I must’ve dreamed a thousand dreams
Been haunted by a million screams
But I can hear the marching feet
They’re moving into the street
Now did you read the news today
They say the danger’s gone away
But I can see the fire’s still alight
There burning into the night
“Land of Confusion,” Genesis
All right, folks—buckle up, because today’s show was one of those that slaps your ass and calls you Sally. Or, to put it less colloquially, it makes you remember exactly what’s at stake in this country.
Our guest, Wayne Besen, didn’t just bring the receipts—he brought the carbon copies. And also some goddamn fire.
By the time he was done laying out what Project 2025 really is—it’s various semi-congealed theocratic, totalitarian, incel-ian parts—I wanted to grab a megaphone, march straight to the Capitol, and scream, “Under His Eye My Arse.”
Let’s start with the basics. I’m sure you’ve heard of “Project 2025,” the Heritage Foundation’s 900-plus-page manifesto of febrile, fascist fantasies. It’s War & Peace for the aspiring Pinochet or Pol Pot in your life.
Pornhub for Christian Nationalists.
An authoritarian wish list designed to replace democracy with dictatorship. To chuck expertise for some good old fashioned zealotry. To turn citizens into obedient subjects (and good little consumers).
But Wayne—founder of Truth Wins Out—went deeper.
He’s been mapping out the 114 organizations behind this beast. And his findings? Chilling. Project 2025, he says, is the sanitized version. The real agenda—the raw, unfiltered, Dominionist delusion—is hiding in plain site with the groups that are funding and feeding it.
Wayne broke it down like this: There are three major power centers trying to reshape America into their image of hell and “they’re all tied closely to JD Vance.”
First, you’ve got Donald Trump, the orange-hued cult leader who can summon a mob (likely also “the mob”) faster than you can say “dictator chic.”
Second, Peter Thiel’s Silicon Valley techno-oligarchs, those self-anointed tech-bro geniuses. The Hobbes and Nietzsche of cads who’d rather code than talk to other humans. The ones who gave us our current social media landscape, built in their awkward, discount-personality image.
They think democracy is a bug, not a feature. To paraphrase sweaty weirdo Thiel from a few years back, democracy gets in the way of capitalism. So democracy must go.
And third, the Project 2025 zealots led by Russell Vought, the guy whose idea of a good time is dismantling the federal government with the same passion most teenagers reserve for sports or Marvel movies.
Senator Mike Lee—you know the guy who made online jokes while Melissa Hortman’s murderer was still being hunted—said Vought has been waiting for this government shutdown “since puberty.”
This dude must have been the life of the party growing up—the party being this joker alone at home with his joystick.
And lurking under it all, are the religious extremists—Opus Dei Catholics, fundamentalist evangelicals—the people who literally want to turn America into a Christian Iran (and make up a majority of our current Supreme Court).
Think that’s hyperbole? It’s not. These people are building a database—a surge of personnel ready to flood every agency the moment Trump can fire, suspend or push out an expert to create an opening. They call it “personnel is policy.”
It’s polite D.C. code for: replace scientists with snake-handlers, generals with grifters, teachers with theocrats.
They’re not downsizing government, they’re giving it the equivalent of an unceasing computer virus.
You want to work for air traffic control? Better have the right views on abortion. You want to teach civics? Linda McMahon’s Project 2025 buddies—the same ones who backed the Big Lie—will be writing the curriculum.
Orwell would call it satire. These freaks call it Tuesday.
And can we also pause here a second to marvel at the fact that the person who created our own version of Rome’s “bread and circuses,” the WWE, was put in charge of education?
S*t, Nero didn’t even have the gall to do that.
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Wayne didn’t mince words.
He warned that LGBTQ Americans, women, immigrants, and anyone who doesn’t bow to Project 2025’s pseudo-Christian nationalism are in the crosshairs. Their version of America doesn’t just roll back rights—it erases entire communities.
These people aren’t conserving anything; they’re replacing everything. He calls it their “Great Replacement”—deport immigrants, legalize child labor, and use “parental rights” as a smokescreen for exploitation. It’s Dickens meets dystopia.
It was the worst of times. And also it was the worst of times.
And it’s not just culture—they’re wrecking competence itself. Wayne, David Shuster and I talked about how they’ve purged the experts who keep the lights on, the planes flying, the data honest.
Fire the meteorologists, ignore the scientists, replace the generals with weekend-anchor Fox hosts.
What happens when a real hurricane hits, or a pandemic, or—hell—a cyberattack? You can’t lie your way out of gravity, disease or war.
But that’s what these people are doing—building an empire of delusion, and a land of confusion, as the band Genesis once sang during the Reagan years. One where loyalty Trumps logic. The kind of delusion that kills people.
And look—Wayne’s not Chicken Little. The man’s a realist. He knows this machine runs on corruption and chaos.
As he put it:
Every action Trump and his minions take is for private greed, never public good.
Amen. Whether it’s funneling billions to Argentina’s chainsaw-wielding tyrant (which Sen. Elizabeth Warren is claiming will be managed by a hedge fund pal of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—no way, a Trump crony profiting from a Trump decision!).
Or tanking the economy so billionaires can buy American assets on the cheap, this isn’t ideology—it’s theft. It’s oligarchy with orange tan spray.
Now, you know me—I’m not all doom and despair. We talked about what it takes to fight back. And Wayne’s right: it starts with people. Mass movements.
Refuse to normalize this madness. Refuse to accept authoritarianism with a red, white and blue sticker slapped on top.
November 5th—in Washington, D.C.—Refuse Fascism and Truth Wins Out are joining forces for a massive rally at the Washington Monument. Wayne will be there. Hell, Blue Amp will be there.
Because we either act now, or we wake up in a country where elections are just more theater and freedom a faint memory.
Wayne and I agreed that humor is an important part of resisting. Mockery is a weapon.
These bullies crumble under laughter. That’s why they’re coming after comedians like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert—because satire pops their balloon of faux-bravado. They want to be Mussolini, they're more like Moussaka.
As Wayne said, “Bullies are weak.” And nothing deflates a wannabe dictator faster than being laughed off the stage.
We ended the show on fire, because how can you not be outraged?
These zealots want to drag America backward—to a place where women are barefoot and silent, gay people don’t exist, the poor stay poor, and billionaires play God. But we’ve beaten fascists before. We’ve rebuilt democracy before.
And as Wayne reminded us, the power of “NO” still matters. No to tyranny. No to cruelty. No to bowing before a two-bit strongman and his billionaire priesthood.
So, here’s my ask. Read Wayne’s “Behind the Mask” report. Show up November 5th in D.C. for the rally.
Support independent media like Blue Amp, because if we don’t tell these stories, nobody will. And above all, stay loud. Stay angry. Stay hopeful.
Because the moment we stop caring is the moment they win. They may think we’re too tired to fight back. They’re wrong.
We’re assholes for freedom—our new sobriquet!—and we’re far from done fighting fascism. In fact, we’ve only just begun.
