Introducing: Three Questions

Journalist David Graham on Project 2025 and DMB

Dear Friends,

Welcome back to The Crunchwrap! I made it back from California, where I had two very special live events for my new book, accidentally ordered and ate one pastry stuffed with cashew cheese (Berkeley), attended one enormous rally (also Berkeley), and saw a lovely mess of friends and family.

Thank you to everyone who hosted me, hung out, met strangers, bought me everything from drinks and birria to sushi burritos and Turkish coffee, and made a trip for these events. It’s been so nice to be out in the world which, given everything, is saying a lot.

Since I’ve been back, I joined Smithsonian for a live virtual event and a podcast and I’ve also been betting on pro baseball relaxing and working on a few new stories that I’m eager to share in the weeks ahead. But first…

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Three Questions

I’m excited to introduce a new recurring feature to The Crunchwrap, which (I hope) will allow me to tap into my network of intelligent people and leverage their inability to politely decline favors for all of our benefit. And for this inaugural Three Questions, I can’t think of anyone who embodies this intelligence and duty-bound reluctance to say no to stuff than Friend-of-The-Crunch David Graham.

David is a staff writer at The Atlantic where, among others things, he writes the magazine’s daily newsletter which, it may surprise you to learn, is called the Atlantic Daily. He is also the author of The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America, which comes out on Tuesday(!) and which you should absolutely pre-order.

Now, if you’re wondering how it’s possible that someone has already written a book about the origins and impact of Project 2025, well, you don’t understand David’s insane work ethic and metabolism for absorbing news and producing (award-winning) analysis. To be sure, I’ve known him for over a decade and I still don’t understand it.

Ahead of his big pub date, I wanted to briefly pick his brain about our collective understanding of Project 2025, how it remains a major feature of the Trump agenda, and where it’s likely headed next. HERE WE GO:

THE CRUNCHWRAP: I think the general frame of reference many people have for Project 2025 was as an election-year Democratic Party talking point. It’s obviously come up again over the past few months as the Trump administration has carried out some of its directives, recommendations, and general policy what-have-yous. (These are all technical terms, of course.) Do you think liberal hyperventilation about Project 2025 last year was inadequate, ineffective, neither, or both?

DAVID GRAHAM: I think the hyperventilation was right in size but wrong in direction, or maybe inefficient. It’s kind of impressive that Democrats managed to make a dry, 922-page policy plan into a campaign issue at all—in the (very liberal) city where I live, I even saw yard signs that said “Stop Project 2025,” which amazed me. But I think Democrats fell short in a couple ways. One mistake was making claims that were easily debunked: Kamala Harris insisted Project 2025 was going to slash Social Security, and while I have no doubt many of its authors would love to do that, it’s not in there. Why make things up when there are so many actually extreme ideas? The other problem is that while voters were aware of and disliked Project 2025, polling showed they didn't believe Donald Trump would actually do these things. They viewed it as just another wish list of conservative policy ideas. In other words, Democrats successfully conveyed that Project 2025 was full of unpopular ideas but didn’t get across what set it apart from earlier templates, which was a rigorous plan for how to achieve them.

CW: Until my copy of your book arrives next week, I’m stuck with only a (terrifying) excerpt (gift link) about how Project 2025’s aim to restore 1950s-style “traditional” “family” “values” might play out if the Trump administration fully pursues it. As you note, the effort to alienate, discriminate against, and scream disproportionately to the high heavens about transgender Americans seems to be a first step in the process. Assuming that the administration follows this roadmap, what do you think would naturally come next?

DG: There are a couple things going on quietly that are part of this already—for example, shutting down the Department of Education. That's part of the effort to create “parental rights” in education, like what we’ve seen from Moms for Liberty. (One author actually wonders why courts don’t recognize parental rights on the same level as free speech or freedom of religion.) Longer term, they want to give states more power to design schooling and foster more religious and private schools; ultimately the goal is to end public education as we know it, with the government basically serving as a funder for school vouchers.

CW: That’s terrifying, especially since we just saw Texas Governor Greg Abbott score a major victory this week in securing $1b in funding for school vouchers. Given your years (decades?) of reporting and focus on these developments, there are a million grim directions to go. Without underplaying other threats too much, can you talk a little bit about the danger of Dave Matthews Band fandom? Is it overblown?

DG: I do think it’s overblown. You get these cultural elites who tend to deride Dave as lowest-common denominator music, and it’s true that I struggle these days to get through the entirety of Under the Table and Dreaming, much less Before These Crowded Streets. But I also think we see in DMB an expansive vision of America: a multiracial band, fronted by an immigrant, devoted to combining (and, yes, dumbing down) a range of musical influences. The bottom line is it's better to bring DMB fans into the coalition and direct them toward, say, Billy Strings or Thundercat than to leave them to seek a good time with the likes of Morgan Wallen.

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There you have it. And that’s it for this week.

Thank you to David for taking the time out of his insanely busy life to give us some context on the enduring mess of our national lives. For much much more on all of this, don’t forget to pre-order your copy of his book, The Project, which drops on Tuesday.

And thanks as always for reading!

With love,

Adam