain bloodless if the left allows it to be”—a thinly veiled threat against those who resist the far-right’s efforts to seize power.
Trump said in April that whether there is violence surrounding the 2024 presidential election “depends” on the “fairness” of the contest and the outcome.
Watch Roberts’ remarks:
https://x.com/kylegriffin1/status/1808507354310209711
“We are going to win. We’re in the process of taking this country back,” declared Roberts, who has said Project 2025 is “institutionalizing Trumpism” in preparation for a possible victory in November.
Back in 2016 the voters actually weren’t super excited about Biden either.
Biden did pretty badly in the first 3 primaries
Feb 3rd in Iowa he came in 4th place behind Sanders, Buttigieg, and Warren.
Feb 11th in New Hampshire he came in 5th place behind Sanders, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Warren.
Feb 22nd in Nevada he came in 3rd place behind Sander and Warren.
After these pretty awful results there was a brief period when Sanders was considered the front runner and the DNC shit a brick. You might recall Chris Matthews on MSNBC speculating wildly about a Sanders presidency meaning “executions in Central Park” that was February 8th.
Biden was thrown a life line though by Jim Clyborn who strongly supported him and gave him his first victory in South Carolina on February 29th. A state that would go on to vote trump on Election Day.
This strong showing though was enough for the DNC to see a way to have a moderate candidate win the primary. If they could get the moderate candidates, Klobuchar, Buttigieg, and Biden to stop splitting that voting block they could stop a more progressive candidate like Sanders or Warren from taking the nomination. Internally the DNC feared that a more progressive candidate would win the primary and lose in the general and wanted a safer option.
The day before Super Tuesday when 15 states would hold their primaries, the more moderate candidates reached an agreement. Buttigieg and Klobuchar announced they would drop out of the race and throw their support behind Biden. In the days before these announcement polling showed Sanders likely to win a plurality of the Super Tuesday delegates. After the moderate candidates lined up behind Biden he won 10 of the 15 contests, losing California, Colorado, Utah, and Vermont to Sanders and American Samoa to Bloomberg.
Buttigieg would be rewarded with his current position as Secretary of Transportation and Klobuchar would end up Chair of the Senate Rules Committee (although it’s less clear how much that was because of her dropping out).
With a victorious Super Tuesday the media rallied around Biden’s amazing reversal of fortune and the Chris Matthews of the world finally had a light at the end of the tunnel for the horrors of a Sanders presidency, line up behind Joe.
An interesting foot note is that of the states holding primaries on Super Tuesday, of the 10 that went for Biden, 6 (7 if you count Maine but I wouldn’t) would go on to vote for trump on Election Day, Alabama, Arkansas, 1 of 4 of Maine’s votes, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas. All the states carried by Sanders, except Utah, reliably voted for Biden in the general.
So the DNC, worried about losing the general election, rallied their moderate candidates around Biden, who was losing fairly badly. His overperformance in states that would ultimately vote Republican ended up changing the narrative enough that he became presumptive nominee status on the eyes of the media. This status became generally accepted on April 8th when Sanders pulled out of the race, but you can find the media pushing this in March