I’m afraid you may have stepped right into a steaming pile of culture war, Ryan, in an effort to make an example of this document. The problem is that (I think) the majority of your grading as “partially true” (or yellow) means that these items are open for interpretation, though I can see that this is not your intention.
In choosing an example about Project 2025, a third-rail, hot button political issue right now, you open yourself to questions about bias or clarity. Of course the guys that wrote the original Heritage Foundation document would have made some effort to defuse what they knew would be outrage at some of these positions, so somebody with a right wing point of view could say “Well, that sounds reasonable” while somebody from the left would look at it from the worst case point of view. “Promoting traditional marriage” for instance, is considered by the left as code for “opposing gay marriage” which of course is seen as part of an overall bigoted position against all gay people (not without reason). But you treat this as if this were ordinary language, which it is not. You are missing context as you do in a number of similar yellow items (in my opinion).
One of the problems with the whole discussion is that both the left and the right try to use language that will seem reasonable to their constituents, while being seen as coded outrageous language by their opponents. That is to say, both sides are full of shit when these tactics are employed.
I’m afraid that by using simple word searches you miss a lot of context. I think you do this in an effort to be dispassionate and objective, but I’m afraid your lack of focus on context makes you appear biased towards the right, though I think you are actually not biased at all.
Your final score of 17% truthful seems skewed because my own reading would put all or most of the the partial truths into the true category (which I think most liberals would) because of the weasel wording of the document and your lack of recognition of a lot of the context.
But really, there is no way you could wade into this subject without making people like me (a liberal) unhappy. It is simply too loaded. Even if it turned out that the document in question was 100% lies, I would still think there was something to it, because that’s the way human beings are and that’s one of the reasons this kind of disinformation works. I ain’t saying that’s fair, but I think it’s true. Most of us have our ingrown native bias about this stuff. But thanks for doing this thoughtful piece of work.
“One of the problems with the whole discussion is that both the left and the right try to use language that will seem reasonable to their constituents, while being seen as coded outrageous language by their opponents. That is to say, both sides are full of shit when these tactics are employed.”
Incredibly important for all to understand. This and “rules for thee and not for me” may be a tie in terms of overall negative political motive in its worst form.
I get that the video had to be brief, but I think it skips over some important details when it comes to Project 2025. If you dig into the actual document and what the Heritage Foundation has been saying, some of what’s called out as lies could be seen as at least half-truths, if not completely accurate, depending on how you look at it.
Take the push to limit abortion access and restrict travel for procedures, for example. For many women, especially those without money, that’s pretty much the same as banning abortion outright. Historically, it’s been the women with means who could get abortions, while poor women were often forced into dangerous situations. Project 2025 could make that even worse by effectively making abortion out of reach for those who can’t afford to travel.
On top of that, the idea of reshaping the federal government by turning civil service jobs into political appointments is a big concern. This could turn the government into a group of political yes-men instead of experts who are supposed to be impartial. It’s hard to trust a system that might prioritize loyalty over competence, especially in critical areas like public health and law enforcement.
And then there’s the whole thing about consolidating power under the unitary executive theory. That’s a fancy way of saying the president would have way more control over the government, which could really mess with the balance of power that’s supposed to keep things in check. With how polarized things are right now, that’s a pretty scary thought.
Yeah, there’s definitely propaganda on both sides, but the risks here are real. Project 2025 could roll back rights and shake up how our government works in ways that might not be easy to undo. This isn’t just about political differences—it’s about making sure our democracy stays fair and that the government works for everyone, not just a select few.
You know what the biggest lie is? Trump says he knows nothing about it. Except Project 2025 is road map to a theocratic autocracy was constructed by a whole slew of people who were in Trump's administration and they'll fill out the ranks of his administration if he wins in Nov and implement the monstrosity.
(I can't vouch for all the circles, boxes and lines in the Leo diagram, but they generally align with reporting that's been done over the years by multiple organizations)
The people _behind_ Project 2025 are more frightening to me than the contents of the document. These are the people from the first DJT administration who want to remove the legal barriers that prevented them from implementing their ideas in the chaotic period from Jan 2017 to Jan 2021. This isn't just a Trump thing. This has decades-long roots in people like Murray Rothbard, Paul Weyrich and Leonardo Leo (for example) connecting ideology to money. Don't get me wrong - connecting ideology to money is not inherently evil. I'm just not personally down with some of the ideologies these guys promoted. And I don't think the majority of Americans are.
Do you want to be the subject of a Ryan McBeth disinformation video? Because this is how you get to be the subject of a disinformation video. Telling lies that you heard someone else repeat, or worse, telling lies that you made up yourself, doesn't make them true, or worthy.
When he starts out referencing a dystopian fantasy TV program beloved by the Left for it's supposed portrayal of "the Right?" Yeah, that's not partisan at all.
I read (skimmed) about 2/3 of it and decided it was as Ryan described - a plan for the first 100 days of the Trump administration. It does have a section to gather names of people wanting to work for Trump which would make vetting easier. Also, there is a short course orienting new hires.
What Trump supporters and Trump himself learned in 2017 was that he needed to have prepared far better to hire people wanting to execute his agenda. Project 2025 is a start. Trump had nothing to do with developing it and might not ever use it. But if not this, then Trump must have his own plan and pool of talent to put to work. The MAGA supporters voted for serious change in 2016 but we didn't get much. If we win this year there will be no more excuses tolerated. Making America Great Again has to succeed or we will become Venezuela.
I feel like producing and releasing this video is an unforced error.
I support efforts to point out disinformation (why I'm a subscriber), but I feel like this video becomes a bit of disinformation in itself because of how you chose to address the topic. You chose to talk about a very large political policy document that is very controversial, and defended it against a single infographic that had more lies than truths. Fair enough in your analysis, but I still left the video with the impression that the Project 2025 document is being wildly mischaracterized by its opponents and that it is actually just a banal policy document being trolled by partisans willing to lie to further their own objectives. While this specific infographic may support that narrative, I don't think that narrative is supported more broadly. By picking a particularly egregious infographic to fact-check, you come across as a defender not just of the facts but also of a misrepresented document.
As I've said, I'm not contending your conclusions on the various points of the specific graphic. My concern arises from your apparent defense of the Project 2025 document. Bad infographics are ubiquitous, and you can't tackle them all.
I still think of Ryan McBeth as an excellent source for disinformation debunking, but I'd recommend more caution in video production. When you lend your fact checking skills to an issue, please take better care to make it clear that you are not supporting the contents in part or whole, but simply pointing out any inaccuracies that you detected.
I am investing $5 so that I can express my disappointment in your post today re: the 2025 document and plans for the US. This document, which I have in my computer and refer to it often, describes plans by people from the former Trump administration and Heritage Foundation to change this country in a fashion that YOU SWORE AN OATH AGAINST: to protect the Constitution against foes: foreign AND DOMESTIC!
Your number for truth, 17%, suggests that 83% is untrue. But your ten "partially-true" points describe attacks against the Constitution, so only partially treasonous? That fits with your oath?
I would describe your results:
"Half: true-or-partially true and
Half: not covered in the document.
Those "Lies", by the way and imho, are mostly items that have been in the public discussion, including quotes by the candidate-Trump but not really covered in the 2025 document.
Ryan, don't lie and say you read the document if you didn't. All you seemed to do is a key word search. I made some posts on Youtube but decided to come here instead. This video is a black mark on your otherwise good record. You should be ashamed.
Is the graphic full of holes and misleading language, absolutely. But your assessment is also and Project 2025 does same many of the things you listed as a lie. Shame on you. I am not going to go through every item since you didn't bother doing either. I will cite my sources though.
"End Marriage Equality" you labeled this a lie. Go to page 451, section titled "Goal #3: Promoting Stable and Flourishing Married Families". Do I need to read that section for you? Since clearly you didn't bother to. Better, copy/paste is an option.
"Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society. Unfortunately, family policies and programs under President Biden’s HHS are fraught with agenda items focusing on “LGBTQ+ equity,” subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage. These policies should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families.
Working fathers are essential to the well-being and development of their children, but the United States is experiencing a crisis of fatherlessness that is ruining our children’s futures. In the overwhelming number of cases, fathers insulate children from physical and sexual abuse, financial difficulty or poverty, incarceration, teen pregnancy, poor educational outcomes, high school failure,
and a host of behavioral and psychological problems. By contrast, homes with non-related “boyfriends” present are among the most dangerous place for a child to be. HHS should prioritize married father engagement in its messaging, health, and welfare policies.
In the context of current and emerging reproductive technologies, HHS policies should never place the desires of adults over the right of children to be raised by the biological fathers and mothers who conceive them. In cases involving biological parents who are found by a court to be unfit because of abuse or neglect, the process of adoption should be speedy, certain, and supported generously by HHS."
If you read this and say "No I stand by my assessment that 'End Marriage Equality' was a Lie." then you are just another source of misinformation. Go back and actually read the document. I haven't finished reading it but I was able to do a 5 second word search with Adobe and found this section on the 7th hit. It would behoove you to retract your video and start over.
I can see both sides on this one. Do some of the people behind Project 2025 want to end marriage equality? I don’t doubt it. Does Project 2025 clearly state this? No. If you go back to the paragraph before the one you start quoting, you can see that the language is all couched in terms of what the government should and should not support (mostly through HHS).
As others have pointed out, parts of these are communicated in legalese and policy-wonk-speak. But I think this is also a way of signaling - “hey, if you want to undo marriage equality, so do we (the authors of P2025), come work together with us” And the PDP&PAA Questionnaire gives people opportunities to signal this back to Heritage.
There are interesting questions of: what is being communicated in this policy document?; what did the authors communicate in other public places?; what have the authors communicated when they thought they were speaking only to other sympathetic listeners?
Are there people here who have been caught pseudonymously saying things on the internet that are more extreme than what they say using their own name? Richard Hanania, who is listed as a contributor to P2025, famously did this. He publicly recanted. We all say stupid things when we’re younger. Did he recant sincerely? Or did he merely learn to be more careful? We may never know. Or we may find out in January of 2025.
If I went up to some pro-gay marriage Democrats and some anti-gay marriage Republicans and asked them to summarize these paragraphs into 1 sentence or phrase, I think most of them would say something like get rid of gay marriage or get rid of special rights to gay people. And then I said "So like end marriage equality between straight and gay people?" All of them would say "Oh, yeah, exactly."
I love Ryan's assessments on intelligence and misinformation. But if he thinks that because it doesn't specifically use the words then therefore its a lie, then I find all of his assessments suspect. He has to be intellectually honest. This isn't the first time I have seen this from him. And it disappoints me. I would say that 98% of Ryan's assessments are well done and thought out and he brings receipts as the young people like to say. This is not that.
So if like you say in your second paragraph that this is a legalese way of saying "hey if you want to undo marriage equality" then Ryan's statement that the graphic he was critiquing statement "End Marriage Equality" was a Lie then you agree that Ryan's assessment was wrong. Which then brings into question his entire assessment. And this is the only 1 I commented on. There are others. He's the 1 doing the video. Is it my job as a consumer to now fact check him? That is misinformation. He needs to do a better job.
"I love Ryan's assessments on intelligence and misinformation. But if he thinks that because it doesn't specifically use the words then therefore its a lie, then I find all of his assessments suspect." I agree with you, I feel the same way. Especially given that politicians and policy writers try to sugarcoat things as much as possible.
I'm newish here and beginning to work through RMcB's back catalog. At this point, I'm happy with your iteration on this. Yeah, he does a better, deeper job with other subject matter. He seems a little out of his depth on this one.
As I've said elsewhere on this thread, the people behind the P2025 document disturb me more than the document does. You really need to get to the goals, motivations, methods, public statements and not-so-public statements of the P2025 contributors to get a grasp of this. What we have here is RMcB's takedown of a somewhat sloppy criticism of P2025, in the context of the document itself - without the broader underpinnings behind the document.
I wrote another comment below that lays out another one he got wrong and I believe I noticed a few more. It is 100 percent that his keyword search didn't hit upon the exact phrases used in the document he was addressing. There is zero chance he read the document and actually processed it rather than just skimming it. My quote is from page 4!
It feels like the approach treating this as an attempt to deceive people about the literal words in a specific document, rather than a (clearly dramatic and with some outright falsehoods) political image about the consequences of an election -- a kind of image which is being minted by the hundreds in subreddits and discords by people gathering more quotes from people involved and their connections to each other, looking over the piles of of additional material (https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-project-2025-secret-training-videos-trump-election for instance) -- is kind of missing the point, and can come off like motivated reasoning to an extent that is somewhat deceptive in its own right.
When analyzing political statements about the intentions of a political movement headed up by an organization which notably produces training material on how to conduct as much business as possible face to face and not leave a paper trail so as to not get caught through FOIA and so on, it might be necessary to pull in some of the widely available corroborating sources while doing the line-by-line to see what the document might be euphemizing or otherwise leaving off of the page.
I love you Ryan and I'm pretty certain you were NOT trying to produce a political video, but I don't think your analysis of the typical misinformation you cover would leave out this kind of context
Ryan, I think you have (hopefully not on purpose) picked a straw man to fight here with respect to these policies and potental disinfo. Yes this infographic might have been posted by a popular liberal but has it been endorsed or used by the National Democratic Party or the Harris compaign? At the end of the video you seem to equivocate between the anonymous creator of this sloppy graphic and liberal or Democrat criticism of Republican policies, to wit: "If you have to make up 83% [which by the way is wrong on your own analysis since you are lumping in "partially right" with wrong] of your allegations against an opposing party, you might want to revisit what you stand for" (~22:40). But who's the "you"? Just because some pundit re-posted something that seemed to support his "side" that turns out to be factually inaccurate, means nothing. Welcome to the Internet in 2024! Try fact checking a Trump rally sometime (no, really).
Honestly, I love your stuff on real disinformation, particularly about foreign threats. But this sort of political, I would call it "misinformation" by a group of domestic hacks against their opponents is just, and always been, a part of American political life. Just because it "looks like something Russia would do but probably wasn't" doesn't strike me as enough to proceed to try and pull into your purview. Snopes, AP and et al. are already doing a much better of debunking this sort of thing and will also tell you the scary (if you're in any way liberal) thing 2025 does say. You're wasting your skills swerving out of your usual lane like this.
BTW, Anthony Kennedy was a swing voter later in his career only because the court became more politically polarized and he became the last moderate conservative (after Day-O'Connor retired) in what became a 4-4 split between judges who tended to vote along political lines on polarizing issues. If you check his wikipedia page, you will see he voted with conservatives most of time except on a few issues that became beloved by Democrats. He also chose to retire during a conservative Presidency. You were reaching for David Sutter, who was appointed by HW Bush (R) and eventually became a strong vote for the "liberal" half of the early Roberts court until he got out of the way for Obama to appoint a much younger Sotomayer in his place before potentially dying in office while a conservative President was in office who might appoint a massively more conservative justice in his (or her) stead (sound familiar?)
off subject Donald Trump knows nothing about service to anyone or anything but himself. For him to insult Medal of Honor recipients, just as he has previously attacked Gold Star families, mocked prisoners of war, and referred to those who lost their lives in service to our country as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers,’ should remind all Americans that we owe it to our service members, our country, and our future to make sure Donald Trump is never our nation’s commander in chief again,”
Did anyone in the comments actually watch the video? He's simply giving an example of an active measures document and fact-checking it. You aren't supposed to draw conclusions about the rest of a documents contents from a fact-check. Ryan, as usual, does he job with absolute professionalism.
It's a excellent case study in the use of half-truths and feel good "truthiness" to manipulate people. The accusation that him rating something as "partially true" makes it "open for interpretation" for instance, makes absolutely no sense.
by lawyers ,Another point this is not the first heritage foundation document , one was posted in 2016 and they manage to get about half into the mainstream.
There are two questions about Project 2025 floating around:
1. Was the critiqued summary written by the authors of Project 2025?
2. Do the authors of Project 2025 want to do the things listed in the critiqued summary?
I believe the answers are:
1. no
2. yes
I think Ryan's answers are.
1. no
2. not the point of this video
Ryan isn't going to comment on question #2 because that would be off brand for him. I don't know if he's a democrat, republican, or enlightened centrist like Nate Silver at heart, but it doesn't matter. Ryan doesn't share his politics. And I like that.
****
I found Ryan because of his open source intelligence work, and I stick with him because he continues to keep me informed about the military and the status of World War III. By the way, Ryan helped me understand that World War III has started and Ukraine-Russia is only a front in the war. Ryan gave me a new perspective on the military-industrial complex. Ryan is the only content creator I have in common with my republican friends, and I don't want to lose that. So even if Ryan is secretly a liberal, I want that to stay a secret.
Your comment seems one of the only ones that makes sense to me, as a non-American. I watched the video as 'are these statements in the manifesto', not as 'do they want to do this', or 'are they talking about doing this', which most other comments are posting about. Like much of politics there is a lot of smoke & mirrors, and dog whistling around this, and I guess whatever he said was bound to piss a sizeable section of people off.
I know my thoughts on the candidates, and as a centre left person that votes centre right in my country (I like the people looked after, but I also know it comes at a cost) it seems that most people (the silent majority), potentially globally, are trying to push back towards the centre on both sides of the aisle after almost a decade of growing political extremism, even with those good old algorithms keeping the people throwing stones in glasshouses loud and proud.
I really like Ryan's work, and I definitely prefer it when he talks about international stuff, but I appreciate his efforts in trying to approach all topics without bias. I look forward to those subscribing for a month just to have a whinge disappearing in a few weeks time, and hey, it's a few more bucks for Ryan in the meantime.
Ryan it appears you phoned in a critique of a 2025 graphic that is mostly true and violated a basic research tenet. You cannot Control-F "No-fault divorce" on a project 2025 document ("Mandate for Leadership") and say project 2025 does not support ending no fault divorce. You could say the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership document does not mention ending no fault divorce. Counter organizations like "NOW" say the Project 2025 Board is full of members that want to end no fault divorce.
Time reference: Though the proposal is not included in the Project 2025 policy book, eliminating no-fault divorce is one of the goals of many of the advisors to the project — an initiative put together by groups like the right-wing Heritage Foundation, to lay out an agenda for a second Donald Trump Presidency.
You would not do this to a Hamas document. I am surprised you wrote about doing that with the 2025 graphic. A few clicks will demonstrate The Heritage Foundation (document author) supports all of the lines in the 2025 graphic. Do better.
In another comment on this thread, I mentioned the question: what did the authors communicate in other public places? This is a good example of that and a reason why I think the list of authors is more important than the P2025 document itself.
Whether digging into all of this falls within Mr. (Sergeant?) McBeth's self-assigned charter. . .I dunno. That's kinda up to him.
Digging back through my bookmarks on P2025, I ran across a somewhat chilling one I'd forgotten (from Wikipedia, with 3 references to back it up): ". . .On July 2, 2024, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts created controversy by saying, "we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be". . ."
Something the sloppy infographic fails to convey is that the P2025 document is shot through with needlessly provocative and hyperbolic language that really has no place in a policy document - except perhaps for fan service and provoking a reaction.
I’m afraid you may have stepped right into a steaming pile of culture war, Ryan, in an effort to make an example of this document. The problem is that (I think) the majority of your grading as “partially true” (or yellow) means that these items are open for interpretation, though I can see that this is not your intention.
In choosing an example about Project 2025, a third-rail, hot button political issue right now, you open yourself to questions about bias or clarity. Of course the guys that wrote the original Heritage Foundation document would have made some effort to defuse what they knew would be outrage at some of these positions, so somebody with a right wing point of view could say “Well, that sounds reasonable” while somebody from the left would look at it from the worst case point of view. “Promoting traditional marriage” for instance, is considered by the left as code for “opposing gay marriage” which of course is seen as part of an overall bigoted position against all gay people (not without reason). But you treat this as if this were ordinary language, which it is not. You are missing context as you do in a number of similar yellow items (in my opinion).
One of the problems with the whole discussion is that both the left and the right try to use language that will seem reasonable to their constituents, while being seen as coded outrageous language by their opponents. That is to say, both sides are full of shit when these tactics are employed.
I’m afraid that by using simple word searches you miss a lot of context. I think you do this in an effort to be dispassionate and objective, but I’m afraid your lack of focus on context makes you appear biased towards the right, though I think you are actually not biased at all.
Your final score of 17% truthful seems skewed because my own reading would put all or most of the the partial truths into the true category (which I think most liberals would) because of the weasel wording of the document and your lack of recognition of a lot of the context.
But really, there is no way you could wade into this subject without making people like me (a liberal) unhappy. It is simply too loaded. Even if it turned out that the document in question was 100% lies, I would still think there was something to it, because that’s the way human beings are and that’s one of the reasons this kind of disinformation works. I ain’t saying that’s fair, but I think it’s true. Most of us have our ingrown native bias about this stuff. But thanks for doing this thoughtful piece of work.
“One of the problems with the whole discussion is that both the left and the right try to use language that will seem reasonable to their constituents, while being seen as coded outrageous language by their opponents. That is to say, both sides are full of shit when these tactics are employed.”
Incredibly important for all to understand. This and “rules for thee and not for me” may be a tie in terms of overall negative political motive in its worst form.
I have to disagree for one simple reason - Ryan isn't grading Project 2025, he's grading that specific image file which misleads.
It falls under Ryan's "if it makes you emotional, it's likely misinformation"
I get that the video had to be brief, but I think it skips over some important details when it comes to Project 2025. If you dig into the actual document and what the Heritage Foundation has been saying, some of what’s called out as lies could be seen as at least half-truths, if not completely accurate, depending on how you look at it.
Take the push to limit abortion access and restrict travel for procedures, for example. For many women, especially those without money, that’s pretty much the same as banning abortion outright. Historically, it’s been the women with means who could get abortions, while poor women were often forced into dangerous situations. Project 2025 could make that even worse by effectively making abortion out of reach for those who can’t afford to travel.
On top of that, the idea of reshaping the federal government by turning civil service jobs into political appointments is a big concern. This could turn the government into a group of political yes-men instead of experts who are supposed to be impartial. It’s hard to trust a system that might prioritize loyalty over competence, especially in critical areas like public health and law enforcement.
And then there’s the whole thing about consolidating power under the unitary executive theory. That’s a fancy way of saying the president would have way more control over the government, which could really mess with the balance of power that’s supposed to keep things in check. With how polarized things are right now, that’s a pretty scary thought.
Yeah, there’s definitely propaganda on both sides, but the risks here are real. Project 2025 could roll back rights and shake up how our government works in ways that might not be easy to undo. This isn’t just about political differences—it’s about making sure our democracy stays fair and that the government works for everyone, not just a select few.
You know what the biggest lie is? Trump says he knows nothing about it. Except Project 2025 is road map to a theocratic autocracy was constructed by a whole slew of people who were in Trump's administration and they'll fill out the ranks of his administration if he wins in Nov and implement the monstrosity.
Some infographics that are probably a little better researched:
This article contains a helpful pie chart and a table relating to the authors of P2025: https://popular.info/p/what-trump-doesnt-want-you-to-know
The Leonardo Leo connections:
https://www.stopthecoup2025.org/whos-behind-project-2025
(I can't vouch for all the circles, boxes and lines in the Leo diagram, but they generally align with reporting that's been done over the years by multiple organizations)
Also useful: the application/questionnaire for P2025: https://web.archive.org/web/20231220132051/https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/4b021d162587d4df/9179320d-full.pdf
The people _behind_ Project 2025 are more frightening to me than the contents of the document. These are the people from the first DJT administration who want to remove the legal barriers that prevented them from implementing their ideas in the chaotic period from Jan 2017 to Jan 2021. This isn't just a Trump thing. This has decades-long roots in people like Murray Rothbard, Paul Weyrich and Leonardo Leo (for example) connecting ideology to money. Don't get me wrong - connecting ideology to money is not inherently evil. I'm just not personally down with some of the ideologies these guys promoted. And I don't think the majority of Americans are.
Do you want to be the subject of a Ryan McBeth disinformation video? Because this is how you get to be the subject of a disinformation video. Telling lies that you heard someone else repeat, or worse, telling lies that you made up yourself, doesn't make them true, or worthy.
Have a look at this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQcL0t73O5Y then say that again with meaning.
Using a partisan misinformation video to refute an accusation of misinformation?
Brilliant strategy.
I don't like it or agree with it therefor it is partisan misinformation... you're a clown.
When he starts out referencing a dystopian fantasy TV program beloved by the Left for it's supposed portrayal of "the Right?" Yeah, that's not partisan at all.
But I'm the clown.
Whatever helps you to sleep with yourself.
I read (skimmed) about 2/3 of it and decided it was as Ryan described - a plan for the first 100 days of the Trump administration. It does have a section to gather names of people wanting to work for Trump which would make vetting easier. Also, there is a short course orienting new hires.
What Trump supporters and Trump himself learned in 2017 was that he needed to have prepared far better to hire people wanting to execute his agenda. Project 2025 is a start. Trump had nothing to do with developing it and might not ever use it. But if not this, then Trump must have his own plan and pool of talent to put to work. The MAGA supporters voted for serious change in 2016 but we didn't get much. If we win this year there will be no more excuses tolerated. Making America Great Again has to succeed or we will become Venezuela.
I feel like producing and releasing this video is an unforced error.
I support efforts to point out disinformation (why I'm a subscriber), but I feel like this video becomes a bit of disinformation in itself because of how you chose to address the topic. You chose to talk about a very large political policy document that is very controversial, and defended it against a single infographic that had more lies than truths. Fair enough in your analysis, but I still left the video with the impression that the Project 2025 document is being wildly mischaracterized by its opponents and that it is actually just a banal policy document being trolled by partisans willing to lie to further their own objectives. While this specific infographic may support that narrative, I don't think that narrative is supported more broadly. By picking a particularly egregious infographic to fact-check, you come across as a defender not just of the facts but also of a misrepresented document.
As I've said, I'm not contending your conclusions on the various points of the specific graphic. My concern arises from your apparent defense of the Project 2025 document. Bad infographics are ubiquitous, and you can't tackle them all.
I still think of Ryan McBeth as an excellent source for disinformation debunking, but I'd recommend more caution in video production. When you lend your fact checking skills to an issue, please take better care to make it clear that you are not supporting the contents in part or whole, but simply pointing out any inaccuracies that you detected.
It just proved Ryan does not speak lawyer.
But he was actually incorrect in his fact checking here. It has me worried about my support of Ryan. See my comment below for one example of many.
I am investing $5 so that I can express my disappointment in your post today re: the 2025 document and plans for the US. This document, which I have in my computer and refer to it often, describes plans by people from the former Trump administration and Heritage Foundation to change this country in a fashion that YOU SWORE AN OATH AGAINST: to protect the Constitution against foes: foreign AND DOMESTIC!
Your number for truth, 17%, suggests that 83% is untrue. But your ten "partially-true" points describe attacks against the Constitution, so only partially treasonous? That fits with your oath?
I would describe your results:
"Half: true-or-partially true and
Half: not covered in the document.
Those "Lies", by the way and imho, are mostly items that have been in the public discussion, including quotes by the candidate-Trump but not really covered in the 2025 document.
You should have saved yourself $5.
Ryan, don't lie and say you read the document if you didn't. All you seemed to do is a key word search. I made some posts on Youtube but decided to come here instead. This video is a black mark on your otherwise good record. You should be ashamed.
Is the graphic full of holes and misleading language, absolutely. But your assessment is also and Project 2025 does same many of the things you listed as a lie. Shame on you. I am not going to go through every item since you didn't bother doing either. I will cite my sources though.
"End Marriage Equality" you labeled this a lie. Go to page 451, section titled "Goal #3: Promoting Stable and Flourishing Married Families". Do I need to read that section for you? Since clearly you didn't bother to. Better, copy/paste is an option.
"Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society. Unfortunately, family policies and programs under President Biden’s HHS are fraught with agenda items focusing on “LGBTQ+ equity,” subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage. These policies should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families.
Working fathers are essential to the well-being and development of their children, but the United States is experiencing a crisis of fatherlessness that is ruining our children’s futures. In the overwhelming number of cases, fathers insulate children from physical and sexual abuse, financial difficulty or poverty, incarceration, teen pregnancy, poor educational outcomes, high school failure,
and a host of behavioral and psychological problems. By contrast, homes with non-related “boyfriends” present are among the most dangerous place for a child to be. HHS should prioritize married father engagement in its messaging, health, and welfare policies.
In the context of current and emerging reproductive technologies, HHS policies should never place the desires of adults over the right of children to be raised by the biological fathers and mothers who conceive them. In cases involving biological parents who are found by a court to be unfit because of abuse or neglect, the process of adoption should be speedy, certain, and supported generously by HHS."
If you read this and say "No I stand by my assessment that 'End Marriage Equality' was a Lie." then you are just another source of misinformation. Go back and actually read the document. I haven't finished reading it but I was able to do a 5 second word search with Adobe and found this section on the 7th hit. It would behoove you to retract your video and start over.
I can see both sides on this one. Do some of the people behind Project 2025 want to end marriage equality? I don’t doubt it. Does Project 2025 clearly state this? No. If you go back to the paragraph before the one you start quoting, you can see that the language is all couched in terms of what the government should and should not support (mostly through HHS).
As others have pointed out, parts of these are communicated in legalese and policy-wonk-speak. But I think this is also a way of signaling - “hey, if you want to undo marriage equality, so do we (the authors of P2025), come work together with us” And the PDP&PAA Questionnaire gives people opportunities to signal this back to Heritage.
There are interesting questions of: what is being communicated in this policy document?; what did the authors communicate in other public places?; what have the authors communicated when they thought they were speaking only to other sympathetic listeners?
Are there people here who have been caught pseudonymously saying things on the internet that are more extreme than what they say using their own name? Richard Hanania, who is listed as a contributor to P2025, famously did this. He publicly recanted. We all say stupid things when we’re younger. Did he recant sincerely? Or did he merely learn to be more careful? We may never know. Or we may find out in January of 2025.
If I went up to some pro-gay marriage Democrats and some anti-gay marriage Republicans and asked them to summarize these paragraphs into 1 sentence or phrase, I think most of them would say something like get rid of gay marriage or get rid of special rights to gay people. And then I said "So like end marriage equality between straight and gay people?" All of them would say "Oh, yeah, exactly."
I love Ryan's assessments on intelligence and misinformation. But if he thinks that because it doesn't specifically use the words then therefore its a lie, then I find all of his assessments suspect. He has to be intellectually honest. This isn't the first time I have seen this from him. And it disappoints me. I would say that 98% of Ryan's assessments are well done and thought out and he brings receipts as the young people like to say. This is not that.
So if like you say in your second paragraph that this is a legalese way of saying "hey if you want to undo marriage equality" then Ryan's statement that the graphic he was critiquing statement "End Marriage Equality" was a Lie then you agree that Ryan's assessment was wrong. Which then brings into question his entire assessment. And this is the only 1 I commented on. There are others. He's the 1 doing the video. Is it my job as a consumer to now fact check him? That is misinformation. He needs to do a better job.
"I love Ryan's assessments on intelligence and misinformation. But if he thinks that because it doesn't specifically use the words then therefore its a lie, then I find all of his assessments suspect." I agree with you, I feel the same way. Especially given that politicians and policy writers try to sugarcoat things as much as possible.
I'm newish here and beginning to work through RMcB's back catalog. At this point, I'm happy with your iteration on this. Yeah, he does a better, deeper job with other subject matter. He seems a little out of his depth on this one.
As I've said elsewhere on this thread, the people behind the P2025 document disturb me more than the document does. You really need to get to the goals, motivations, methods, public statements and not-so-public statements of the P2025 contributors to get a grasp of this. What we have here is RMcB's takedown of a somewhat sloppy criticism of P2025, in the context of the document itself - without the broader underpinnings behind the document.
I wrote another comment below that lays out another one he got wrong and I believe I noticed a few more. It is 100 percent that his keyword search didn't hit upon the exact phrases used in the document he was addressing. There is zero chance he read the document and actually processed it rather than just skimming it. My quote is from page 4!
You do not speak lawyer Mr Mcbeth. Please look at the legal eagle breakdown.
It feels like the approach treating this as an attempt to deceive people about the literal words in a specific document, rather than a (clearly dramatic and with some outright falsehoods) political image about the consequences of an election -- a kind of image which is being minted by the hundreds in subreddits and discords by people gathering more quotes from people involved and their connections to each other, looking over the piles of of additional material (https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-project-2025-secret-training-videos-trump-election for instance) -- is kind of missing the point, and can come off like motivated reasoning to an extent that is somewhat deceptive in its own right.
When analyzing political statements about the intentions of a political movement headed up by an organization which notably produces training material on how to conduct as much business as possible face to face and not leave a paper trail so as to not get caught through FOIA and so on, it might be necessary to pull in some of the widely available corroborating sources while doing the line-by-line to see what the document might be euphemizing or otherwise leaving off of the page.
I love you Ryan and I'm pretty certain you were NOT trying to produce a political video, but I don't think your analysis of the typical misinformation you cover would leave out this kind of context
Ryan, I think you have (hopefully not on purpose) picked a straw man to fight here with respect to these policies and potental disinfo. Yes this infographic might have been posted by a popular liberal but has it been endorsed or used by the National Democratic Party or the Harris compaign? At the end of the video you seem to equivocate between the anonymous creator of this sloppy graphic and liberal or Democrat criticism of Republican policies, to wit: "If you have to make up 83% [which by the way is wrong on your own analysis since you are lumping in "partially right" with wrong] of your allegations against an opposing party, you might want to revisit what you stand for" (~22:40). But who's the "you"? Just because some pundit re-posted something that seemed to support his "side" that turns out to be factually inaccurate, means nothing. Welcome to the Internet in 2024! Try fact checking a Trump rally sometime (no, really).
Honestly, I love your stuff on real disinformation, particularly about foreign threats. But this sort of political, I would call it "misinformation" by a group of domestic hacks against their opponents is just, and always been, a part of American political life. Just because it "looks like something Russia would do but probably wasn't" doesn't strike me as enough to proceed to try and pull into your purview. Snopes, AP and et al. are already doing a much better of debunking this sort of thing and will also tell you the scary (if you're in any way liberal) thing 2025 does say. You're wasting your skills swerving out of your usual lane like this.
BTW, Anthony Kennedy was a swing voter later in his career only because the court became more politically polarized and he became the last moderate conservative (after Day-O'Connor retired) in what became a 4-4 split between judges who tended to vote along political lines on polarizing issues. If you check his wikipedia page, you will see he voted with conservatives most of time except on a few issues that became beloved by Democrats. He also chose to retire during a conservative Presidency. You were reaching for David Sutter, who was appointed by HW Bush (R) and eventually became a strong vote for the "liberal" half of the early Roberts court until he got out of the way for Obama to appoint a much younger Sotomayer in his place before potentially dying in office while a conservative President was in office who might appoint a massively more conservative justice in his (or her) stead (sound familiar?)
off subject Donald Trump knows nothing about service to anyone or anything but himself. For him to insult Medal of Honor recipients, just as he has previously attacked Gold Star families, mocked prisoners of war, and referred to those who lost their lives in service to our country as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers,’ should remind all Americans that we owe it to our service members, our country, and our future to make sure Donald Trump is never our nation’s commander in chief again,”
Did anyone in the comments actually watch the video? He's simply giving an example of an active measures document and fact-checking it. You aren't supposed to draw conclusions about the rest of a documents contents from a fact-check. Ryan, as usual, does he job with absolute professionalism.
It's a excellent case study in the use of half-truths and feel good "truthiness" to manipulate people. The accusation that him rating something as "partially true" makes it "open for interpretation" for instance, makes absolutely no sense.
Ya'll need to chill.
Snopes also uses “partially true” or a variation of its as well so I think that makes it at the very least fair game for Ryan to say
If you want a country that’s along the lines of Germany in the 30’s…. Vote for Chump. If you want freedom…. Vote Kamala. It’s that simple.
It’s a Christo-Fascist manifesto….
How about this point of view. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQcL0t73O5Y
by lawyers ,Another point this is not the first heritage foundation document , one was posted in 2016 and they manage to get about half into the mainstream.
There are two questions about Project 2025 floating around:
1. Was the critiqued summary written by the authors of Project 2025?
2. Do the authors of Project 2025 want to do the things listed in the critiqued summary?
I believe the answers are:
1. no
2. yes
I think Ryan's answers are.
1. no
2. not the point of this video
Ryan isn't going to comment on question #2 because that would be off brand for him. I don't know if he's a democrat, republican, or enlightened centrist like Nate Silver at heart, but it doesn't matter. Ryan doesn't share his politics. And I like that.
****
I found Ryan because of his open source intelligence work, and I stick with him because he continues to keep me informed about the military and the status of World War III. By the way, Ryan helped me understand that World War III has started and Ukraine-Russia is only a front in the war. Ryan gave me a new perspective on the military-industrial complex. Ryan is the only content creator I have in common with my republican friends, and I don't want to lose that. So even if Ryan is secretly a liberal, I want that to stay a secret.
Your comment seems one of the only ones that makes sense to me, as a non-American. I watched the video as 'are these statements in the manifesto', not as 'do they want to do this', or 'are they talking about doing this', which most other comments are posting about. Like much of politics there is a lot of smoke & mirrors, and dog whistling around this, and I guess whatever he said was bound to piss a sizeable section of people off.
I know my thoughts on the candidates, and as a centre left person that votes centre right in my country (I like the people looked after, but I also know it comes at a cost) it seems that most people (the silent majority), potentially globally, are trying to push back towards the centre on both sides of the aisle after almost a decade of growing political extremism, even with those good old algorithms keeping the people throwing stones in glasshouses loud and proud.
I really like Ryan's work, and I definitely prefer it when he talks about international stuff, but I appreciate his efforts in trying to approach all topics without bias. I look forward to those subscribing for a month just to have a whinge disappearing in a few weeks time, and hey, it's a few more bucks for Ryan in the meantime.
Ryan it appears you phoned in a critique of a 2025 graphic that is mostly true and violated a basic research tenet. You cannot Control-F "No-fault divorce" on a project 2025 document ("Mandate for Leadership") and say project 2025 does not support ending no fault divorce. You could say the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership document does not mention ending no fault divorce. Counter organizations like "NOW" say the Project 2025 Board is full of members that want to end no fault divorce.
See NOW link: https://now.org/blog/threats-to-no-fault-divorce-and-its-implications-for-violence-against-women/
Time reference: Though the proposal is not included in the Project 2025 policy book, eliminating no-fault divorce is one of the goals of many of the advisors to the project — an initiative put together by groups like the right-wing Heritage Foundation, to lay out an agenda for a second Donald Trump Presidency.
You would not do this to a Hamas document. I am surprised you wrote about doing that with the 2025 graphic. A few clicks will demonstrate The Heritage Foundation (document author) supports all of the lines in the 2025 graphic. Do better.
I agree with the idea that this deserves a larger context. I think you've given a good start on that. I'll move the ball a little closer to the goalposts: "Project 2025 advisory board members have attacked or outright called for the end of no-fault divorce" (https://www.mediamatters.org/project-2025/project-2025-partners-want-make-divorce-lot-harder)
In another comment on this thread, I mentioned the question: what did the authors communicate in other public places? This is a good example of that and a reason why I think the list of authors is more important than the P2025 document itself.
Whether digging into all of this falls within Mr. (Sergeant?) McBeth's self-assigned charter. . .I dunno. That's kinda up to him.
Digging back through my bookmarks on P2025, I ran across a somewhat chilling one I'd forgotten (from Wikipedia, with 3 references to back it up): ". . .On July 2, 2024, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts created controversy by saying, "we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be". . ."
Something the sloppy infographic fails to convey is that the P2025 document is shot through with needlessly provocative and hyperbolic language that really has no place in a policy document - except perhaps for fan service and provoking a reaction.