Project 2025 partner blog: If Trump wins, “‘revenge’ can also be a good vehicle for public policy”

The Claremont Institute’s Jeremy Carl called for Trump to “concentrate first and foremost on destroying the people who tried (and failed) to destroy him”

Written by John Knefel

Published

Jeremy Carl, a senior fellow at MAGA-aligned think tank The Claremont Institute, argued in a blog published on Friday that if former President Donald Trump wins the presidential election he should fulfill his promises to carry out retribution against his enemies.

The article appeared at The American Mind, a media outlet from The Claremont Institute — one of the more than 100 advisory board members of Project 2025, a sprawling effort to provide policy and staffing options to the next Republican administration. 

Trump should “concentrate first and foremost on destroying the people who tried (and failed) to destroy him,” Carl wrote, adding that “Trump must not be afraid to do at least some of the terrible things that demented liberals have been shrieking that he would do if elected. Fortunately, if this program is carried out strategically, not with anger but with purpose, ‘revenge’ can also be a good vehicle for public policy.”

Since at least March of last year, Trump has threatened that he will use the executive branch to target his declared enemies if he’s reelected. Carl — a former Trump official in the Department of the Interior who called Black Lives Matter “racist” and once cited white nationalist Jared Taylor in an op-ed — wrote that it was incumbent upon Trump to carry out his promises.

A few months ago on X, I mused (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) that I was worried that if Trump won, he would concentrate on making good policy rather than ruthlessly crushing his enemies. I say that it was somewhat tongue-in-cheek because of course I would like the administration to develop good policies, policies that several of my colleagues have outlined in their contributions to this symposium. But I was not joking in the sense that if Trump does not concentrate first and foremost on destroying the people who tried (and failed) to destroy him, his presidency is unlikely to be a long-term success.

In other words, Trump must not be afraid to do at least some of the terrible things that demented liberals have been shrieking that he would do if elected. Fortunately, if this program is carried out strategically, not with anger but with purpose, “revenge” can also be a good vehicle for public policy.

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Meanwhile, at the border, Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas have not just looked the other way, but have actively enabled illegal aliens to invade America. There must be consequences, including prosecutions of people at the highest levels of the Biden-Harris Administration. NGOs must have their funding frozen, and to the extent they have been found to have engaged in corrupt practices, RICO prosecutions of the heads of “resettlement” NGOs should be on the table.

There are many other opportunities to match political retribution with optimal policy. So, yes, as Trump supporter and Silicon Valley Investor David Sacks argues, “The major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) operate on free licenses of public spectrum in exchange for requirements to serve the public interest. They no longer do, and this is an obsolete model anyway. The spectrum should be auctioned off, with the proceeds used to pay down the national debt.” Sacks discusses how this could unleash innovation at scale, and it doubtless would. But it would also send a powerful message to other entities feeding at the public trough under both parties while being fully allied with the most rabidly partisan Democrats.

While promoting his latest book, titled The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart, Carl appeared in May on a far-right YouTube show and endorsed the racist “great replacement” theory. Carl also said he’d originally wanted the book’s title to be It’s Okay to Be White, a phrase popular among white supremacists.