By Kenneth Tiven
As significant as the Jeffrey Epstein revelations are—shedding new light on Donald Trump’s past association with a sex trafficker of underage girls—the media frenzy obscures a more existential threat: the deliberate deconstruction of the US Constitution and federal system, barely a year before its 250th anniversary.
The world is watching as Trump becomes the figurehead for this orchestrated takeover. His loss to Joe Biden in 2020 wasn’t just a political defeat—it was a personal humiliation. Unlike the spontaneous chaos of the January 6 insurrection, what’s unfolding now is calculated and chilling: four years of preparation, dark money, and ideological extremism packed into a policy document called Project 2025.
Unveiled before the 2024 election, Project 2025 was initially met with indifference by many Americans. While Republicans embraced it with enthusiasm, Democrats mostly dismissed it as an unserious, utopian fantasy. But to the religious nationalists and oligarchs bankrolling the project, it was a promise—an instruction manual for converting the executive branch into a blunt instrument of revenge, culture war, and autocratic power.
At its core, Project 2025 envisions a federal government purged of career civil servants and subject-matter experts, replaced by ideologues loyal not to the US Constitution, but to Trump and his vision of “retribution”. Empathy, equity, and evidence-based policymaking are out. Political loyalty, religious orthodoxy, and centralized authoritarian control are in. The plan is not only real—it’s dangerously close to implementation.
The modern Republican Party has been overrun by conspiracy theories, culture war grievances, and a nostalgia for a pre-New Deal America. Ironically, that earlier era—marked by economic collapse and a global depression—gave birth to sweeping social reforms and an expanded federal role in protecting citizens. But today’s GOP seeks to erase those gains. They dream not of progress, but of reversal.
The ideological fuel for this crusade isn’t hidden. Some of Trump’s backers treat George Orwell’s 1984 not as a cautionary tale, but as a roadmap. Orwell wrote the novel as a warning about fascism. For the hard right, it reads like a user manual.
A conservative friend once explained US politics to me this way: “Both sides behave the same way because power makes money in various forms. We may not like it, but that’s how the game works.” That cynical realism now finds its purest expression in Trump’s comeback bid—a campaign animated by vengeance, enabled by silence, and armoured by lies.
Historically, America is a country built by immigrants, often at the expense of its indigenous peoples. The mythology of Manifest Destiny—the westward expansion, the subjugation of native tribes—was once taught as triumph. Today, there is a reckoning underway, but it remains fragile. Conservative backlash to this more inclusive version of history helped birth the MAGA movement.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson has argued that while the North won the Civil War, the South won the peace by institutionalizing white supremacy and blocking full citizenship for Black Americans. That long shadow extended deep into the 20th century. Then came the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, which cemented a new conservative orthodoxy rooted in de-regulation, minimal government, and a coded racial backlash.
From there, it was only a matter of time before these forces coalesced around a figure like Trump. By 2000, electoral dysfunction—especially the infamous Florida ballot debacle—led to the Supreme Court handing George W Bush the presidency. In 2008, Barack Obama’s historic victory as the first Black president was a moment of pride for many. But to others, especially on the right, it was an existential threat. Trump exploited this backlash by launching the racist “birther” conspiracy, questioning Obama’s citizenship. That lie became his brand—and eventually, his political springboard.
Trump’s 2016 win revealed the power of grievance politics. He governed erratically, but marketed himself masterfully. When he lost in 2020, he refused to concede and incited a violent attempt to overturn the results. Even after impeachment and a barrage of legal defeats, Trump maintained a core of die-hard support.
His allies responded by crafting Project 2025, a 920-page manifesto for authoritarian revival. Disguised as a policy roadmap, it outlines a vision in which loyalty to Trump supersedes constitutional checks and balances. Christian nationalist rhetoric, anti-immigrant fervour, and hostility towards public education, science, and the media all converge in this blueprint.
Trump has said openly that he seeks “retribution” if re-elected. He has no policy agenda beyond punishing perceived enemies—journalists, civil servants, judges, and anyone else who questioned his authority.
One blogger, often targeted by MAGA loyalists, put it this way after receiving death threats: “These people are not furious with me. They’re furious with their lives. Their failures. Their smallness. They’re mad at the job they never got, the girl who didn’t want them… They need somewhere to put their shame… Sometimes it’s immigrants. Sometimes it’s LGBTQ kids. Sometimes it’s teachers, librarians, journalists. And sometimes, it’s a woman like me—who dares to remind them of what self-respect looks like.”
It’s a chilling reminder that the Trump movement is not about governance—it’s about vengeance, projection, and the weaponization of fear.
As America nears its 250th birthday, the challenge is stark: Can a nation built on ideals withstand a movement committed to dismantling them?
—The writer has worked in senior positions at The Washington Post, NBC, ABC and CNN and also consults for several Indian channels