MILWAUKEE (CN) — A conservative think tank and a group of left-wing protesters propped up starkly different visions for the future of a nation in the midst of historic turbulence at the Republican National Convention, which commenced on Monday, two days after the Republicans’ presumptive nominee survived an assassination attempt.
Speaking at a Heritage Foundation event at Milwaukee’s Bradley Symphony Center, erstwhile Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy echoed an emerging Republican talking point in the aftermath Donald Trump’s near-assassination: that Democrats from President Joe Biden on down and their media allies painted Trump as an existential threat to democracy itself, and that inflammatory rhetoric led to the former president’s shooting.
The biotech entrepreneur compared Trump to Abraham Lincoln as another president accused of tyranny and dictatorship before being shot amid civil strife, claiming “we were a hair’s breadth from a civil war” a few days ago. He also claimed the GOP’s enemy was not the Democratic Party, but an ideology fronted by the “deep state” and a “shadow government” populated by elite experts and unelected federal bureaucrats.
Junking the administrative state was at the forefront of Monday’s program. It’s one of the pillars of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s policy package aimed at radically altering the structure of the federal government and forwarding “America first,” Christian-forward values. The initiative includes restricting access to abortion drugs; implementing mass deportations; targeting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association as a source of climate-change alarmism; and dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion-related positions and policies in government, according to a 900-page policy book.
Just a few blocks away on Monday, protesters represented an America worlds away from the one represented inside the RNC.
The throngs gathered in Red Arrow Park protested in support of Palestine and against the oppression of workers, minorities, LGBTQ people, immigrants and the homeless. Counter-protesters jeered from the fringes, pillorying groups like Black Lives Matter and expressing support for Israel.
A protester named Kori Guillory condemned the “bigotry, racism and political violence” of the GOP, but also accused the Democratic Party of participating in genocide in Palestine and an imperialist structure that rampantly kills and jails Black and brown people.
Speaking at a lectern, Guillory said of the 2024 election, “you cannot look at the choices we have and call this a democracy.”
The group plans to protest the Democratic National Party next month, too, Guillory told Courthouse News, calling the disparate views represented at the protest one of the group’s strengths: “The fact that we’re so united proves that they can’t play us against each other.”
A crowd of at least 1,500 people took off on a march toward the Fiserv Forum, the convention’s central venue, around noon on Monday — just as planned by the Coalition to March on the RNC, which sued the city for restricting its march. Though a judge ruled against the group in its effort to make the city allow it to march along its preferred route, the group did so anyway on Monday, albeit on a slightly altered path.
The protesters had hoped to be within sight and sound of the convention, where Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts on Monday said the foundation aims to “take sovereignty back” from a federal government run roughshod and get elites in places like Washington and New York to “stop forgetting about forgotten Americans.”
Project 2025 also advocates wresting the levers of power from the “radical left.” Roberts raised eyebrows recently when he said during an interview on Steve Bannon’s podcast that the nation is going through a “second American Revolution” that will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.”
Trump has claimed ignorance of Project 2025 and who created it, despite the fact that some of its architects served in his administration. The project’s authors have followed suit, stressing that Project 2025 is not affiliated with any campaign or candidate.
Regardless, Biden has been hammering on Project 2025 in the course of his flagging reelection campaign, calling it a blatant power-grab by MAGA extremists.
Also featured at the Heritage Foundation’s all-day policy fest were U.S. Representative Jason Chaffetz and former Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson, who discussed protecting children from pornography; fighting accommodations for transgender people; reversing Democratic economic policies that have supercharged inflation; blasting eco-friendly vehicles and appliances promoted by liberals; and praising Trump as the embodiment of strength and bravery in a leader.
Monday’s program began with spokesperson Genevieve Wood leading a moment of silent prayer for Trump in light of his injuries in a shooting at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, which resulted in the death of one rally attendee and the lone gunman.
“President Trump has said he’s not backing down, and neither are we,” Wood said.