MAGA figures are suddenly afraid that Trump will lose and are looking for someone to blame.

On July 30, Project 2025 Director Paul Dans suddenly stepped down, even after promoting his work on War Room earlier in the day. The Trump campaign, in a memo signed by senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, celebrated, even claiming they would welcome Project 2025’s demise.

But outside of the right-wing bubble, the PR move seems to have failed in its attempt to distance Trump from Project 2025.

As New York Times reporter Jonathan Swan noted, the Trump campaign reportedly has no transition plan — even compared to 2016 — and will need to rely on Project 2025 for staffing should he prevail in the election this fall. (This is also a reason why Project 2025 partner positions matter as much as what is in the official Project 2025 book: These are the people who would be in a position of power for staffing the federal government, especially if Trump follows through on threats to lay off thousands of federal civil servants.)

Other journalists and analysts reported similarly.

Project 2025 is the policy platform and staffing database organized by the Heritage Foundation for the next Republican presidential administration. The extreme policies have proved to be very unpopular with the American people, and this unpopularity seemingly led the Trump campaign to force Dans to resign.

The situation was already a tinderbox since Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democrats' likely presidential nominee, replacing President Joe Biden, since Trump’s campaign was reportedly designed to face Biden instead of Harris; switching MAGA’s messaging on a dime was going to be no easy task. 

Before Harris took the reins, Trump had complained about Project 2025, even as Project 2025 contributors were invited to speak at the Republican National Convention, a key Project 2025 figure was appointed to the RNC’s platform committee, and Trump himself named the elected official perhaps most closely tied to Project 2025 as his new vice presidential nominee.

Inside the MAGA bubble, recriminations and blame are growing as Trump’s electoral position apparently grows weaker.

Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist, Holocaust denier, and groyper leader who dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, has been railing at LaCivita for a while. Just days ago, Fuentes bragged that his audience is more loyal to him than it is to Trump and said that he would not vote in 2024 because the people closest to Trump, like LaCivita and Wiles, are not loyal to America First ideals.

Wiles and LaCivita’s decision to turn on Project 2025 so publicly has only made this wound larger. 

Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich jumped in, writing that Project 2025 people were “loyal to the end” and that LaCivita is “preparing a coup against Trump.” 

MAGA figures the Hodgetwins wrote that they don’t trust LaCivita and Wiles and that Trump needs “OG loyalists” to win the election. 

Fuentes posted about the LaCivita/Wiles statement, and in replies and quotes, groypers directed rage against the pair. Groyper-aligned figure Tyler Russell reacted on a stream to Dans’ resignation, saying Fuentes was correct and LaCivita “needs to be the first person in jail.” He also added, “Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita — fuck both of you.”

White nationalist Vincent James Foxx also wrote that “Trump disavowing Project 2025 should be concerning because he's literally disavowing what he ran on in 2016.” 

Daily Wire host Matt Walsh implored the Trump campaign to stop trying to disavow Project 2025. 

Fox contributor Mollie Hemingway claimed that the Trump campaign was bowing to “left wing media lies.” 

Noted extremist Pedro Gonzalez also criticized the decision.

This is not to say that all of MAGA is on the side of Project 2025 here. MAGA thought leader Catturd railed against the project, writing, “The Heritage Foundation doesn’t get to write this dumb 2025 project and get to pretend it’s Trump’s idea or something we real citizens (grassroots Trump supporters) support. Seriously, who in TF do these narcissists think they are speaking for us and Trump?” 

Trump meme team leader Brenden Dilley simply wrote, “Fuck Heritage. Right in the ass.” (Bannon acolyte Grace Chong in turn harshly criticized Dilley.)

This is all quite reminiscent of 2016, when frequent turmoil roiled the Trump campaign, and he on a few occasions switched who was in charge, eventually settling on Steve Bannon less than 90 days before the election. Whatever solution Trump lands on this time will have to be different: Bannon is currently in federal prison.