On Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone explains how “a large right-wing misinformation engine” has distorted people’s perception of reality
Carusone: For eight years, people have heard “that there is a deep state, a universe of people in government that are out there that have the real power. ... And the only person that can give you back that power is Donald Trump.”
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From the November 6, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House
NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): We're back with Ian, Angelo and Tim. I mean, I don't want to embarrass you, but we have been talking a little bit about how crippling it is to contemplate, Angelo, that the substance of Project 2025 — I feel like one of the great accomplishments of the summer was that because of your work and some great work in The New York Times and other places and Taraji P. Henson, Project 2025 was front and center before the country. And I'm sure no one read all 900 pages but you. But I read a couple hundred. And it's scary, you know, S-H-I-T. And people voted for Trump knowing about Project 2025. Tell me where your thoughts are today about that.
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): I think one of the tie-ins with the early discussion about democracy too is many of people voting for Trump also thought they were voting for democracy, in a way. Because in this — and part of the, one of the signature cruxes of Project 2025 is this idea that we're going to go in, execute schedule F, which is the ability to fire tens of thousands of federal employees, and obviously that, for Project 2025 that's about giving the effort control. It's sort of removing all the potential obstacles, as they see it, and you can then put in your people and move forward, move fast.
But for one of the audience — for the larger right-wing audience and national audience, I mean, we have a country that is pickled in right-wing misinformation and rage. And one of the stories that they've heard, not for one year but for eight years, is that there is a deep state, a universe of people in government that are out there that have the real power. They're the ones with the real power. They're taking power away from you, the individual. And the only person that can give you back that power is Donald Trump. He's going to — and that's why they hate him so much, because he's going to come in and he's going to get rid of them once and for all. He's not going to be duped again like last time. And he's going to give you back your power.
And so, yeah, there's a lot of policies to it and it's all scary, and we can get into it. But at its core, this is a discussion about democracy. I'm not so blinded to think that they all are deeply pro-democracy. Many of them don't believe in democracy as a principle and they want something more autocratic and authoritarian. But there's another part, a much larger part, that actually believe that a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for democracy because they have validated and internalized the idea that there's an anti-democratic secret cabal that is actually preventing their desires and exercise of democratic power from being implemented and put in place, and that only Trump can restore their power.
And that's the part that's so frightening about this, is that it not just means that Project 2025 becomes more of a reality, and that a lot of the things we see of it, going after opponents and everything else, in their minds, in many people's minds, that will be acceptable because those — they have it coming to them. And the through line, the foundation upon where all of this is, is a large right-wing misinformation engine that has created an environment where, and a lens through which people see the world that is not the way that it is. And so, that's how you get so many people going out there and saying, “Oh well, he does it because he has to,” or “he's not really going to do those things,” or “he's going to do them, but they have it coming to them.” Because they are also in belief that they're being democratic and defending the system.
WALLACE: What is the role of the fear that a document like Project 2025 creates, just to sort of come back to the beginning of obeying in advance —
CARUSONE: Yeah.
WALLACE: I mean, friends in same-sex marriages are frightened that their families will be destroyed. Friends who have worked in DOJ, in places that maybe weren't in the crosshairs last time, had nothing to do with Russia, are afraid they'll be dismissed as people like Jeffrey Clark take over. People who serve in the military around the world are frightened that they'll be given illegal orders and are too far down the food chain to know how to deal with them or who to — I mean, what happens now, Angelo?
CARUSONE: Yeah, I mean, when Ian was talking before, that's all my brain could go to, was exactly the question that you just asked which is, one of the things that Project 2025 talks about early on, aside from getting rid of all this personnel and replacing them, is that you have to immediately weaponize the DOJ in order to shock and awe people, that you take a bunch of grand swift actions, mass arrests, mass prosecutions, harassments. And the goal isn't to get all those people ultimately in prison or something. It's to show a force very early on that we mean business, in hopes that most people do the natural thing, the thing that comes instinctually, which is to duck and cover. There's a reason why, it's so concerning about anticipatory obedience because it does speed up the process of giving authoritarians more power. And they're very open about it in Project 2025. That's the tactic. It's not just about revenge, although that's a part of it. It's also about sending a message that this is the new order and everybody else best get in line.
And that is an intention of that very first few months, is to execute that shock and awe thing. It was one of the first things Steve Bannon said last night, that they're coming for you, FBI. They're coming for you, deep state. He listed the places they're going to go after. And it's to show that nobody's safe, to get in line. So teachers, librarians, educators, they will all be systematically targeted and identified. It won't just be government bureaucrats, who do very good work. It'll also be anyone that they've identified as sort of a vanguard of this culture war that they've oriented around. And it's really is — to your point, it's to get everybody else to have to press the question, “Is this worth it or is it better for me to just go along to get along?” And that's what they want to instill right away because you get rid of the personnel, you change that norms, and then you drive forward with the larger anti-democratic agenda. And that's the reality that we are heading into. It doesn't have to be. We're going to have to fight. We have to stiffen our spines and put some bulwarks in. There's a lot of work to be done. But that's why they're doing it and that's the intention.